The Flower family lived in a little house in a broad grassy meadow,
which sloped a few rods from their front door down to a gentle,
silvery river. Right across the river rose a lovely dark green
mountain, and when there was a rainbow, as there frequently was,
nothing could have looked more enchanting than it did rising from
the opposite bank of the stream with the wet, shadowy mountain for a
background. All the Flower family would invariably run to their front
windows and their door to see it.
The Flower family numbered nine: Father and Mother Flower and seven
children. Father Flower was an unappreciated poet, Mother Flower was
very much like all mothers, and the seven children were very sweet and
interesting. Their first names all matched beautifully with their last
name, and with their personal appearance. For instance, the oldest
girl, who had soft blue eyes and flaxen curls, was called Flax Flower;
the little boy, who came next, and had very red cheeks and loved to
sleep late in the morning, was called Poppy Flower, and so on. This
charming suitableness of their names was owing to Father Flower. He
had a theory that a great deal of the misery and discord in the world
comes from things not matching properly as they should; and he thought
there ought to be a certain correspondence between all things that
were in juxtaposition to each other, just as there ought to be between
the last two words of a couplet of poetry. But he found, very often,
there was no correspondence at all, just as words in poetry do not
always rhyme when they should. However, he did his best to remedy
it. He saw that every one of his children's names were suitable
and accorded with their personal characteristics; and in his
flower-garden--for he raised flowers for the market--only those of
complementary colors were allowed to grow in adjoining beds, and, as
often as possible, they rhymed in their names. But that was a more
difficult matter to manage, and very few flowers were rhymed, or, if
they were, none rhymed correctly. He had a bed of box next to one of
phlox, and a trellis of woodbine grew next to one of eglantine, and a
thicket of elder-blows was next to one of rose; but he was forced
to let his violets and honeysuckles and many others go entirely
unrhymed--this disturbed him considerably, but he reflected that it
was not his fault, but that of the man who made the language and named
the different flowers--he should have looked to it that those of
complementary colors had names to rhyme with each other, then all
would have been harmonious and as it should have been.
Father Flower had chosen this way of earning his livelihood when he
realized that he was doomed to be an unappreciated poet, because it
suited so well with his name; and if the flowers had only rhymed a
little better he would have been very well contented. As it was, he
never grumbled. He also saw to it that the furniture in his little
house and the cooking utensils rhymed as nearly as possible, though
that too was oftentimes a difficult matter to bring about, and
required a vast deal of thought and hard study. The table always stood
under the gable end of the roof, the foot-stool always stood where it
was cool, and the big rocking-chair in a glare of sunlight; the lamp,
too, he kept down cellar where it was damp. But all these were rather
far-fetched, and sometimes quite inconvenient. Occasionally there
would be an article that he could not rhyme until he had spent years
of thought over it, and when he did it would disturb the comfort
of the family greatly. There was the spider. He puzzled over that
exceedingly, and when he rhymed it at last, Mother Flower or one of
the little girls had always to take the spider beside her, when she
sat down, which was of course quite troublesome. The kettle he rhymed
first with nettle, and hung a bunch of nettle over it, till all the
children got dreadfully stung. Then he tried settle, and hung the
kettle over the settle. But that was no place for it; they had to go
without their tea, and everybody who sat on the settle bumped his head
against the kettle. At last it occurred to Father Flower that if he
should make a slight change in the language the kettle could rhyme
with the skillet, and sit beside it on the stove, as it ought, leaving
harmony out of the question, to do. Accordingly all the children were
instructed to call the skillet a skettle, and the kettle stood by its
side on the stove ever afterward.
[Illustration: The Settle]
The house was a very pretty one, although it was quite rude and very
simple. It was built of logs and had a thatched roof, which projected
far out over the walls. But it was all overrun with the loveliest
flowering vines imaginable, and, inside, nothing could have been more
exquisitely neat and homelike; although there was only one room and a
little garret over it. All around the house were the flower-beds and
the vine-trellises and the blooming shrubs, and they were always in
the most beautiful order. Now, although all this was very pretty to
see, and seemingly very simple to bring to pass, yet there was a vast
deal of labor in it for some one; for flowers do not look so trim and
thriving without tending, and houses do not look so spotlessly clean
without constant care. All the Flower family worked hard; even the
littlest children had their daily tasks set them. The oldest girl,
especially, little Flax Flower, was kept busy from morning till night
taking care of her younger brothers and sisters, and weeding flowers.
But for all that she was a very happy little girl, as indeed were
the whole family, as they did not mind working, and loved each other
dearly.
Father Flower, to be sure, felt a little sad sometimes; for, although
his lot in life was a pleasant one, it was not exactly what he would
have chosen. Once in a while he had a great longing for something
different. He confided a great many of his feelings to Flax Flower;
she was more like him than any of the other children, and could
understand him even better than his wife, he thought.
One day, when there had been a heavy shower and a beautiful rainbow,
he and Flax were out in the garden tying up some rose-bushes, which
the rain had beaten down, and he said to her how he wished he could
find the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow. Flax, if you will
believe me, had never heard of it; so he had to tell her all about it,
and also say a little poem he had made about it to her.
The poem ran something in this way:
O what is it shineth so golden-clear
At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?
'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year
Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still.
And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?
For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way.
Flax listened with her soft blue eyes very wide open. "I suppose if we
should find that pot of gold it would make us very rich, wouldn't it,
father?" said she.
"Yes," replied her father; "we could then have a grand house, and keep
a gardener, and a maid to take care of the children, and we should no
longer have to work so hard." He sighed as he spoke, and tears stood
in his gentle blue eyes, which were very much like Flax's. "However,
we shall never find it," he added.
"Why couldn't we run ever so fast when we saw the rainbow," inquired
Flax, "and get the Pot of Gold?"
"Don't be foolish, child!" said her father; "you could not possibly
reach it before the rainbow was quite faded away!"
"True," said Flax, but she fell to thinking as she tied up the
dripping roses.
The next rainbow they had she eyed very closely, standing out on the
front door-step in the rain, and she saw that one end of it seemed
to touch the ground at the foot of a pine-tree on the side of the
mountain, which was quite conspicuous amongst its fellows, it was so
tall. The other end had nothing especial to mark it.
"I will try the end where the tall pine-tree is first," said Flax to
herself, "because that will be the easiest to find--if the Pot of Gold
isn't there I will try to find the other end."
A few days after that it was very hot and sultry, and at noon the
thunder heads were piled high all around the horizon.
"I don't doubt but we shall have showers this afternoon," said Father
Flower, when he came in from the garden for his dinner.
After the dinner-dishes were washed up, and the baby rocked to sleep,
Flax came to her mother with a petition.
"Mother," said she, "won't you give me a holiday this afternoon?"
"Why, where do you want to go, Flax?" said her mother.
"I want to go over on the mountain and hunt for wild flowers," replied
Flax.
"But I think it is going to rain, child, and you will get wet."
"That won't hurt me any, mother," said Flax, laughing.
"Well, I don't know as I care," said her mother, hesitatingly. "You
have been a very good industrious girl, and deserve a little holiday.
Only don't go so far that you cannot soon run home if a shower should
come up."
So Flax curled her flaxen hair and tied it up with a blue ribbon, and
put on her blue and white checked dress. By the time she was ready to
go the clouds over in the northwest were piled up very high and black,
and it was quite late in the afternoon. Very likely her mother would
not have let her gone if she had been at home, but she had taken the
baby, who had waked from his nap, and gone to call on her nearest
neighbor, half a mile away. As for her father, he was busy in the
garden, and all the other children were with him, and they did not
notice Flax when she stole out of the front door. She crossed the
river on a pretty arched stone bridge nearly opposite the house, and
went directly into the woods on the side of the mountain.
Everything was very still and dark and solemn in the woods. They knew
about the storm that was coming. Now and then Flax heard the leaves
talking in queer little rustling voices. She inherited the ability to
understand what they said from her father. They were talking to each
other now in the words of her father's song. Very likely he had heard
them saying it sometime, and that was how he happened to know it,
"O what is it shineth so golden-clear
At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?"
Flax heard the maple leaves inquire. And the pine-leaves answered
back:
"'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year
Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still."
Then the maple-leaves asked:
"And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?"
And the pine-leaves answered:
"For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."
Flax did not exactly understand the sense of the last question and
answer between maple and pine-leaves. But they kept on saying it
over and over as she ran along. She was going straight to the tall
pine-tree. She knew just where it was, for she had often been there.
Now the rain-drops began to splash through the green boughs, and the
thunder rolled along the sky. The leaves all tossed about in a strong
wind and their soft rustles grew into a roar, and the branches and the
whole tree caught it up and called out so loud as they writhed and
twisted about that Flax was almost deafened, the words of the song:
"O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"
Flax sped along through the wind and the rain and the thunder. She was
very much afraid that she should not reach the tall pine which was
quite a way distant before the sun shone out, and the rainbow came.
The sun was already breaking through the clouds when she came in sight
of it, way up above her on a rock. The rain-drops on the trees began
to shine like diamonds, and the words of the song rushed out from
their midst, louder and sweeter:
"O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"
Flax climbed for dear life. Red and green and golden rays were already
falling thick around her, and at the foot of the pine-tree something
was shining wonderfully clear and bright.
At last she reached it, and just at that instant the rainbow became a
perfect one, and there at the foot of the wonderful arch of glory was
the Pot of Gold. Flax could see it brighter than all the brightness of
the rainbow. She sank down beside it and put her hand on it, then she
closed her eyes and sat still, bathed in red and green and violet
light--that, and the golden light from the Pot, made her blind and
dizzy. As she sat there with her hand on the Pot of Gold at the foot
of the rainbow, she could hear the leaves over her singing louder and
louder, till the tones fairly rushed like a wind through her ears. But
this time they only sang the last words of the song:
"And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?
For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."
At last she ventured to open her eyes. The rainbow had faded almost
entirely away, only a few tender rose and green shades were arching
over her; but the Pot of Gold under her hand was still there, and
shining brighter than ever. All the pine needles with which the ground
around it was thickly spread, were turned to needles of gold, and some
stray couplets of leaves which were springing up through them were all
gilded.
Flax bent over it trembling and lifted the lid off the pot. She
expected, of course, to find it full of gold pieces that would buy the
grand house and the gardener and the maid that her father had spoken
about. But to her astonishment, when she had lifted the lid off and
bent over the Pot to look into it, the first thing she saw was the
face of her mother looking out of it at her. It was smaller of course,
but just the same loving, kindly face she had left at home. Then, as
she looked longer, she saw her father smiling gently up at her, then
came Poppy and the baby and all the rest of her dear little brothers
and sisters smiling up at her out of the golden gloom inside the Pot.
At last she actually saw the garden and her father in it tying up the
roses, and the pretty little vine-covered house, and, finally, she
could see right into the dear little room where her mother sat with
the baby in her lap, and all the others around her.
Flax jumped up. "I will run home," said she, "it is late, and I do
want to see them all dreadfully."
So she left the Golden Pot shining all alone under the pine-tree, and
ran home as fast as she could.
When she reached the house it was almost twilight, but her father was
still in the garden. Every rose and lily had to be tied up after the
shower, and he was but just finishing. He had the tin milk pan hung
on him like a shield, because it rhymed with man. It certainly was a
beautiful rhyme, but it was very inconvenient. Poor Mother Flower
was at her wits' end to know what to do without it, and it was very
awkward for Father Flower to work with it fastened to him.
Flax ran breathlessly into the garden, and threw her arms around her
father's neck and kissed him. She bumped her nose against the milk
pan, but she did not mind that; she was so glad to see him again.
Somehow, she never remembered being so glad to see him as she was now
since she had seen his face in the Pot of Gold.
"Dear father," cried she, "how glad I am to see you! I found the Pot
of Gold at the end of the rainbow!"
Her father stared at her in amazement.
"Yes, I did, truly, father," said she. "But it was not full of gold,
after all. You was in it, and mother and the children and the house
and garden and--everything."
"You were mistaken, dear," said her father, looking at her with his
gentle, sorrowful eyes. "You could not have found the true end of the
rainbow, nor the true Pot of Gold--that is surely full of the most
beautiful gold pieces, with an angel stamped on every one."
"But I did, father," persisted Flax.
"You had better go into your mother, Flax," said her father; "she will
be anxious to see you. I know better than you about the Pot of Gold at
the end of the rainbow."
So Flax went sorrowfully into the house. There was the tea-kettle
singing beside the "skettle," which had some nice smelling soup in it,
the table was laid for supper, and there sat her mother with the baby
in her lap and the others all around her--just as they had looked in
the Pot of Gold.
Flax had never been so glad to see them before--and if she didn't hug
and kiss them all!
"I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow, mother," cried
she, "and it was not full of gold, at all; but you and father and the
children looked out of it at me, and I saw the house and garden and
everything in it."
Her mother looked at her lovingly. "Yes, Flax dear," said she.
"But father said I was mistaken," said Flax, "and did not find it."
"Well, dear," said her mother, "your father is a poet, and very wise;
we will say no more about it. You can sit down here and hold the baby
now, while I make the tea."
Flax was perfectly ready to do that; and, as she sat there with her
darling little baby brother crowing in her lap, and watched her pretty
little brothers and sisters and her dear mother, she felt so happy
that she did not care any longer whether she had found the true Pot of
Gold at the end of the rainbow or not.
But, after all, do you know, I think her father was mistaken, and that
she had.