Wreaths of Friendship: A Gift for the Young

Earlyspring flowers.

Of all the amusements of my childhood, I can think of none which I loved so much as rambling in the woods and meadows among the flowers.  What a rich treat it used to be, just after the earth had thrown aside its white mantle, and begun to be clothed in its summer dress, to get permission to spend a whole Saturday afternoon in the woods with my brother and sister.  Oh, how delighted we all were, when we found the first wild flowers of spring!  Let me see.  What flowers show their pretty faces the earliest?  Do you remember, young friend?  Perhaps you have always lived in the city, and have never made their acquaintance.  But if you have ever seen them, blushing in their native haunts, I am sure you must remember how they look, and what their names are.  I cannot see how any body can forget them, they are so beautiful and lovely.

One of the earliest flowers of spring, and one which grew in the woods only a few rods from my father’s door, near the stream that turned my miniature water-wheels, is the Trailing Arbutus.  Often you may find this plant unfolding its delicate blossoms before the snow has left the ground.  That, in our northern latitudes, is usually among the first flowers in blossom.  Soon after she appears, you may see one and perhaps two different species of the Anemone.  One, especially—­the Anemone Thalictroides, as it used to be called in botany, though it is now the Thalictrum Anemonoides, I believe—­is among the fairest of all these flowers of spring.  She has a blossom as white as snow.  The Anemone Nemrosa is almost as fair, too, though not quite, I think.  You can sometimes see them both smiling side by side, early in the month of May, nodding gracefully at each other, and smiling as if they were very happy.  It does not require much imagination to fancy they are conversing together; and, indeed, I would quite as soon believe that flowers could talk, as I would believe those stories about the fairies that children hear sometimes.

There is another beautiful flower which makes her appearance very early—­the Spring Beauty, or Claytonia Virginica.  She is usually found in the same locations with the Anemone.  Then there is the Liver Leaf.  Did you ever find that, little girl?  Very possibly you have not taken a ramble early enough in the spring to see her.  She makes her visit frequently in the latter part of April, and she does not stay long.  But after her flower has faded and fallen, there may be seen a few deeply notched and curious leaves, to mark the spot where she bloomed so sweetly.

The Blood Root, too, will make her visit, and go away again, if you delay your ramble in the woods till the first of May.  The blossom of the Blood Root is a very delicate white.  Hundreds of exotic flowers are cultivated in our gardens, and very much admired, that are not half so pretty as this.  The leaves that appear before the plant is in blossom, are oval, a little like those of the Adder’s Tongue, which is in flower somewhat later, and like those of one species of the Solomon’s Seal—­the Convallaria Bifolia.  But when the flower of the Blood Root appears, you see quite a different kind of leaf, so that even close observers of wild flowers are sometimes deceived, and think that their early leaves belong to some other plant.

Every body who has been at all familiar with the forest and meadows in the spring, knows the Violet.  There are a good many sisters in this charming family, but none, perhaps, in our latitude, that are more beautiful than the Viola Rotundifolia, or Yellow Violet, with roundish leaves, lying close to the ground.  The Blue Violet, too, appears soon after, and is perhaps equally pretty.  I recollect distinctly where it used to grow near the little brook that ran through our meadow—­a brook that many a time has served to turn my water-wheel.  Oh, those days of miniature water-wheels, and kites, and wind-mills! how happy they were, and how I love to think of them now!  By the way, have you ever read Miss Gould’s poetical fable about the little child and the Blue Violet?  I must recite a stanza or two of this poem, I think.  The child speaks to the Violet, and says,

  “Violet, violet, sparkling with dew,
  Down in the meadow land, wild where you grew,
  How did you come by the beautiful blue
      With which your soft petals unfold? 
  And how do you hold up your tender young head,
  Where rude, sweeping winds rush along o’er your bed,
  And dark, gloomy clouds, ranging over you, shed
      Their waters, so heavy and cold?

  “No one has nursed you, or watched you an hour,
  Or found you a place in the garden or bower;
  And they cannot yield me so lovely a flower,
      As here I have found at my feet!

  “Speak, my sweet violet, answer and tell,
  How you have grown up and flourished so well,
  And look so contented, where lonely you dwell,
       And we thus by accident meet?”

Then the Violet answers, and tells the child why it is so contented, and how it is able to hold up its head, and where its pretty blue petals come from.  But I will not recite the remainder of the poem, for I am sure my readers do not need to be told who made the flowers, and who taught them to bloom so sweetly in their wild haunts.

The early flowers of spring!  I loved them fondly when a child; but now I am a man, I love them still more.  Shall I tell you why, dear child?  There is something sad in the reason, and yet it is not all sadness.  I had a sister—­I had a sister.  Ah! that tells the tale.  I have no sister now!  The dearest companion of my early rambles among the flowers—­herself the fairest and sweetest of them all—­has fallen before the scythe of Death.  She has gone now to a world of perpetual spring, and the flowers she loved so well are blooming over her grave.  She faded away in the early spring, and we laid her to rest where her mother had long been sleeping.  By the side of the streamlet where we used to play in the sunny days of childhood, and where the Dandelion grew, and the Butter-cup, and the Violet—­there is now the form of her I tenderly loved.

But my strain is sad—­too sad.  I will sing, and be cheerful.

      Alas! how soon
  The things of earth we love most fondly perish! 
  Why died the flower our hearts had learned to cherish? 
      Why, ere ’twas noon?

      I cannot tell—­
  But though the grave be that loved sister’s dwelling,
  And though my heart e’en now with grief is swelling,
      I know ’tis well.

      ’Tis well with the—­
  ’Tis well with thee, thou lone and silent sleeper! 
  ’Tis well, though thou hast left me here a weeper
      Awhile to be.

      ’Tis well for me—­
  ’Tis well; my home, since thou art gone, is dearer—­
  The grave is welcome, if it bring me nearer
      To heaven and thee.

      I’ll not repine—­
  No, blest one; thou art happier than thy brother: 
  I’ll think of thee, as with thy angel-mother,
      Sweet sister mine.

      Still would I share
  Thy love, and meet thee where the flowers are springing,
  Where the wild bird his joyous note is singing—­
      Come to me there.

      Oh! come again,
  At the still hour, the holy hour of even,
  Ere one pale star has gemmed the vault of heaven;
      Come to me then.