It was a novel idea, certainly. Even Alfred, while trying to heartily second her, was in doubt as to what she could hope to accomplish by it. As for the boys, not one of them promised to attend; but neither did they refuse. Mrs. Roberts presently left the subject, seeming to consider her point carried, and proposed a visit to the conservatory.
I think it very doubtful whether the boy lives who does not like flowers. There are those who seem to consider it a mark of manliness to affect indifference to them; but these, as they grow older—become real men—generally lay this bit of folly aside. Then there are those, plenty of them, who really do not know that they care for flowers. The boys, ushered for the first time in their lives into the full bloom of a conservatory, were, most of them, of this latter stamp.
What a scene of beauty it was! Great white callas, bending their graceful cups; great red and yellow roses, making the air rich with their breath; vines and mosses and ferns and small flowers in almost endless variety. Alfred and Gracie moved among the glories; the latter exhausting all her superlatives in honest delight, although she had visited the spot a dozen times that day; and Alfred, who had been less favored, was hardly less eager and responsive than she. But Mrs. Roberts watched the boys.
It was all very well for those two to enjoy her flowers; of course they would. But what language would the silent, lovely things speak to her untutored boys? They said not a word; not one of them. They made no exclamations; they had no superlatives at command. But Stephen Crowley stooped before a lovely carnation, and smelled, and smelled, drawing in long breaths, as though he meant to take its fragrance all away with him; and Nimble Dick picked up the straying end of an ivy, and restored it to its support again, in a way that was not to be lost sight of by one who was looking for hearts; and Dirk Colson brushed back his matted hair and stood long before a great, pure lily, and looked down into its heart with an expression on his face that his teacher never forgot.
She came over to him presently, standing beside him, saying nothing. Then at last she reached forth her hand and broke the lily from its stalk. He started, almost as if something had struck him.
“What did you do that for?” And his voice was fierce.
“I want you to take this for me to your sister—the girl with beautiful golden hair; I saw her one day, and I shall remember her hair and eyes. She will like this flower, and she will like you to bring it to her.
“Gracie”—raising her voice—“gather some flowers will you, and make into bouquets? These young gentlemen will like to carry them to some one. There must be mothers at home who will enjoy bouquets brought by their sons.”
Over this gently-spoken sentence Nimble Dick laughed a hard, derisive laugh. It made the dark blood flow into black Dirk's indignant face. Even Alfred Ried lost self-control for a moment, and flashed a glance at him out of angry eyes. How could there be any hope of a boy who sneered at his mother? Yet you need not judge him too harshly.
He thought of his mother, indeed, when he laughed; but alas! he thought of her as drunk. And he knew her scarcely at all, save as that word described her. How could “mother” mean to him what it meant to Alfred Ried? what it meant even to Dirk Colson, whose mother, weak indeed in body and spirit, full of complaining words, oftentimes weakly bitter words to him, yet patched his clothes so long as she could get patches and thread, and would have washed them if she could have got soap, and been able to bring the water, and if her only tub hadn't been in pawn. Oh, yes, there are degrees in mothers.