Ill 



A BREATH OF APRIL 



IT would not be easy to say which is our finest 

 or most beautiful wild flower, but certainly the 

 most poetic and the best beloved is the arbutus. So 

 early, so lowly, so secretive there in the moss and 

 dry leaves, so fragrant, tinged with the hues of 

 youth and health, so hardy and homelike, it touches 

 the heart as no other does. 



April's flower offers the first honey to the bee 

 and the first fragrance to the breeze. Modest, 

 exquisite, loving the evergreens, loving the rocks, 

 untamable, it is the very spirit and breath of the 

 woods. Trailing, creeping over the ground, hiding 

 its beauty under withered leaves, stiff and hard in 

 foliage, but in flower like the cheek of a maiden. 



One may brush away the April snow and find 

 this finer snow beneath it. Oh, the arbutus days, 

 what memories and longings they awaken ! In this 

 latitude they can hardly be looked for before April, 

 and some seasons not till the latter days of the 

 month. The first real warmth, the first tender 

 skies, the first fragrant showers — the woods are 

 33 



