Did you over see any of those, lads and lasses? There is no color richer or more beautiful than the deep, glowing scarlet of their corollas. It is this which gives them the name.
“Figure to yourselves,” says M. Maross, who is a naturalist and a foreigner, as you perceive, “figure to yourselves some missionary priest of the early days, as he journeys through the wilderness from one Indian village to another. Passing some moist and shady nook he first spies this superb blossom. He admires it. Instantly he is reminded of les chapeaux rouges.[1] Behold, lobelia cardinalis is no longer at loss for a title.” Monsieur also goes on to state that the flower alluded to—“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow”—was of this rich, vivid color. Whereupon the listeners exclaim in surprise. They had supposed it was white.
“Yes, that is the general impression, but erroneous. I have myself seen the flower growing in that country. Had it been of white the concluding words would not have been so peculiarly applicable: ‘Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ Comprenez?”
“Ah, yes; I see. If we only knew more about the East how many of those passages would gain in force and clearness that now one somehow cannot get at the pith of.”
“You speak truly, Mees.”
Presently, under some spreading beeches, the friends and neighbors who have come to these woods, as is their wont in sultry weather, for a few hours of recreation, gather together for luncheon—without ceremony of table or table-cloth, for this is “no stiff affair,” as some one complacently remarks, but quite “all in the familee,” as Harry says, bringing forth from its hiding-place an unexpected treat. And now everybody understands why so little has been seen of him to-day. Doesn’t he know these miles of woodland by heart? Is there any tree so tall he hasn’t climbed it, or any stream so small he hasn’t traced it to its source? He can show you all the crows’ nests and all the rabbit burrows, and even hint to you mysteriously that a fox dwells hereabout. He knows the banks where the strawberries reddened in June, and the hill-sides where the chestnuts will burst their burs in October, and it is only he who could surprise the company with this heaping basket of blackberries, so fresh and ripe and luscious, still wet with last night’s dew.
“Hal, you’re a brick!” exclaims a youth of his own age, piling his plate with the proffered fruit.
“Oo is weal dood, Hawy, I lite oo!” lisps the infantile voice of Maggie McAllister, two wee, dimpled fists making a successful dive into the basket.