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When will the cinnamon rose unfold

Till half of its fragrance is spilled?

"When will the snow and the crystal rime Vanish, and leave the brown earth bare?" Patience, dear child, in the Lord's own time The Spring blossoms everywhere.

BUDS AND BLOSSOMS

"The leaves are swept from the branches,

But the living buds are near,

With folded flower and foliage,
To sprout in a kinder air."

A

MORE wonderful story than that of the fairy Catskin who came out of

a hollow tree, bringing a walnut containing three beautiful dresses, the first glowing as the sun, the second pale and beautiful as the moon, the third spangled like the starry sky, is found on every tree or bush that grows in gardens, woods or fields.

It is called

THE STORY OF A BUD

When the leaves fall from the trees in autumn, sharp eyes will find that the mother tree has not allowed her old leaves to lie down to sleep at her feet, until she has started some new ones growing to take their places the next

season.

Of course she knows, just as well as your mother does, that it would not do to let her children go out in the frost, the snow and cold of winter without being wrapped up; so she packs her leaves and flowers into buds, and wraps scaly or furry coats around them.

While all of the trees are careful of their children, I think the horse-chestnut tree makes the best of mothers. She dresses her babies in white nightgowns of softest, warmest down, wraps them in light, green blankets, and tucks them snugly in their little brown cradles, which are varnished to keep out the rain the rain and

snow.

'The tough old hickory uses no woolly blankets, but wraps her children in many overlapping, leathery scales; the magnolia buds wear furry overcoats, but the maple, oak and poplar are protected by simple scales of brown.

On some trees and bushes, the flowers and leaves are snugly packed in the same bud, but on most trees, the flowers and leaves live in separate buds.

Sometimes the flowers awake, stretch and get out of their buds before the sleepy leaves have stirred. This is true of the yellow jasmine and of the Japanese quince, which grow in the parks, as well as of the maple, the poplar, the peach and some of the other trees; but usually the leaves get out first.

If you will cut a few twigs from an apple, a pear or a tulip tree, and put them in water in a warm room, you will enjoy watching their buds unfold. They will tell you a more wonderful story than Catskin and his magic walnut.

"Such a happy secret will its leaves unfold,

If you listen closely when a flower you hold."

A VISIT TO THE CHAT

THE sun was warm and bright, alder tassels were swaying by the brook, and bloodroot had given way to Jack-in-the-pulpit the day we went to the woods to call upon the yellow-breasted chat.

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Can you guess what time in the year we made our visit?

Mrs. Chat must have been busy many days before, for when Isabella led the photographer

down the path to the blackberry patch, this picture was waiting for him.

It had taken many days to get the sticks, twigs and grasses together, and many more to weave them into such a pretty home, while the three eggs told even a longer story. Two more were laid before the little lady was ready to sit and brood upon them, Isabella said.

Is it not a dainty home with its bower of white blossoms over the door?

Mr. and Mrs. Chat were away the day we called; but, as they had left the house open, we thought they would not mind if we just looked in. They were not far away, we knew, for somewhere down in the briery tangle we heard an anxious, "Chut! Chut!" But as the sun was getting low, and the wanted to make some other calls, we did not wait for them to come home.

camera-man

Do you know what fun it is to see a chat? You will probably need a whole afternoon for the quest, for although he is the giant of the Warbler Family, and has a beautiful, showy,

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