Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE LOVERS' RENDEZVOUS. Glance into the forest-glade! It is an opening in the woods—a clearing, not made by the labour of human hands, but a work of Nature herself: a spot of earth where the great timber grows not, but in its place shrubs and tender grass, plants and perfumed flowers. About a mile distant from the cabin of Hickman Holt, just such an opening is found —in superficial extent about equal to the squatter's corn-patch. It lies in the midst of a forest of tall trees—among which are conspicuous the tulip-tree, the white magnolia, cotton-woods, and giant oaks. Those thatimmediately encircle it are of less stature: graduating inward to its edge, like the seats in an amphitheatre--as if the forest trees stooped downward to kiss the fair flowers that sparkle over the glade. These lesser trees are of various species. They are the sassafras laurel, famed for its sanitary sap; the noble Carolina bay, with its aromatic leaves; the red mulberry; and the singular Osage orange-tree (maclura auran- tica), the 'bow-wood' of the Indians. The pawpaw also is present, to attest the extreme richness of the soil; but the flowering plants, that flourish in profuse luxuriance over the glade, are sufficient evidence of its fertility. Why the trees grow not there, is one of Nature's secrets, not yet revealed to man. It is easier to say why a squatter's cabin is not there. There is no mystery about this : though there might appear to be, since the clearing is found ready to hand. The explanation is simple: the glade is a mile distant from water—the nearest being that ofthe creek already mentioned as running past the cabin of the squatter. Thus Nature, as if jealous of this pretty wild-wood garden, protects it from the defilement of man. Nevertheless, the human p...