OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 9 



above your head sometimes and as big as a thumb 

 end. These provide manna for all who will 

 gather it, from late June till early September, 

 when the checkerberries ripen, to hang on all 

 winter. Others make the world better for their 

 beauty and fragrance and of these the ground 

 laurel, the trailing arbutus, the mayflower, is best 

 known and loved. 



It is easy to fancy some sombre Pilgrim, 

 weary with the woes of that first winter, his 

 heart hungry for "the may" of English hedge- 

 rows, stepping forth some raw April morning 

 which as yet showed no sign of opening spring 

 buds, stopping as his feet rustled in brown oak 

 leaves up Town Brook way, puzzled by the en- 

 dearing, enticing fragrance on the wings of the 

 raw wind. I always think of him as stopping for 

 a moment to dream of home, looking about in a 

 discouraged way for hawthorn which he knows 

 is not there, then spying the little cluster of ever- 

 green leaves with their pink and white blossons 

 nestling among the oak leaves at his very feet 

 and kneeling to pluck and sniff them in some- 

 thing like adoration. It may not have been that 

 way at all, but someone found that first may- 

 flower and loved and named it. 



