The Adventures of a Grain of Dust

Chapter II.

Finally, if what we call flesh and blood can think and talk, why not a grain of dust? In fact, what is flesh and blood but dust come back to life? Says the poet--and the poets know:

"The very dust that blows along the street Once whispered to its love that life is sweet."

You see it's as likely a thing as could happen--this whole story.

THE GRAIN OF DUST.

(Per H. H.)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Little Old Man of the Rock 1

II. Some Early Settlers and Their Bones 19

III. The Winds and the World's Work 37

IV. The Bottom-Lands 55

V. What the Earth Owes to the Earthworm 75

VI. The Little Farmers with Six Feet 92

VII. Farmers with Four Feet 114

VIII. Water Farmers Who Help Make Land 137

IX. Farmers Who Wear Feathers 162

X. The Busy Fingers of the Roots 186

XI. The Autumn Stores and the Long Winter Night 204

XII. The Brotherhood of the Dust 225

Index 247

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

The author wishes to make special acknowledgment to the following publishers for their courtesy in supplying illustrations:

The Macmillan Company for the pictures from Tarr and Martin's "College Physiography" on page 239; Darwin's "Formation of Vegetable Mould" on page 77.

D. Appleton and Company for the pictures from Gilbert and Brigham's "Introduction to Physical Geography" on page 94; "Picturesque America" on page 243.

J. B. Lippincott Company for the pictures from Beard's "American Boy's Book of Bugs, Butterflies, and Beetles" on page 229; McCook's "Natural History of the Agricultural Ant of Texas" on pages 206 and 213.

McClure's Magazine for the pictures on pages 149 and 157.

Scientific American Publishing Company for the picture from "Scientific American Boy at School" on page 227.

Harper and Brothers for the pictures from McCook's "Nature's Craftsmen" on pages 98, 105, 109, 207, and 208.

Strand Magazine for the pictures on pages 165, 182, and 204.

Charles Scribner's Sons for the pictures from Yard's "Top of the Continent" on page 5; "Country Life Reader" on pages 9, 64, 85, 114, 186, and 241; Osborn's "Men of the Old Stone Age" on page 33. Hornaday's "American Natural History" on pages 116, 117, 119, 123, 130, 144, and 225; Seton's "Life Histories of Northern Animals" on pages 123, 129, 147, and 151.

Henry Holt and Company for the pictures from Beebe's "The Bird, Its Form and Function" on page 167; Salisbury's "Physiography" on pages 55, 71, and 167.

Carnegie Institution of Washington for the pictures on pages 8 and 69.

University of Nebraska for the picture on page 37.

Columbia University Press for the picture from Wheeler's "Ants and Their Structure" on page 95.

Houghton Mifflin Company for the pictures from Sharp's "Year Out of Doors" on page 11; "Riverside Natural History" on page 117; Mill's "In the Beaver World" on pages 152 and 153.

Ginn and Company for the pictures from Breasted's "Ancient Times" on page 67; "Agriculture for Beginners" on page 47; Bergen's "Foundation of Botany" on pages 49, 190, and 197; Bergen's "Elements of Botany" on pages 193 and 195; Beal's "Seed Dispersal" on page 51.

U. S. Geological Survey for the pictures on pages 21, 22, 23, 30, 31, and 59.

New York Zoological Society for the pictures on pages 145, 159, and 216.

School Arts Magazine for the picture on page 221.

U. S. Department of Agriculture for the pictures on pages 125 and 189.

American Museum of Natural History for the pictures on pages 20, 24, 26, 139, and 162.

Cassell and Company for the pictures from "Popular History of Animals" on pages 118, 177, 179, and 217; "Popular Science" on page 242.

Hutchinson for the pictures from "Marvels of the Universe" on pages 92, 101, 103, 141, 169, and 173; "Marvels of Insect Life" on page 211.

The Dunham Company for the picture on page 45.

International Harvester Company for the picture on page 199.

Northern Pacific Railway for the pictures on pages 235 and 237.

THE ADVENTURES OF A GRAIN OF DUST

It will be understood, as stated in the preface, that, like "The Strange Adventures of a Pebble," this is an autobiography. In other words, it is the grain of dust itself that tells the story of the life of the soil of which it is a part.

THE ADVENTURES OF A GRAIN OF DUST

CHAPTER I. (january)

(JANUARY)

In truth you'll find it hard to say How it could ever have been young It looks so old and grey.

--Wordsworth.

THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF THE ROCK

Some say it was Leif Ericson, some say it was Columbus, but I say it was The Little Old Man of the Rock.

And I go further. I say he not only discovered America but Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the islands of the sea. I'll tell you why.

I. HOW LITTLE MR. LICHEN DISCOVERED THE WORLD

As everybody knows, we must all eat to live, and how could either Columbus or anybody else--except Mr. Lichen--have done much discovering in a world where there was nothing to eat? When the continents first rose out of the sea there wasn't anything to eat but rock. Rock, to be sure, makes very good eating if you have the stomach for it, as Mr. Lichen has. It contains sulphur, phosphorus, silica, potash, soda, iron, and other things that plants are fond of, but ordinary plants can't get these things out of the rock--let alone human beings and other animals; and that's why Mr. Lichen had the first seat at the table and always does.

"The Strange Adventures of a Pebble."

On bare granite boulders in the fields, on the rocky ruins at the foot of mountains, and even on the mountain tops themselves, on projecting rocks far above the snow line, you find the lichens. On rock of every kind they settle down and get to work. They never complain of the climate--hot or cold, moist or dry. When the land goes dry they simply knock off, and then when a little moisture is to be had they're busy again. A little goes a long way with members of the family who live in regions where water is scarce. Indeed, most of them get along with hardly any moisture at all. The very hardiest of them are so small that a whole colony looks like a mere stain upon the rock.

While lichens are generally gray--they seem to have been born old, these queer little men of the rock--you can find some that are black, others bright yellow or cream-colored. Others are pure white or of various rusty and leaden shades. Some are of the color of little mice. To make out any shapes in these tiny forms, you must look very close; and if you have a hand lens you will be surprised to find that this fairy-land of the lichens isn't so drab as it seems to the naked eye. For there are flower gardens--the tiny spore cups. Some of them are vivid crimson and, standing out on a background of pure white, they're very lovely. Some of the science people believe the colors attract the minute insects that the lens shows wandering around in these fairy flower gardens. But just what the insects can be there for nobody knows, since the lichens are scattered, not by insects, but by the wind.

As a rule lichens grow only in open, exposed places, although some are like the violets--they enjoy the shade. Some varieties grow on trees, some on the ground, others on the bleached bones of animals in fields and wastes and on the bones of whales cast up by the sea.

Of course the whole country was awfully wild when the continents first came out of the sea, but that just suited Mr. Lichen, for there is one thing he can't stand, and that is city life, with its smoke and bad air.

"Why, one can't get one's breath!" he says.

WHY THE LICHENS DISLIKE CITY LIFE

So, while you will not meet Mr. Lichen in cities--at least, until after the people are all gone; that is to say, on ruins of cities of the past--you will find him beautifying the ancient walls of abbeys, old seats of learning like Oxford, and the tombstones of the cities of the dead.

Mr. Lichen always travels light. On the surface of the lichens are what seem to be little grains of dust, and these serve the purpose of seeds. A puff of wind will carry away thousands of them, and so start new colonies in lands remote.

You see, the fact that he requires so little baggage must have been a great advantage to Mr. Lichen in those early days, when he had to discover not only America but all the rest of the world map, spread out so wide and far. You can just imagine how the grains of lichen dust, the seed of the race, must have gone whirling across the world with the winds.

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