54 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



When Mrs. Quint laid down her sewing that October afternoon, 

 and went into her kitchen to prepare tea, what do you think she 

 found cosily perched on the broad ledge of its south window? A 

 thrifty i)ctunia plant nodding its green leaves, and saucily leveling 

 two crimson flower trumpets at her, as though heralding: '"We've 

 come, and we've come to stav !" 



And stay they did, and hundreds of other blotched and mottled 

 and striped and streaked and clouded blossoms that put out through 

 the long, cold winter their crimson and white flaring flower lips on 

 that sporting petunia, that seemed trying for the very fun of the 

 thing, to throw out as many strange markings and shadings of color 

 in its flower blossoms as possible. 



'"It's clean, Isaac ; there isn't a bug or a spider on it from root to 

 top, and Edith has set her heart on having the plant this winter; 

 supposing we keep the thing?" 



"Well, then, keep it; keep the posy weed for all I care!" was 

 the ungracious welcome Edith's parents gave the little seedling, 

 whose mission was to brighten their home and whose influence would 

 be felt through more than one generation. 



The petunia grew as petunias will when given the right soil and 

 atmosphere and a sunn}' south window over which it can throw its 

 green arms, clambering right and left as it goes up, up, covered with 

 scores of bright blossoms. Mrs. Quint thought well of the plant 

 when she saw passers-by turn their heads to get a long, full view of 

 her window with its beautiful curtain of crimson and white and 

 green, and heard exclamations of admiration and covetousness from 

 her neighbors. She thought still better of it when ladies from town 

 called to beg slips of her sporting petunia, that came out with new 

 markings of blotch and stripe with every flower opening ; so odd and 

 rare, that even Judge Davenport's wife drove out to ask for a cutting 

 from her plant. 



"'I don't know whether it's the rinse water I give it, or the hot 

 steam from my bilin' dinner pots, or, maybe, it's the winter sunshine 

 that makes our petunia blow and grow so, but grow and blow it will,'* 

 Mrs. Quint said complacentl}', as she snipped generous cuttings, here 

 and there, from the plant for her distinguished guest. 



Edith overheard that — '■'•our petunia." It used to be "that thing," 

 and '•'■your pos}" weed," and she knew that house plants had come to 

 their house to sta\'. Slips of ivy, rare geraniums, begonias and a 

 host of other plants were brought and offered in exchange for those 



