"BETHEA WATERED AND TENDED THEM SO FAITHFULLY THAT THEY LOVED HER."
On a soft spring day Bethea stood by her garden with scissors and basket, snipping away at the brightest and best of her children; carefully, so that she might not hurt them, and with judgment, so that they might bloom again when they wished to.
"Do you know where you're going?" she said—"To the Hospital. Grandmamma's going to take me, and you're being gathered to cheer up the sick people there—aren't you pleased?" And the flowers nodded.
"I don't suppose I shall be picked. I don't think I'm good enough!" whispered a very small purple pansy, who had only recently been planted, to a beetle who happened to be crawling by. "I should like to go with the others, though I don't suppose it would cheer anyone to see me, I'm not light enough!"
"Don't be too sure," said the beetle solidly. "You've a nice velvety softness about you, and then you have the best name of them all. What sick person wouldn't like to have Heartsease?"
"I think I've got enough now," said Bethea, as she laid the last primula in her basket.
"Oh, do take me!" cried the pansy, touching her little brown shoe with one of its leaves to attract her attention, "I do want to help!" and Bethea stooped down, she scarcely knew why, gathered it, and put it with the rest of her flowers.
The drive to the Hospital was along a dusty country road, and the flowers under their paper covering, gasped for breath.
As soon as they arrived, Bethea, following her grandmother, carried them up to the room where children were lying in the little white beds, and gave them to the woman who was in charge of it.
"Please would you mind putting them in water for the children," she said in her soft voice, and the woman smiled and nodded.