“Good-bye!” repeated the other, and lay still; and waited more than ever.
The first grew and grew, pushing itself straight up, till at last it felt that it was in the open air, for it could breathe. And what a delicious breath that was! It was rather cold, but so refreshing. The flower could see nothing, for it was not quite a flower yet, only a plant; and they never see till their eyes come, that is, till they open their blossoms,—then they are flowers quite. So it grew and grew, and kept its head up very steadily, meaning to see the sky the first thing, and leave the earth quite behind as well as beneath it. But somehow or other, though why it could not tell, it felt very much inclined to cry. At length it opened its eye. It was morning, and the sky was over its head but, alas! itself was no rose,—only a tiny white flower. It felt more inclined to hang down its head and to cry but it still resisted, and tried hard to open its eye wide, and to hold its head upright, and to look full at the sky.
“I will be a star of Bethlehem, at least!” said the flower to itself.
But its head felt very heavy and a cold wind rushed over it, and bowed it down towards the earth. And the flower saw that the time of the singing of birds was not come, that the snow covered the whole land, and that there was not a single flower in sight but itself. And it half-closed its leaves. But that instant it remembered what the other flower used to say; and it said to itself, “It’s all right; I will be what I can.” And thereon it yielded to the wind, dropped its head to the earth, and looked no more on the sky, but on the snow. And straightway the wind stopped, and the cold died away, and the snow sparkled like pearls, and diamonds; and the flower knew that it was the holding of its head up that had hurt it so; for that its body came of the snow, and that its name was Snow-drop. And so it said once more, “It’s all right!” and waited in perfect peace. All the rest it needed was to hang its head after its nature.
HOW THE FLOWERS CAME[5]
Jay T. Stocking
Ever so many centuries ago the world was bare and grey as the street. The Earth King grew very tired of it, and covered the earth with a beautiful carpet of green. We call it grass. For years and years there was nothing but green, until the Earth King grew as tired of the green as he had grown of the grey. He decided that he must have more colours. So one day he took his royal retinue and journeyed to a hillside where he knew there grew the very finest grasses in all the kingdom. At a blast of the King’s bugler the grasses assembled, and the King addressed them in simple words: “My faithful grasses. It is many years since I placed you here. You have been faithful. You have kept true green. It now pleases me to announce to you that I am about to reward a certain number of you and make you to be lords and ladies of the field. To-morrow I shall come hither at this same hour. You are to assemble before me, and the fairest of your number and the most pleasing I will honour with great and lasting honour. Farewell.”