The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-03-24

! - 49, ASAiO'''' Nh ehis ootJNNe III th1
March number of the 1Nantic Month
".
Did you never, in walking in the fields,
come across fiat stone which had !; In,
mol ody knows how long, Just where you
found it, with the grass .ssrlning little
hedge, as it were, all round it, close to
its edges-and have you not in obedience
to kind feeling that told you it had been
lying there long enough, insinuated your
stick, or your foot or your fingers under
its edges and turn it over, as housewife
turns cake, when she says to herself,
ats done brown enough by this time'!'
What an odd revelation, and what an I'M
forseen and unpleasant surprise to small
community, the very existence of which
you had not suspected, until the sudden
dismay and scattering among its members
produced by turning the Iold stone over!
Blades of grass flattened down, colorlcss,
mated together as if they had been blea-
ched and ironed; hideous crawling crea-
turts, some of them cofeopterous or hon
ey turtle-bugs one wants to call
them some of them softer, but cunningly
spread out and compressed like Lepine
watches; Mature never loses crack or
creyiee mind YOU, or a joint in a tavern
bedstead, but she always has one of her
fiat-pattern live time-keepers to slide into
it; )black glossy cricke:s, with their long
filam' MS stick 'ng out like the whips of
four horse stage c, aches motto less, slug
like creatures, larve, perhaps more hor-
rid in the.rpulpy stiffness than even N the
internal wriggfe of maturity
But no sooner is the stone turned AMI
the wholesome light of day let upon this
compressed and blinded community of
creeping things than all of them enjoy tn ;
luxury of legs-and some Of them have
good many-rush round Willy, but
ting each other and everything in their
way, and end in a general stampede for
underground retreats from the region
poisoned by sunshine. Next year you
will find the grass growing tall and green
where the stone lay the ground b'r. builds
her nest where the beetle had his hole :;
the dandelon and the butter cup are grow
ing there, and the broad fans of insect-an-
gels open and shut over their golded disks
as the rhythmic waves of blissful con
sciousness pulsate through their glorifed
being.
The young fellow they call John
saw fit to say, in his very familiar way
a. WI i h do not choose to take eff nee,
but which sometimes think it necessary
to repress-that I was coming it rather
strong on the butterflies.
No, 1 replied-there is meaning in each
of those images-the butterfly as well as
the Others. The stone is ancient error.-
The grass is human nature borne down
and bleachcd of all its color by it. The
shapes that are found beneath are the
crafty beings that thrive in darkness, and
the weaker organisms kept helpless by it.
He who turns the stone over is whatsoever
puts the staff of truth to the old lying in
cubus, no matter whether he do it with q
serious face or laughing one. The next
year stands for the coming time. Then
shall the nature hich has lain bleached
and broken rise in its full stature and ma
i've hues in the sunshine. Then shall
Gods minstrels build their nests in the
s hears of newborn humanity. Then
shall beauty Divinity taking outlines
and color-light upon the souls Of mon
as the butterfly, image of the beautlfied
spirit rising from the dust, scars from the
shell that held poor grub, which would
never have found wings had not the stone
been lifted.
You never need think that you can
turn over any old falsehold without ter
rible squirming an scattering Of the hor-
rid little population that dwells under
it..