like a wild strawberry. At every twisted whorl of leaves was a tiny, star-like flower, as yellow as a butter-cup. It was the cinquefoil. Cinquefoil means five-leafed, as trefoil means three, so the little vine really was a far away cousin of the strawberry. Among the cinquefoil were clumps of mint. Their long, hairy stems and fuzzy leaves were topped with frowzy heads of lavender-pink, fringed with silver and breathing spicy smells. In every corner, and in many a crack of the sloping bank, stout burdocks were rooted. The pinkish-purple-topped green burs, in heavy knots, leaned out over the walk to catch in the clothing of passersby.
Farther afield tall thistles lifted royal purple heads, crowned with plush. They had a soldier guard of sharp lances and spears set on stem and leaf and flower. But, unafraid, wild morning glory vines twined around their spiny columns and hung out delicate pink and red and white flower bells. The morning glories clambered up the dusty stalks, and bloomed among the small, pale, yellow flowers of the mulleins.
In that wild garden were four varieties of clover—the white, creeping clover of blue-grass lawns; the pinkish purple-headed clover of farm meadows; the tall, shrub-like sweet clover, with tassel blossoms of white, and a blood-red clover, with pointed heads like pine cones. The crimson clover is a foreigner. Grown all over Europe, it is not often seen in America. In that wild garden it was a well-born emigrant among hardy and rough American weeds.
Except for the clovers, the smart weed, the morning glories, the white parasols of tansy, the mint and a few fiery spikes of the cardinal flower, the garden was a haze of yellow, spotted with purple. The long plumes of the golden-rod made a background for everything else. Against its feathery masses were set the dazzling yellow of the field sun flowers and black-eyed Susans. Much of the mustard had gone to seed. The tall plants were hung with tiny green pods, but there were still some clusters of yellow, cross-shaped flowers.
Lower down, hidden in wire grass, were yellow-flowered sorrel, with acid leaves that the children liked to nibble. There was many a sturdy bunch of butter and eggs, with their cream and gold, lipped and spurred blossoms set on spikes, the country cousin of the snapdragons of gardens. There were seed spikes and broad leaves of dock and plantain; the peppery seed sprays of the tongue grass, that gave a feast to all the pet canaries in the neighborhood, and the catnip mint that made pet pussies go into spasms of delight. But these
