“How long it is!” it said. “I feel quite cramped. I must stretch myself and rise up a little. I must lift the latch, and look out, and say 'good-morning' to the spring.”
So the flower pushed and pushed. The walls were softened by the rain and warmed by the little sunbeams, so the flower shot up from under the snow, with a pale green bud on its stalk and some long narrow leaves on either side. It was biting cold.
“You are a little too early,” said the wind and the weather; but every sunbeam sang: “Welcome,” and the flower raised its head from the snow and unfolded itself—pure and white, and decked with green stripes.
It was weather to freeze it to pieces,—such a delicate little flower,—but it was stronger than any one knew. It stood in its white dress in the white snow, bowing its head when the snow-flakes fell, and raising it again to smile at the sunbeams, and every day it grew sweeter.
“Oh!” shouted the children, as they ran into the garden, “see the snowdrop! There it stands so pretty, so beautiful,—the first, the only one!”
THE THREE LITTLE BUTTERFLY BROTHERS
(FROM THE GERMAN)[2]
2 ([return])
[ From Deutsches Drittes Lesebuch, by W. H. Weick and C. Grebner. Copyright, 1886, by Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. American Book Company, publishers.]