V. 



A FEAST OF FLOWERS. 



When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold 

 Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould, 

 And folded green things in dim woods unclose 

 Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes 

 Into my veins and makes me kith and kin 

 To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows. 



T. B. ALDRICH. 



MY feast of flowers began before I entered 

 Colorado. For half the breadth of Kansas the 

 banks of the railroad were heavenly blue with 

 clustered blossoms of the spiderwort. I remem- 

 ber clumps of this flower in my grandmother's 

 old-fashioned garden, but my wildest dreams 

 never pictured miles of it, so profuse that, look- 

 ing backward from the train, the track looked 

 like threads of steel in a broad ribbon of blue. 



Through the same State, also, the Western 

 meadow-larks kept us company, and I shall 

 never again think of " bleeding Kansas," but 

 of smiling Kansas, the home of the bluest of 

 blossoms and the sweetest of singers. The lat- 

 ter half of the way through the smiling State 

 was golden with yellow daisies in equal abun- 



