"I guess it won't hurt him," said Mrs. Reist; "the boy's growin' and he
has just a lunch at noon, so he gets hungry till he walks in from the
trolley. Boys like pie. His father was a great hand for pie."
"Well," said the aunt decisively, "I would never spoiled children if I
had any. But I had none."
"Thank goodness!" Amanda breathed to herself as she went out to the
porch to wait for her brother.
"Um, that pie was good," was his verdict as he joined her. "But say,
Sis, didn't you hear the squirrels chatter in there?"
"Come on." Amanda laughed as she swung the basket to her arm and pulled
eagerly at the sleeve of the boy's coat. "Let's go after the flowers
and forget all about her."
Along the Crow Hill schoolhouse runs a long spur of wooded hills
skirting the country road for a quarter of a mile and stretching away
into denser timberland. In those woods were the familiar paths Amanda
and Phil loved to traverse in search of flowers. In April, when the
first warm, sunshiny days came, the ground under the dead leaves of the
overshadowing oaks was carpeted with arbutus. Eager children soon found
those near the crude rail fence, but Amanda and Phil followed the
narrow trails to the secluded sheltered spots where the May flowers had
not been touched that spring.
"No roots, Phil!" warned the girl as they knelt in the brown leaves and
pushed away the covering from the fragrant blossoms.
"Sure thing not, Sis! We don't want to exterminate the trailing arbutus
in Crow Hill. Say, I passed two kids this morning as I was going to the
trolley. They had a bunch of arbutus, roots and all. Believe me, I
acted up like Aunt Rebecca for about two minutes. But it's a shame to
take the roots. I almost hate to pick the flowers--seems as if they're
at home here in the woods--belong here, in a way."
"I know what you're thinking about, Phil; that little verse: 'Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood-rose and left it on its stalk?
Oh, be my friend, and teach me to be thine.' I agree with the first half of the requirement, but the latter half
can't always be followed. At any rate, the wild rose is better left on
the stem, for it withers when plucked. But with arbutus it's different.
Why, Phil, some of the people who come to market and buy our wild
flowers would never see any if they could not buy them in the city.
Imagine, if you can, yourself living in a big city, far away from Crow
Hill, where the Mayflowers grow--Philadelphia or New York, or some such
formidable-sounding place. The city might engross your attention so
you'd be happy for months. But along comes spring with its call to the
woods and meadows. Still the city and its demands grip you like a vise,
and you can't run away to where the wild green things are pushing to
the light. Suppose you saw a flower-stand and a tiny bunch of arbutus--"