XXVITI 
JOHN-GO-TO-BED-AT-NOON 
A LONGIsH name for a flower—one of its three 
names! After all it is not saying very much; we 
have another better, more familiar one with at 
least six names, and one of them not composed of 
six words like our John’s, but of ten! 
When it is spring I walk in sheltered places, by 
wood and hedge-side, to look for and welcome the 
first comers. Oh those first flowers so glad to be 
alive and out in the sun and wind once more— 
their first early ineffable spring freshness, remem- 
brancers of our lost childhood, dead and lost these 
many dim and sorrowful years, now recovered with 
the flowers, and immortal once more with spring’s 
immortality! 
Do we not all experience a feeling something like 
that in an early spring walk? Even a stockbroker 
or stockjobber knows a primrose when he sees one, 
and it is a yellow primrose to him too—and some- 
thing more. A something to give him a thrill. It 
is as if he met a fairy-like child in his walk who 
tossed back her shining tresses at his approach to 
look up into his face with eyes full of laughter. 
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