Cope sat down again and began to run his eye uncomfortably about the room, as if dredging the air for an idea. Behind one corner of a mirror was a large bunch of drying leaves. They had been brought in from the sand dunes as a decorative souvenir of the autumn, and had kept their place through mere inertia: an oak bough, once crimson and russet; a convoluted length of bittersweet, to which a few split berries still clung; and a branch of sassafras, with its intriguing variety of leaves--a branch selected, in fact, because it gave, within narrow compass, the plant's entire scope and repertoire as to foliage. Cope caught at the sassafras as a falling balloonist catches at his parachute. "Well," he said, still reluctant and fumbling, "perhaps I can devise a legend: the Legend, let us say, of the Sassafras Bush." "Good!" cried Medora heartily. Pearson, whispering to Amy Leffingwell, gave little heed to Cope and his strained endeavor to please Mrs. Phillips. Foster, quite passive, listened with curiosity for what might come. "Or perhaps you would prefer folk-lore," Cope went on. "Why the Sassafras has Three Kinds of Leaves, or something like that." "Better yet!" exclaimed Medora. "Listen, everybody. Why the Sassafras has Three Kinds of Leaves." Pearson stopped his buzzings, and Cope began. "The Wood-nymphs," he said slowly, "were a nice enough lot of girls, but they labored under one great disadvantage: they had no thumbs." Hortense pricked up her ears. Did he mean to be personal? If so, he should find that one of the nymphs had a whole hand as surely as he himself had a cheek. Cope paused. "Of course you've got to postulate _something_," he submitted apologetically. "Of course," Medora agreed. "So when they bought their gloves, or mittens, or whatever their handgear might be called, they usually patronized the hickory or the beech or some other tree with leaves that were----" "Ovate!" cried Medora delightedly. "Ovate, yes; or whatever just the right word may be. But a good many of them traded at the Sign of the Sassafras, where they found leaves that were similar, but rather more delicate." "I believe he's going to do it," thought Foster. "Yet the nymphs knew that they lacked thumbs and kept on wanting them. So, during the long, dull winter, they put their minds to it, and finally thumbs came." "Will-power!" said Medora. "And early in April they went to the Sassafras and said: 'We have thumbs! We have thumbs! So we need a different sort of mitten.' "The Sassafras was only half awake. 'Thumbs?' he repeated. 'How many?' "'Two!' cried the nymphs. 'Two!' "A passing breeze roused the Sassafras. He became at least three-quarters awake." "I doubt it," muttered Hortense. "'That's interesting,' he said. 'I aim to supply all new needs. Come back in a month or so, and meanwhile I'll see what I can do for you.' "In May the nymphs returned with their thumbs and asked, 'How about our new mittens?'"