218 



THE BROOK BOOK 



to come and quench their thirst. "Perhaps they 

 will if I move on," was my thought, as I scrambled 

 back up the slope to the path and gave myself again 

 to its leadership. Soon it brought 

 me to a sunny bank, where the early 

 spring flowers hide their deli- 

 cate faces. It was somewhere 

 along this path 

 that the first 

 hepaticas were 

 always found. 

 Wouldn't it 

 be a joke to 

 find the first 



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one this year 

 and flaunt it 

 before the 

 Doctor, who 

 always made 

 such a parade 



of his first one. After hunt- 

 ing for a quarter of an hour, 

 and stirring up innumerable 

 beds of dead leaves all wet 

 and frosty, I concluded to 

 leave the honors and the 

 further discomforts of the 

 first hepatica to the Doctor 

 and to devote myself to making other discoveries. 

 Besides, I had some treasures of my own to take 

 home. Scratching among some promising looking 

 hepatica leaves all lined with purple, I loosened a 



FOUND ROLLING DOWN THE BANK 



