Every bluebell has its inhabitant. Every day the
karoo shows us a new wonder sleeping in its teeming bosom.
On our way back to work we pause and stand to see the ground-spider make
its trap, bury itself in the sand, and then wait for the falling in of its
enemy.
Further on walks a horned beetle, and near him starts open the door of a
spider, who peeps out carefully, and quickly pulls it down again. On a
karoo-bush a green fly is laying her silver eggs. We carry them home, and
see the shells pierced, the spotted grub come out, turn to a green fly, and
flit away. We are not satisfied with what Nature shows us, and we see
something for ourselves. Under the white hen we put a dozen eggs, and
break one daily, to see the white spot wax into the chicken. We are not
excited or enthusiastic about it; but a man is not to lay his throat open,
he must think of something. So we plant seeds in rows on our dam-wall, and
pull one up daily to see how it goes with them. Alladeen buried her
wonderful stone, and a golden palace sprung up at her feet. We do far
more. We put a brown seed in the earth, and a living thing starts out--
starts upward--why, no more than Alladeen can we say--starts upward, and
does not desist till it is higher than our heads, sparkling with dew in the
early morning, glittering with yellow blossoms, shaking brown seeds with
little embryo souls on to the ground.
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