SPRUCE BABY-CAPS 85 



head. Here were little groups of a dozen or 

 more, not one two feet high, and many of 

 them still wearing their yellow baby-caps, 

 though the twigs were several inches long ; 

 there a squad of older ones like a party of 

 school-children, and so on through the dif- 

 ferent sizes up to the aged and infirm, black 

 and ragged, and heavily draped with long 

 gray moss. Two or three, indeed, had lost 

 their hold on Mother Earth and in some 

 winter storm had bowed before the blast, and 

 now lay prone among their young descend- 

 ants. There were dozens ready to take their 

 places, and if man does not interfere, there 

 is no danger that the spruce family will die 

 out in that place. 



The grove was carpeted with its own dead 

 leaves, through which had pushed their way 

 little clumps of bunchberry with innocent 

 white faces turned up to the sky, more deli- 

 cate star-flowers, and the Canada mayflower, 

 with shining green leaves and torch -like 

 bloom, while just outside in the sunlight were 

 little patches of white violets. 



This was the home of those bewitching, 

 elusive, fascinating fellow creatures, the 



