and cattle, the milk and the butter, were
kept guarded from them. Many and many an evening I've listened to my
mother that's dead and gone--God rest her soul!--telling of an old
woman that, at the time of the blooming of the hawthorn, always put a
spent coal under the churn, and another beneath the grandchild's
cradle, because that was said to drive the fairies away; and how
primroses used to be scattered at the door of the house to prevent the
fairies from stealing in, because they could not pass that flower. But
you don't hear much of that any more; for the priest said 'twas
superstition, and down from the heathenish times. So the old people
came to see 'twas wrong to use such charms, and the young people
laughed at the old women's tales. Now on May Day the shrines in the
churches are bright with flowers, of course. And as for the innocent
merrymakings, instead of a dance round the May or hawthorn bush, as in
the olden times, in some places there's just perhaps a frolic on the
village green, when the boys and girls come home from the hills and
dales with their garlands of spring blossoms--not paper flowers like
those," added Delia, with a contemptuous glance at Abby's wreath,
forgetting how much she had admired it only a few moments before.

Somehow it did not now seem so beautiful to Abby either. She took it
off, and gazed at it with a sigh.

"Here in New England the boys and girls go a-Maying," she said. "Last
year, when we were in the country, Larry and I went with our cousins.
We had such fun hanging May-baskets! I got nine. But," she went on,
regretfully, "I don't expect any this year; for city children do not
have those plays."

She went upstairs to the sitting-room, where Larry was rigging his boat
anew. He had been to the pond, but the wind wrought such havoc with
the little craft that he had to put into port for repairs.

Half an hour passed. Abby was dressing her beloved doll for an airing
on the sidewalk,--a promenade in a carriage, as the French say. While
thus occupied she half hummed, half sang, in a low voice, to herself, a
popular May hymn. When she reached the refrain, Larry joined, and
Delia appeared at the door just in time to swell the chorus with honest
fervor:

"See, sweet Mary, on thy altars
Bloom the fairest flowers of May.
Oh, may we, earth's sons and daughters,
Grow by grace as fair as they!"

"If you please," said Delia at its close, "there's a man below stai