CHAPTER VII
OLD FLOWER FAVORITES
"God does not send us strange flowers every year.
When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant places
The same dear things lift up the same fair faces;
The Violet is here.
"It all comes back; the odor, grace, and hue
Each sweet relation of its life repeated;
No blank is left, no looking-for is cheated;
It is the thing we knew."
—Adeline D. T. Whitney, 1861.
Not only do I love to see the same dear things year after year, and to welcome the same odor, grace, and hue; but I love to find them in the same places. I like a garden in which plants have been growing in one spot for a long time, where they have a fixed home and surroundings. In our garden the same flowers shoulder each other comfortably and crowd each other a little, year after year. They look, my sister says, like long-established neighbors, like old family friends, not as if they had just "moved in," and didn't know each other's names and faces. Plants grow better when they are among flower friends. I suppose we have to transplant some plants, sometimes; but I would try to keep old friends together even in those removals. They would be lonely when they opened their eyes after the winter's sleep, and saw strange flower forms and unknown faces around them.
