234 ANOTHER PART OF THE STREAM 



for teeth he would be terrible looking enough to 

 frighten Uncle Hiram. 



The flowers of Butter and Eggs end in long 

 prong-like pieces, yet at their tops they flare out 

 like mouths, and open and shut when their sides are 

 squeezed. Philip used to play that he was a doc- 

 tor and that they were his sick patients, and he 

 dropped tiny seeds in their throats instead of tab- 

 lets. Of course Tommy wouldn't play this game 

 because he thinks it's silly. He doesn't care much 

 for Butter and Eggs. " They are not even real 

 Americans," he says, " but weeds that have come 

 here from Europe." 



I told him this didn't make any difference to me 

 so long as they were pretty. He said then that 

 his especial name for them was Yellow Toad Flax. 



All summer long Tommy has walked by Butter 

 and Eggs, just as though they were flower no- 

 bodies, and he never would say that they were 

 beautiful, until one day when Grandmother had a 

 little bunch of them in the window, and their fine 

 pale green leaves and two shades of yellow shone 

 in the sunlight. Grandmother asked him then how 

 he knew they were weeds. 



" Because they come up in waste soil and 

 places," he answered. " They never hide away In 

 dense woods like the Yellow Lady's Slipper, nor 

 keep close to a stream like Cardinal Flower. You 

 never have to hunt for them. They have no real 

 bunks. They just grow anywhere." i 



