EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 9 



unopened blossoms showed sharp edges like beech- 

 nuts. Above them glowed square fringed flowers of 

 the richest, deepest blue that nature holds. It is 

 bluer than the bluebird's back, and fades the violet, 

 the aster, the great lobelia, and all the other blue 

 flowers that grow. The four petals were fringed, and 

 the flower seemed like a blue eye looking out of 

 long lashes to the paler sky above. The calyx inside 

 was of a veined purple or a silver-white, while four 

 gold-tipped, light purple stamens clustered around 

 a canary -yellow pistil. That morning I wore on the 

 train one of the two flowers which I allowed myself 

 to pick. Every friend I met spoke of it admiringly. 

 Some had heard of it, others had seen it for them- 

 selves in places far distant. None of them knew that 

 every day until frost they would pass unheedingly 

 within ten feet of nearly thirty of these flowers. 



Sometimes the adventure, unlike good children, 

 is to be heard, not seen. It was the end of a hot 

 August day. I had been down for a late dip in the 

 lake, and was coming back through the woods to 

 the old farmhouse where I have spent so many of 

 my summers. The path wound through a grove of 

 slim birches, and the lights in the afterglow were all 

 green and gold and white. From the nearby road a 

 field sparrow, with a pink beak, sang his silver flute 

 song; and I stopped to listen, and thought to myself, 

 if he were only as rare as the nightingale, how people 

 would crowd to hear him. 



Suddenly from the depths of the twilight woods a 

 thrush song began. At first I thought the singer was 



