And dress ourselves up in the lovely gold light,
From rock, bed and border we’re smiling at you,
Good morning! Good morning! Now, you say it too!”
“Good morning! Good morning!” threw back the caroling sprite, her dark eyes dressing themselves up in light, too, as she impersonated her flowers. “Now! what was it I wanted especially to do this morning,” thus she silently questioned the dewy beds, “besides watching the sleepy flowers open in my flower clock, my sundial bed—that’s the clock which really gets me up early,” with a merry nod, “to study their waking time, as the shadow of the dial hand, beginning to move with sunrise, points to one after the other? Oh-h! I know; I wanted to do some transplanting, ‘housemove’ my little Quaker Ladies, before—before old Sods gets around. Now! did any of you ever hear of such a thing as a crusty old gardener whose ‘really truly’ name is—Jacob Sods?”
Whimsically she interrogated pansy and little blue johnny-jump-up, just opening its sleepy eye, daffodil, narcissus and lamp-like geranium which, open-eyed, had kept vigil all night long.
“Humph! There he is now! I never can get ahead of him.” The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“Lorie me! Miss Una,” grunted an old mountaineer who at that moment came shuffling down a garden path, spade in hand and munching a dew-piece, a hunch of bread. “Lorie me! Now, what be you up for so ear-rly! It ben’t but—five—o’clock.” He pulled a timeworn old silver watch out of a side pocket.
“Six—by—me!” Una glanced at her tiny jeweled wrist watch.
“Humph! I go by the Lord’s time, I’ll have you to know!” snorted Jacob Sods, gardener. “I—I ain’t no ‘nose o’ wax’ to be changin’ round.” He shuffled on, grunting.
Una’s tickled laughter rang out as she set to work to transplant her little Quaker Ladies from what was known as the wildflower garden to a sunny rock bed.