Convinced that he
could not hold his own on their level, he shamelessly struck at once
above it.
"Suppose that one of those flowers," he continued, "was not like the
rest; that its stalks and leaves, instead of being green and soft, were
white and stringy like flannel as if to protect it from cold, wouldn't
it be nice to be able to say at once that it had lived only in the snow,
and that some one must have gone all that way up there above the snow
line to pick it?" The children, taken aback by this unfair introduction
of a floral stranger, were silent. Cressy thoughtfully accepted botany
on those possibilities. A week later she laid on the master's desk a
limp-looking plant with a stalk like heavy frayed worsted yarn. "It
ain't much to look at after all, is it?" she said. "I reckon I could cut
a better one with scissors outer an old cloth jacket of mine."
"And you found it here?" asked the master in surprise.
"I got Masters to look for it when he was on the Summit. I described it
to him. I didn't allow he had the gumption to get it.
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