A SPRING HOLIDAY 



Now the floor of the forest became matted with 

 dead leaves. It was only by keeping close watch 

 of every glimpse of green that, within two min- 

 utes after leaving the bloodroot behind us, we dis- 

 covered the thick, somewhat rusty leaves, and the Bloodroot 

 flowers, wax-like and spicily fragrant, of the trail- t, Htlls 

 ing arbutus. Within a limited area the plant 

 grew abundantly, its blossoms, now pure white, 

 again delicately pink, sometimes exposing them- 

 selves freely to the sunlight, and seeming to give 

 out their fragrance the more generously for its 

 warmth, but oftener hiding beneath the dead, 

 fallen leaves. I denied myself the pleasure of 

 picking more than one or two sprays of these 

 flowers, singularly tempting though they were, so 

 fearful am I of the extermination of this plant, the 

 especial pride, perhaps, of our spring woods, and 

 the peculiar object of the cupidity of ruthless 

 flower-pickers. 



Beyond the haunt of the arbutus, springing from 

 a ledge which overlooked a valley lovely in the 

 greens and grays of the early year, we found the 

 white, slender-petaled flowers of the shad-bush. 

 Here, too, were young, silky fronds of that Looking 

 interesting little fern, the rusty woodsia. And *"' 

 here we flung ourselves on the dry, fragrant 

 pine-needles, and listened to the wind blowing 

 through the pines overhead and across the tree- 



47 



