A DAY’S OUTING IN SEARCH OF THE ARBUTUS. 51 
grant bed and called them the “ dear, blessed fairies of 
the woods.” It was a sight to touch older hearts, and 
perhaps with a deeper feeling. I recalled the beautiful 
lines of the poet: 
«We'll brush the last year’s leaves aside, 
And find where the shy blossoms hide, 
And talk with them. We need no words 
To tell our thoughts in. Winds and birds 
And flowers, and those who love them, find 
A language nature has designed 
For such companionship. And they 
Will tell us, each in its own way, 
Things sweet and strange—new, and yet old 
As earth itself, and yearly told. 
But there are men who have grown gray 
Among them, and have never heard 
The voice of any flowers, and they 
Laugh at men’s friendship with a bird. 
But we know better, you and I, 
Dear little flower, beneath the snow : 
Let these most foolish wise men try— 
And fail—to prove it is not so.” 
No other objects in inanimate nature touch so many 
hearts tenderly, like the actual presence of dear friends, 
as flowers. Not children alone, but men and women 
often look upon them as endowed with attributes not 
possessed by other inanimate objects. It does not seem 
out of place to talk to them any more than to talk to 
young children. A favorite flower found wild in a 
strange land drives away home-sickness and, like the 
song of a familiar bird, gives a feeling of-companion- 
ship and content. The old nature-loving Greeks were 
not so far out of their reckoning when they endowed 
trees and flowers with attributes akin to those of men. 
