208 THE STRAWBERRY PARTY. 



preparation necessary to their enjoyment. It was a sudden 

 whim, a sort of improvised frolic, and a merry, gipsying 

 feeling possessed us all. Even Lily was excited to something 

 like gayety, and Alice scrambled over rocks and through 

 thorn-bushes without the least attempt at ball-room graces. 

 We plucked wild-flowers, and made nosegays and garlands, 

 which scarce kept their freshness while we were weaving them 

 together ; for there is nothing so perishable as wood-land blosr 

 soms. They live in the soil of freedom, and if plucked, they 

 perish ; while our garden flowers, trained in servitude, will long 

 give out their sweetness in the hand that gathers them. 



Sometimes we would discover a curious bit of moss which we 

 wanted for our cabinet ; sometimes there was a peculiar leaf 

 well worth placing in a herbarium ; sometimes a squirrel would 

 bound up a tree before us, and then cousin Tom would wish for 

 his gun to stop the gambols of the saucy little grey man of the 

 woods. Then too we had our mishaps ; the children met 

 with sundry bumps and scratches, while many were the rents 

 which the envious branches made in frocks and aprons. But 

 all added to the mirth of the party, and we wftit along delight- 

 ed until we reached the place where the strawberries grew 

 most abundantly, when we immediately scattered ourselves 

 around to gather the rich fruit. Cousin Tom threw himself at 

 the root of a tree, and pulling some twine out of his pocket, 

 be<mn to construct a new fashioned rabbit-snare. Our friend, 

 Lazy Lionel, as we styled him, with a sort of half contemptu- 

 ous smile upon his face, stretched himself upon a bed of moss 

 and drew Out a book from the basket which we had insisted 



