Sweet Mistress Spring really had arrived. There was no longer the least doubt in Peter's mind. Gentle Sister South Wind, with the help of April showers, had swept away the very last of the snow. All through the Green Forest and all over the Green Meadows little people of every kind who had slept through the long winter were awakening. The little brown blankets that had wrapped and protected the leaf buds of the trees and bushes were bursting everywhere. Each day brought old feathered friends from the Sunny South where they had spent the cold weather.

Peter couldn't keep still. He just had to keep moving. It was such fun to greet the new arrivals, and to be the first to get the news of those who still were on the way, but had been left behind by the swifter-winged or those who were in a greater hurry to reach their old homes.

But with all his hurrying about to see his feathered friends, Peter didn't forget to keep his eyes open for new flowers. Every time he found one he had not seen before he tingled all over with pure joy. Not for the world would he miss one of these thrills of delight if he could help it. So as he scampered this way and that way through the Green Forest and over the Green Meadows, it was with a most delightful feeling that at any moment he might receive a happy surprise, and not a day passed without one or more of these surprises.

Very early one morning he was over in a part of the Green Forest where the ground was rich and damp. It was near the foot of the hill where he had first found the Saxifrage, and here and there big rocks were scattered about. It was as he came around one of these big rocks that Peter received one of these pleasant surprises. Right in front of him was a mass of soft, white, fuzzy looking flowers that at once reminded him of the white foam he had seen on the edge of a pool in the Laughing Brook. Though Peter didn't know it, other people had been reminded of the same thing by these little flowers, and so had given to the plant the name of Foamflower. And by this name it is very commonly known. It is also called the False Miterwort.

At first glance Peter was somehow reminded of those early friends of his, the Saxifrage flowers he had found higher up on the hill. And when you come to think of it this is not altogether strange, for the Foamflower belongs to the Saxifrage family. But when he came to look at them closely, they did not look so much like their relatives as he had thought. The tiny blossoms of the Saxifrage had been crowded together in little groups. These little flowers grew out from along the stem for some distance down from the tip and were not crowded. They were white and there were five tiny, somewhat pointed petals. From the heart of each little blossom there stood up ten of the little threadlike parts which are called stamens, each one tipped with a tiny package of the flower dust which we call pollen. It was these little stamens which at a distance made the flowers appear so soft and foamlike.

The stalks were nearly a foot high, and when Peter looked closely he saw that they were covered with very tiny hairs. The leaves were of good size and on long stems. At the base they were cut in like a heart. The edges were very irregular and the veins showed very plainly. When he looked at these leaves closely Peter discovered that these, too, were slightly hairy on the upper side, and that along the veins on the underside were the finest of fine hairs.

How long Peter would have sat admiring these beautiful little friends had nothing happened no one will ever know. You see something did happen. Sammy Jay suddenly began to scream, "Thief, thief, thief!" at the top of his lungs from a tree just back of Peter. Peter looked up just in time to see Redtail the Hawk at the very instant that Redtail saw him. Peter made a flying jump right over the Foamflowers and dodged behind a big rock. He was just in time, just in the very nick of time.

Redtail screamed with disappointment and flew away. He knew that it was a waste of time to wait for Peter to show himself again. Peter remained where he was, squatting under the overhanging side of that big rock, until he was sure that there was no longer any danger from Redtail. Then, quite as if nothing at all had happened, he started on his way.

He had gone but a short distance when he squealed right out with pleasure. Growing in rich, black earth which had been made by the decaying of countless leaves which had fallen among the rocks, were the quaintest little flowers Peter had yet seen. They hung from the underside of a slender, pale green, curving stalk. They were white, tipped with yellow, and looked like nothing so much as little white hearts hanging with the points down. In fact, they are often called Whitehearts. Had Peter ever looked in picture books, which of course he never had, he might have been reminded of the funny, baggy trousers which the little Dutch boys wear in Holland. You see two big petals were not shaped like petals at all, but grew together to make a sort of bag with two legs as it were, so that the flower was very much like a tiny pair of Dutch trousers hanging upside down. This is why these flowers are called Dutchman's-breeches. They are also called Soldiers' Caps and Eardrops.

Each flower had two other very small and narrow petals at right angles to the longer ones, and these were arched over six yellow stamens. From some of the stems or stalks only three or four of the pretty and curious little blossoms were hanging, while from others there were as many as nine. Most of them were white, but a few of them were tinted pink. The leaves, which came up all about them, were compound, which, as you know, means that each leaf looked as if it was made up of many small leaves. Each of these parts which seemed like smaller leaves was also divided. They grew on long, slender stems and were very beautiful, dainty and delicate.

Peter just couldn't tear himself away. He wondered if these curious little flowers contained nectar, and if they did how any of the insect folk could get it. Presently he found out. Along came Lady Bumblebee. Now Lady Bumblebee has a very long tongue. She needed it now. From flower to flower she flew, clinging to each in turn. To make that long tongue reach the nectar in the heart of each little blossom Lady Bumblebee had to cling tightly to the flower, and in doing this she got herself well dusted with yellow pollen. Of course, when she visited the next flower she left some of that pollen there, which was exactly what Old Mother Nature had planned she should do, so that each little flower might in turn make seeds.

Peter was rudely startled by a shout. He turned hastily to see coming that way the boy and girl whom he had seen tearing up Arbutus earlier in the season. They at once began picking the beautiful little Whitehearts, and there wasn't a thing Peter could do about it. It made him boil inside! Such beautiful, dainty flowers were not intended to be picked. They would soon wither and fall from the stems. They belonged right where they were in the Green Forest, and nowhere else.

Even Peter knew that if no flowers were left there could be no seeds, and if there were no seeds there could be no new plants.

But the thoughtless children kept right on picking until not a blossom was left. Then away they went to search for more, while Peter sadly started for home in the dear Old Briar-patch. The finding of those Dutchman's-breeches had given him a great joy, but now that joy had been turned to sadness. There was something missing in the Green Forest, something that could not be replaced.

"I wish," said Peter, very fiercely, "that I were as big as Buster Bear. I'd scare those two-legged robbers so that they never, never would want to pick flowers again."