44 ANSWERS TO FRANCIS'S LETTER 



brighter than flames of fire. First one called out its 

 note, and flew off, then another followed. No sky- 

 rocket on Fourth of July, Tommy said, was ever 

 so beautiful as these birds, darting through the 

 tree-tops. For a long time the third one sat alone 

 on the tree-trunk. Tommy stayed where he was 

 and did not make a sound. Then a shower of dead 

 leaves fell through the air and the bird was up 

 and off in the same direction as the others. 



Grandmother wrote herself to Francis that she 

 would offer a prize for the child finding the first 

 Wake-robin. It was not to be picked. She must 

 just be told where it grows, so that she might go 

 and look at it. We all know now that Trilliums 

 are rare flowers, and that we shall have to hunt 

 hard to find them. Tommy thinks besides that they 

 are most likely to grow farther away from our 

 house than I can walk. " The rare wild flowers," 

 his father told him, " don't like man, and as he 

 draws nearer they move farther away, and hide in 

 dense woods. 



Tommy said: " It must be a terrible thing for 

 a delicate flower to have a man, or even a boy 

 come near it. Ten to one he means mischief. If 

 he sees it and it's pretty, he's very apt to pick it, 

 because he thinks that's what it's for; but if his 

 head is filled with shooting birds, or something 

 else he's likely to stamp it to death without seeing 

 it at all. If flowers could talk they surely would 

 have something to say about how they trembled 



