CHAPTER II.

MORE ABOUT OUR LOVE FOR FLOWERS.

[Sidenote: Bouquets.]

It is from our love of flowers that a bouquet is always a pretty present to a friend. The kind teacher is much gratified when a scholar, with a bright, cheerful “Good morning,” gives her a bouquet. Though the flowers may be simple and common, the present is a very pleasant one. It is saying to your teacher, I love the beautiful things that God has made, and I know that you love them. It is saying more than this. It is telling your teacher that you love her. It is because you love her that you give her the sweet flowers that you love so much. And she will feel that though the flowers will fade, your love to her will ever be fresh.

[Sidenote: Flowers in the sick chamber.]

How grateful are flowers in the chamber of sickness! It would weary the sick one to see all her kind friends. But they can send her presents to let her know that they think of her. And what tokens of remembrance are more welcome than flowers?

[Sidenote: Flowers as ornaments.]

Flowers are much used as ornaments, even among savages. They are more beautiful than any ornaments that man can make. What is more elegant than handsome hair dressed with flowers?

As natural flowers droop so easily, we make artificial ones for ornaments. Sometimes they are made so well that they look like fresh flowers just picked from the garden.

[Sidenote: Flowers in dress and furniture.]

We like flowers so much that we copy them in the figures in dress and furniture. Gems and ornaments of gold and silver are arranged in flower-shapes. Figures of flowers are seen in the patterns on dresses more often than any other figures. The calico-printer gets his prettiest figures from the flowers that he sees in the field and garden. The richest carpets are those in which the figures are flowers. We often see in the carpet under our feet a great variety of flowers of the most beautiful colors. We seem to tread on beds crowded full of roses and various kinds of flowers; and we have no fear of crushing them as when we tread on real flowers. Flowers, too, are stamped on the papers on our walls. You often see representations of flowers woven in table-cloths and napkins. You see the figures of flowers worked beautifully on articles of silver. You see them too on vases in which we put real flowers. Flowers are often carved in furniture, and even the stove-maker has them on his stoves, whether they are made for the parlor or the kitchen. Thus it is that we have flowers about us whenever we can. And where we can not have flowers, we have representations of them.

[Sidenote: Why God has given us beautiful things.]

I said in the first chapter that every body likes flowers. Perhaps I ought to say that _almost_ every body likes them. A man may be so wicked and so like a brute that he can see no beauty in flowers. A man may love to hoard up money, so much, that he will not care about any thing beautiful. Some men can not see any use in flowers. They think that potatoes, and turnips, and beets, ought to grow where their daughters have their flower-garden. They forget that God has given us beautiful things for the purpose of having us enjoy them. God has a use for every thing that he has made, and this is the use of flowers. And he likes to see us love the beautiful things that he has given us, and make a proper use of them.

[Sidenote: Love of children for flowers.]

Children always love flowers. The baby puts out its little hands to them before it can hold any thing, and shows that it is pleased by its smiles and funny noises. And the child that can run about and talk, is delighted as it runs up and down the garden, and says “Pretty, pretty!” to every flower.

[Sidenote: Flowers in the school-room.]

There ought always to be flowers in the school-room. The place where the happy child goes to learn should be made very cheerful. Pleasant things will make it so, and flowers are certainly very pleasant things. And then, they are very easily obtained. Scholars can bring them, and they can be put into vases where all can see them. Pictures would make a school-room look very pleasant, but they are too costly. Flowers are cheap, since they commonly cost only the trouble of gathering and bringing them to school.

_Questions._--What is said about giving a bouquet to your teacher? Why are presents of flowers so pleasant to a sick person? What is said of flowers as ornaments? What of artificial flowers? Tell how we copy flowers in dress and in furniture. Are there some who do not like flowers? For what did God make flowers? How do very little children show that they like them? What is said about having flowers in the school-room?