But Mr. N. comes up and interrupts me with: "Do you know, Miss Fulton, your keeping a May-day seems so strange to me? Do not think our western girls would think of such a thing!"
"Since you wonder at it, I will tell you, very briefly, my story. It was instituted by mere accident by me in 1871, and I have kept the 15th of May of every year since then in nature's untrained gardens, gathering of all the different flowers and leaves that are in bloom, or have unfolded, and note the difference in the seasons, and also the difference in the years to me.
No happier girl ever sang a song than did I on my first May-day; and the woodland was never more beautiful, dressed in the bright robes of an early spring. Every tree in full leaf, every wild flower of spring in bloom, and I could not but gather of all—even the tiniest.
The next 15th of May, I, by mere happening, went to the woods, and remembering it was the anniversary of my accidental maying of the previous year, I stopped to gather as before; but the flowers were not so beautiful, nor the leaves so large. Then, too, I was very sad over the serious illness of a loved sister.
I cannot tell of all the years, but in '74 I searched for May flowers with tear-dimmed eyes—sister May was dead, and everywhere it was desolate.
'75. "A belated snow cloud shook to the ground" a few flakes, and we gathered only sticks for bouquets, with buds scarcely swollen.
In '81, I climbed Point McCoy near Bellefont, Pa., a peak of the Muncy mountains and a range of the Alleghanys, and looked for miles, and miles away, over mountains and vales, and gathered of flowers that almost painted the mountain side, they were so plentiful and bright.
Last year I gathered the flowers of home with my own dear mother, and shared them with May, by laying them on her grave.
To-day, all things have been entirely new and strange; but while I celebrate it on the wild boundless plains of Nebraska, yet almost untouched by the hand of man, dear father and mother are visiting the favorite mossy log, the spring in the wood, and the moss covered rocks where we children played at "house-keeping," and in my name, will gather and put to press leaves and flowers for me. Ah! yes! and are so lonely thinking of their daughter so far away.
The sweetest flower gathered in all the years was Myrtle—sister Maggie's oldest child—who came to me for a May-flower in '76.