APRIL 7: The Tired Honeysuckle
“I’m very tired,” said the Honeysuckle, “and I’d really almost rather not come up this spring.”
“But you are supposed to come up every year,” said the Hyacinth. “You are like me, my dear: your roots are good and lasting. We don’t have to be replanted from seeds every spring.”
“Yes, what you say is perfectly true,” said the Honeysuckle. “But then I am old, so very, very old.”
“How old are you?” whispered the Hyacinth in a very low voice which the Wind carried on his shoulders.
“I am so many years old I can’t remember. This garden I’ve heard people say has been kept just like this for over a hundred years, and the house near-by is just as old—in fact, it is older. I’ve been here a very large part of that time.”
“Well,” said the Hyacinth, “then I don’t blame you for feeling tired. I should think you would want to rest. Let them start another Honeysuckle growing. You’ve worked hard enough.”
“Ah,” said the Honeysuckle, “that’s just what you don’t understand. I am tired, very tired. But ah, I must blossom because of the people.”
“What people?” asked the Hyacinth.
“The people in this house. You see, I am just outside a window, growing on my vine, and my sweet fragrance can be carried indoors. Of course yours can, too, dear old Hyacinth, though you aren’t so old, are you? But I last all through the summer, and you are just a glorious spring flower.”
“Then it’s no wonder you get tired out. And you have to give the bumblebees honey. Your honey is very fine, I have heard.”
“And don’t forget the humming-birds,” said the Honeysuckle. “They love me every bit as much as the bumblebees do. And I love them too! The little dears! But I must tell you the reason why I come up each year, even though sometimes it seems so hard.
“Years and years ago I was planted by a little girl—a little girl, Mary Alice, who loved flowers and who could always make them grow. And above all the flowers she loved her red Honeysuckle best of all. She watched over me. She gave me drinks. She dug up the earth around my roots. She made me so comfortable. And for a very special occasion she would pluck off a spray of my red blossoms and wear them.
“Now Mary Alice grew up to be a big lady—though she was never very big. She always seemed like a little girl to me, for she was so dainty, so small and so lovely. Her eyes were very blue and her hair very golden. But as the years went by each spring I noticed that silverwas growing in her hair, and then one spring I saw that it was quite white.
“During all this time there were other little children growing up—and now there are some more. And I always saw my little girl—for I thought of her as that even when she was quite, quite old—smiling at all the little faces, and the children would smile at her—never scowls—always smiles. Somehow no one could have scowled at Mary Alice, and I don’t believe she ever scowled at any one. For when her hair was white, her forehead had no wrinkles.
“Every spring she would be waiting for me. ‘There comes my honeysuckle,’ she would say. The last few years it has been very hard to come up. My roots have lost their strength, but I have come along as best I could, for I have thought of Mary Alice and her smiles.
“Last year she was sitting by her window and looking out at me. ‘That honeysuckle is as old as I am,’ she said.
“And not long after that I missed seeing dear little old-young Mary Alice and her smiles when I wafted my fragrance through her window.
“But one day I saw the other people of the house and the children, too, looking at me. ‘The honeysuckle that she loved,’ they said. ‘Oh we hope it will keep on coming up each year, for it reminds us so of her. But it looks pretty old now.’
“So you see, little Hyacinth, I must come up, even though I am so very tired and old!”