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grant bed and called them the " dear, blessed fairies of 

 the woods." It was a sight to touch older hearts, and 

 perhaps with a deeper feeling. I recalled the beautiful 

 lines of the poet : 



^^ We^ll brush the last year's leaves aside. 

 And find where the shy blossoms hide. 

 And talk with them. We need no words 

 To tell our thoughts in. Winds and birds 

 And flowers, and those who love them, find 

 A language nature has designed 

 For such companionship. And they 

 Will tell us, each in its own way, 

 Things sweet and strange — new, and yet old 

 As earth itself, and yearly told. 

 But there are men who have grown gray 

 Among them, and have never heard 

 The voice of any flowers, and they 

 Laugh at men's friendship with a bird. 

 But we know better, you and I, 

 Dear little flower, beneath the snow : 

 Let these most foolish wise men try — 

 And fail — to prove it is not so." 



No other objects in inanimate nature touch so many 

 hearts tenderly, like the actual presence of dear friends, 

 as flowers. JSTot children alone, but men and women 

 often look upon them as endowed with attributes not 

 possessed by other inanimate objects. It does not seem 

 out of place to talk to them any more than to talk to 

 young children. A favorite flower found wild in a 

 strange land drives away home-sickness and, like the 

 song of a familiar bird, gives a feeling of companion- 

 ship and content. The old nature-loving Greeks were 

 not so far out of their reckoning when they endowed 

 trees and flowers with attributes akin to those of men. 



