baskets if distributed with great economy and much green.
“You are the dearest boy that ever was!” began Jill, with her nose
luxuriously buried in the box, though the flowers were more
remarkable for color than perfume.
“No, I’m not; there’s a much dearer one coming upstairs now, and
he’s got something that will make you howl for joy,” said Jack,
ignoring his own prowess as Ed came in with a bigger box, looking
as if he had done nothing but go a Maying all his days.
“Don’t believe it!” cried Jill, hugging her own treasure jealously.
“It’s oniy another joke. I won’t look,” said Molly, still struggling to
make her cambric roses bloom again.
“I know what it is! Oh, how sweet!” added Merry, sniffing, as Ed
set the box before her, saying pleasantly,
“You shall see first, because you had faith.”
Up went the cover, and a whiff of the freshest fragrance regaled
the seven eager noses bent to inhale it, as a general murmur of
pleasure greeted the nest of great, rosy mayflowers that lay before
them.
“The dear things, how lovely they are!” and Merry looked as if
greeting her cousins, so blooming and sweet was her own face.
Molly pushed her dingy garlands away, ashamed of such poor
attempts beside these perfect works of nature, and Jill stretched
out her hand involuntarily, as she said, forgetting her exotics,
“Give me just one to smell of, it is so woodsy and delicious.”
“Here you are, plenty for all. Real Pilgrim Fathers, right from
Plymouth. One of our fellows lives there, and I told him to bring
me a good lot; so he did, and you can do what you like with them,”
explained Ed, passing round bunches and shaking the rest in a
mossy pile upon the table.
“Ed always gets ahead of us in doing the right thing at the right
time. Hope you’ve got some first-class baskets ready for him,” said
Gus, refreshing the Washingtonian nose with a pink blossom or
two.
“Not much danger of his being forgotten,” answered Molly; and
everyone laughed, for Ed was much beloved by all the girls, and
his door-steps always bloomed like a flower-bed on May eve.
“Now we must fly round and fill up. Come, boys, sort out the green
and hand us the flowers as we want them. Then we must direct
them, and, by the time that is done, you can go and leave them,”
said Jill, setting all to work.
“Ed must choose his baskets first. These are ours; but any of those
you can have”; and Molly pointed to a detachment of gay baskets,
set apart from those already partly filled.
Ed chose a blue one, and Merry filled it with the rosiest
may-flowers, knowing that it was to hang on Mabel’s door-handle.
The others did the same, and the pretty work went on, with much
fun, till all were filled, and ready for the names or notes.
“Let us have poetry, as we can’t get wild flowers. That will be
rather fine,” proposed Jill, who liked jingles.
All had had some practice at the game parties, and pencils went
briskly for a few minutes, while silence reigned, as the poets
racked their brains for rhymes, and stared at the blooming array
before them for inspiration.
“Oh, dear! I can’t find a word to rhyme to ‘geranium,'” sighed
Molly, pulling her braid, as if to pump the well of her fancy dry.
“Cranium,” said Frank, who was getting on bravely with “Annette”
and “violet.”
“That is elegant!” and Molly scribbled away in great glee, for her
poems were always funny ones.
“How do you spell anemoly–the wild flower, I mean?” asked Jill,
who was trying to compose a very appropriate piece for her best
basket, and found it easier to feel love and gratitude than to put
them into verse.
“Anemone; do spell it properly, or you’ll get laughed at,” answered
Gus, wildly struggling to make his lines express great ardor,
without being “too spoony,” as he expressed it.
“No, I shouldn’t. This person never laughs at other persons’
mistakes, as some persons do,” replied Jill, with dignity.
Jack was desperately chewing his pencil, for he could not get on at