`` You see what Peg 's wishbone did , '' said Peter triumphantly . `` Now , look here , Peter , do n't talk nonsense , '' expostulated Dan . `` The Awkward Man found Paddy this morning and had started to bring us word before Cecily ever thought of the wishbone . Do you mean to say you believe he would n't have come walking up our lane just when he did if she had never thought of it ? '' `` I mean to say that I would n't mind if I had several wishbones of the same kind , '' retorted Peter stubbornly . `` Of course I do n't think the wishbone had really anything to do with our getting Paddy back , but I 'm glad I tried it , for all that , '' remarked Cecily in a tone of satisfaction . `` Well , anyhow , we 've got Pat and that 's the main thing , '' said Felix . `` And I hope it will be a lesson to him to stay home after this , '' commented Felicity . `` They say the barrens are full of mayflowers , '' said the Story Girl . `` Let us have a mayflower picnic tomorrow to celebrate Paddy 's safe return . '' CHAPTER XII . FLOWERS O ' MAY Accordingly we went a-maying , following the lure of dancing winds to a certain westward sloping hill lying under the spirit-like blue of spring skies , feathered over with lisping young pines and firs , which cupped little hollows and corners where the sunshine got in and never got out again , but stayed there and grew mellow , coaxing dear things to bloom long before they would dream of waking up elsewhere . 'T was there we found our mayflowers , after faithful seeking . Mayflowers , you must know , never flaunt themselves ; they must be sought as becomes them , and then they will yield up their treasures to the seeker -- clusters of star-white and dawn-pink that have in them the very soul of all the springs that ever were , re-incarnated in something it seems gross to call perfume , so exquisite and spiritual is it . We wandered gaily over the hill , calling to each other with laughter and jest , getting parted and delightfully lost in that little pathless wilderness , and finding each other unexpectedly in nooks and dips and sunny silences , where the wind purred and gentled and went softly . When the sun began to hang low , sending great fan-like streamers of radiance up to the zenith , we foregathered in a tiny , sequestered valley , full of young green fern , lying in the shadow of a wooded hill . In it was a shallow pool -- a glimmering green sheet of water on whose banks nymphs might dance as blithely as ever they did on Argive hill or in Cretan dale . There we sat and stripped the faded leaves and stems from our spoil , making up the blossoms into bouquets to fill our baskets with sweetness . The Story Girl twisted a spray of divinest pink in her brown curls , and told us an old legend of a beautiful Indian maiden who died of a broken heart when the first snows of winter were falling , because she believed her long-absent lover was false . But he came back in the spring time from his long captivity ; and when he heard that she was dead he sought her grave to mourn her , and lo , under the dead leaves of the old year he found sweet sprays of a blossom never seen before , and knew that it was a message of love and remembrance from his dark-eyed sweet-heart .
`` Except in stories Indian girls are called squaws , '' remarked practical XXXXX , tying his mayflowers together in one huge , solid , cabbage-like bunch .
Cecily Cretan Dan Indian Peg XII firs mayflowers morning streamers