"So the Clerk of Plants, who was alive then, like the Weather Clerk, you know, put down 'Cabbage,' which was the fat fellow's name, and wrote after it, 'Sweet vegetable—needs care.'
"'I,' said another, 'would like to be a sweet vegetable, too, but I want to grow mostly under the ground, so that I will need less care to keep off insects and worms.'
"So then the Clerk of Plants wrote 'Turnip,' and put after it, 'Vegetable with sweet, wholesome root; needs little care.'
"So they went on with those who wanted to be vegetables. But most of the others did not want to be quite so sweet in their nature as the turnip and the cabbage. They said they liked people with a little temper of their own, so the radish, who was a fat, red little chap, was put down as a vegetable rather sweet, but with sharp flavor, and 'Horseradish' was put down, 'Very sharp and biting, to be used only for seasoning.' The Clerk was about to turn to those who wanted to be flowers, when a little green plant, who had been named 'Nose Torment,' because he made people's noses itch and burn, spoke up and said, 'I should like to be beautiful and useful, too—a pretty green dressing that people like, and I will grow in the water, which may wash away some of my ill manners.'
"So then the Clerk of Plants dropped the name of 'Nose Torment' and wrote down, 'Water Cross, a fine table-salad—grows in clear streams.'
"'But I don't like the name "Cross,"' said the little plant.
"'Oh, well,' said the clerk, 'spell it with an "e" then—make it Cress.' So Water-cress it became, and all the others spelled their family name with an 'e,' too, and became the Cress family instead of the Cross family, just as people often change the spelling of their names to-day.
"But the Clerk of Plants wasn't through, for there were a good many who wanted to be flowers. Some of them wanted to be very sweet flowers, and some, like mustard, wanted to be flowers and useful, too. So the Clerk wrote down 'Wallflower,' and 'Stock' and Candy tuft,' and a good many others, but there was one gentle little blossom which said, 'Oh, I want to be white and pure, and have a sweet and delicate perfume that all people will love.' And this was 'Alyssum,' and when the Clerk wrote it down, he wrote it 'Sweet Alyssum,' and so it has been called ever since.
"And then, when the Clerk was all through, he said, 'There are some who have not come to the meeting. Where is your brother, Mustard? And yours, Alyssum, the one we call Pepper-grass, because he is so fiery?'