THE FEAST OF FLOWERS 97 



bear at all, so I have yet to get some knowledge of 

 them. The fall-bearing strawberries — but wait till 

 fall, please; this is not the place for that story. 



The old part of this growing garden gave us 

 sour cherries in abundance last year, and the good 

 wife put some of them into that finest of winter 

 table relishes, cherry ''butter." I cannot describe 

 it; there isn't any thing to compare its taste with; 

 but when it comes on the table, that meal is an 

 Occasion ! 



But enough of berries and peas and other flesh 

 food; let me return to the real spirit of June, the 

 flower spirit! Thrice I have had an over-winter 

 poppy feast. An oimce of Shirley poppy seed, 

 ''diluted" with a pint of sifted soil, was sowed 

 carefully about the second week in December along 

 an eighty-foot border, next the barberry hedge. 

 In May there was an hour of weeding, an hour of 

 thinning; and in mid- June came days of poppy 

 glory, with flowers of red and pink and white and 

 salmon, all of the texture one might expect to find 

 in a fairy's wings. Very early in the morning, 

 before the sun was high enough to steam off the 

 dewdrops, this border, with every flower fresh 

 open, was something to thank God for! Forty 

 cents' worth of seed, about four hours' work in all, 

 for nearly fourteen days of generous bloom seemed 



6 



