em in a glass bowl for a
centrepiece on the table for my artistic and beauty-loving niece; and
if kept moist, you will be surprised at the length of time they will
remain 'a thing of beauty' if not 'a joy forever.' And later, Mary,
from them I'll teach you to make violet beads."

"Aunt Sarah, notice that large robin endeavoring to pull a worm from
the ground. Do you suppose the same birds return here from the South
every Summer?"

"Certainty, I do."

"That old mulberry tree, from the berries of which you made such
delicious pies and marmalade last Summer, is it dead?"

"No; only late about getting its Spring outfit of leaves."

CHAPTER III.

SCHUGGENHAUS TOWNSHIP.

"Schuggenhaus," said Sarah Landis, speaking to her niece, Mary
Midleton, "is one of the largest and most populous townships in Bucks
County, probably so named by the early German settlers, some of whom,
I think, were my father's ancestors, as they came originally from
Zweibrucken, Germany, and settled in Schuggenhaus Township.
Schuggenhaus is one of the most fertile townships in Bucks County and
one of the best cultivated; farming is our principal occupation, and
the population of the township today is composed principally of the
descendants of well-to-do Germans, frequently called 'Pennsylvania
Dutch.'"

"I have often heard them called by that name," said Mary. "Have you
forgotten, Aunt Sarah, you promised to tell me something interesting
about the first red clover introduced in Bucks County?"

"Red clover," replied her Aunt, "that having bright, crimson-pink
heads, is the most plentiful and the most common variety of clover;
but knowing how abundantly it grows in different parts of the country
at the present time, one would scarcely have believed, in olden times,
that it would ever be so widely distributed as it now is.

"One reason clover does so well in this country is that the
fertilization of the clover is produced by pollenation by the busy
little bumble-bee, who carries the pollen from blossom to blossom, and
clover is dependent upon these small insects for fertilization, as
without them clover would soon die out."

"I admire the feathery, fuzzy, pink-tipped, rabbit-foot clover," said
Mary; "it is quite fragrant, and usually covered with butterflies. It
makes such very pretty bouquets when you gather huge bunches of it."

[Illustration: THE OLD MILL WHEEL]

"No, Mary, I think you are thinking of Alsatian clover, which is
simi