Voice of Flowers/The Travelled Flower
THE TRAVELLED FLOWER.
A daisy, which once grew on the banks of the Thames, in England, had been transplanted and brought to this country. It bore the voyage well, and flourished in the garden where it was placed,
A Cowslip, its nearest neighbor, was very kind, and if it ever looked sad, like a stranger, cheered it, and spoke words of comfort. It asked much of its adventures on the ocean, and of its native land. So it told its friend the Cowslip, whatever it desired to know.
It described the ship sailing quietly over the great waters, and its pleasant intercourse with a pansy that bore it company. "We stood side by side on a shelf, in the room of the person, with whom we emigrated.
"The Pansy was blessed with a large family of fine children, and I had two promising infants when I began the voyage. But they pined for the free air, and the fresh dews of the valley where they were born.
"I was ever watching and nursing them. One night, we were alarmed by great confusion and noise, and a chill that struck us to the heart. We heard a cry of "icebergs," and peeping through the window of our state room, saw monstrous masses of cold glittering ice floating around us.
"Then I heard the Pansy whispering to her little ones, not to be afraid to die. But I trembled with terror. That very night my youngest darling died. And had it not been for the care of my other drooping babe, I think I should have died too.
"The next day, they said we were out of danger, and the keen wintry cold passed away. And though we arrived safely, and I am happy in my new home, I never can bear to think of the voyage where my poor little one perished."
The kind neighbor could not help shivering with sympathy at the tale of sorrow. "I have heard people who walk in the garden, call you the Daisy of Runnimede. What can they mean by such a hard name?" asked the Cowslip.
"It is a delightful green vale in England, where, in old times, a king signed a paper, which gave the people freedom. For that reason it is visited as a sort of sacred place.
"My birth there, was all that gave me value in the eyes of my owner, and procured me the privilege of travelling to see distant lands."—Many things the Daisy related, so that the Cowslip, thus daily instructed, knew almost as much of foreign countries as if it had been there.
A Dandelion lived near, but did not incline to listen to these adventures. Indeed, she ridiculed the way in which her neighbors spent so much of their time, and said for her part, she had something else to do.
She thanked her stars she was not a blue,—no! not she! nor a pedant neither. The vanity of those travelled people was extremely ridiculous, always talking about what they had seen. She laughed loudly at the Cowslip, caling her an antiquarian, and said she wondered what good came from being such a deal wiser than other people.
A Sage-plant, who had cast off his blossoms, and gone to seed, heard her flippancy of speech and reproved her. He said, "knowlege is good; it teaches men how to be useful to each other, and keeps women from too much gadding abroad.
"By knowledge, my own salubrious properties have been discovered, so that I am not cut down like a common weed. Right knowledge teaches both men and flowers not to be slanderous, for it gives them higher and better subjects of thought."
So the Dandelion was silent before the Sage and ceased to laugh at those who were wiser than herself. For she had already perceived that they had some kind of secret happiness, and took comfort when other flowers were out of spirits, on stormy days, and when no butterflies visited them.