“I read somewhere the other day that the Japs arrange their flowers with a meaning.”
“O, they do,” cried Dorothy. “They have very little in one holder, perhaps only three flowers. One—the highest one—means Heaven, the next lower is Man, and the lowest is Earth.”
“I should have to have a diagram with every vase,” insisted Roger.
“The water in the bowl that holds the flowers represents the surface of the earth and the edge of the bowl is the horizon. Then they have ways of suggesting the different seasons—spring by flowers, summer by a lot of green leaves, autumn by bright colored leaves and winter by tall stems without much on them.”
“We’ve got flowers left in the gardens—lots of them,” insisted Ethel Brown proudly.
“Plenty,” answered Dorothy; “and by this time next year I hope we’ll have a little hot-house of our own so that we can have flowering plants all winter, but I like other things, too.”
“Miss Daisy was telling me the other day that we Americans didn’t pay enough attention to using through the winter branches of trees and seedling trees from the woods and boughs of pine and fir and cedar,” said Ethel Blue, who came through the house and had been listening to the conversation.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have a small maple-tree growing all winter in the dining-room if you put your mind on it,” answered Helen.
“A great jar of Norway spruce with cones hanging from the fingers would be stunning,” decided Roger, as he set his horse-radish in place and planted a tree at one end of it.
“The covers for the radiators are all on now,” said Dorothy, changing the subject. “Did you notice them when you came through the house?”