o quickly after it is picked," said another
child. "I think that she would like a red tulip."

"But our mother loves pink better than she loves red," said the
youngest child. "Do let us go on a little farther before we decide
what to take her for her birthday. Oh, how pretty--" The youngest
child stopped in front of the prickly little bush, and the others
crowded close to see, too.

They never would have known that it was the prickly bush, at all. It
stood as proudly and as straight as a little tree, and its green
leaves covered it like a beautiful dress. Peeping out from between the
leaves were the most lovely pink flowers, as soft as velvet and with
so many curling petals that one could not count them. They smelled
more sweetly than any other flower in the garden, and the children
could scarcely speak at first, they were so surprised.

"Roses!" said one child.

"Pink roses!" said another child.

"The prickly little bush has turned into a rose bush for our mother's
birthday," said the youngest child.

So they smelled of the beautiful pink roses, and touched them to feel
how soft and like velvet the petals were. Then they decided that the
pink roses that had bloomed on the prickly little bush were the
loveliest flowers in the whole garden, and they picked the largest
pink rose of all to carry into the house for their mother's birthday
gift.

On the way they met the gardener, and they showed him the beautiful
rose, telling him how it had grown upon the prickly little bush. He
smiled, for he knew a great deal about the strange ways of his plants.

"I thought it would bear roses this year," the gardener said. "It
often happens that the bush with the sharpest thorns to carry, once it
blooms, has the prettiest roses."

ARBOR DAY

THE TINKER'S WILLOW

One day, when my Grandfather Gifford was about seven years old, he
looked across the road to his father's blacksmith shop, and seeing
some one sitting on the bench by the door, went over to learn who it
was.

He found a little old man, with thick, bushy eyebrows and bright blue
eyes. His clothes were made all of leather, which creaked and rattled
when he moved. By his side was a partly open pack, in which
grandfather could see curious tools and sheets of shiny tin. By that
he knew that the man was the travelling tinker, who came once or twice
a year to mend leaky pans and pails, and of whom he had heard his
mother speak.

The old man was eating his lun