38 A Little Maryland Garden 
was made to the South Mountain, and I had 
an inspiration to plant this poor little border 
with ferns. The baskets that took up our 
lunch came back filled with maidenhair, 
spleenwort, Christmas fern, and other dainty 
varieties that I do not know the names of. 
They were planted so thickly that the weeds 
were forced out for want of room. ‘The ferns 
took very kindly to their shady place, 
but this was not all. All sorts of little 
strangers appeared in the spring; shy wild 
plants sprang up and surprised me. Little 
white wood violets, whose foliage is much 
prettier than the garden variety, a rich light 
green heavily veined with a darker shade. 
A colony of hepaticas bloomed among the 
earliest spring flowers, with dainty white 
blossoms faintly flushed, and foliage stained 
a dark purple on the under side. 
A rattlesnake plantain spread its white- 
veined leaves, and would have bloomed if 
at a critical time the cat had not been in- 
spired to take an evening stroll through the 
bed. Fleshy sedums crept out on the brick 
