MAY FLOWERS. 45 
was strolling through an orchard one bright morning 
in June, filled with mute wonder at beauties felt, but 
neither questioned nor understood. A shout from an 
older companion—‘There goes a Scarlet Tanager!’ 
—and the child was straining eager, wistful eyes after 
something that had flashed upon his senses for a mo- 
ment as if from another world, it seemed so bright, so 
beautiful, so strange. ‘What is a Scarlet Tanager?’ 
mused the child, whose consciousness had flown with 
the wonderful apparition on wings of ecstasy; but the 
bees hummed on, the scent of flowers floated by, the 
sunbeam passed across the greensward, and there was 
no reply—nothing but the echo of a mute appeal to 
Nature, stirring the very depths with an inward thrill. 
That night the vision came again in dreamland, where 
the strangest things are truest and known the best; the 
child was startled by a ball of fire, and fanned to rest 
again by a sable wing. The wax was soft then, and 
the impress grew indelible. Nor would I blur it if I 
could—not though the flight of years has borne sad 
answers to reiterated questionings—not though the 
wings of hope are tipped with lead and brush the very 
earth instead of soaring in scented sunlight.” 
Pogonia verticillata, Nutt. used to grow abundantly 
in Heywood’s Woods, on the edge of a clearing again 
overgrown with clumps of young chestnuts. One day 
while I was looking carefully for pogonia among the 
