WHILE AUTUMN LINGERS 159 



The delay was fatal putting off until to-morrow 

 what should have been done yesterday. The lady's-slip- 

 pers popped their seeds as fast as they ripened. The 

 innocent purple pansies had unclasped the fairy hands of 

 their jewel cases and thrown the petals far and wide, and 

 the violet was doing the sly trick of burying its pods in 

 the earth, as if to imitate the heron's-bill, which has run 

 the point of its ripened head into the ground and planted 

 its seeds after its own fancy. 



It was a mystery and is to this day how the poppies 

 succeeded in emptying their box pods of the last seed, and 

 no science will ever explain the wonders of wealth that 

 are hidden in the black pearls of the cockscomb which 

 gemmed the leaves of the creeping musk under the plants. 

 Even the petunias had knocked the caps off their little 

 cups and spilled the treasure, and the rings of hollyhock 

 seeds skipped here and there from the plants as soon as 

 you touched them. 



With a thankful heart we recall the name of a reliable 

 seedsman and his wonderfully pictured lists, and are glad 

 that there is no moralist at hand to talk of the sins of 

 omission and commission and seed gathering for another 

 world. 



