Profound deliberation characterized her
movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head
and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled
under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in
both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her,
and she went away. Then I put up more signs.
At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As
between the destructive forces and the will "to live," the poppies
maintained an equilibrium with their environment. But the city folk
constituted a new and terrible destructive force, the equilibrium was
overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. Since the city folk
plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it
is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, big-bowled
poppies failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed variety
remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and short-
stemmed, but sparsely distributed as well.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137