LOOK, mother, look at these pretty flowers; Ruth Hardy gave them all to me. Some of the schoolgirls gathered them last evening, and when Ruth told them I had been ill a very long time, and could not run about and gather flowers for myself, they asked her if I would like to have some of theirs, and when she told them how fond of flowers I am, they sent me this nice bunch.”
And as Lily King held up the flowers for mother to see, Mrs. King thought the face of her sick child looked brighter than it had done for many weeks; for all through the cold dark days of winter, Lily had been very ill, often in great pain, and though the kind doctor, whom Lily had learned to think of quite as a friend, said, "He thought, with God's blessing, she would get well again:" getting strong seemed very slow work to Lily.
“And now, mother dear, will you please put my flowers in water? for it is almost time for Dr. Cole to be here, and I want to show them to him.”
Mrs. King placed the flowers in a large, old-fashioned glass, half filled with water, on a small table that stood near Lily's bed, then hastened to the door in answer to Dr. Cole's knock.
After a short talk about his little patient with her mother, the doctor turned to Lily and said to her in his bright, cheerful way, "All the sick boys and girls and most of the grown-up people too, liked so much,
“‘Buttercups and daisies,
Oh, the pretty flowers!'
"Do you know, Lily, they are very old friends of mine? I have known and loved them ever since I was a very little boy, more than twenty years ago. I used to gather them in fields and hedgerows many, many miles from here. I am glad they have come to talk to you while mother is busy about the house.”
“Oh, doctor, flowers cannot talk, and I am sure you know that as well as I do. I love them, and it makes me feel glad just to look at them, but they never say one word to me. How could they?”
“I am not so sure as you seem to be that flowers never speak, Lily; indeed, I think that they have told me many things. I do not mean that they have a real voice, or can say words as you and I can, yet the spring flowers often seem to whisper sweet thoughts to my heart of the goodness and the love of God.
“Shall I tell you what I think even one small flower may say to us?" And as the doctor spoke he took a very fine long-stalked daisy out of the glass.
Lily clapped her hands with delight. "Oh yes, if you please, doctor.”
“Very well, Lily; then the daisy shall begin at once by telling us about its name. Daisy, or as I believe it used to be spelled a long time ago, 'day's eye,' got its pretty name because it always seems to be looking up with a smile of welcome for the sun. But if you go in the evening to look for daisies it is not very easy to find them, though the field may be almost covered with them; for every tiny flower is closed up and its head hangs down just as if it were asleep.
“But when the sun rises it will unclose its golden cup set round with white petals, and look up.
“French children are all very fond of the daisy; but they call it ‘la marguerite,' after a queen of France whose name was Marguerite, and who loved the little, modest flower so well, that she chose to have some always near her.
“But I think the very prettiest name the daisy bears is its German one, which means ‘Child of light.'”
“Oh, how pretty! I think there is a text in the Bible very much like that."
"Yes, Lily; in the fifth chapter of a letter written by the apostle Paul to the Christians who lived at a place called Ephesus, and the eighth verse, we read: ‘For ye were sometimes darkness but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.'
“But other sick people will be looking out for me, so all I shall have time to tell you about the buttercup is, that although it has no clock or watch, its yellow cup always opens at six o'clock in the morning." The doctor then rose and said good-bye to his little patient.