Having a surplus of good things, the children often went about the village with fresh vegetables and flowers, more often the latter, generous bouquets of fragrant and spicy roses and carnations, sweet peas and nasturtiums, to sell. Two little daughters in pretty, light print dresses and white hats were flower girls who were treated like little queens.
There was no disdain of work to earn a living in those days; every respectable person did something useful.
For recreation, we went with father in the wagon over the “bumpy” road when he went to haul wood, or perhaps a long way on the county road to the meadow, begging to get off to gather flowers whenever we saw them peeping from their green bowers.
Driving along through the great forest which stood an almost solid green wall on either hand, we called “O father, stop! stop; here is the lady-slipper place.”
“Well, be quick, I can’t wait long.”
Dropping down to the ground, we ran as fast as our feet could carry us to gather the lovely, fragrant orchid, Calypso Borealis, from its mossy bed.
When the ferns were fully grown, eight or ten feet high, the little girls broke down as many as they could drag, and ran along the road, great ladies, with long green trains!
A VISIT FROM OUR TILLICUM