Other seeds were gathered as the children's spoils: those of the garden balsam, to see them burst, or to feel them curl up in the hand like living creatures; those of the balsam's cousin, the jewelweed, to watch them snap violently open—hence its country name of touch-me-not and snapweed. When the leaves were hung with dew it deserved its title of jewelweed, and when they were immersed in water its other pretty descriptive folk name of silver-leaf.
A grotesquery could be formed from the seed-pods in the centre of the peony, when opened, in such a way that the tiny pink and white seeds resembled two sets of teeth in an open mouth. Imaginary miniature likenesses were found in the various parts of many flowers: the naked pistil and stamens of one were a pair of tongs; another had a seed ovary which was a lady, a very stout lady with extending hoops. The heart's-ease had in its centre an old lady washing her feet; the monk's-hood, a devil in his chariot. A single petal of the columbine, with attached sepals, was a hovering dove, and the whole flower—Izaak Walton's "culverkeys"—formed a little dish with a ring of pigeon-heads bending within.
There were many primitive inks and staining juices that could be expressed, and milks and gums that exuded, from various plants. We painted pictures in our books with the sap from the petals of the red peonies, and blue juice from the blossom of the spiderwort, or tradescantia, now a neglected flower. We dyed dolls' clothes with the juice of elderberries. The country child could also dye a vivid red with the juice of the pokeberry, the "red-ink" plant, or with the stems of the bloodroot; and the sap crushed from soft, pulpy leaves, such as those of the live-for-ever, furnished a green stain.
There was a certain garden lore connected with insects, not so extensive, probably, as a child would have upon a farm. We said to the snail:—
"Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I will beat you as black as a coal."
We sang to the lady-bug:—
"Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home;
Your house is on fire, your children will burn."
We caught the grasshoppers, and thus exhorted them:—
"Grandfather, grandfather gray,
Give me molasses, or I'll throw you away."
We believed that earwigs lived for the sole purpose of penetrating our ears, that dragon-flies flew with the sole thought of sewing up our lips—devil's darning-needles we called them. To this day I instinctively cover my mouth at their approach. We used to entrap bumble-bees in the bells of monopetalous flowers such as canterbury-bells, or in the ample folds of the hollyhock, and listen to their indignant scolding and buzzing, and watch them gnaw and push out to freedom. I cannot recall ever being stung in the process.