untrodden ways than
Europeans can in the Alps. We can make our beds under the trees with
rarely a thought of the weather. The air is always balmy and the skies
are almost always blue.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WILD FLOWERS

How eagerly we have looked forward to the coming of spring, and now it
is here! The sun is shining brighter and warmer each day. The birds are
returning from their winter home in the South. The buds on the trees are
swelling and, in the warm nooks, some of the wild flowers have already
opened their delicate petals. Who will find the first _spring beauty_ in
the Eastern woods? Who will find the first of the _purple trilliums_
that open their dark flowers in the shady groves, or the _golden
poppies_ on the warm hillsides of the West?

The spring air affects us as it does the plants and wild creatures. We
long to get away from school, and taking our lunches, to spend the
delightful days wandering through the fields and woods. There is no
place like the open country when all Nature is waking. We feel like
running and frisking as the young lambs do.

Can it be wrong to gather all that we wish of the beautiful flowers with
which the earth is carpeted? Has not Nature grown them in her great
garden in such abundance that all we pick will make no difference to
her? Let us go with the children on their rambles after flowers and
learn if Nature does take any account of their innocent raids on her
treasures.

Here is a party of children chasing across the fields. Each one is
searching for the flowers that have bloomed since last they were out,
and each is trying to get more than his companions. The children have
learned that some kinds of flowers grow in the woods, others in the
marshy places, and still others on the dry hillsides. They know where
to go for each kind, and not a spot escapes their sharp search.

Here they find a patch of violets, and all are quickly picked. There are
some baby-blue-eyes, and yonder dry field is brilliant with the colors
of many others. In the gathering of the flowers some of them are pulled
up by the roots, but the children do not think of the harm this does.
They wander on and on until many have more in their hands than they can
carry. Some of those picked first are already wilted, and, to make their
burdens lighter, the children throw these away. At last a tired but
happy band turns toward home.

[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The w