Hand in hand, Hale and June followed the footsteps of spring from the
time June met him at the school-house gate for their first walk into the
woods. Hale pointed to some boys playing marbles.
“That's the first sign,” he said, and with quick understanding June
smiled.
The birdlike piping of hylas came from a marshy strip of woodland that
ran through the centre of the town and a toad was croaking at the foot
of Imboden Hill.
“And they come next.”
They crossed the swinging foot-bridge, which was a miracle to June,
and took the foot-path along the clear stream of South Fork, under the
laurel which June called “ivy,” and the rhododendron which was “laurel”
in her speech, and Hale pointed out catkins greening on alders in one
swampy place and willows just blushing into life along the banks of a
little creek. A few yards aside from the path he found, under a patch
of snow and dead leaves, the pink-and-white blossoms and the waxy green
leaves of the trailing arbutus, that fragrant harbinger of the old
Mother's awakening, and June breathed in from it the very breath of
spring. Near by were turkey peas, which she had hunted and eaten many
times.
“You can't put that arbutus in a garden,” said Hale, “it's as wild as a
hawk.”
Presently he had the little girl listen to a pewee twittering in a
thorn-bush and the lusty call of a robin from an apple-tree. A bluebird
flew over-head with a merry chirp--its wistful note of autumn long since
forgotten. These were the first birds and flowers, he said, and June,
knowing them only by sight, must know the name of each and the reason
for that name. So that Hale found himself walking the woods with an
interrogation point, and that he might not be confounded he had, later,
to dip up much forgotten lore. For every walk became a lesson in botany
for June, such a passion did she betray at once for flowers, and he
rarely had to tell her the same thing twice, since her memory was like a
vise--for everything, as he learned in time.
Her eyes were quicker than his, too, and now she pointed to a snowy
blossom with a deeply lobed leaf.
“Whut's that?”
“Bloodroot,” said Hale, and he scratched the stem and forth issued
scarlet drops. “The Indians used to put it on their faces and
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 you think o' that!” said June indignantly, and Hale had
to hedge a bit.
“Well, I don't know whether it REALLY does, but that's what they SAY.”
A little farther on the white stars of the trillium gleamed at them
from the border of the woods and near by June stooped over some lovely
sky-blue blossoms with yellow eyes.
“Forget-me-nots,” said Hale. June stooped to gather them with a radiant
face.
“Oh,” she said, “is that what you call 'em?”
“They aren't the real ones--they're false forget-me-nots.”
“Then I don't want 'em,” said June. But they were beautiful and fragrant
and she added gently:
“'Tain't their fault. I'm agoin' to call 'em jus' forget-me-nots, an'
I'm givin' 'em to you,” she said--“so that you won't.”
“Thank you,” said Hale gravely. “I won't.”