“Here! Here! This won’t do. Come, let us hear the rest of the story of this unfinished maid.”
“It isn’t true that I am not finished! As a clove I am complete and perfect. It is only that the buds are used before they are quite ready to turn into blossoms.
“If my buds were allowed to blossom there would never be a clove. What would the pickled peach do then, poor thing?”
“She’d stay in her jar,
And soon be sour,
And moulder away on the shelf, poor thing!”
promptly sang the audience.
At this Jack and Mother hid their heads in the blankets, shaking with laughter, and came forth with very red faces just in time to hear Miss Clove continue her spicy tale.
“The clove tree grows in the woods in hot countries, specially here and here, and here.”
“She’s on roller skates,” whispered Jack, as the Clove Lady sailed quickly and gracefully around the globe, touching with her wheeled feet Zanzibar, Brazil, and the West Indies.
“The audience need not note especially the countries pointed out,” said the Stick Doll, “but it is to me most interesting. You may continue.”