CHAPTER XV

CULTIVATED FOXGLOVE

Fairy-Caps

[=Transcriber's Note:= Foxglove is poisonous. Do not play with foxgloves.]

DO you know the cultivated foxglove with its tall spikes of thimble-shaped flowers, prettily spotted inside? (Fig. 94.) And do you know that these flowers will fit on the ends of your fingers like tall caps on the heads of little fairies?

Perhaps there are foxgloves growing in your garden now. If there are, pick five blossoms off the stalk, selecting a large one for your thumb and a small one for your little finger; the others should be of a size in between these two.

Turn these blossoms upside down and they at once become fairy-caps. Fit the caps on all five fingers of your left hand. Then on your fingers, just below the caps, draw little faces with pen and ink. Now you have five living, moving fairies who will do all sorts of things and be very spry about it (Fig. 95). They will nod at you joyously, they will bend low in solemn salute, and they will put their little heads together to plan some piece of mischief.

They can be fairy children at school, if you like, with the short, fat thumb fairy for the teacher; and you can make the fairy pupils stand close together, shoulder to shoulder, then at a word from the teacher, separate and stand alone again.

It will be fun to name the fairies, such names as Pepper-grass, Mustard-seed, and Catnip, and with the teacher standing before his class, have him call the roll and have each fairy bob his head as he answers to his name.

Perhaps you will want the teacher to require each pupil to sing a little song or recite a short verse. When a fairy does that, he moves forward in front of the others, and stays in that place until he has finished. Here is a pretty verse for a flower-capped fairy to recite:

"I wonder what the Clover thinks, Intimate friend of the Bobolinks, Lover of Daisies, slim and white, Waltzer with Buttercups at night.

* * * * *

Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks? No one! Unless the Bobolinks."

Sweet Pea--the Peacock

You use a little pretended magic when you turn a sweet-pea blossom into a peacock, and that makes it seem more mysterious and more interesting. It doesn't take a second but while you are doing it you must repeat this transformation rhyme:

"Sweet Pea, Sweet Pea, Your petals unlock. I turn two down, And you're a peacock."

Pick out a fine, large sweet-pea blossom. It doesn't matter about the color. If you have a number to choose from, suit yourself. Hold the flower in your left hand by its stem and recite the first two lines:

"Sweet Pea, Sweet Pea, Your petals unlock."

Then as you reach around to the back of the flower with your right hand and put your thumb on one curled petal, X, and your first finger on the other curled petal, Y (Fig. 96), finish the rhyme:

"I turn two down, And you're a peacock."

and at the same time turn these petals down as they are in Fig. 97. You will see right away that the turned-down petals at the sides are the wings, the upright petal at the back is the tail, and the closed middle part is the body. The tipped-up point of the body part makes a very good head for the little sweet-pea peacock.

Snapdragon--Lady's Head and Lion's Head

The magic that turns a blossom of the large, cultivated snapdragon into a little lady's head, upon which rests a dainty, ruffled sunbonnet, or into a ferocious-looking lion's head, is the magic of pen and ink, not of rhyme.

The blossoms of the cultivated snapdragon are very much larger than those of its wild cousin, called by some people butter-and-eggs, but the cultivated flowers grow on a stalk in the same way as the wild ones. You would hardly recognize the cultivated flowers as snapdragons because of their size and wonderful colors. A sure test is to pinch one; if it opens its mouth it is a real snapdragon; if it doesn't it is not; but you must know how to pinch it, else it may refuse to snap.

The illustration (Fig. 98) shows a stalk of the cultivated flower, and looking at the blossoms in that position you can see neither the lady's head nor the lion's, yet they are there.

LADY'S HEAD

Pick a blossom off its stalk, leaving the little stem attached, and turn it around until you discover the sunbonnet and see that it looks like Fig. 99, then with pen and ink draw eyes, nose, and mouth on the part under the bonnet that is the face. This part is white, while the sunbonnet is sometimes a dainty pink and sometimes a gorgeous scarlet or orange, with deeper color on the edges.

LION'S HEAD

Turn another blossom upside down and the crown of the bonnet becomes the lower jaw and beard of the lion, while the other part is the lion's face. On the face you must make two fierce eyes like those in Fig. 100. When you take hold of the lion's jaws at the back and pinch them he will open his great, wide mouth as if to send out a tremendous roar, only to snap it shut again without a sound as you stop pinching. Fig. 100 shows how to hold the flower to open the lion's mouth.

The pink snapdragon is best to use for the lady's head and the orange-colored one for the lion's. If you would rather call it a dragon's head, you can, you know, but it looks more like a lion.