nd
tomahawks"--she knew that word and nodded--"and I used to make red ink
of it when I was a little boy."

"No!" said June. With the next look she found a tiny bunch of fuzzy
hepaticas.

"Liver-leaf."

"Whut's liver?"

Hale, looking at her glowing face and eyes and her perfect little body,
imagined that she would never know unless told that she had one, and so
he waved one hand vaguely at his chest:

"It's an organ--and that herb is supposed to be good for it."

"Organ? Whut's that?"

"Oh, something inside of you."

June made the same gesture that Hale had.

"Me?"

"Yes," and then helplessly, "but not there exactly."

June's eyes had caught something else now and she ran for it:

"Oh! Oh!" It was a bunch of delicate anemones of intermediate shades
between white and red-yellow, pink and purple-blue.

"Those are anemones."

"A-nem-o-nes," repeated June.

"Wind-flowers--because the wind is supposed to open them." And, almost
unconsciously, Hale lapsed into a quotation:

"'And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows.'"

"Whut's that?" said June quickly.

"That's poetry."

"Whut's po-e-try?" Hale threw up both hands.

"I don't know, but I'll read you some--some day."

By that time she was gurgling with delight over a bunch of spring
beauties that came up, root, stalk and all, when she reached for them.

"Well, ain't they purty?" While they lay in her hand and she looked, the
rose-veined petals began to close, the leaves to droop and the stem got
limp.

"Ah-h!" crooned June. "I won't pull up no more o' THEM."

'"These little dream-flowers found in the spring.' More poetry, June."

A little later he heard her repeating that line to herself. It was an
easy step to poetry from flowers, and evidently June was groping for it.

A few days later the service-berry swung out white stars on the low
hill-sides, but Hale could tell her nothing that she did not know about
the "sarvice-berry." Soon, the dogwood swept in snowy gusts along the
mountains, and from a bank of it one morning a red-bird flamed and sang:
"What cheer! What cheer! What cheer!" And like its scarlet coat the
red-bud had burst into bloom. June knew the red-bud, but she had never
heard it called the Judas tree.

"You see, the red-bud was supposed to be poisonous. It shakes in the
wind and says to the bees, 'Come on, little fellows--here's your nice
fresh honey, and when they come, it betrays and poisons them."

"Well, what do