“Just as we take our Easter eggs,” laughed the boy named Billy. “Thank you so much, Somebody; and now I’ll run and get some flowers for Mother. I’m going to get her a beautiful Easter lily.” Trailing Arbutus or Mayflower “See what I’ve got for Mom,” said the boy named Billy bursting into Somebody’s room one bright morning in the latter part of April. “May Flowers! Beauties! Found them away over in the pine woods just peeping out from under a snow bank.” “Beauties indeed,” agreed Somebody, “I’m glad you cut them so carefully. Most children do not understand the importance of cutting wild flowers instead of tearing them up by the roots.” “I ought to understand it unless I’m a _dunce_,” laughed Billy, “you and Mom tell me about it often enough. But why is it called Mayflower when it always comes in April? Of course I know its real name is Trailing Arbutus.” “The Mayflower,” said Somebody, “is spring’s first messenger wherever it will grow, and its appearance is governed by the length of the winter, and not by the calendar. I’ve heard of it in the Rocky Mountains in August. It seems not to be able to live in very warm places, but loves to snuggle its blossom children under the snows of winter, who, when they awake push aside the blankets and creep out to tell the world that spring has come. “And small as it is,” went on Somebody, “the dear little pink flower has made history for itself. It was the first flower to welcome the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers to the new world and as spring, on the bleak coast of Massachusetts, is a late comer, it probably appeared in May, and was christened Mayflower by the pioneers who knew no other name for it. Anyway it was very welcome to those poor people who had come through so many hardships, with its glorious message that the long and cruel winter was over.” “Was the boat named after the flower or the other way around?” asked the boy named Billy. “I think it must have been that the flower was named after the boat,” answered Somebody, “as the Mayflower was the boat they came over in--a little sailing vessel of one hundred and eighty tons. Yet no other ship’s arrival has had such significance as that of this little vessel, which brought the Pilgrim Fathers to America in 1620. The sailing of the Mayflower meant a great deal to the future of mankind, because the Pilgrim Fathers formed the compact that established the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is well known that they loved the little posie, the first thing that welcomed them with a smile of hopefulness.” “Why do we not try to cultivate it in our gardens?”