THE DESERT REJOICES 245 



what for some reason was known as a grammar 

 school, we studied reading, writing, arithmetic, 

 geography, and grammar. One older girl, long 

 since dead (poor child, I can see her now, recit- 

 ing all by herself), studied " Watts on the 

 Mind I " At the high school we added algebra, 

 geometry, Latin, and Greek. As for "nature 

 study," neither the name nor the thing was ever 

 mentioned to us. Mr. Burroughs had not yet 

 written, and if Thoreau had written, his books 

 were not yet heard of. Botany and Hebrew 

 were alike absent from our curriculum. For 

 my own part, at any rate, whatever may have 

 been true of my cleverer or more home-favored 

 contemporaries, I neither knew the names of 

 the flowers I saw, nor did I aspire to know 

 them. If I ever thought of such knowledge, I 

 regarded it as permanently beyond my ken. 

 Who was I, that I should be wiser than aU my 

 betters? I contented myseK with liking the 

 things themselves. 



Then, years afterward, I somehow began to 

 " botanize," as we say, by myself ; and from that 

 time to the present, whether at home or abroad, 

 I have always had a " manual " at my elbow or 

 in my trunk. A strange flower must be looked 

 up and set in its place. 



But now, in Arizona, all this is done. I have 



