On bright days, when the lake was rippled by a
breeze, the lilies and sun-spangles danced together in radiant beauty,
and it became difficult to discriminate between them.
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.
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