1884.] 
AMEEIOA]^ AGRICULTURIST, 
217 
the cow’s horn hanging at his side. The children 
were soon enjoying the bread and meat, strawberry 
tarts, and fresh milk which Mrs. Dayton liad left 
in the closet for her little flock. Nothing eared 
they for the ants and spiders that scudded across 
the cloth; but all was fun and merry cheer, and I 
doubt if the grand fete at Felter House was more 
jolly than this little amateur May-party in Fairy 
Dell.—“You, Nancy, must be our Queen,” said 
all the children as they linished the last cake, and 
threw the crumbs to the birds.—“ What 1 with my 
* brick-top?’ ” and she laughingly shook her tawny 
mane.—“Yes, yes,” and they dragged her toward 
the green throne, sprinkled over with bright 
spring blossoms, and placed a wreath of violets 
and snowdrops on her head. Dan and Peter then 
set up the Ma 3 ' Pole, of a rough birch branch, 
wreathed with common flowers, but which the 
children considered beautiful. Then joining 
hands, all danced around, gaily singing a little 
song they had learned at school, slightly changed 
for this occasion: 
'• Hail I Nancy, Queen of May, 
On this bright festal day ! 
Sweet flowers we’ll bring, 
Gay blossoms of spring, 
To crown our Queen of May.’’ 
And a charming picture they made, this little ru¬ 
ral court gathered about the sylvan throne. Prince 
Dan doffing his hat, with its sweeping plume, and 
chubby little maids of honor, kneeling on each side 
of their bright-faced Queen, who graciously ex¬ 
tended her white hand for each to kiss. 
And some one must have been admiring it, for, 
the quaint little ceremony ended, they were about 
to disperse for a game of romps when they were 
startled by a voice, “Stop! don’t move!” and a 
young man in knickerbockers sprang suddenly 
from a bushy clump. “The court of the flower 
fays, I see !” he said pleasantly, politely removing 
his cap. “ Pardon me if I have disturbed you, but 
you have no idea what a pretty tableau you made.” 
The frightened little ones would have run away, 
but Nancy said, “ Oh, sir, we were cnly having a 
little May-parly among ourselves. If you want to 
see a real one, you mustgo down to the village.”— 
“I should see nothing that would please me half 
so well as this ; and if I have your majesty’s gra¬ 
cious permission I W'ould like to make a sketch of 
you and your court.”—“Are you Miss Dorothy’s 
nephew, the artist?” asked Nancy in surprise.— 
“ The same. And so you have heard of me. 
Weli! see ; I’ll give you this if you’ll sit just as 
you are, one hour,” and he held up a shining gold 
piece. Nancy gladly consented, and the little 
folk being bribed with sugar plums from the ar¬ 
tist’s capacious pocket, kept tolerably quiet, while 
the young man worked busily with palette, canvas 
and brush. At the end of an hour they were eager 
to be ofE.^—“Give me another hour, fair May 
Queen,” begged the artist, and she sat for him 
alone, while the children scattered though the 
wood.—“Another,” he then implored, and notun- 
til the sun was red and low did he seem satisfied, 
then dropping three golden dollars into Nancy’s 
lap, he held up the roughly linished sketch.— 
“ Yes, it’s me, sure enough !” said Nancy, slowly— 
“ pug nose, carrot locks, and all ! But oh ! couldn’t 
you paint it black, like Maud’s ?”—“ What ?” 
asked the artist.—“My—my hair!” stammered 
Nancy, blushing, “it is so, so homely.”—“Why, 
child, you’re dreaming ! Your hair is a glory ! the 
real Titian red, that is so rare. ’Tis the beauty of 
the whole picture! 1 would'nt care to paint it, 
had it been black.”—Never was there a more per¬ 
fect surprise. Was it possible that her despised 
hair, which every one teased her about, could win 
such praise ! She gazed in mute astonishment at 
the young man as he lay back on the grass, and 
laughed aloud. “ Am I the first to tell you of your 
greatest beauty !” he said, “ the glorious hair, ad¬ 
mired by the old masters ! Well, go home and let 
the good country people know what red locks are 
worth.”—“ Mother will know, when she sits in that 
new I’ocking-chair,” thought Nancy, as she tightly 
clasped the three gold pieces, and summoned her 
little company to their pleasaut homeward walk. 
She found Maud there before her, looking tired 
and cross. “You did not lose much,” she said, 
“ for is was stupid from beginning to end. Carrie 
Green was the Queen after all, while I was only a 
maid of honor. The artist never came, and 1 did 
not enjoy it at all.”—“ I am very sorry,” said Mrs. 
Dayton, who entered in lime to hear her daugh¬ 
ter’s words, “ though I think the fault must have 
been in yourself, for I just met the Browns and 
they told me the whole fete was delightful. But 
how' is it Naney looks so bright ?”—“ Oh ! I have 
had a lovely day,” she said, and little Dolly and 
Dot shouted, “We have, too! we have, too!” 
Then she told about their impromptu May-party 
and the picture. “And queerest of all, mamma,” 
she ended up with, “he liked my red hair, and 
ready said it was beautifui.”—“Artists see with 
clearer eyes than we do ; but 1 do not wonder at 
his choice to-day,” said Mrs. Dayton as she kissed 
the sweet rosy face, and ied the way to the supper 
table.—The next week they moved into their new 
house, which was quite in order by May tenth, Mrs. 
Dayton’s birthday. They celebrated it by a pleas¬ 
ant little house-warming. 
The only gift mother received was a cozy, com¬ 
fortable little rocking-chair, purchased with the 
“ May Queen money,” as Nancy called it. Mrs. 
Dayton declared it a great improvement on the old 
one she had sadly missed.When autumn came 
the most admired picture on the Academy walls in 
New York was one entitled “An Amateur May- 
Party,” in which was represented a bare-footed lit¬ 
tle urchin, disguised in a scarlet cape, doffing his 
hat before a fair little May Queen, with a sweet 
“ flower face,” shadowed by a mass of golden hair. 
The Doctor’s Talks, 
The story that especially interested me when I 
was a youngster was called “ Eyes and No Eyes.” 
I don’t recollect who wrote it, or should I know 
where to find it now. It told of two brothers, who, 
having to go on an errand 
some distance from home, 
each took a slightiy differ¬ 
ent route. When they re¬ 
turned they gave an ac¬ 
count of themselves. One 
boy came home hot, dusty 
and tired; he had been 
annoyed by gnats, been 
chased by a wasp, and the 
way was so long and dull 
that he had a miserable 
time. The other boy had 
found the walk short, there 
was so much to see. He 
had watched a bird build 
its nest; saw a squirrel and 
knew where, its hole was, 
and the insects and their 
w’ays gave him so much to 
look at and the time passed 
so rapidly that he was 
surprised when he found 
he was at his journey’s 
end. There are just such 
boy’s now. If there is one 
thing that I have especially 
tried to teach you in my 
“ Talks” it is to “ use your 
eyes.” There are some 
grown people who find life in the country very dull, 
“ nothing going on,” “no excitement,” “ nothing 
to see.” I hope none of our young people think 
so. “Life in the country dull!” 1 don’t see 
how it can be to any boy or girl who has 
THE PROPER OUTFIT FOR THE COUNTRY. 
“ What is this outfit ?” It is vei-y valuable, indeed 
if lost no money will buy another. It consists of 
two parts, a good pair of eyes, and knowing how 
to use them. Many who have eyes are practically 
blind. They walk about every day, among the 
most wonderful things, and are like the boy in the 
story who had only seen the road-dust and the 
gnats. I once heard some one speak to Agassiz 
about the great labor attending some of his obser¬ 
vations. “Oh,” said the great naturalist, “it is 
all there, and I have only to look and see it, zat is 
all.” Natural objects do not, like some people, 
show everything on the surface; there are very 
few that will not exhibit something more upon close 
examination. The Barberry bush grows wild in 
many places, and I suppose that most of you know 
it. Late this month, or early next, its slender clus¬ 
ters of yellow flow¬ 
ers will be hanging 
from the branches. 
Examine one of these 
little flowers. If you 
look into it, it will ap¬ 
pear as in figure 1, 
which is much larger 
than real. You see that 
there is a thing in the center, and six little narrow 
affairs, with knobs at their ends, lay around, with 
their ends pointing towards the edges of the flower. 
Now take a fine sliver, a bit of broom straw, or 
even a pin, and gently touch one of these six knob¬ 
bed affairs near its lower part and see what hap¬ 
pens. Up it jumps, and stands erect ! Each one 
will do the same. Some of the older among you 
will recollect that in some former Talk I told you 
about other flowers, and that the central portion 
was the pistil, that it would ripen into a fruit with 
seeds, but not before it was touched with a fine 
dust, called pollen. That this pollen was furnished 
by the stamens—those six affairs whose quiet you 
disturbed—not by the whole stamen, but by the 
knob, or swollen portion, at the end, calied an an¬ 
ther. These stamens rise up, touch the pistil iu 
the centre of the flower and give it some pollen. 
WHAT MAKES IT MOVE AS IF ALIVE ? 
It is alive : all plants are alive, only all do not show 
it by a quick movement, as this does. We do not 
know just why this moves. My object was not so 
much to talk about this motion as to show you that 
even this littie barberry flower was worth looking at. 
THE FLOWERING DOGWOOD 
will soon be in bloom—a tall shrub which is often a 
mass of white. It is quite common, more so than 
the Barberry in States further West. If I were to 
ask “ Do you know it ?” very likely you would say : 
“Oh yes, very well ; a tine tall bush with great 
white flowers.” Were I to reply ; “ No doubt you 
know the Flowering Dogwood very well; but its 
flowers are neither ‘great’nor ‘ white,’ ” you would 
be puzzled and might offer to send me a specimen 
to show you were right. To save you that trouble 
I have an engraving at hand (figure 2) which will 
allow you to see your mistake. The real flowers 
are in a cluster iu the center, a dozen or so, small. 
Fig.l.— BARBERRY' FLOWER. 
