Orchid she had seen. Thinking of the glass house of flowers 
in their deep green setting, she gave this little Calypso a moist 
home in the deepest shade. 
One June day, looking down from the mountains 
towards the plains, the Aspen Spirit saw what seemed 
to be a great piece of sapphire summer sky fallen on 
a foot-hill slope. Hurrying there, she found a carpeting of 
velvety flowers. She carefully took a pattern, and when the 
mid-summer sky was its very deepest blue, she filled her pool 
with it and made her Larkspur. It was very correct and very 
lovely but it was smothered in the tall, close green growth of 
the grove and didn't show as she wanted it to do in lovely 
contrast to her pink blossoms that were then in flower, Roses 
and "Wild Geraniums and the bells of Kinnikinnic and Winter- 
green. But the sunbeams came to the rescue. They pulled at 
the Larkspur's stem just as they tug at young tree stems in 
the shade, until the stalk stretched up and up, lifting the spire 
of blue blossoms high in the air. 
The Aspen Spirit had very much the same sort of experience 
with an idea she got from some blue Pentstemons she saw on 
the flank of a foot-hill one July day. From a distance it 
looked as if a sunrise cloud had come to rest upon the hill-side. 
The Grove Spirit flitted to the place and quickly took a pattern 
of the flowers she found. Next morning, at dawn, she filled 
her pool with the right color and made some of the straight 
spires of bell-shaped flowers. But their lavender tint was 
obscured and dulled by the shade of her little trees; the stalks 
looked stiff and rigid among the swaying, supple plants about 
them. The Spirit sat down by the brook, ruefully wondering 
what to do about it, and idly dipping one of the unsatisfactory 
stalks in the water. Presently all the pink washed out of the 
edges of the bells and, heavy with water, all hung down. 
Here was an idea! — a swaying, graceful spray of bells nil bend- 
ing downward, clear blue save for a tiny bit of pink at the 
base of each little cup. And so the Chiming Bells came to 
bend their long sprays over springs and pools in the Aspen 
shade. This isn't telling nearly all the magic nor the happy 
secrets of the groves. There are the spring Violets, purple 
and white, the bold, summer Gaillardias with maroon velvet 
hearts, the gay Sun Spots and all their bright kindred, the 
beautiful Ferns, and the feathery lavender Daisies and Asters 
of autumn. 
The little whispering, twinkling Aspen leaves are so merry 
and excited over the wonderful things they shelter, that their 
gaiety is contagious. It brightens up the grave old Pines and 
Spruces. When September comes and the time draws near for 
the little leaves to flutter away to their winter sleep, the Ever- 
greens grow so melancholy the Aspen Spirit has to take heroic 
70 
