MARCH 24: The Trailing Arbutus
“We mustn’t waste any more time,” whispered one of the trailing arbutus family to another.
“No, we mustn’t. We must awaken for we are first to awaken every year. And all the families in this part get up soon.
“Years ago,” continued the second arbutus, “some children came here to look for trailing arbutus flowers. They said to each other:
“‘It must be too soon. There aren’t any.’ But they looked under some of our leaves and several of us were trying to peep out as fast as we could, so we would not disappoint the children.
“Many of our sisters and brothers were picked and I believe they came out later in water.
“But those same children have come back every year, and now they are almost grown-up. They always say,
“‘Here is the first place we find these lovely spring flowers.’ And so we know what is expected of us. Our roots always hand on this story to all the arbutus flowers.”
And now along came the grown-ups and some children.
“We hide our heads under the leaves because we’re shy, but we love children and the whole beautiful world, so pick lots of us, and we’ll be bright and gay,” softly whispered the flowers.
But the children only knew that the flowers were very, very fragrant, and oh, so very sweet!