Glistening dewdrops were clinging like tears to the pretty scalloped leaves of the jewel-weed. The dawn was cool and dusky, and there was just a delicate pink flush in the eastern sky, but already the flowers in the garden were lifting their sleepy heads and getting ready for the day. The white clover finished her supplication and unclasped her leaves, which had been folded as if in prayer all through the night; the red clover had taken the little hoods from her baby blossoms, and the morning glories were shaking out their lovely pinks and blues and lavenders for the rising sun to admire.
But the jewel-weed wept, although her brownish-yellow blossoms danced gaily with every vagrant breeze.
"What's the matter, Jewel-weed?" asked a little white butterfly, who had eaten too much honey the day before, and had not slept well, and was therefore out early. "Why are you weeping so bitterly? Has anything gone wrong?"
"Indeed, Mistress Butterfly, I am in great trouble," replied the jewel-weed. "I can't tell what is the matter with my oldest children, but they behave so strangely. They grew up very fast, as you know, and one day while I was caring for the baby blossoms, they changed their dainty yellow gowns for queer green ones, and they began eating so much that they grew round and plump. And now they are not contented at home, and fret all the time because they are tired of this old wildflower bed. What shall I do, Butterfly?"
"Oh, dear, is that all?" laughed the butterfly. "Why, that's the way with children the world over. Ask the maple about it; she was complaining about her children in the spring, and they went away, too, if I remember rightly. Good-morning."
"Maple, Maple!" called the jewel-weed, "what did you do when your children grew discontented? The white butterfly says you have had some such troubles yourself."
"To be sure," answered the maple, leaning down in sympathy. "My children all took wings and flew away, and it almost broke my heart. But it was very silly of me, for now the bees and butterflies bring me word that many of them have set up housekeeping for themselves, and are growing into handsome maples. So don't worry, Jewel-weed. Young folks will be young folks, and we mustn't stand in their way."
"We are going now," called the jewel-weed children. "Let us out! let us out!" Just then a big beetle alighted on one of the pods -- and snap, bang! The little brown seeds flew up in the air, frightening the beetle almost out of his wits; one seed flew clear over the garden fence.
"Ha, ha! that's the reason we are called 'touch-me-not,' is it? Didn't we go off with a bang?" chuckled the little seed. "Hello, who are you?" he asked of a pretty white thing floating near.
"Oh, I am a dandelion child. We fly all over the world. See my dainty white parachute--isn't it a beauty? I open it to the breeze and go drifting away and away. When one of us gets tired he settles to the earth and there a plant springs up, and the leaves grow crisp and juicy for man's food, and the blossoms stud the grass with gold that the children of the poor may rejoice. Then each cluster of yellow flowers turns to a silver ball made of parachutes like mine, and each parachute bears a precious seed. But I must not stay to talk any more, for I must settle farther on. So good-by, good-by!"
"We want to float away like the dandelion," sighed the seeds of a beggar-tick that grew near. Rusty yellow were her blossoms, but the good mother plant thought them beautiful, and comforted them as only a mother can.
"No, no; that isn't the beggar-tick's way, my dears. Just wait until something brushes past you, then thrust in your two little prongs and ride away. We ride instead of sailing like the dandelions."
"Ho, ho!" laughed the burdock. "I never have any trouble about my children. The boys and girls take care of that. They carry them off to make them into baskets, tables, and chairs, and all sorts of pretty things, and when they are tired of their play they run away and forget all about the burrs, and then my children hide themselves in the earth, and spring up sturdy young burdocks. Yes, the boys and girls take care of my children. Then, too, the old cow's swinging tail and the hunting dogs aid me greatly in carrying my children away. I never need worry."
The thistle was mourning that her children had changed their delicate lavender gowns for white. "They aren't half so pretty," she grumbled, "I don't understand it at all."
"Oh! oh!" cried the little thistles; "we are so much more airy that we feel light enough to float away on a breeze. Do let us try, mother dear."
Just then a gay little song was heard that dipped and rose, and dipped again; there was a whisk of black and gold, and right on the thistle top settled a bit of a bird like a fleck of sunshine.
"Good-morning, Madam Thistle," said he. "I'd like to borrow some of your children. My wife and I are building the daintiest little nest in a climbing rose, and we want to put in it the very prettiest things we can find to cradle the tiny blue eggs. Will you come, dear Thistledown, and make a soft silken bed for our babies?"
"Yes, indeed," cried the thistle children. "We'll be glad to help," and away they flew with the yellow-bird.
Then the milkweed opened her pretty pods, and her children, dressed in the sheerest silk, set sail for an unknown port. "We must find a resting-place soon," they said; "for the children do so love our green cradles, and the monarch butterfly depends upon us to raise her babies. We must be ready for her."
The children of the butterfly-weed were dancing away in the greatest glee, dressed in gowns of filmy silver floss instead of the glowing orange with which they had clothed the meadow a week before. "Good-by, good-by!" they shouted. "See how we can sail before this spanking breeze! We are off for foreign parts. Ask the honey-bees if you want our address," and they were out of sight in a jiffy.
But the loveliest of all the seed children were those of the purple clematis. Each brown seed was tipped by a plume that rose and fell, and soaring now high, now low, across the garden, across the meadow, they wree the happiest, the merriest band of all the wind's playfellows.
"Where are all these gadabouts going?" asked the rosebush of the little white butterfly. "Since before dawn--and see the sun is now high overhead--from jewel-weed to clematis they all have been on the go. That's not my way. Why don't they stay at home as good seeds should?"
"Dame Nature knows what she's about; don't you worry," replied the butterfly. "I never knew her to make a mistake yet. Heigh-ho, there goes a whole bevy of butterflies. I'll join them. More gadabouts, you see. Good-morning, old Stay-at-home!" And away she flew.
