They also felt the heavier tumbling of the swollen
streams in all directions. The drops from overhanging trees came down
and played with them, bringing another set of perfumes altogether. A
summer shower was, of course, "a month" to them, a day of rain like
weeks of holiday by the sea.... But, most of all, they enjoyed the
rough-and-tumble nonsense of the violent weather, when they were tied
together by the ropes of running wind; for these were visiting days--
all manner of strangers dropped in upon them from distant walks in
life, and they never knew whether the next would be a fir-cone or one
of those careless, irresponsible travellers, a bit of thistle-down....
Yet, for all their steadiness, they knew incessant change--the variety
of a daisy's existence was proverbial. Nor was the surprise of being
walked upon too alarming--it did not come to all--for they knew a way
of bending beneath enormous pressure so that nothing broke, while
sometimes it brought a queer, delicious pleasure, as when the bare
feet of some flying child passed lightly over them, leaving wild
laughter upon a group of them. They knew, indeed, a thousand joys,
proudest of all, however, that the big Earth loved them so that she
carried millions of them everywhere she went.
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