Elizabeth Gordon

“ And then along came Madame Curie, the brilliant French scientist, and discovered radium, the merest shadow of which makes the dial of your watch luminous for as long as it lasts.
“There is a very famous clock in Strasbourg which not only tells the time of day, but also the day of week, the month, and the position of the moon and the planets. At various times processions of tiny figures cross a stage, including a cock that crows. The day of week is indicated by a separate little figure which takes its place on a tiny platform.
“A watch is perhaps the most wonderful little machine in the world. ”

“ Wherever we may go some of these little people are there before us, ready to help us by giving us food and to make life easy and joyous for us.
¶ In your Mother’s garden you will always find many familiar friends; in the fields the graceful Grain children will nod and beckon to you; in the orchard the Fruit children will peep out at you from their leafy homes; along the roadside the gay little Berries will give you a friendly greeting, and in the forest you will find the little wild Grapes climbing trees and playing hide and seek with the Bird children. ”

“ Most children do not understand the importance of cutting wild flowers instead of tearing them up by the roots.”
“I ought to understand it unless I’m a dunce,” laughed Billy, “you and Mom tell me about it often enough. But why is it called Mayflower when it always comes in April? Of course I know its real name is Trailing Arbutus.”
“The Mayflower,” said Somebody, “is spring’s first messenger wherever it will grow, and its appearance is governed by the length of the winter, and not by the calendar. ”

“ A Bunch of Roses
etter than gifts of gleaming gold,
Or houses made by hands;
More precious than the glowing gems
Men seek in distant lands;
Breathing of love and purity,
Of constant hearts and true ”

“ And Watermelon Pete listened to what the naughty little Blackie said, and then he crawled out of bed, and ran, oh, so fast, down to the fence, and scrooged through a hole in the fence, and ran—pitter-patter, with his little bare black 14 feet—down the path to the watermelon vines.
Then he ate, and he ate, and he ate, so many watermelons! And by and by he went to sleep under a watermelon vine. And Mr. Moon went to bed.
Then pretty soon old Mr. Rooster woke up and said, “Cock-a-doodle-doo-oo! Farmer Brown, I’m calling you-oo-o! It’s time to get up!” ”

“ He knew that Judas Iscariot, one of his own disciples, would betray him to the chief priests and magistrates who hated him, because they were afraid he would convert the people and uncover their own wickedness. Christ Jesus knew that he must suffer violence at the hands of those who hated goodness so that he might prove beyond shadow of doubt, by his resurrection, that love is greater than hate—that love is always victorious, because God is Love. ”

“ This little book is a thank-offering to the thousands of little friends who have so loyally given me their best in the way of encouragement and appreciation, and is most especially inscribed to Gladys Doris.
FOREWORD
seed, little friends, is really a plant or a tree all wrapped up in a little brown bundle. If you plant it in the ground it will grow, and when it is old enough it will bear fruit, because God has made it so.
¶ Among all the children of Mother Nature, the fruits and vegetables are probably the most useful to us. ”

“ Now what are some of your ideals as Scouts?”
“Well,” said Billy, “we’re divided into three classes. Tenderfoot, that’s what Bob White and I are as yet, but we’ll grow—second class Scouts and first class. According to Scout law one must have honor, loyalty, unselfishness, friendliness, hatred of snobbishness, must be courteous, be really kind to animals, and always obedient to fathers and mothers ’n Somebodys, be gentle, fair minded, save money, look out for fires and clean up after oneself.” ”

“ Only very thoughtless people, or those who do not understand, would harm or frighten a bird.
They are real little people, and I am sure that when you have come to know them you will love them as much as you have learned to love the Flower Children. ”

“ The Ancients lighted bonfires on that night to scare away ghosts and witches.
“The Romans had a festival in honor of Pomona, the goddess of fruits, in which apples featured, which accounts for the custom of bobbing for apples in tubs of water, which to this day the young folks think is so much fun.”
“That’s all right for girls,” said the boy named Billy, “but regular fellows can find something better to do.” ”

“ These little sea animals are called polyps and the coral grows inside their soft outer structure just as your bones do inside your flesh. Among the greatest architects in the world are the little coral-making animals, creatures of shallow water in the warmer seas. Some kinds live all alone, but the commoner ones live in colonies of many individuals united by a stalk with many branches—sort of a family tree you might say—indeed they were once called plant animals. ”

“ Elizabeth Gordon’s sympathetic understanding of the child mind has placed her in the front rank as a writer of children’s books. It is an art not to be acquired; but, when natural and inborn, children are the first to recognize it. ”

“ Because it is due to him and to him only that we are not broken up into small independent states, but are gathered together under the best flag that the sun ever shone upon. Never has the world seen a greater example of wisdom, patience, patriotism and moral courage than animated his every act. ”

“ To you, then, little child-flowers, this book is lovingly offered as an expression of thankfulness to children for the joy and sweetness with which they have filled my life.
—ELIZABETH GORDON
SAID CROCUS: “My! this wind is cold!
Most wish I had not been so bold;
Here the fields are still all brown;
Glad I wore my eider-down.”
TRAILING ARBUTUS, you know,
Loves to grow beneath the snow. ”

“ Billy grinned. “What time do you look for Mayflower fruit?” said he.
“Along about wild strawberry time,” said Somebody.
[41]
The “Mayflower”
[42] About Pearls
“MY,” said the boy named Billy. “I nearly broke my tooth on the bone of this oyster. Isn’t it funny? It’s as round as a shot and just as hard.”
Everybody laughed, but Somebody said, “That isn’t a bone, Billy; old Mr. Oyster has no bones. That’s a pearl. Too bad you didn’t find it before it was cooked, because then you might have had it set in a pin to wear in your scarf. Now that it has been cooked, it is worthless.” ”

“ You’ll find that men had to delve into mathematics, the mysteries of astronomy, the wonders of physics and chemistry, before they could force the hands on the dial to tell you when to start for school or to catch your train. As you look at a clock, remember that every time the minute-hand passes from one of its marks to the next, it shows that this huge globe on which we live has covered more than 1,000 miles of its headlong journey. ”

“ Now we are engaged in the great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. ”

“ When the setting sun lights up its stars in Alaska, the rising sun salutes it on the rockbound coast of Maine. It is the flag of liberty, never lowered to any foe, and the only flag that has ever whipped the flag upon which the sun never sets. ”

“ The Pagans had a festival at this season of the year called The Birthday of the Sun of which they were very fond. Out of this grew the idea of using that time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the spiritual Sun of the world. This gradually took the place of the old pagan festival.”
“The singing of Christmas songs is an English custom, is it not?” asked Billy.
“Yes,” said Somebody. “There are many beautiful old-world customs which were left behind when the Puritans came to the new world in search of a place in which to worship in their own way. ”

“ CLOCK About Clocks
“LOOK at my new wrist-watch! Mom gave it to me for my birthday—isn’t it a beauty?” said the boy named Billy. “Radium dial ’n all; I can see what time it is in the dark. Handy when I’m on hikes, no more stopping to scratch matches. Stem winder ’n everything.”
“Goodness, Billy,” said Big Sister. “Anyone would think to hear you that there never was a watch like that of yours. We all have watches.”
Billy grinned. “Well,” he said, “I’ve wanted it so long. A fellow needs something to tell time by. Who discovered how to tell time anyhow?” ”

“ About Wolves
“LOOK at this funny old pair of curly-toed skates that I found in that funny old horse-hair trunk in the attic,” said the boy named Billy. “They look like toys, and seem about big enough for little sister. Nobody ever could have really used them to skate with, could they?”
“Those skates were your great-grandmother Ellen’s racing skates,” said Somebody, “and if they had not been rather practical and not at all the toys they look, in comparison with the ones in use now, you would not be here this afternoon.”
“Why?” demanded the boy named Billy, sensing a story. ”

“ I’m going to get it,” said the boy named Billy. “Sergeant Jim says that when he first went into the service he just hated the salute. But after a while when he began to know what it meant, he didn’t mind it. What does it mean? Why should a soldier salute an officer? An officer’s no better than a soldier, is he?” ”

“ The boy named Billy scrubbed with right good will. “It’s coming off,” he said. “Say, Somebody, please tell me why Easter doesn’t stand still, like Christmas and New Year’s Day. What makes it come in March one year, and likely as not in April the next? A day is a day, isn’t it? Then why do we never know when to look for it? Last year we gathered pussy willows, and this year it’s cold enough to skate.” ”

“ The world will little know nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. ”

“ Large shipments of shamrocks are brought to the United States for Saint Patrick’s Day.”
“So the shamrock is the National emblem of Irish people,” said Billy.
“Yes,” said Somebody. “And it is said that no snake can live where it grows.
“Perhaps if one will take the trouble to think it out, one may find in that belief the idea of faith and loyalty and love of country for which the Irish people are noted, and that emblematically it means that no traitor to Ireland can live near the Shamrock.”
“I see,” said the boy named Billy, “they feel as we do about our Eagle, don’t they?” ”

“ In growing potatoes, the most perfect tubers should be chosen, cut in pieces and planted; the new plants grow from the eyes or buds on the cuttings.
“The cultivation of the potato has played an important part in the history of Europe. In certain parts of Germany it helped to check the famines caused by the Thirty Years’ War. By 1688 it had become the staple food of the Irish peasantry, and the failure of the potato crop in 1845 and the resulting famine started the first great wave of Irish immigration to the United States.” ”

“ To the Indian everything in Nature had a real personality and was inhabited by a spirit either good or bad.
“They believed in monsters, and fairies and witches. The women were the only ones who could declare war, and when prisoners were brought in they had the right to adopt them into the tribe, or if they did not like them to send them to death.”
“Sweet and gentle ladies, weren’t they?” said the boy named Billy. “I’m glad that they’re just folks nowadays.” ”

“ No matter how much you know of poetry or prose, you cannot consider yourself well read unless you are thoroughly acquainted with the Bible.”
“It is wonderful that the language has been kept so beautiful after all those translations and copyings,” said the boy named Billy. ”