"Has it a thick, leathery leaf that lies down almost flat?" asked Dorothy, running to see for herself.
"Yes, and a blossom you hardly notice. It's hidden under the leaves and it's only yellowish-green. You have to look hard for it."
"That must be wild ginger," Dorothy decided. "What's yours, Ethel Blue?"
"I know mine is hepatica. See the 'hairy scape' Helen talked about? And see what a lovely, lovely color the blossom is? Violet with a hint of pink?"
"That would be the best of all for a border. The leaves stay green all winter and the blossoms come early in the spring and encourage you to think that after a while all the flowers are going to awaken."
"It's a shame to take all this out of Dorothy's lot."
"It may never be mine," sighed Dorothy. "Still, perhaps we ought not to take too many roots; the Miss Clarks may not want all the flowers taken out of their woods."
"We'll take some from here and some from Grandfather's woods," decided Ethel Brown. "There are a few in the West Woods, too."
So they dug up but a comparatively small number of the hepaticas, nor did they take many of the columbines nodding from a cleft in the piled-up rocks.
"I know that when we have our wild garden fully planted I'm not going to want to pick flowers just for the sake of picking them the way I used to," confessed Ethel Blue. "Now I know something about them they seem so alive to me, sort of like people—I'm sure they won't like to be taken travelling and forced to make a new home for themselves."