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those are living waters that roll so clear at 

 the roots. And what a sweet, subtle fra- 

 grance loads all the air ! It comes only in 

 earliest spring. There is the source of it, 

 that smooth, gray-barked, shrubby tree, with 

 trunk made up of curiously interlaced stems. 

 It is entirely leafless, yet enveloped in a 

 cloud of clustered white fringy blossoms. 

 See how it bends over the water, dipping a 

 long branch in the foamy eddy at its root. 

 Does it not seem a forest Narcissus pining 

 for its own lovely image ? Even to the ti- 

 niest twig it is loaded with blossoms, but 

 nothing comes of them. Nobody has ever 

 yet found a seed, and there are but three 

 trees in a county, the woodsmen all declare. 

 Perhaps that is why it has not even a nick- 

 name. When the leaves come out, three 

 weeks after the blossoms, any but a woods- 

 man would swear to the tree as a scrub 

 hickory. The bark is as tough and stringy, 

 the foliage of quite the same color, shape, 

 and texture. 



For an early bow-pot, though, there is 

 nothing like branches of its white flowers 

 crowded against the yellow scarlet of 

 swamp-maple blossoms. Put them in a big 

 earthen jar ; no vase has room enough. Set 

 it in your darkest corner, upon a carpet 



