HOW SPRING COMES 47 
There are seven known species of the spice-bush, 
two in the eastern United States, the others in Asia. 
Another shrub that belongs to us and eastern Asia 
and that tempts one to nibble is what the people here 
call "sweet bubbles." It appears in old-fashioned 
Northern gardens under the name of sweet-scented 
or flowering or strawberry shrub, but every child 
who has warmed the stiff, maroon-colored flowers 
in his hand — and what child has not? — will tell 
you instantly that "sweet bubbles" is the prefer- 
able and proper name. The mountain children warm 
the sweet bubbles in their hands, but they do not 
have to go to a favored corner of some garden to 
find one. They can pick a bushel of them along the 
roadside within a stone's throw of the house. Like 
the sassafras, the sweet bubby is spicy to the core ; 
leaf, root, and branch possessing an agreeable flavor. 
" Horse sugar," the only North American member 
of its family, which otherwise lives in South America, 
Asia, and Australasia, is another early blossoming 
shrub whose flower clusters of little close-set balls 
of yellow fringe are fragrant and whose bark is aro- 
matic. Its sweetish leaves, which the people say 
horses like to eat, have given it its popular name, but 
the botany, scorning frivolity, christens it Symplocos 
tinctoria. 
Of course sap that has exuded from the pine tree, 
when it hardens to just the right consistency, af- 
fords never-failing solace to children of all ages who 
belong to the woods. Then there are the tips of the 
pine twigs that leave such a clean and pleasant 
