134 
The Garden Magazine, April, 1924 
What could be prettier for 
the afternoon tea table, ar¬ 
ranged simply with their own 
leaves, or with Gypsophila 
sprays—bettered perchance by 
choice of Sea-lavender with 
the touch of blue over its 
mistiness? Oueen-Anne's- 
Lace, too, is good with Prims 
whether the wild w'hite or the 
tame blue be used. 
A preference for flower- 
holders of glass is rather 
noticeable on the part of 
Prims, quite justified, to be 
sure, by their delicate beauty 
which would naturally adorn 
the rarest T iffany or Venetian 
glasses. Would that such ap¬ 
propriate setting for the loveli¬ 
ness of these flowers were more 
easily provided! 
With good luck in attend¬ 
ance, however, pleasing sub¬ 
stitutes may, once in a while, 
be acquired by patient prac¬ 
tice of “the fine art of picking 
up.” On occasion a find may 
offer itself all of a sudden, even 
as a result of a hold-up in 
broad daylight on a side street 
in a strange city, where a 
crowded little everything shop 
had spilled itself over upon 
the pavement and a prim- 
colored, tumbler-shaped glass 
was one of the spills. 
As a glance of the eve 
met the gleam of intermingling shades of rose and amber, 
the wintry aspect of a January day changed to a mid¬ 
summer vision, although the Prims with which imagination 
filled the glass were, at the moment, still in the corm stage, 
entombed like so many mummies, within their paper bags, in 
the home cellar. In due time, however, Prims and their glass 
affinity met in happy companionship and mutual becomingness. 
And they lent themselves gracefully to the thrifty use of Gladio¬ 
lus gleanings—those few 
flowers still fresh at the tips 
of spikes that have so nearly 
spent their bloom, as to be 
no longer quite sightly in the 
garden. 
The short-stemmed glean¬ 
ings (all of accordant hues, of 
course, being Prims), rather 
closely grouped, with their 
green sword-like leaves rising 
above them and held bv their 
own colorful glass, centered a 
small dining table most ac¬ 
ceptably, during the summer 
Prim time. 
“ Midway-in-summer” Prim 
pleasure is at its height. Then 
is it happiness enough to step 
along the path that makes its 
pleasant way among them, 
conscious of the quiet gleams 
of wondrous color on either 
hand touched with that 
strangely luminous quality 
with which Prims are magic¬ 
ally endowed—a showing 
through, it seems of some “in¬ 
ner light” such as shone upon 
the peaceful face of an old- 
time Quakeress. Radiance of 
spirit belongs evidently, quite 
regardless of apparel, both to 
the Quakeress in her sober 
gray, and to the gayly garbed 
Prims whose dresses are even 
edged, sometimes, with dainty 
ruffles of charming Kunderd 
style, without impairing in the least the dignified sweetness of 
their nature. 
Prims are, indeed, so closely akin in general characteristics to 
Alice Meynell’s “Shepherdess,” being all so “circumspect and 
right,” that one wanders among them as in a grown-up’s 
“Garden of Verse”— where each little Prim, its beauty en¬ 
hanced by the light reflected from within, becomes “The Lady 
of Our Delight”—in flower form. 
‘LITTLE LADIES OF OUR DELIGHT” 
Evolved from the African wildling, Gladiolus primulinus,—so de¬ 
lightfully described by Mr. E. H. Wilson (G. M. July, 1923, page 
330) as “a child of the mists, whose home on the banks of the 
Zambesi River is constantly bathed in the spray from the wonder¬ 
ful Victoria Falls”—these modem hybrids are well adapted in 
every way for house decoration. Arrangement by the author 
THE GAMBLERS 
I SN’T the weather like a game of whist, 
Played by the seasons? Often when we note 
An overplus of snowstorms, for example, 
We can’t believe but that the pack’s defective. 
But no; there prove thirteen to every suit. 
The annual precipitation evens; 
The equinoxes march, the harvests ripen. 
Never twice shuffled to the selfsame hands, 
Yet all compounded of the selfsame cards. 
Then the great weathers of the year, the honors, 
The memorable droughts and thunderstorms, 
King blizzards, and the queens of Indian summer, 
Fruits, and full moons—these honors of the year— 
If in one hand there are too few of them, 
The next will be all plumed with brilliant weathers, 
A full bouquet! 
The hands composed their tricks 
On the broad green baize table of the world, 
One laying down his April ace, and fearing 
Some little trump of a late frost will take it; 
One venturing his princely winter wind 
Late into spring, a reckless singleton; 
And one with dubious thumb and finger laying 
A single sunny morning on the board, 
To see who holds the king or ace of that; 
What blue and green, or blue and golden day, 
Apotheosis of a golden month, 
Such as the first swift players of the world 
Tossed on the table when the game began. 
Sarah N. Cleghorn 
