AND HIS PLANT SCHOOL 65 



some people form the habit of taking opium, a drug made 

 from this juice. It makes them sleep a great deal, and in 

 time they seem to care for nothing else, so they are failures 

 as human beings. 



The master's work is not only to train good into his 

 plant pupils but to train out the bad; and he was certain 

 that he should not have the charge of being poisonous, hang 

 over the life of the new poppy, for with this flower he had 

 planned to brighten homes everywhere. So he instructed 

 Opium to cultivate only the good qualities which he wished 

 the new poppy to possess. 



When these two poppies, Opium and Oriental, were 

 placed in their class, right across from a group of snowy 

 lilies, that continually suggested purity in their sweet, 

 spotless robes, they seemed to forget much of the scenes 

 and work of their former lives in China and India, and to 

 think only of the lessons to be learned in the plant school. 

 Oriental missed Opium all through the long summer and 

 autumn, and, indeed, most of the year, for Opium was only 

 a short-lived spring flower. 



Oriental's leisure time was spent in making new ac- 

 quaintances among the many plant people who were there 

 from every land, also learning all it could and amusing it- 

 self as well. 



The plant people are not deep thinkers, but none of 

 them are without some wisdom. The tulip poppy did 

 some very cunning things that caused them all to rustle 



