144 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [13:4— April, 1917 



and red fragrant raspberries, and great sour thimbleberries, and 

 blackberries, and dewberries. There were shady places among the 

 sugar maples where one could hide completely in the ferns, and 

 where the red ne\^^s came out of the dead leaves after a rain. 



All the places were calling to the boys, and all the animals, to 

 come and play, to come and hear their tales. They went often 

 and they learned much, many and many a charming story. But 

 the flowers were silent. The little boys used to pick them and 

 carry them home, or make them dance in fairy circles on the sandy 

 shore, or stand guard like steadfast soldiers along the brook. But 

 the flowers told no tales. The little boys wondered and then they 

 asked, but the flowers still were silent. One warm day in spring, 

 howe^xr, as the smaller of the two boys sat on the brook bank 

 putting on his sandals and looking at the sod dam he had just built, 

 he heard a voice at his side, and being used to such things it did not 

 startle him. "We flowers," it said, "are mostly a silent people. 

 We do not come and go like the animals, or sing like the birds, nor 

 do we crawl and eat like the caterpillars. We stay where we were 

 born, and we are silent, but we are a very ancient people and we 

 have learned many things, what we must do and what we must not 

 do. We have taught the bee and the butterfly to work for us and 

 we pay them for their labor. The wind works for us too, but him 

 we do not pay. We are wise in the wisdom of our kind. If you 

 will come again, I will tell you a tale." 



The next days were cold and windy and cloudy, and the boys 

 played in the snug old barn, burrowing in the haymows, building 

 toy boats on the barn floor, and cracking butternuts on the solid 

 oak sills. On the fourth day the wind turned northwest and the 

 sun came out. It was warm in the southerly nooks and cold in 

 the windy shade. 



The tiny sailboat, after many crossings, had drifted unheeded 

 to the sod dam, and the smaller bo}^ was squatting before a group 

 of adder's tongues, asking them questions. "Weren't you cold?" 

 he said. 



"Not at all," replied the one with the sunniest smile. "We nev^er 

 feel cold." 



"Well you must have felt awfully cold last winter, any way." 



"No indeed," she laughed. "We like it that way. And if you 

 won't pull us up, I'll tell you all about it." 



And then she told the story of the cold. During the long siim- 



