THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 219 



bitter-sweet. What a race track for barefooted 

 boys and dogs, how refreshing the shade in 

 summer, how long and dismal in dark nights — 

 but they are only a memory. 



I am fond of wild flowers. This love was 

 born in me and like good things has come to a 

 passion. Nature must love them for she is won- 

 drous prolific and reckons her varieties by the 

 thousand. This old pasture is a floral hot-bed. 

 Down on my knees before that little hillock, 

 whose surface is not more than four square feet, 

 I counted twenty varieties ! It is a pleasure to 

 find and gather them and take them home and 

 plant in conspicuous places, arranging carelessly 

 mingling grasses and sprays and twigs, and then 

 to my callers talk about them creating extra 

 pleasure. They never lose their interest. How 

 well we remember them when a boy, we hunted 

 and found and bent lovingly over them, sniffing 

 their fragrance, calling them by some imaginary 

 name, not knowing their real one, and bearing 

 samples tenderly home to mother, who was 

 very fond of them. These flowers were pictured 

 to my vivid imagination, they were symbols of 

 thought. One flower I called the "Star" 

 (Bluet) because of its four petaled calyx; other 

 pet names were the "East" (asters), "King- 

 dom" (mountain laurel) so kingly, "Daylight" 



