PHILIP FINDS FLOWERS 219 



yellow color, and those dark spots that make you 

 look as if you had been painted." 



Pretty leaves hugged around the flowers. Un- 

 derneath they were of a silver color, and bobbed 

 up and down in the stream without ever showing 

 that they had had a ducking. 



" Silver-leaf, what a good name for you," Philip 

 said. " You're much too pretty to be called Touch- 

 me-not." 



He said this even though he knew that the 

 Jewel-weed's pods could never bear to be touched. 

 When they're ripe it's fun, though, to poke them 

 with the finger, for then their seeds fly out just as 

 straight as if they came from a pop-gun. Some- 

 times they shoot out so far that the next year 

 Jewel-weeds come up a long way off from the one 

 that made the seeds. 



" Tommy says you're a weed," Philip talked on, 

 " and that you have a way of choking other things 

 that want to grow near you. I believe myself that 

 you have more than your share of this stream's 

 bank. But I sha'n't scold you, even if you are a 

 bad weed. I think you're almost as curious as the 

 Yellow Lady's Slipper." 



Philip hung a Jewel-weed flower in his button- 

 hole, and went on down the stream. He was get- 

 ting nearer home every minute, and when he 

 reached there he stopped and said : 



" I haven't found that strange girl yet." 



