CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 



WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WILD FLOWERS 



How eagerly we have looked forward to the coming of 

 spring, and now it is here ! The sun is shining brighter 

 and warmer each day. The birds are returning from their 

 winter home in the South. The buds on the trees are 

 swelUng and, in the warm nooks, some of the wild flowers 

 have already opened their delicate petals. Who wjll find 

 the first spring beauty in the Eastern woods? Who will 

 find the first of the purple trilHums that open their dark 

 flowers in the shady groves, or the golden poppies on the 

 warm hillsides of the West? 



The spring air affects us as it does the plants and wild 

 creatures. We long to get away from school, and taking 

 our lunches, to spend the delightful days wandering through 

 the fields and woods. There is no place like the open coun- 

 try when all Nature is waking. We feel like rurming and 

 frisking as the young lambs do. 



Can it be wrong to gather all that we wish of the beau- 

 tiful flowers with which the earth is carpeted? Has not 

 Nature grown them in her great garden in such abundance 

 that all we pick will make no difference to her ? Let us go 

 with the children on their rambles after flowers and learn 

 if Nature does take any account of their innocent raids on 

 her treasures. 



Here is a party of children chasing across the fields. Each 

 one is searching for the flowers that have bloomed since 

 last they were out, and each is trying to get more than his 

 companions. The children have learned that some kinds 

 of flowers grow in the woods, others in the marshy places, 



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