Before the snow has wholly
vanished from the shelter of the wood-lots, the warm, hazy, wooing days
of April come upon us. On such a day,--how well in this snow-season I
remember it!--I have been lured out by the hope of the Mayflower, the
delicate _epigae repens_, miscalled the trailing arbutus. Up the rocky
hill-side, from whose top you catch glimpses of the far-off sparkling
sea, with a blue haze of island ranges belting it,--up among the rocks,
into warm, sheltered, sunny nooks, you go upon your quest. For the
Mayflower, though found in almost every township in New England, has
secret and unaccountable whims of its own,--will persist in blooming
in just one spot, where you ought not to expect it, and in avoiding all
likely places. Yet when you come to its traditionary habitat, it is not
there. Round and round we pace, hoping and despairing, till a faint,
most delicate odor, indescribably suggestive of woodland freshness,
catches the roused sense; or else one silvery star peeps out from under
an upturned birch-leaf. Then down on hands and knees; tear up brush to
right and left, the brown skeletons of the withered foliage.
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