I did not hear what he said about the sweet pea. I had gone further on to where a woman was standing with her hand affectionately round a pot from which rose a fine, healthy plant, with rich, deep purple flowers nestling in the leaves that grew to the very pinnacle of the stem. There I waited. I wanted to hear what the judges were going to say about this one. I wanted to hear very much indeed.
This woman, too, seeing my interest in her exhibit, smiled with generous satisfaction.
“Think I’ve got a chanst, sir?”
“I don’t know,” said I—“it’s fine and strong.”
“And look at all the blossoms,” said she with enthusiasm—“you wouldn’t believe it, but my son brought that from the country last year when ’e went for the houtin’. ’E brought it back, dragged up almost to the roots it was—an’ it was in flower then. ‘Put it in a vawse,’ I says, but my ole man, ’e says—‘Shove it in a bloomin’ pot,’ ’e says, ‘that’ll grow,’ ’e says—‘it’s got roots to it.’ So we puts it in a pot and sticks it out on a window sill, and there it is. It died down to nothin’ last winter, but my ole man, ’e wouldn’t let me throw the pot away. ‘Give it a chanst of the spring,’ ’e says—‘give it a chanst of the spring.’ And bless my soul, if we didn’t see little bits of green sticking up through the mould before the beginning of last March.”
“It’s been a constant interest since then?” said I.
“Hinterest! Why my ole man said as I was killin’ it, the way I watered it and looked after it.”
“And what do you call it?” I asked.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said. “Nobody seems to know. We call it—William.”
I laughed. “There is a flower called Sweet William,” said I.