“O, do!” exclaimed little Alice, “O, do, do, Captain Hardy! they must be such pretty little things! But I don’t see how they ever get any chance to grow, when it is so cold and dreary. How do they?”
“Pretty they are indeed, my dear,” replied the kind-hearted Captain, pleased to have the question asked, as was evident, “and very wonderful. How they managed to grow is more than I can tell, and is just as astonishing to me as to yourselves. The snow, however, in the spring went pretty quickly; and as soon as the earth was free in any place, then we saw the tiniest flowers you ever saw coming up, seemingly right out of the frozen earth, and almost underneath the very snow,—at least within a few inches of it. The Dean and I one day came across one of these little flowers, looking just like a buttercup, only the whole plant was—well, the littlest thing you ever did see. Why, it was so little that little Alice’s little thimble, with which she is learning to sew so prettily, would have been quite large enough for a flower-pot to put the whole of it in! and it would have grown there, too,—and glad enough, no doubt. There was a great snow-bank hanging right over it, and there was ice all around it. But still it looked spunky, and happy, and well contented, and seemed quite able to take care of itself.
“As we walked on towards the hut, I noticed that the Dean grew very thoughtful.
“‘What’s the matter, Dean?’ said I; ‘what are you thinking about?’
“‘About that little flower,’ replied the Dean.
“At this I laughed, asking the Dean what there was in the little flower to think about.
“‘A great deal,’ said he.
“I laughed again, and asked him what it was.
“‘Why,’ said he, very soberly, ‘it is a lesson to us not to get the blues any more. If that poor flower can live and fight its way against such odds, I think we ought to!’
“Now there was more in that observation of the thoughtful little Dean than you would think for; and we talked a great deal about the little flower,—indeed, it came up between us very often; we went back many times to it, and watched it closely. Once there came a snow-storm and buried it up; but next day the snow was all melted, and the leaves came out as green, and the flower as yellow, and the whole plant as plucky, as ever. I should say the flower was about as large round as a very small pea, and it was just as yellow as gold; and the whole wee thing was not taller than a common-sized pin.