Indiana State University - Sycamore Yearbook (Terre Haute, IN)

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THE NORMAL ADVANCE W 3 And at last in her heart grew up a bitterness and resentment, which became too great for her to conceal. All the leaves which sprang in soft hopefulness from her body, soon ended in defiant spines thriist out in irritation at all the world. Being better than the grass, why had she not been born a companion of the leaves and blossoms which reveled in the tree- tops? Her very growth was but a mockery be- side the tall, straight trunks that rose so lightly into heaven. And ever more impenetrably did the thistle wrap herself in her garment of thorns, resolved at last to shut out the world, as she herself seemed shut out by all created things. But mother earth did not forget this most neglected of her creatures. Without partiality, from day to day and from month to month, she sent up the life-giying nourishment to thistle and grass and lordly trees alike. And all the while the brook kept up its shallow chatter, forever appearing to take an interest, and yet forever bound on its own thoughtless course. sAnd the revels, too, in the tree-tOps continued as before. But what were they all to the lonely thistle? Theirs was the golden feast of sun- light, hers the garment, of thorns in the shadow below. Better had it been for her7 if she had never known of that gleaming life, for the share which fell to her was only a hasty Hash of brightness now and then, which escaped through their ranks as they swayed and shifted in their haughty processions, like a crumb dropped without thought from the tables of light. So, little by little and day by day, the poor thistle came to hate the light, and to wish for the darkness, which alone treats all the creatures of earth alike. She hated the living and growing of the day-time, and longed only for the nothingness into which the night wraps the reveling blossoms no less than the lonely weed. And all day long she stood with her countenance set westward toward the rift in the forest through which the brook passed on its way, and waited for the night to come. But the lord of light cared naught for this, and day by day he passed with his gleaming train far from the thistle,s narrow span of sky. And yet it was there, at even-time7 that the purple clouds, his hand-maidens, gathered to await his coming. And with their fine feminine feeling for the wants of the needy and for- saken, with the infinite tact which they had learned in their long service, they contrived to let even the lonely thistle see the reiiection of the glory which she was not herself to behold. Not long was the time during which the clouds could tarry at the rift in the forest, through which the brook passed on its way. But their gentle ministry in time brought new life and hope to the lonely thistle, even against her wish, and soon she dreamed all night of the purple clouds she had seen in the evening, and of purple flowers that grew where the spines of her garment were by day, and at last she forgot that she had hated and began to love. The nights passed away, and the days that followed them, and mid-summer came and went. The revelers in the tree-tops began to grow weary of their gorgeous existence. The birds of passage, too, musicians all the summer long, made bold to intrude upon the scene of the season7s gaiety, and in sharp and strident voices to discuss the time of departing. Even the breezes forgot at times their wooing gal- antry of the earlier days. But the thistle in the shady gloom below had grown taller and stronger. The thoughtless glints of light from above no longer irritated her as before. Night after night she dreamed of the purple liowers, until the glow of the sunset clouds became to her as a future life. And then, one day, she knew that her Vision had turned into reality. First upon her highest top, and then on all her branches, the flower-fruit of her dreams came forth in purple glory. More than ever now did she disdain the craven grass and the simple brook with its in- constant chatter. When the revels above were over and the tree-tops bare and neglected, why might not she, purple-crowned herself, be queen of the forest? For one brief moment even she ventured to 100k upward to the new realm which was to be hers. But that one look was