"The Poppy is indigenous now only on the verdureless banks of the
Styx. When Proserpine, who was gathering flowers, was carried away
to the dark Avernus, all the other blossoms which she had woven in
her garland withered and died, but the Poppy; and that the goddess
planted in the land of darkness and gloom, and called it the flower
of Death. She flourishes there in great luxuriance; Nox and Somnus
make her bed their couch. The aching head, which is bound with a
garland of her blossoms, ceases to throb; the agonized soul which
drinks in her deep breath, wakes no more to sorrow. Death follows
wherever she comes!"
"We will not talk of such gloomy things!" said the Coreopsis, with
difficulty preserving her cheerfulness.
But the other plants were silent and dejected; all but the Amaranth,
who knew herself gifted with immortality, and the Box, who was very
stoical. But another trial awaited the poor Poppy.
The Nightshade had hardly ceased speaking, when soft, gentle human
voices were heard in the garden, and a child of three summers, with
rosy cheeks, deep blue eyes, and flowing, golden hair, came bounding
down the gravelled walks, followed by a fair lady. The child had
come to bid good morning to her flowers and birds, and as she
carolled to the latter, and paused now and then to inhale the breath
of some fragrant blossom, and examine the elegant form and rich and
varied tints of another, the little songsters sang more loudly and
cheerily; and the flowers, it seemed, became more sweet and
beautiful.
The Poppy, who was as ignorant as was any one else how she had found
her way into the garden, now began to reason with herself.
"Some one must have planted me here," she said; "and though I am not
as sweet as that proud Carnation, nor so elegant as that dignified
Dahlia, I may have as much right to remain here as they!" and she
raised her head erect, and spread out her broad, scarlet petals,
with their deep, ragged fringe, hoping to attract the notice of the
little girl.
And so indeed she did; for as the child paused before pale
sweet-scented Verbena, the flaunting Poppy caught her eye, and she
extended her hand toward the strange blossom.
"Carie, Carie, don't touch that vile thing!" said her mother, "it is
poisonous. The smell of it will make you sick. I do not see how it
came here. John must bring his spade and take it up. We will have
nothing in the garden but what is beautiful or sweet, and this is
neither!"
The poor Poppy! She had begun to love the little girl, the child had
smiled on her so sweetly, and the other flowers had seemed so
envious when that little white hand was stretched out towards her;
and when she drew back, at her Mother's call, reluctantly, but with
look of surprise and aversion, the Poppy did not care how soon she
was banished from a place where she had been treated so unjustly.
However, she was suffered to remain; whether the lady neglected
giving instructions to the gardener respecting her, or whether he
forgot her commands, I am not sure; but there she remained, day
after day, striving every morning to wake up early and pull off her
little green cap before the other flowers had opened their eyes, but
never succeeding in so doing.
It was no enviable position that she occupied, laughed at, despised,
and scorned by all the other flowers in the garden, and in hourly
expectation of being torn up by the roots and thrown into the
street--the poor Poppy!
One day when the lady and her Carie were walking in the garden, the
little girl, who had looked rather pale, put her hands suddenly to
her head, and cried aloud. Her mother was very much frightened. She
caught up the little girl in her arms, and tried to ascertain what
was the matter; but the child only pressed her hands more tightly to
her head, and cried more piteously. The lady carried her into the
house, and the family were soon all in an uproar. The servants were
all running hither and thither; no one seemed to know what was the
matter; for the lady had fainted from terror at her child's pale
face and agonized cries, and the little girl could tell nothing.
"It is that odious Poppy who is the cause of all this!" said the
flowers one to another (little Carie was indeed playing in her
immediate vicinity when she was seized with that dreadful distress),
"she has poisoned her." And their suspicions were confirmed when one
of the servants came running into the garden, and seizing hold of
the Poppy, stripped off every one of her bright scarlet petals, and
gathering them up, returned quickly to the house.
"You poor thing!" said the Elder, as the Poppy, so rudely handled,
bent down her dishonoured head to the ground; but not one of the
other flowers addressed to her a single word.
Through the long day she lay there--the Poppy--on the earth, trying
to forget what had happened; for she did not know but their words
were true, and she was the cause of the little girl's suffering--she
would so gladly have soothed her pain. The other flowers thought she
was dead, and the Poppy herself believed that she should never see
the light of another morning; but just before the day was gone, the
lady walked again into the garden accompanied by her husband;
and--what do you suppose the other flowers thought?--without
noticing one of them, the lady walked directly to the Poppy, lifted
her head from the ground, and leaned it against the frame which
supported the proud Carnation, and then, with her white hands,
replaced the loosened earth about her half uptorn roots.
"Oh, I hope it will not die!" she said to her husband, "I should
rather lose anything else in the garden, for I don't know but it
saved dear little Carie's life! She had a dreadful headache, and
nothing afforded her the least relief, till we bruised the leaves of
the Poppy, and bound them on her temples, and then she became quiet,
and fell into a gentle sleep. Oh, I hope it will live!"
Don't you think the Poppy did live, and was proud and happy enough?
Do you think she was ever afterwards ashamed of her little green
cap, or her ragged scarlet leaves? And do you think the other
flowers ever laughed at her again, or were ashamed of her
acquaintance?
When the summer had passed away, and the bright blossoms one by one
withered and died before the autumn's cool breath, the Poppy
cheerfully scattered her little seeds on the earth, and laid herself
down to die; for she knew that when another spring should come, and
her children should shoot up from the ground, they would be nurtured
as tenderly, and prized as highly as those of the sweeter and far
more beautiful flowers.