Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

scent of wild-cheery bloom and locust-flowers. (HT)There is an indefinable seclusion and charm about a hollow which is hard to express. I had abandoned the Painter Road for Roadside Hollow. Here was the scent of ferns, rotting wood and mossy water. The stream bed was ideal – hewn of solid rock, which was moss hidden, in most parts. Here I found ferns aplenty. While I worked steadily, I also found time to look about me from time to time. An old battered piece of tin in a pile of trash in the stream became a thing of fantastic beauty with the reflection of sunlit ripples running like fire over its surface. And these same reflections were still more beautiful seen thru the semi-transparent leaves of Jewel-weed. Not far from here was a small over hanging rocky ledge, which was covered with a delicate fernlike moss, that sparkled with sickly dripping water. While dig a fern the sharp chirruping of a chipmunk started the comp-