The River Meadows 
plain any absolute thing of its origin, its essence, or its ulti¬ 
mate mission in the earth. Yet it has power sometimes to 
make a hard heart tender and a tender heart glad, and the 
mind of faith ever finds in it an evidence of the universal 
providence of God, beyond which man cannot stray. 
In the pastures also, where the daisies are just begin¬ 
ning to open their eyes to the May, there is a touch of 
the same churchly feeling. Here in the shadow cast by 
the woods grows a stemless bulbous plant with clustered 
grass-like leaves and star-shaped flowers, which are white 
within and green outside, with white margins. This is 
the Star-of-Bethlehem, which is native to Palestine, the 
Levant and parts of Europe, and like the Heavenly Star 
for which it has been named, has spread its rays far and 
wide in the earth. It is a very particular little flower about 
its weather, and if the sun does not shine just to its liking 
it becomes sulky and stays shut; even under the most favor¬ 
able conditions it seems to open late in the day and close 
early. The irregularity of its flowers to open has given 
rise to a number of quaint names for it in the old world. 
Thus in England it is sometimes called sleepy Dick, and 
sometimes Betty-go-to-bed-at-noon; while to the French 
it is the lady-of-eleven-o’clock. 
May 25. —Along the lower reaches of our river Nature 
delights to weave some of her most subtle charms. Gray 
days such as have recently been giving us the blues in town 
are very pleasant days on those breezy flats. Cloudiness 
fits the mood of the wide meadows, the vast expanse of 
sky and the placid river, in whose waters the cloud changes 
are constantly reflected. 
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