I DON'T SEE WHAT WEEDS ARE FOR, ANYWAY
And the very next day was Fourth of July, with all the fire-crackers and torpedoes and sky-rockets that always come on that day.
But there was something else. For when big Prue and the Chief Gardener come to the breakfast-table, they found that Davy and little Prue had arranged what Prue called a "susprise." The room was all red, white, and blue—not with flags or bunting, but with flowers.
There were bowls of red and white and blue morning-glories on the sideboard, and in the center of the table there was a very large bowl of red, white, and blue sweet-pease, so nicely arranged that each color was separate, and the whole looked like a cake of flowers cut in three equal parts. And there were other red and white and blue flowers, too, but the sweet-pea bowl in the center was the finest of all.
There was not much gardening that day, of course, for there were parades to see and music to hear, and fireworks in the evening. The Chief Gardener had brought home the fireworks, and when all the rockets had been fired and the Roman candles, he brought out something larger than the rest, and when it was lighted, it all at once turned into a great flower-pot and sent out hundreds of the most beautiful fiery flowers, such as no garden would grow, no matter how hot it was.
"That is to pay for the sus-prise you gave us this morning," said the Chief Gardener, when little Prue was through dancing and squealing and jumping up and down with delight. "They grew in that hot sun yesterday."
But little Prue didn't believe it, though she did ask if some of the stars which came out of the rockets didn't stay in the sky with the other stars. She was quite certain she had never seen so many in the sky before.
July was a great month in the little gardens. Almost everything bloomed and bore. The pinks, the pansies, the alyssum, the sweet-williams and the morning-glories—they grew and then bloomed and crowded each other in their beds until some of them had to be moved into new places, while as for Davy's things, his corn grew taller and taller, until it shaded his tomato vines, and he was afraid they would not do well for want of sun. But the sun was up so high, and was so hot in July, that perhaps they got enough anyway, for they grew so big they had to be tied up, and the tomatoes on them were so large that Davy thought one was almost enough for a whole family. As for his beans—well, Davy will plant fewer beans next year. They began to bear just a little at first, and then, all at once, there were beans enough on his few hills, not only for himself and Prue, but for the rest of the family, and then for the neighbors, too. Davy picked nearly all one hot afternoon to keep up with his bean crop, and then nearly trotted his fat legs off carrying little baskets to the different people that he knew, explaining to each that these were really from his own garden—his own beans that he had planted and tended himself. Then he and Prue carried some vegetables and flowers to a little hospital not far away, where there were some sick children, and some who were just getting well. And it was a happy, happy time for the little boy and girl when they took the things they had planted and cared for to the other little boys and girls who seemed so glad to have them come.
But as the weather grew warmer and summer showers came the weeds got worse and worse. Sometimes when Davy and Prue had tried very hard to get them all out and found that new ones had come almost over night, while some of the old ones they had cut down had taken root again, they were almost discouraged.
"I don't see what weeds are for anyway," Davy said one warm morning, almost crying, and little Prue, whose face was very red and hot, flung herself down in the shady peach-tree house, too tired to talk. "Now, there's that old pursley, I pull and pull and cut, and unless I carry every bit of it away, it all takes root again and grows right along as if I hadn't touched it."
"Yes," said the Chief Gardener, "it is a nuisance. I suppose its pretty sister is very much ashamed of it."
"Its sister! Why, who is its sister?" asked Davy, while little Prue sat up and forgot she was tired.
"Miss Portulaca Purslane, of course, sometimes called Rose-moss, because her flower is something like a wild rose and her stem and leaves a little like overgrown moss."
"Oh, is my sweet rose-moss just old pursley weed?" whimpered little Prue, who was very proud of a little bunch of portulaca that was just in full bloom. She had chosen the pretty flower from a catalogue, and it had been one of her best growers.
"Why, no, Prue, your rose-moss is not a weed at all, but she belongs to the Purslane family, and like a good many other families it has a member who has run wild and become a disgrace to its relatives and a trouble to everybody. There is another wild purslane, but it is not a weed. It is just a little wild-wood cousin of Portulaca. Her name is Claytonia, and she lives in pleasant places in the woods, and hides under the leaves in winter-time. Most people call her Spring-beauty."
"Oh, Spring-beauty! Oh, I know! Just bushels of them—Davy and I found over by the lake last spring! Little white flowers with pink lines in them, and smell—just a little tiny smell—so—so springy and wild. Oh, I just love Spring-beauties! But I'm sorry my nice rose-moss is pursley. Is it, Papa? Is it really a sister to that ugly weed?"
"Suppose you bring a branch of each over to the bench here—one with flowers on it."
Prue brought a sprig of her precious rose-moss, and Davy a large piece of the pursley from the pile he had just cut down. The Chief Gardener took them and put them together.
"You see, they are a good deal alike," he said, "though the leaves are different—Miss Portulaca's being the finer."
Then he took one of the tiny pursley flowers and put it under the magnifying-glass, and let the children look. Yes, it was almost exactly like the beautiful flower of the rose-moss, only smaller. Each flower had two green sepals and five colored petals, also five stamens, so they knew it was an exogen, though it would have been harder to tell this from the thick, pulpy leaves and stem. The little seed-pod of each had a tiny cap which lifted off when the seeds were ripe, leaving a perfect cup, heaping full.
"You see, children," said the Chief Gardener, "weeds do not care to be either useful or ornamental. So they become rank and common, and lose their beautiful flowers. But somehow they never have any less seed. They want to grow just as thickly as they can, and however small their flowers are, the seed-pods are always full to the brim."
"Well," said Prue, "I'm sure there can't be any of my flowers relation to chickweed. I never can get that out of my beds."
The Chief Gardener thought a minute.
"Why, yes, Prue," he said, "that's Cousin Stella; I suppose she came to see the beautiful Dian and to make her all the trouble she can."
"Oh, Papa! what do you mean by Stella and Dian?"
"Well, Stellaria is chickweed, and she's a cousin to Dianthus, your lovely pinks. I suppose you might call them Stella and Dian, for short. They are not very nearly related, but they do belong to the same family, and perhaps they were once more alike. I don't suppose beautiful Dian would own Stella, but Stella (or perhaps her weed friends call her Chick), is a great nuisance and makes Dian and her friends all the trouble she can."
"Papa," said Davy, who had been silent all this time, "are there really any plant families that don't have wild members who behave badly and become just weeds?"
"I don't remember any real weeds in the Lily family, Davy, though almost any plant will become a weed if allowed to run wild and live in fence corners, like a tramp. They become prodigals then, like the man's son in the Bible. And sometimes they come back to the garden, as the prodigal son did, to become well-behaved and useful flowers again. Of course, there are many others that have always lived wild in the woods and fields, and are not called weeds, because they do not spread and destroy other plants. These are our wild flowers, and the world would be poor, indeed, without them. Sometimes we bring them into the garden, and make them grow larger and call them by a new name. And sometimes, I am sorry to say, a sweet wild flower will suddenly spread and overrun the fields and become almost a weed. I am afraid our beautiful daisies are becoming a weed to a good many farmers. Those fields that are like banks of snow, and so beautiful to us, must worry the man who owns them and cannot get rid of the millions of 'rare Marguerites!'"
Little Prue sighed.
"Oh, dear," she said, "it's just too bad that there isn't some flower, or somebody, or something that can be just every bit good, all the time, to everybody."
The Chief Gardener smiled.
"We can only do our very best," he said.
AUGUST