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Show THE HOME, I Edited by Miss Hazel Love, A. C. U. THE LAND OF THE BLUE FLOWER. By Frances Hodgenson Burnetts . ,, CHAPTER V. In a short time ccry one was work-' ing in the open air, digging in the soil tiny children as wqll as men and women. Thieves and idlers who had never worked before came out of their dark holes and comers into the light of the Sun. It was not a .hard thing to plant few llowcr seeds, and because King Amor looked look-ed so much more powerful than other oth-er men, and had eyes so commanding, command-ing, they did not know what punishment punish-ment would invenit for them and were afraid to disobey him. But somehow, after they had worked work-ed for a while and had seen others working, the light of the sun and the freshness of the air made them feel in better humor; and ficcausc there was so much talk and wondering wonder-ing about the magic of the Blue Flower they became interested, and wanted to sec what it would do for them when it blossomed. Scarcely any of them had ever tried to make a flower grow before, and they gradually grad-ually thought of it a great deal. There was less quarreling, because conversation with neighbors all about a Blue Flower gave no reason for hard worJ . The worst and idlest were curious about it and every one tried experiments of his own. The children were delighted and actually grew happy and rosy over their digging dig-ging and watering and carctaking Gradually all sorts of curious things happened. People who were grow, ing Blue Flowers began to keep the ground around about them in order, They did not like to sec bits of paper pap-er and rubbish lying about, so they cleared them away. One new thing which occured was that people even helped each other. Cripples and those who were weak actually found that there were stronger ones who would do things for thorn when their backs ached and it was hard to carry water or dig up weeds. No ont in King Mordcth's Land had ever helped help-ed ano.thcr before. The boy who was elevcr'did more than all the rest. He gathered all the other children he could and formed form-ed them into a iband, using the passwords. pass-words. They colled themselves The Band of the Blue Flower, and each boy and girl was bound to remember the passwords and apply them to all they did. So, often, when a number of people were together and things began to go wrong, .1 clear young 1 voice would cry out: "There is no time for anger!" or "There is no time for hate!" or "There is no time lo fret! There is no time." Among the great and rich people, r.Iso, singular things came to pass. 9 Those who had wasted their days j loitering or rioting were obliged to j get up in the morning to work in 3 their gardens, and, finding that ex- j 1 ercisc and fresh air improved their f .health and spirits, they began to like ' it. Court ladies found it good for their complexions and tempers; busy merchants discovered that it made their heads clearer; Ambitious students stud-ents found that after an hour spent evening and morning over their Blue Flower beds they could study twice as long without fatigue. The children chil-dren of the princes and nobles be. came so full of work and talk of their seeds that they quite forgot to squabble and be jealous of each other's oth-er's importance at Court. Many unusual, interesting and wonderful won-derful things occured in the oncc-glooiny oncc-glooiny King Mordrcth's Land, because be-cause every person in it, rich and poor, old and young, good and bad, had to plant and care for and live every day of life with a Blue Flower. Oh! the corners and crannies and queer places it was planted in; and oh I the thrill of excitement everywhere every-where when the first tender shoots thrust their way through the earth! And the wave of excitement which passed over the whole land when the first buds showed themselves! By , that time every one was so interest- , ed that even the Afraid Ones had forgotten to iask each other what King Amor would do to them if they hnd no Blue Flower." Somehow, people peo-ple had gained courage; tliey knew the Blue Flower would grow, and they knew there was no time to stop working while they worried and said: I "Suppose it didn't." There was no time. Sometimes the young King was on the mountain-top with the wind and the eagle and the stars, and sometimes some-times he was in hi.s place in the city, but he was always working and thinking think-ing for his people. He was not seen by the people, however, until a splendid splen-did summer day came when it was proclaimed by heralds in the streets that he would begin his journey through the land by riding through the capital city to sec the blossoming blossom-ing of the Blue Flowers and there, would be a feast once more upon the plain. It was a wonderful day; the air was full of golden light and the sky o such a blucness as never had been -ecn before. Out of the palace .gales . he rode, and he wore his crown, and his eyes were more brilliant Khan the jewels in it, and his smile was more radiant than a sunrise as he looked about him, for every breath he drew in was fragrant, every ugly place was hidden, and every squalid I comer fdled with beauty, for it sccm- id as if the whole world was waving wav-ing with Blue Flowers. Tumbledown Tumble-down houses and fences were covered cov-ered with them, because some of them climbed like vines; neglected fields and gardcns had been made neat so that they would grow; rubbish rub-bish and dirt hnd been cleaned away to make room for clumps and patches of them. You could not grow the Blue Flower among dirt and disorder any more than you could grow it while you were spending your time in stealing or quarreling. By the roadsides, in courts, in windows, win-dows, in cracks in walls, in broken places n roofs, in great p'coplc's gardens, on the window sills or about the doorways of poor people's hovels, fair and fragrant grew the Blue Flower; and suddenly even the dullest people began to see that the face of the whole land was changed, and the whole population seemed to be changed with it. Everybody looked look-ed fresher and more cheerful, people peo-ple had actually learned to smile and keep themselves clean, and there was not one who was not Wealthier. They had, in fact, been noticing this for sonic time, and they had said to each other that the power of the Blue Flower, of which the King had spoken, was beginning to work. The children had grown gay and rosy, and the boy who was clever and all his companions had found time to cam themselves new clothes, because they had never forgotten their passwords. All the farmers wanted them to work in their fields, because they said there was no time to idle, no time to fight, no time to play evil tricks. (To be continued.) |