146 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



There a long-forgotten wood-road led to my Land of 

 Heart's Desire. Parting the branches, I would step 

 into the hush of the sleeping wood, pushing my way 

 through masses of glossy, dark-green Christmas 

 ferns and clumps of feathery, tossing maidenhair. 

 Black-throated blue warblers sang above, and that 

 ventriloquist, the oven bird, would call from appar- 

 ently a long way off, 'Teacher, teacher, teacher," 

 ending with a tremendous "TEACH!" right under 



my feet. 



At last there would loom up through the green 

 tangle a squat broken white pine. That was my 

 landmark. I would push my way through a tangle of 

 sanicle, and beyond the trunk of a slim elm catch a 

 gleam of white in the dusk. There, all rose-red and 

 snow-white, with parted lips, waited for me the 

 queen flower of the woods, the Cypripedium regime, 

 the loveliest of all our orchids. Two narrow, white, 

 beautiful curved petals stretched out at right angles, 

 while above them towered a white sepal, the three 

 together making a snowy cross. Below this cross 

 hung the lip of the flower, a milk-white hollow shell 

 fully an inch across and an inch deep, veined with 

 crystalline pink which deepened into purple, growing 

 more intense in color until the veins massed in a net- 

 work of vivid violet just under the curved lips 

 kissed by many a wandering wood-bee. Inside the 

 shell were spots of intense purple, showing through 

 the transparent walls. The other two white sepals 

 were joined together and hung as a single one behind 

 the lip. 



