OUR COUNTRY HOME 



branch and bough by bough, and we live for a week in one long 

 leafy bower of greenery. Always when the lindens are in bloom we 

 steal half a dozen branches from the bees to lend their sweetness to 

 our indoor life: the shadbush and wild cherry, the thorn-apple tree 

 and the forsythia, the blossoming maples and the Hercules' club, 

 each in turn shares our evenings under the lamplight and fills the 

 rooms with its fragrant presence. The graceful sprays of the 

 blackberry are always objects of beauty, whether in flower or 

 shaded fruit, in green leaf or rich autumnal tints. 



In our dining-room, too, the shrubs take turns keeping us com- 

 pany. The fragrant sumac has a dainty, yellow, spidery blossom 

 which combines charmingly with cowslips for a May luncheon. 

 Yellow buttercups and violets in glass receptacles only three inches 

 high are most effective, and of course the sprays of all the spiraeas 

 arrange themselves in wonderful forms of beauty. The tiny white 

 flowers of the rough bedstraw are exquisite with the wild rose; and 

 the red stems of the elder after the berries have fallen make an 

 extraordinary effect against the thick white snake-root. Still later 

 the rose haws blend well with the blue privet berries and dark red 

 leaves of the aromatic sumac; or the barberries and privet and 

 sea-buckthorn berries, loosely arranged to show the natural 

 growth of each, make an equally effective combination. The 

 sneezeweed, a proud and sightly plant, is exquisite with pale 

 purple asters. The white silky cockades of the groundsel bush 

 make an admirable foil for the scarlet sal via or the high-bush cran- 



