| Show WHAT FLOWERS DO FOR FOLK I Observations on How They Affect a Mans Character and Appearance I The talk about the overwork and underpay under-pay of many sorts of laborers tempts a thoughtful person to take a rather critical attitude with regard to his luxuries An I enjoyment is easily spoiled by the twinge of reminding conscience which insists I that the pleasure has been secured through the unduly painful toil of another But at least one delightful extravagance is entirely free from this taint of the primal curse Flowers have no clinging associations of unhappy workers in squalid i surroundings but call instead to the minds of those who know them the most contented con-tented class of manual laborers to be found in the world Among agood many florists and gardeners whom I have known I cannot can-not remember a single dissatisfied or pessimistic pessi-mistic one They are always a little pathetic pa-thetic to look at because constant stooping makes round shoulders one of the marks of the trade and their general effect of un prosperousness is heightened by their prevailing pre-vailing indifference to personal neatness Indeed their fondness for the soil is almost al-most always so grett that they are not at S all troubled when an astonishing amount of it adheres to them and merely to say i that n gardener is a better fellow than he looks expresses very feebly the virtues of the calling And the interest these men show in their work My gardeners have an almost maternal ma-ternal fondness for their plants Would you like to see my houseful of sick roses one asked me once S Of course I should I i replied expecting I expect-ing to see some depressing spectacle of languishing vegetation Instead I was shown a roomful of sturdy bushes of all ages but nlike in the lustiness of their growth You see in every lot which comes from the nursery there arc some which havent stood the journey and which would never do to sell said my florist friend Their value is not much hut T cannot bear to throw them away da little extra care makes them what you see here Isnt the time worth more than the young plants Of course it is But I enjoy giving the weak ones a bit of a petting I I have often noticed thatgenerosity is almost I al-most a trade characteristic of florists Jt does i not take the form of making their wares unnaturally cheap but they are more willing will-ing than other merchants to give a little moro than they have to With most of the craft a dozen means fifteen and I have rarely found one who would not ask a customer cus-tomer to take an extra rose for a boutonniere bouton-niere They seem to feel that flowers were created to be given and not sold and offer this little implied apology for the sordid necessity which makes them barter their lovely merchandise Nothing pleases them better than a customer cus-tomer who is himself enthusiast and it would be hard to convince them of the baseness of a real flower lover I went once 10 < the florist who had lately stocked my little garden with a complaint that thn plants hadall been stolen I Stole your plants did they repeated he with a quaint Scotch accent Then thinking that the catastrophe appealed tome to-me in a moral rather than a commercial light But they canna ha been verra bad if they liked floers well cue to steal emS em-S CQr Kate Fields Washington > 55 5 S |
