WHEN DOGWOOD BLOOMS 55 



Mother Nature has given the plain little Dog- 

 wood blossoms the beautiful white floral envelopes. 



All this I found out from Grandmother's gar- 

 dener, Herr Wilhelm Fritz. The rest of his 

 name is too long and hard for me to write. He 

 was talking about Dogwood the day the men were 

 planting corn in the field. 



" Ven it plooms," he said, " der time has come 

 ter drop in der corn kernels. Der tree is pretty 

 veather vise." 



Since then I have heard Tommy talk about 

 Dogwood. He thinks people, and especially girls, 

 look so long and so much at the white floral en- 

 velope that they never notice all the other things 

 that are beautiful about the tree. 



" There are its twigs," he said; " almost before 

 the winter is past they show glimmers of bright 

 colors; and when the ground is bare again and 

 Jack Frost is here, its red berries have a look as 

 gay as holly." 



Sallie is enchanted with Dogwood. She loves 

 to get close up to the trees, and when the boughs 

 hang low enough, she takes them in her arms, and 

 looks and looks at the flowers. I can tell by her 

 face that she is thinking very hard about some- 

 thing. Sallie writes wonderful compositions at 

 school, so perhaps she will write one about Dog- 

 wood, telling how it looks when it is just budding; 

 how gay it makes the woods in May, and then 

 how bright its berries are in the autumn. 



