Hyacinth Stories
THE HYACINTH.
[Hyacinth]
Out in the garden there’s something so dear!Just as dear,Do you hear?Something that comes in the spring of the yearFragrant as roses and fresh as the dew,Purple and pink and violet too.Something new,Darling too.Guess what it is and I’ll show it to you!
Out in the garden there’s something so dear!Just as dear,Do you hear?Something that comes in the spring of the yearFragrant as roses and fresh as the dew,Purple and pink and violet too.Something new,Darling too.Guess what it is and I’ll show it to you!
Out in the garden there’s something so dear!Just as dear,Do you hear?Something that comes in the spring of the yearFragrant as roses and fresh as the dew,Purple and pink and violet too.Something new,Darling too.Guess what it is and I’ll show it to you!
Out in the garden there’s something so dear!
Just as dear,
Do you hear?
Something that comes in the spring of the year
Fragrant as roses and fresh as the dew,
Purple and pink and violet too.
Something new,
Darling too.
Guess what it is and I’ll show it to you!
[Hyacinth]
SIGNS OF SPRING.
Out of doors are signs of spring. The buds on the trees look full, and some are beginning to burst. But there is very little life as yet.
[Hyacinth]
Only in the hyacinth bed it is different, for there the hyacinths have waked up; their stiff leaves have opened the door of the earth for the blossoms to come out. The flower clusters are nearly ready to bloom, but the buds are still green. The tall stem has lifted them up into the air and sunlight, and, although the air is still cold, they continue to grow.
Soon the green buds undergo a change. The topmost one on each flower cluster softens to a tender blue or pink.
The green buds grow lovely as they stand on their stems in the sun. Delicate tints steal over them, the green color fades away, and many colors take its place.
They open into charming flowers and give forth adelightful fragrance. The whole garden is sweet with the odor of hyacinths, and we feel that the beautiful summer has sent us a messenger.
[Hyacinth]
THE HYACINTH’S SCEPTRE.
[Sceptre]
Kings bear a sceptre, and so do I.Theirs is a symbol of power, and so is mine.Theirs is a costly rod with an emblem at the topMine is a tall green rod bearing flower bells.My sceptre is called a “scape.”“Scape” means “sceptre,” the sign of kings.
Kings bear a sceptre, and so do I.Theirs is a symbol of power, and so is mine.Theirs is a costly rod with an emblem at the topMine is a tall green rod bearing flower bells.My sceptre is called a “scape.”“Scape” means “sceptre,” the sign of kings.
Kings bear a sceptre, and so do I.Theirs is a symbol of power, and so is mine.Theirs is a costly rod with an emblem at the topMine is a tall green rod bearing flower bells.My sceptre is called a “scape.”“Scape” means “sceptre,” the sign of kings.
Kings bear a sceptre, and so do I.
Theirs is a symbol of power, and so is mine.
Theirs is a costly rod with an emblem at the top
Mine is a tall green rod bearing flower bells.
My sceptre is called a “scape.”
“Scape” means “sceptre,” the sign of kings.
[Hyacinth]
TUNICS.
[Tunic]
A tunic, as everybody knows, is a dress worn by the old Romans. The Greeks wore a garment very much like that of the Romans, and it, too, is often called a tunic.
Tunics did very well in a climate where it was always summer and upon people who did not have to hurry about and work hard. But, graceful as they are, and appropriate to Greece and Italy, they would hardly be suitable for an American business costume in midwinter. For a tunic is not very close fitting. It is a loose garment which would be apt to fly away in our Northern gales.
The tunic was sometimes confined at the waist by a girdle and sometimes let to hang loose.
We do not wear tunics, but we admire them very much in pictures, for they show the beautiful lines ofthe human form instead of concealing and altering them and making them ugly by ridiculous and tight-fitting clothes—very often tight in the wrong place, as is the case with modern garments.
But therearetunics worn in America, and they are never tight in the wrong place, though, truth to tell, they are not loose and flowing like the Roman or Greek tunic.
Perhaps you do not know that so commonplace an object as an onion wears a tunic, yet I assure you it is true. And the onion does not come from Rome or Greece,—that is, probably not. As far as we can find out, that homely vegetable first saw the light in the southwestern part of Asia, but it was known in Rome and Greece at a very early date, and lived in those places long before it found its way to us.
So it has seen more tunics than we have, if it is not a native Greek or Roman. Not that its garments look at all like a classical tunic!
Probably its bulb is said to be “tunicated,” or covered with tunics, because the different scales wrap about it like so many garments, and in a general way the word “tunic” is used to mean any garment.
The hyacinth, too, has a tunicated bulb. It came from the Levant, a country where people wear loose garments like the Greek and Roman tunic. I donot think, however, the bulbs are called “tunicated” because they came from the lands where tunics are worn. I think it is merely a name the botanists gave them for convenience to tell that they were covered by coats or scales.
What do you suppose a hyacinth tunic is, anyway? Merely a leaf scale! That is, instead of growing into a leaf it remained a scale, andsomeof the scales on a full-grown bulb are really the lower parts of the leaves. The upper part has fallen off and left the fleshy base to feed the plant.
Tulips have tunics too, and so have many other plants. And bulb tunics are averyconvenient sort of garment to have, for they not only wrap up the plant, but feed it!
They answer the same purpose that tubers do on potato roots. You know what tubers are? They are just swollen portions of underground stems. When you eat your next potato remember it is a tuber, and that a tuber is merely a short piece of stemverymuch thickened. If you cannot believe this, look a potato in the eyes. There you will see the truth, for the eyes are merely the joints of the stem, and at each is a little bud that in the spring will start to grow, just like the buds on the branches of a tree. The bud grows at the expense of thematerial in the tuber, and the hyacinth grows at the expense of the food stored in the bulb. Of course, after a while green leaves form and make more food, but the very first food comes from the thick underground scales.
[Hyacinth]
The hyacinth belongs to the royal Lily Family, and is a very great favorite with people all over the world. Sometimes its flowers are single and sometimes double, and they always give forth a delightful fragrance. Its home, as we know, is in the Levant, a country made up of the islands and the coast along the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, particularly of Asia Minor and Syria.
It grows so readily and comes up so early in the spring and is so lovely it is no wonder people everywhere cherish it. Its bulb is large and fleshy, and, as we know, is made up of thickscales. These scales are full of starch and other food materials to feed the young plant.
For the young plant is in the very center of the bulb, with the fleshy scales folded about it very much as the scales are folded about a tree bud. In fact, abulb is very much like a bud. The bottom of the bulb is averyshort, broad stem. The scales grow on this stem as the leaves do on a branch. They are alternate in arrangement, but packed so closely together you have to lookverycarefully in order to discover that they are arranged like leaves on a stem. After all, as we know, these scales are only modified leaves. The bracts of the pelargonium are leaves modified to protect the young buds, and the scales of the hyacinth are leaves modified to protect and feed the plant within.
For what do you think? At the very center of the hyacinth bulb is a tiny flower cluster wrapped about by half a dozen tiny leaves! These are white and delicate and very, very small. But in the spring they grow and come out of the bulb in the form of green leaves and bright flowers.
[Hyacinth Bulb]
THE BEE.
[Bee]
I am a rollicking bumblebee.I sail through the air as it pleases me.I sail by the trees and around the flowers;I love the sun and hate the showers.I have a taste does credit to me;I never eat bread and such fiddle-dee-dee.For honey and pollen’s the sensible food;They favor digestion and suit the mood.
I am a rollicking bumblebee.I sail through the air as it pleases me.I sail by the trees and around the flowers;I love the sun and hate the showers.I have a taste does credit to me;I never eat bread and such fiddle-dee-dee.For honey and pollen’s the sensible food;They favor digestion and suit the mood.
I am a rollicking bumblebee.I sail through the air as it pleases me.I sail by the trees and around the flowers;I love the sun and hate the showers.
I am a rollicking bumblebee.
I sail through the air as it pleases me.
I sail by the trees and around the flowers;
I love the sun and hate the showers.
I have a taste does credit to me;I never eat bread and such fiddle-dee-dee.For honey and pollen’s the sensible food;They favor digestion and suit the mood.
I have a taste does credit to me;
I never eat bread and such fiddle-dee-dee.
For honey and pollen’s the sensible food;
They favor digestion and suit the mood.
[Bee]
I sleep in my nest all winter long,But rush fearlessly forth in the March wind’s song,For I’m sure there’s some one waiting for me,Since a hyacinth blue’s in love with this bee!
I sleep in my nest all winter long,But rush fearlessly forth in the March wind’s song,For I’m sure there’s some one waiting for me,Since a hyacinth blue’s in love with this bee!
I sleep in my nest all winter long,But rush fearlessly forth in the March wind’s song,For I’m sure there’s some one waiting for me,Since a hyacinth blue’s in love with this bee!
I sleep in my nest all winter long,
But rush fearlessly forth in the March wind’s song,
For I’m sure there’s some one waiting for me,
Since a hyacinth blue’s in love with this bee!
STORIES ABOUT ALL SORTS OF THINGS