easy now to find it. Once, no
doubt, it blossomed about the feet of the pioneers, sending up its
fragrance to them as they trod sturdily along their first street
and through their new found fields that first spring after their
arrival. My, but their hearts must have been homesick for the
English May they had left behind! and in memory of the pink and
white of the hawthorn hedges they called this pink and white
flower which peered from the oval-leaved vines trailed about their
feet, mayflower. It surely must have grown on the slopes of Burial
Hill, down toward Town Brook, but now one will look in vain for it
there. I found my first blossom of the year by following the brook
up to its headwaters in Billington Sea. The brook itself is
greatly changed since Bradford's day. Its waters are now held back
by dams where it winds through the sand hills and one mill after
another sits by the side of the ponds thus formed. Yet the "sea"
itself must be much the same in itself and its surroundings as it
was in Billington's time. Nor do I wholly believe the legend which
has it that Billington thought it was a sea in very truth. It is
too obviously a pond to have deceived even this unsophisticated
wanderer. It covers but little over three hundred acres including
its islands and winding coves.

*****

I think, rather, its name was given in good natured derision of
Billington and his idea of the importance of his discovery, a form
of quaint humor not unknown in the descendants to the Pilgrims of
this day. Yet the waters of the little winding pond are as clear
as those of the sea which breaks on the rocks of Manomet or the
Gurnet, and the hilly shores, close set with deciduous growth, are
almost as wild as they were then. The robins that greeted the dawn
on Burial Hill sang here at midday, blackbirds chorused, and song
sparrows sent forth their tinkling songs from the shrubby growths.
Plymouth woods, here at least, are a monotony of oaks. Yet here
and there in the low places a maple has become a burning bush of
ruby flame, and along the bog edges the willows are in the full
glory of their yellow plumes. The richest massed coloring one can
see in the region today, though, is that of the cranberry bogs.
Looking away from the sun the thick-set vines are a level floor of
rich maroon, not a level color but a background showing the brush
marks of a master painter's hand. Toward the sun this color
lightens and silvers to tiny jewel points w