Now the evening primrose at the side of the road has folded all its
yellow petals, marking the near approach of noon. Growing near it on
this rise of the road are lavender-flowered bergamot, blue and gold
spiderwort, milkweeds in a purple glory, black-eyed Susans basking in
the sun, cone-flowers with brown disks and purple petals, like gypsy
maidens with gaudy summer shawls. Closer to the fence are lemon-yellow
coreopsis with quaint, three-cleft leaves; thimble weeds with fruit
columns half a finger's length; orange-flowered milkweed, like the
color of an oriole's back, made doubly gay by brilliant butterflies
and beetles. On the sandy bank which makes the background for this
scene of splendor, the New Jersey tea, known better as the red-root,
lifts its feathery white plumes above restful, gray-green leaves. Just
at the fence the prairie willow has a beauty all its own, with a
wealth of leaves glossy dark green above and woolly white below.
There's a whine as if someone had suddenly struck a dog and a brownish
bird runs crouching through the grass while little gingery-brown
bodies scatter quickly for their hiding places. It was near here that
the quail had her nest in June and these are her babies. I reach down
and get one, a little bit of a chick scarcely bigger than the end of
my thumb.
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