JOHN-GO-TO-BED-AT-NOON 317 
To me they are all like that. Look at this 
celandine, how it shines with joy and starts up to 
meet you half-way, throwing its arms out for the 
expected caress! And here too is my dear old 
little white friend, the wild garlic—a whole merry 
crowd of them by the stone hedge; happy meeting 
and happy greeting! Let me stoop to caress them 
and inhale their warm breath. It is true there are 
those who don’t like it and take their nice noses 
away when the flower would be glad to kiss them. 
But when a flower has no fragrance to it, like the 
hyacinth and blue columbine of these parts, or even 
red valerian—Pretty Betsy herself blushing bright 
pink all over—it does not seem that they love as 
warmly as the flower with a scented breath—sweet 
violet and sweet gale and vernal squill and cowslip 
and many more, down to the water-mint by the 
stream and my loving little white friend here by 
the stone hedge. 
And when the first early blooms are gone with 
March, April, and May, when it is full June, I 
wade in the lush meadow (when the farmer is not 
about) to greet and talk to the taller ones, and 
alas! to say good-bye to them at the same time, 
seeing that the mower will soon come to make hay 
of them. One of the old friends I diligently seek 
at this season is John, or Johnnie, tall as any there 
—tall as the flaunting ox-eye daisies. Not that it 
is a particularly attractive flower; I have never 
regarded it as pretty, but merely as one of those 
yellow dandelion-shaped flowers which are so 
