CHAPTER XV. AN OPIUM 

 DREAM OF NEW POPPIES 



ONCE upon a time I entered one of 

 the large seed stores on Barclay 

 Street, New York, at a moment 

 when all the clerks (or should I 

 say sales persons?) happened to 

 be busy. So I listened to what one 

 of them, a very pretty girl, was saying to a man 

 who asked her about adding some poppy seeds to 

 his list. She advised him not to do so, because 

 it wasn't worth while. "The wind," she said, 

 "always destroys the flowers in a short time." 



This was too much for a poppy enthusiast 

 and specialist like myself, who believes that if 

 there are three kinds of flowers that absolutely 

 must be in every garden poppies are one of 

 them, the other two being sweet peas and 

 pansies. With an apology to the pretty girl, I 

 informed the man that I was an old gardener 

 and that I could give him the names of poppies 

 that survived even the rude winds of the White 

 Mountains. He, of course, thanked me politely 

 and asked me the names of those varieties? He 

 did nothing of the sort. He simply stared at me 

 superciliously (perhaps he did not wish to 

 embarrass the girl) and said not a word; nor 

 did he buy any poppy seeds, foolish man! One 

 thing he did for me, though — ^he taught me for 

 all time to mind my own business. 



To-day it is my business to talk about the pop- 



