The wee woman herself would look at it no longer.
"I will look at the magic flower instead," she said to herself, and so she did. Early and late she tended the plant and worked to make her garden fair and lovely; but she kept her eyes from the dooryard. And if the wind from the east blew trash among her flowers she raked it away and burned it up and troubled no more about it.
Summer slipped into autumn and autumn to winter and the flowers slept; but at the first peep of spring the wee woman's garden budded and bloomed once more; and one day as she worked there, with her back to the dooryard, she heard passers-by call out in delight:
"Of all the gardens in the king's country there are none so pretty as these two," and when she looked around in surprise to see what they meant she saw that the neighbor's dooryard was full of flowers—hundreds and hundreds of lovely blossoms, every one as rosy as the little clouds at sunrise. They covered the heap of dirt and ashes, they clustered about the door stone; they filled the corners; and in the midst of them was the neighbor, raking and cleaning as busily as if she were the wee woman herself.
"'Tis fine weather for flowers," said she, nodding and smiling at the wee woman.
"The finest in the world," said the wee woman; and she nodded and smiled too, for she knew that the magic flower had done its work.
THE LIONS IN THE WAY[7]
