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should not carry our furs with us, for we should not 
meet any weather cold enough to make them necessary ; 
and so perhaps in the West Indies the buds have no 
more need of winter clothing than we ourselves. 
But if we were to spend the Christmas holidays some- 
where in our Northern mountains, if we were going for 
skating and coasting to the Catskills or the Adiron- 
dacks, we should not fail to take with us our warmest 
clothes. | 
And yet, if we walked in the Adirondack woods, we 
should meet over and over again a shrub bearing naked 
buds, their folded, delicate leaves quite exposed to the 
bitter cold. | 
This shrub is the hobblebush, the pretty flowers of 
which you see on p. 246. 
I do not understand any better than you why this 
hobblebush does not tuck away its baby leaves beneath 
a warm covering. Neither do I understand how these 
naked leaves can live through the long, cold winter. I 
should like very much to satisfy myself as to the reason 
for this, for they do live and flourish; and I wish that 
such of you children as know the home of the hobble- 
bush (and it is common in many places) would watch 
this shrub through the winter, and see if you can dis- 
cover how it can afford to take less care of its buds than 
other plants. 
There is one tree which seems to shield its buds more 
carefully in summer than in winter. This tree is the 
buttonwood. It grows not only in the country, but in 
many of our city streets and squares. You know it by 
the way in which its bark peels in long strips from its 
