DECORATION DAY
HOW quickly Nature takes possession of a deserted battlefield, and goes
to work repairing the ravages of man! With invisible magic hand she
smooths the rough earthworks, fills the rifle-pits with delicate
flowers, and wraps the splintered tree-trunks with her fluent drapery
of tendrils. Soon the whole sharp outline of the spot is lost in
unremembering grass. Where the deadly rifle-ball whistled through the
foliage, the robin or the thrush pipes its tremulous note; and where
the menacing shell described its curve through the air, a harmless crow
flies in circles. Season after season the gentle work goes on, healing
the wounds and rents made by the merciless enginery of war, until at
last the once hotly contested battleground differs from none of its
quiet surroundings, except, perhaps, that here the flowers take a richer
tint and the grasses a deeper emerald.
It is thus the battle lines may be obliterated by Time, but there are
left other and more lasting relics of the struggle.
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