A Window in Arcady 
and to let them sleep late in the morning of the year, so 
that it is only within the last week, when some of the wild 
plants have been thinking of going to seed, that the ferns 
have been stirring. One sees them now stretching up their 
pretty arms and fists from beneath their leafy coverlets 
in wood and swamp and holding them there as though 
half inclined to lie in bed a while longer if they might. 
Among the first of this graceful tribe to unroll their fronds 
are those large, wooly-stalked ferns of the swamps and 
wet meadows called osmundas. People learned in wood¬ 
craft obtain a toothsome morsel from these ferns, the leaf¬ 
stalks of which at the point where they are attached to the 
root-stock being in spring white and tender as celery and 
with a pleasant, chestnutty taste. “The heart of Os¬ 
mund” the old English herbalists called this dainty bit in 
the British species. 
Fields are gay now with the dandelions’ round suns 
of bloom, to the great delight of the babies. Of all our 
wild flowers none is commoner, yet none perhaps has 
power like these to touch simple souls. They are poor 
folks’ crocuses blooming freely and without price and 
filling all the grass with such a golden light that the sub¬ 
limated sunshine of a whole winter seems concentrated in 
each round disk. It is useless, however, to gather the 
blooms, unless for the material purpose of dandelion wine, 
for they close in the hand and never open again; so stoop 
to them if you would enjoy their beauty, look into their 
orange-yellow centres rimmed round with a ring of paler 
gold, and if you do not rise with a tenderer heart be sure 
the world has a hard grip on you. There is something 
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