LITTLE SISTER TO THE DANDELION

Marian asked no questions the following morning until she was on her way to the station with Uncle George. "Where am I going?" she finally ventured.

"Where you passed the summer last year," was the reply. "How does that suit you?"

"Suit me," repeated Marian, "nothing ever suited me better. I'm pretty glad I'm going there. Why didn't you send me back to school, Uncle George? School won't be out for two months. I'm glad you didn't, but why?"

"Well, sis, you told me you wanted to go to the country school."

"Yes, but——"

"Now's your chance," interrupted the man, "learn all you can and try to do some one thing better than any one else in school, will you?"

"Well, but Uncle George, big boys and big girls go to country schools."

"What of it, Marian? You do some one thing better than any one else in school, and when you come home this fall you may choose any book you wish at the book store, and I will buy it for you."

"But, Uncle George, how will you know whether I really do something better than any one else or not?"

"I'll take your word for it, Marian."

"My word is true," the child remarked with dignity.

"No doubt about it," added Uncle George, turning away to hide a smile.

Just as the train pulled into the station, Marian caught a glimpse of a small blue butter-fly. It fluttered away out of sight as Uncle George said "good-bye." "Oh, I hate to leave that butter-fly," exclaimed Marian, and those were the last words Uncle George heard as he left her. The passengers smiled, but Uncle George looked thoughtful. There was so much to be seen from the car windows and so many folks to wonder about within the car, the journey seemed short.

Two young ladies welcomed Marian at the train, hugging and kissing her the minute the small feet touched the platform. "I guess folks will think you're some relation to me," laughed the child.

"So we are," replied Miss Ruth Golding. "We are your cousins."

"Certainly," agreed Miss Kate, "your Uncle George knew us when we were little girls, so of course we are your cousins."

"Of course!" echoed Marian, "and I know my summer of happiness has begun this day in April."

"Your troubles have begun, you mean," warned Miss Ruth; "the school-teacher boards with us and you'll have to toe the mark."

"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Marian. "I can walk to school with her."

"You won't say 'goody' when you see the lady," predicted Miss Kate. "She's as sober as a judge, very quiet, and keeps to herself."

"What's the matter with her?" asked Marian.

"She's lived in the city all her life and eaten books," explained Ruth. "She eats them, Marian, covers, binding, pictures and everything. Too bad, but maybe you'll get used to it. Here is mother coming to meet you, and here comes Carlo."

Marian ran ahead to throw her arms around Mrs. Golding's neck. "I am so glad they sent me back to you," she cried. "I didn't say anything about it to my aunt because she would have sent me somewhere else. It doesn't do to let her know when you're too happy. She isn't a bit like you, not a bit."

"No, I think not," was the response. "You see, dear, your neighbor, Mrs. Russel, is one of my old friends, and she has told me so much about your aunt I feel as if I know her. I am sure we are not alike."

"Why, I should say not!" laughed Marian. "Why she's as thin as—as knitting needles, and you're as plump as new pin cushions. Won't we have fun this summer, though? Well, Carlo, old fellow. Didn't forget Marian, did he? Nice old doggie."

"Down, sir!" Mrs. Golding commanded. "He is so glad to see you, Marian, he can't express his feelings without trying to knock you over."

"I wish Uncle George owned a dog," commented Marian; "there'd always be some one glad to see you when you got home. I like dogs. Does the teacher come home at noon, Mrs. Golding?"

"No, sometimes we don't see her until supper time. She won't be such jolly company for you as my girls. She's too quiet."

"Is she cross, Mrs. Golding?"

"No, oh, no indeed."

"Then I shall like her," was the quick reply.

There were callers in the late afternoon, so Marian wandered out alone. She had gone but a short distance down the lane when she saw dandelions ahead. She gathered a handful of the short-stemmed blooms and walked on. In the distance she heard a bluebird singing. Marian ran to find it and was rewarded by a flash of glorious blue as the bird sought a tree across the river. Marian followed it as far as she could, being obliged to stop at the river's bank. As she stood gazing after the bird, she was startled by a woman's voice.

"What have you in your hand, little girl?"

Turning, Marian saw a young lady sitting on a log near by. "Just dandelions," the child replied, and would have hidden the bunch behind her if the young lady had not forbidden it.

"We all love dandelions, little girl," she said; "come and show them to me."

Marian wonderingly obeyed.

"Did you ever look at a dandelion through a microscope?" continued the young lady.

"No, I never did."

The stranger passed Marian a microscope and asked her to tell what she saw.

"Oh, I never knew a dandelion was like this," said Marian; "why there are a thousand little blossoms in it all crowded together, and they are the goldenest golden ever was! Oh, oh, oh! Wasn't it lucky you were here so I could see through your microscope? What if I had never seen that dandelion!"

"Would you like to borrow the microscope often?" asked the young lady, smiling so pleasantly Marian straightway decided that she was pretty.

"Well, I should say yes, Miss—Miss—you see I don't know what your name is?"

"Oh, that's so, I am Miss Smith, Miss Virginia Smith. Who are you?"

"My name," was the reply, "is Marian Lee, but who I am I don't really know."

Miss Smith repressed her curiosity, believing that Marian was the little girl the Goldings were to meet that day.

"It's everything to have a name," said she.

"Yes, but I'd like some relatives," Marian explained, "some real sisters and cousins and aunts of my own."

"Why don't you do as Hiawatha did?" Miss Smith suggested.

"You mean play all the birds and squirrels are my brothers and sisters? I think I will. I'll be little sister to the dandelion."

Miss Smith laughed with Marian. "I'll do the same thing," said she, "and if we are sisters to the dandelion, you must be my little sister and I'm your big sister and all the wild flowers belong to our family."

"It's a game," agreed Marian. "I suppose little Indian children picked dandelions in the spring-time before Columbus discovered America."

"There were no dandelions then to pick," Miss Smith remonstrated. "The plant was brought here by white men. Its name is from the French, meaning lion's tooth."

"I don't see anything about a dandelion to mean lion's tooth," objected Marian; "do you?"

"No, I don't, Marian, nor does any one know exactly how it came by its name. Some believe it was given to the plant because its root is so white; then again, in the old days lions were pictured with teeth yellow as dandelion blossoms. The explanation I like best is that the dandelion was named after the lion because the lion is the animal that used to represent the sun, and all flowers named after him are flowers of the sun."

"Do you know anything more about dandelions?" questioned Marian.

"If I don't," said Miss Virginia Smith, smiling as she spoke, "it isn't because there is nothing more to learn. Did you ever hear the dandelion called the shepherd's clock?"

"No, Miss Smith, never. Why should they call it that?"

"Because the dandelion is said to open at five and close at eight."

"Well!" exclaimed Marian, "I guess you could write a composition about dandelions."

"Possibly," was the laughing response. "As far as that goes, Marian, there isn't a thing that grows that hasn't a history if you take the time and trouble to hunt it up."

"Skunk cabbages?" suggested Marian.

"Yes, 'skunk cabbages,'" was the reply. "What flowers do you suppose are related to it?"

"I don't know, unless Jack-in-the-pulpit, maybe, is it?"

"That's right, guess again."

"I'll have to give up, Miss Smith. I never saw anything except Jack-in-the-pulpit that looks a bit like old skunk cabbage."

"The calla lily, Marian, what do you think of that?"

"I don't know, Miss Smith, but such things happen, of course, because Winnie Raymond has a horrible looking old Uncle Pete, and Winnie's awful pretty herself. But how do you know so much about plants?"

"By reading and observation, Marian."

"Are there many books about wild flowers, Miss Smith?"

"More than we can ever read, little girl. Better than that the country around this village is a garden of wild flowers. Down by the old mill and on the hills, in the fields and woods and along the river bank, we shall find treasures from now on every time we take the shortest walk."

"Oh, dear," grumbled Marian, "isn't it too bad I've got to go to school?"

"Why don't you like to go to school, child?"

"At home I do, on account of recesses. I don't like the school part of it much, but here it would be recess all the time if I could go in the woods with you, besides having a good time with the Golding girls and playing all day long where I don't get scolded. Dear! I wish I didn't have to go to school, or else I wish they'd have lessons about birds and flowers and butterflies and little animals, instead of old arithmetic. I hate arithmetic."

"Do you?" sympathized Miss Smith. "That's too bad, because we all need to understand arithmetic."

"I don't," protested Marian. "I don't even think arithmetic thoughts."

"Some day, Marian, you will wish you understood arithmetic," said Miss Smith. "Now if you and I went for a walk and we saw ten crows, three song sparrows, five bluebirds, seven chipping sparrows and twenty-seven robins, and Mrs. Golding asked us when we got home how many birds we saw, I wonder how you would feel if you couldn't add?"

"Well, but don't you see," interrupted Marian, "I could add birds, yes and subtract and multiply and divide them. That's different. What I don't like is just figures and silly arithmetic things."

"Well, Marian, I may as well tell you now that I'm the school-teacher and we'll have arithmetic stories about birds and flowers and little animals."

"Oh, are you the teacher?" exclaimed Marian. "I thought she was—was—different, you know."

"Different, how?"

"Well, they told me the teacher was—was quiet."

"So she is, usually," agreed Miss Smith, "but this afternoon she met one of her own folks. This little sister to the dandelion."

"Won't we have fun!" was Marian's comment.