On Sundays, after or before chores and sermons and Bible-lessons, we drifted about on the lake for hours, especially in lily time, getting finest lessons and sermons from the water and flowers, ducks, fishes, and muskrats.  In particular we took Christ’s advice and devoutly “considered the lilies”—­how they grow up in beauty out of gray lime mud, and ride gloriously among the breezy sun-spangles.  On our way home we gathered grand bouquets of them to be kept fresh all the week.  No flower was hailed with greater wonder and admiration by the European settlers in general—­Scotch, English, and Irish—­than this white water-lily (Nymphaea odorata).  It is a magnificent plant, queen of the inland waters, pure white, three or four inches in diameter, the most beautiful, sumptuous, and deliciously fragrant of all our Wisconsin flowers.  No lily garden in civilization we had ever seen could compare with our lake garden.

The next most admirable flower in the estimation of settlers in this part of the new world was the pasque-flower or wind-flower (Anemone patens var. Nuttalliana).  It is the very first to appear in the spring, covering the cold gray-black ground with cheery blossoms.  Before the axe or plough had touched the “oak openings” of Wisconsin, they were swept by running fires almost every autumn after the grass became dry.  If from any cause, such as early snowstorms or late rains, they happened to escape the autumn fire besom, they were likely to be burned in the spring after the snow melted.  But whether burned in the spring or fall, ashes and bits of charred twigs and grass stems made the whole country look dismal.  Then, before a single grass-blade had sprouted, a hopeful multitude of large hairy, silky buds about as thick as one’s thumb came to light, pushing up through the black and gray ashes and cinders, and before these buds were fairly free from the ground they opened wide and displayed purple blossoms about two inches in diameter, giving beauty for ashes in glorious abundance.  Instead of remaining in the ground waiting for warm weather and companions, this admirable plant seemed to be in haste to rise and cheer the desolate landscape.  Then at its leisure, after other plants had come to its help, it spread its leaves and grew up to a height of about two or three feet.  The spreading leaves formed a whorl on the ground, and another about the middle of the stem as an involucre, and on the top of the stem the silky, hairy long-tailed seeds formed a head like a second flower.  A little church was established among the earlier settlers and the meetings at first were held in our house.  After working hard all the week it was difficult for boys to sit still through long sermons without falling asleep, especially in warm weather.  In this drowsy trouble the charming anemone came to our help.  A pocketful of the pungent seeds industriously nibbled while the discourses were at their dullest kept us awake and filled our minds with flowers.