Pink Moccasins
The pink moccasin, the largest of our native orchids, is easily the queen of the rare woodland spot in which it grows. Its flower of bright rose pink, veined with red, is held with the stalwart erectness of an Indian, whose love of solitude and quiet woods it shares.
To Amanda it was one of the loveliest flowers of the woods. She always counted the days as the time drew near when the moccasins bloomed.
When Isabel Souders arrived at the Reist farmhouse she found Amanda ready with basket and trowel for the lady-slipper hunt. Amanda had put on a simple white dress and green-and-white sun hat. She looked with bewilderment at the city girl’s attire, but said nothing just then. They stopped long enough for Isabel to meet the mistress of the home and then they went down the road to the Crow Hill schoolhouse.
Suddenly Isabel stood still and panted. “Oh--Manda--you can run! Have compassion on me. My hair will be all tumbled after such mad walking, and my organdie torn.”
“Hair!” echoed the country girl with a laugh. “Who thinks about hair on a moccasin hunt? You should not go flower hunting in city clothes. With your pink and white dress and lovely Dresden sash, silk stockings and low shoes, you look more fit for a dance than a ramble after deep woods flowers, such as moccasins. But we might as well go on now.”
She led the way across the school-yard, climbed nimbly over the rail fence and laughed at Isabel’s clumsy imitation of her. Pink azaleas grew in great bushes of bloom throughout the woods. Isabel would have stopped to pick some but Amanda said, “That withers easily. Better pick them when we come back.”
They followed a narrow path, so narrow that later the summer luxuriant growth of underbrush would almost obliterate it. But Amanda knew the way to her spot. Deeper into the woods they delved, past bowers of pink azalea and closely growing branches of trees whose tender green foliage was breaking into summer growth. The bright May sunshine dripped through the green and dappled the ground in little discs of gold.
Suddenly the path led up-hill in a steep grade. Amanda stopped and leaned against a slender sapling.
“Stand here and look up,” she invited.