Flora’s Firstlings 
January 20 . —Through all the wintry weather our 
kind Mother Nature keeps up a little conservatory in the 
woods, where anybody, at the cost of a tramp through the 
snow, may gratify the craving of his nature for a bit of 
green in winter, and may gather posies of refreshment. 
In shaded, springy pockets of the hills the strengthening 
sun has already lured a few skunk cabbage blossoms out. 
The pretty shells mottled in green and purple, peeping 
above the muck and brown leaves of their boggy home, are 
grateful reminders of the flight of winter—nature’s modest 
dials whereby the observant rambler may see how the 
world wags. They are out unusually early this year, 
but one must be cautious about accepting them as signs 
of an early spring. 
In verdant mats the cheerful chickweed grows every¬ 
where—in the fields and in the yards, but it is most lux¬ 
uriant, just now, in damp spots on the southern fold of 
some slope that dips to a brook. Like the dandelion, which 
has been found in our latitude in bloom during every 
month in the year, the chickw T eed quite frequently expands 
its flowers in midwinter, and even sets seeds. It is a type 
of the sanguine nature among men; it trusts the sunshine 
and the south wind, and, whatever to-morrow may have 
in store, to-day it will be merry. It is a plant almost 
world-wide in its distribution, and, humble as it is, it is 
worthy of more than our passing notice. It has a habit 
of folding its leaves together on the approach of night or 
when clouds gather, and of expanding them again with 
the return of the light. On this account it has acquired 
in the Old World some reputation as a weather prophet, 
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