314 MY FARM. 



with petals as regular as if they were notched by the 

 file of a sawyer. 



Flowers and children are of near kin, and too 

 much of restraint or too much of forcing, or too 

 much of display, ruins their chiefest charms. I love 

 to associate them, and to win the children to a love 

 of the flowers. Some day they tell me that a Violet 

 or a tuft of Lilies is dead ; but on a spring morning, 

 they come, radiant with the story, that the very 

 same Violet is blooming sweeter than ever, upon some 

 far away cleft of the hill-side. So you, my child, if 

 the great Master lifts you from us, shall bloom as 

 God is good on some richer, sunnier ground ! 



We talk thus : but if the change really come, 



it is more grievous than the blight of a thousand 

 flowers. She, who loved their search among the thick- 

 ets will never search them. She, whose glad eyes 

 would have opened in pleasant bewilderment upon 

 some bold change of shrubbery or of paths, will never 

 open them again. She whose feet would have danced 

 along the new wood-path, carrying joy and merri- 

 ment into its shady depths, will never set foot upon 

 these walks again. 



What matter how the brambles grow? her dress 

 will not be torn : what matter the broken paling by 

 the water? she will never topple over from the 

 bank. The hatchet may be hung from a lower nail 



