X 



BIRDS AND FLOWERS. 



It was not till 1885 when she crossed Lake Winne- 

 pesaukee with the Appalachian Mountain Club and 

 climbed Red Hill that she at last found the informa- 

 tion that she wanted. Here was a company that 

 knew everything. They had lived the out-door life. 

 Not a mountain hove in sight that they could not 

 name; each island was familiar. Everything in the 

 heavens above or the waters underneath was to them 

 as an open book. They wore indestructible clothes 

 and possessed gay dispositions, unaffected alike by 

 sun, wind or rain. They knew everything and could 

 do everything, and with them life was worth living. 

 It was with the humble hope of introducing something 

 of the spirit of these Boston Aborigines into Concord 

 that the writer helped found the Wild Flower Club in 

 1896. For ten years the members have taken weekly 

 tramps from the middle of April till the first of Octo- 

 ber. They have learned to know hundreds of flowers 

 and scores of birds in that time, have explored every 

 nook and corner in the township, and have gained a 

 spiritual satisfaction from Nature such as Wordsworth 

 and Emerson knew. 



This little publication is an endeavor to bring before 

 other people, especially the children, some of the joy 

 that comes from knowing the common things that we 



