"Tenez!" said Marthe, fishing in her bag for a twenty-franc note. "Prends!"
Grover noticed the weakness of the boy's wrist under the frayed sleeve. He had no need to ask Marthe why she had thrown away a sum which she could ill spare; he himself had too often done the same sort of thing.
"He has nothing," said Marthe, without a trace of condemnation, "not even an overcoat. And he never will have anything. He is as useless as any weed on the side of the road."
"Yet," said Grover cynically, complementing her thought, "he shares the bay tree's great privilege of existence."
"Oh, as to that," said Marthe, "there's something grand about a field of weeds; it's the totality that's inspiring."
As Grover made his way home that evening he pondered the truth of Marthe's observation. How often, in moments of depression and bewilderment, in moments when his own hopes seemed as futile as the aims of a grasshopper, had he not been saved by some sudden panorama of the stupendous totality of human endeavor. Even the most baneful weed could claim a legitimate share in the purpose of creation, for the weed, like the proudest cedar of Lebanon, drew strength and color from the same earth, aspired toward the same sun, died in the same patriotic cause, disintegrated quite as sublimely into the same chemicals, thereby providing nourishment for future expressions
