“Now, mother,” said Norman, one morning after breakfast, “for a walk on the prairies.”
“I am ready,” replied Mrs. Lester; “it is a cool, gray morning; just the day for such a ramble.”
On and on they wandered; Norman running to and fro, as the brilliant tint of some flower caught his eye, made his mother the bearer of all his floral treasures. A fine bouquet he had after a while, yellow lupins, the blue spiderwort, the purple phlox, an orange flower very much like the wallflower, and the painted cup, made classic by Bryant’s verse:
“Scarlet tufts
Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire;
The wanderers of the prairies know them well,
And call that brilliant flower, the Painted Cup.”
They first walked toward the south, where they could have glimpses of the river; but at length they directed their course to the east, to an octagon house, that stood like a light-house on a hill. Crossing the railroad, they paused a while to see the gravel-train get its load of sand from the banks.
“There,” said Norman, as the locomotive gave a snort or two, as if in impatience at the pause; “there stands the grand old fellow to be looked at, as Mr. Beecher says.”
A far-reaching view of the undulating prairie, heightened at intervals by flashes of the river gliding among the fertile meadows, repaid them for the ascent to the octagon house.