"Be very careful not to go near that ugly little bush," said the children to each other. "It will scratch you even worse than the cat scratches."
All this was very discouraging, and the prickly little bush drooped and did not feel like growing.
The days of the summer grew warmer, the sun shone, and soft rains fell upon the garden. A pleasant breeze came singing down the path, and the sun, and the rain, and the breeze, each one, spoke to the prickly little bush.
"Climb up a little higher," the great, yellow sun seemed to say. So the prickly little bush pulled and stretched its prickly branches up toward the blue sky, and as it grew higher and higher, its thorns went, too, out of the way of the rabbit and the children.
"Push harder," the pattering raindrops seemed to say to the roots of the prickly little bush as they soaked down through the ground. So the roots of the prickly little bush pushed, and pushed until the branches seemed bursting, and green leaves and tiny buds came and covered over the thorns so that they could scarcely be seen at all.
"Open your buds as wide as you can," the warm breezes seemed to sing as they stopped in the branches of the prickly little bush. So the little bush unfolded its brown buds as wide and as prettily as it could.
Then it came to be the most beautiful day of all, the mother's birthday. The children went out to the garden to try to find the loveliest thing that grew there to be their mother's birthday gift. And that was not easy because the garden was so full of lovely things.
"I am sure that she will like this tall white lily," said one of the children.
"But the lily fades so quickly after it is picked," said another child. "I think that she would like a red tulip."
"But our mother loves pink better than she loves red," said the youngest child. "Do let us go on a little farther before we decide what to take her for her birthday. Oh, how pretty—" The youngest child stopped in front of the prickly little bush, and the others crowded close to see, too.