278 
Old Time Gardens 
ever he compares flowers to women it is in no flatter- 
ing humor to either; which is, perhaps, what we 
expect from a man who chose to be a bachelor and 
a hermit. His love of obscure and small flowers 
might explain his sentiment toward the radiant and 
dominant blue Flag. 
The most valued flower of my childhood, outside 
the garden, was a little sister of the Iris — the Blue- 
eyed Grass. To find it blooming was a triumph, for 
it was not very profuse of growth near my home ; 
to gather it a delight; why, I know not, since the 
tiny blooms promptly closed and withered as soon 
as we held them in our warm little hands. Colonel 
Higginson writes wittily of the Blue-eyed Grass, 
cc It has such an annoying way of shutting up its 
azure orbs the moment you gather it; and you 
reach home with a bare stiff blade which deserves 
no better name than Sisyrinchium anceps .” 
The only time I ever played truant was to run off 
one June morning to find cc the starlike gleam amid 
the grass and dew ” ; to pick Blue-eyed Grass in a 
field to which I was conducted by another naughty 
girl. I was simple enough to come home at mid- 
day with my hands full of the stiff blades and tightly 
closed blooms ; and at my mother’s inquiry as to 
my acquisition of these treasures, I promptly burst 
into tears. I was then told, in impressive phrase- 
ology adapted to my youthful comprehension, and 
with the flowers as eloquent proof, that all stolen 
pleasures were ever like my coveted flowers, with- 
ered and unsightly as soon as gathered — -which my 
mother believed was true. 
