"Do you think any other flower could be queen over that?" she asked.
"Why, no, but—but don't folks have to choose queens, or something?"
"They do presidents," said Davy.
"I think you'll have to tell us about it," laughed the Chief Gardener. "It's your turn for a story, anyway."
So then big Prue took them all out on the wide veranda, where they could watch the sunset, that came very late now, and there she told them
II
HOW THE ROSE BECAME QUEEN
"Once upon a time there was a very great garden that lay between two ranges of blue, blue hills. And the sky above was blue, as blue as the hills, so that you could hardly tell where the sky ended and the hills began, and underneath was the great, beautiful garden which covered all the lands between.
"And in this rare garden there were all the choicest flowers and fruit that the world knew, and when the flowers were all in bloom, under that blue, blue sky—in all the wonderful colors of gold and crimson, and royal purple, and with all the banks of white daisies, and all the sweet orchards of apple-bloom, there was nothing like it in the whole world, and the sweet perfume went out so far that sailors on the ships coming in from sea, a hundred miles away, could smell the sweet odors, and would say, 'The wind blows from the garden of the Princess Beautiful.' For I must tell you that the garden was owned by a great Princess, and she was called Beautiful by all who knew of her, and every traveler to that distant country made his way to her white marble palace to seek permission to look upon the most wonderful garden in all the world.