Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
The cat-tails kept their feet cool in the edge of it. Billy Mink jumped out on the Big Rock and looked down into the Smiling Pool. Over on a green lily pad he saw old Grandfather Frog. "Hello, Grandfather Frog," said Billy Mink. "Hello, Billy Mink," said Grandfather Frog. "What mischief are you up to this fine sunny morning?"
A single male red-wing, as we have seen, may assume the cares of a harem of three, four, or five females, each of which rears her brown-streaked offspring in her own particular nest, while the valiant guardian keeps faithful watch over his small colony among the reeds and cat-tails. But little thought or care does mother cowbird waste upon her offspring.
"Look ahead of you, girls, to the left," called Phyllis Alden, as they glided slowly along. Miss Jones and the three girls looked. There, in a curve of the land, was a low bank, with great clusters of purple iris growing along it, among the slender, long, green stems of the "cat-tails." An elm tree stood close to the edge of the water, spreading its branches out over the miniature sea.
As the grass drew closer moisture it changed to the rank, sweet, swamp variety, then came bulrushes, cat-tails, water smartweed, docks, and in the water blue flag lifted folded buds; at its feet arose yellow lily leaves and farther out spread the white. As the light struck the surface the Harvester imagined he could see the little green buds several inches below.
An inverted flatiron pointing to the east of south that is the battle ground of Tippecanoe. The western edge is the sheer bank of Burnet's Creek. A savage would have some difficulty in climbing there. Back of the creek is a low marsh, filled with cat-tails and long grass. The surface of the flatiron is a sandy plain with scattering oaks, and sloping towards the east.
The great ranks of the cat-tails shut out all view of the outside world; the distant sounds of civilisation serve only to accentuate the isolation. It is the land of the Indian, as it was before the strange white man, brought from afar in great white-sailed ships, came to usurp the land of the wondering natives.
A dozen or more yellow-winged butterflies gathered at a moist spot, scatter like autumn leaves before a gust of wind at my approach, dancing away on fairy wings like golden sunbeams. At a place where the road makes a bend to the right, and the cat-tails and rushes grow in profusion, a blue heron, that spirit of the marsh, stands grotesque and sedate, and gazes with melancholy air into the water.
When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter life-everlasting, goldenrods, pinweeds, and graceful wild grasses, more obvious and interesting frequently than in summer even, as if their beauty was not ripe till then; even cotton-grass, cat-tails, mulleins, johnswort, hard-hack, meadow-sweet, and other strong-stemmed plants, those unexhausted granaries which entertain the earliest birds decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.
The paper upon the walls represented red-top clover in bloom, and I was glad of this. Hanging about the room were some old-time portraits in gilt frames, and some pictures representing historical events. Some dried-up cat-tails lifted their brown heads from another vase on one end of the tall mantel. A screen covered with wall-paper stood before the fireplace.
The marshlands have been filled in; streets extend across the places where I used to go for cat-tails; they have no more batrachian concerts there now. The only reminder of that earlier characteristic of the place is a huge green frog worked out in a marble mosaic on the floor of the new court house. That is the seal of my native town."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking