ii8 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



Flower gathering in July is replete with satisfaction. 

 The days are warm, and lingering in the fields wraps the 

 senses in a delicious sense of well-being. The sunshine 

 has not reached the fervid heat of August, nor is there 

 the chill and the mist that reminded one that ever- 

 blithesome May had an edge to her temper. July crowns 

 the summer in flowers that do not wither easily, and per- 

 mits us to feel the full glory of the ripening year. It is 

 then we like to go back to the old home and to revisit the 

 haunts of childhood. 



July spreads its vines and full-blown foliage over all, 

 and dresses the fields in a prosperous harvest. On every 

 side sound the notes of cicadas and crickets, and the nest- 

 ing birds have not yet ceased their singing. 



The returning wanderer, who had left the farm when 

 a child, remembered how the bouncing Bets straggled 

 along the road to the very gateway. Perhaps they would 

 meet him now. Sure enough, when he turns the corner at 

 the crossroads a bouncing Bet looks up shyly from the 

 roadside, just as her cousins peep from every byway at 

 this season. But in the course of time the bouncing Bets 

 have increased in family, and behold, they have stolen 

 through the gate, and a careless mower has permitted 

 them to form a colony in a miniature hedge all along the 

 inner fence. 



Out on the roadside the mullein has opened its velvety 

 leaves in a perfect rosette and is training its tall stems, 



