"Ay, ay, too late," replied the old man, trudging on toward his greenhouse, for he had much to do to prepare his rustic beauties for their trip to the city.
"Oh dear," said a young Violet a week after, when they were all flourishing in the greenhouse, "why am I always to be in the shade, and that great Japonica towering above me?"
"And I too," murmured a Wind-flower, flushing faintly.
"Who cares for any of them?" chirruped a Daisy. "Here or there matters not to me."
"You are near the sun, madam," argued an Orchid.
"Be quiet, all of you," roared Jack-in-the-pulpit. "Who'll care for Japonicas and such common folk when we go to town?"
There was common-sense in that, so the wild flowers settled down in silence.
The day before the show there was a fine uproar in the greenhouses. The wild flowers babbled and laughed and danced on their stems for joy. No one knew it but Andrew, and he said nothing.
Such a snipping and binding and showering was kept up all day that when evening came they were glad to fall asleep in their packing boxes, nor did they waken until daybreak, when the men moved them into a large covered van on wheels.
By-and-by they heard a great trampling of hoofs, and a clatter. The horses were being harnessed to the van. Presently, with a jerk, they were off to the wonderful city—the big world they had never seen.