Here where the earth has slid away from the roots of a great redwood stump I have found a long, creeping rootstock of the Solomon’s seal, with no less than ten round, seal-like impressions left by past shoots. At some time in its growth the plant encountered an obstacle in the shape of a strong, outstretching arm of redwood root. The tender growth, striking against this, from beneath, was turned backward, and downward, until, feeling its way cautiously in the dark, it traveled around the big root, and striking upward sent out a joyful shoot to greet the sun. How long it must have taken the rootstock to do this we cannot surmise, but I suppose that, could we watch these underground happenings, we should find this sort of thing occurring frequently. We should not, however, be likely to discover the real secret of the plant’s growth, its branchlets toward the sun, its roots downward in search of water. We only know that neither root nor flower has any choice but to turn toward that which is its good. The necessity to growth, of obedience to the laws of good, is everywhere the most inexorable of Nature’s teachings. The plants, guided by instinct, make no mistake in following the good. Higher in the scale, where a measure of reason is added to instinct, as in the case of the birds, we find the possibility of error appearing, and mistakes in judgment are not infrequent among these. Only in man, however, do we find the power to retrieve mistakes, consciously and voluntarily to retrace the wrong course and begin anew, and only with man does the perilous power exist to choose between following the good and turning from it. The rain has fairly ceased now. The birds have begun to stir among the trees, hopping from branch to branch, shaking themselves and ruffling out their wet feathers. They keep up a sort of indefinite chatter among themselves the while, commenting, it may be, on the probable good that will accrue from the generous Christmas wetting. Coming up the trail toward daylight, for it has grown dark in the cañon, I meet a flock of quail, beautiful creatures, that survey me fearlessly as I pass. I hope no Christmas pot hunter will find them and carry them home, a trophy of his day’s sport. How any human being who has ever seen a flock of quail in all their living, alert beauty, can take pleasure in picking the poor little bones of the slaughtered birds is another of the mysterious things of life. I came, some time ago, with a party of trampers, to an open space amid the chaparral, on the crest of a chain of hills. Suddenly the leader of our group motioned silence and stood, with parted lips and smiling, delighted eyes, gazing at a flock of quail quietly making their way through the grass, with glossy feathers stirring in the breeze and crested heads held fearlessly high. “Did you ever see anything more beautiful?” whispered their discoverer; but the Nimrod of the party wrung his weaponless hands and wailed: “What a shot! Oh, what a shot!”