Poppie

“ Poppie was used to curses, and did not mind them a bit—somehow they never hurt her—but she was a little frightened at the face of indignant surprise and wrath which she saw bending over her when she awoke. It was that of one of the attendants, with a policeman beside him, for whom he had sent before he awoke the child, allowing her thus a few moments of unconscious blessedness, with the future hanging heavy in the near distance. ”

“ Poppie held the bait, and the fisherman drew in his line as fast as possible, that his fish might not see it.
The motions of Poppie's mind were as impossible to analyze as those of a field-mouse or hedge-sparrow. This time she began at once to gnaw the sugar, staring about her as she did so, and apparently in no hurry to go. Possibly she was mentally stunned by the marvel of the phenomenon, but I do not think so. Poppie never could be much surprised at anything. Why should anything be surprising? ”

“ But he would try the bait without the line once more. Am I wearying my reader with the process? I would not willingly do so, of course. But I fancy he would listen to this much about a salmon any day, so I will go on with my child. [Pg 169] Poppie came the next morning, notwithstanding her last disappointment, found the bull's-eye, for such I think it was this time, took it, and sucked it to nothing upon the spot—did it leisurely, and kept looking about—let us hope for Lucy, and that Poppie considered a kiss a lovelier thing still than a lollypop. ”

“ Poppie didn't see your privileges! You'll have the pleasure of learning a whole page of French poetry to improve your mind, instead of playing hockey to-morrow!"
"I don't care!" said Gipsy, with an obstinate set to her mouth. "She may give me anything she likes, to learn. When folks are nice to me, I'll keep any number of rules; but when they begin to bully me, I just feel inclined to go and do something outrageous. I'm afraid there's not much love lost between Poppie and me." ”

“ She found Poppie actually washing cups and saucers, with her sleeves tucked up, and looking not merely a very lovely, but a very orderly maiden. No doubt she was very odd still, and would be to the end of her days. What she would do when she was too old (which would not be till she was too frail) to scud, was inconceivable. But with all such good influences around her—her father, Mattie, Mr. Fuller, Lucy Burton—it was no wonder that the real woman in her should have begun to grow, and, having begun, should promise well for what was yet to be. ”

“ We call her 'Snorer' now, instead of 'Leonora'. I wish Poppie'd put her in the attic, instead of Gipsy."
"Trust Poppie not to banish the millionairess! She's ever so proud of having her at the school."
"H'm! Her company's a doubtful privilege, in my opinion."
"Yet Poppie had the cheek to suggest that we ought to make her a Guild officer."
"No! Did she?" exclaimed the girls. "It's not Poppie's business to interfere in our affairs. We'll [153] manage them for ourselves, thank you! We've got rid of the Seniors, and we're not going to let her dictate what we must do." ”

“ They could carry her through the snow satisfactorily, however—with considerable suffering to themselves, no doubt. But Poppie was not bound to be miserable because Poppie's legs were anything but comfortable; there is no selfishness in not being sorry for one's own legs. ”

“ It's a good motto to do what you want until you're told not to. Ta ta! I'm off on a foraging [75] expedition. Expect me back when you see me. I'm going to put my powers of persuasion to the test."
"You mad thing! Don't get into too big a scrape; Poppie can make herself nasty!" called Hetty.
"Don't worry yourself! I'll keep carefully out of Poppie's clutches," returned Gipsy, as she banged the door of the Juniors' sitting-room.
"She'll get into a row with Poppie yet, though," said Dilys; "she's far too free and easy for this school. Did you see how Poppie glared at her this morning in maths.?" ”

“ A dislike of the scent of Field Poppies is often found among English folk. The author of A World in a Garden speaks in disgust of "the pungent and sickly odor of the flaring Poppies—they positively nauseate me"; but then he disliked their color too.
There is something very fine about a Poppy, in the extraordinary combination of boldness of color and great size with its slender delicacy of stem, the grace of the set of the beautiful buds, the fine turn of the flower as it opens, and the wonderful airiness of poise of so heavy a flower. ”

“ There is one good thing about poppies. They do not lie to you. They are frankly bad—the single ones, dry and thin with their savage burning, their breath from some deep-concealed place of decay. The double poppies are more dreadful—born of evil thoughts, blackness blent with their reds. ”

“ They then went out into a long, narrow street, Rotherhithe Street, I think, very different in aspect from any [Pg 262] he had seen in London before. Indeed it is more like a street in Cologne. Here we must leave him with his misery and Jim Salter, both better companions than Molken.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
POPPIE CHOOSES A PROFESSION.
When their native red began to bloom again upon the cheeks of Poppie, she began to grow restless, and the heart of the tailor to grow anxious. It was very hard for a wild thing to be kept in a cage against her will, he thought. ”

“ One thing to be remembered about poppies is not to rely greatly upon their durability and make the mistake of expecting them to fill too conspicuous a place, or keep long in the marching line of the garden pageant. They have a disappointing way, especially the great, long-stemmed double varieties, of suddenly turning to impossible party-coloured mush after a bit of damp weather that is most discouraging. Treated as mere garden episodes and massed here and there where a sudden disappearance will not leave a gap, they will yield a feast of unsurpassed colour. ”

“ When I read about the poppies Alphonse Karr sowed in the wild nooks of his native country, it made me think of John's French poppies, and paeony poppies, and ranunculus poppies, and carnation poppies, some very [65] large, some quite small, some round and neat, some full and ragged like Japanese chrysanthemums, but all of such beautiful shades of red, rose, crimson, pink, pale blush, and white, that if they had but smelt like carnations instead of smelling like laudanum when you have the toothache, they would have been quite perfect.
In one way they are nicer than carnations. ”

“ Besides these Poppies, the large double garden Poppies are very showy and of great variety in colour, but they are only annuals.
FOOTNOTES:
[223:1] "We usually think of the Poppy as a coarse flower; but it is the most transparent and delicate of all the blossoms of the field. The rest, nearly all of them, depend on the texture of their surface for colour. But the Poppy is painted glass; it never glows so brightly as when the sun shines through it. Wherever it is seen, against the light or with the light, always it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby."—Ruskin, Proserpina, p. ”

“ I was still "slipping up" poppies all day long, and every evening till half-past nine. Then I went home to the little cot in the dormitory of the "home." It would seem that all the world's wife and daughters were to wear nothing but poppies that season. But ours was only a small portion of Rosenfeld's output. Violets, geraniums, forget-me-nots, lilies-of-the-valley, apple-blossoms, daisies, and roses of a score of varieties were coming to life in this big garden in greater multitudes even than our common poppies. Forty girls worked on roses alone. The rose-makers are the swells of the trade. ”

“ The kingly poppies on the dry summit of the mound take no heed of these, the populace, their subjects so numerous they cannot be numbered. A barren race they are, the proud poppies, lords of the July field, taking no deep root, but raising up a brilliant blazon of scarlet heraldry out of nothing. They are useless, they are bitter, they are allied to sleep and poison and everlasting night; yet they are forgiven because they are not commonplace. Nothing, no abundance of them, can ever make the poppies commonplace. There is genius in them, the genius of colour, and they are saved. ”

“ In a priceless vase near the open window they held their heads in high disdain—those four red poppies who had gleefully chuckled and chatted together on the yesterday; but the fifth and silent poppy drooped upon her breast. I turned to go; she did not stay me; I stole to the door. "Take us away with you," cried those four garrulous poppies; "we are willing to die, and at once if need be, but not here in her hateful presence. Take us away." But the poppy on her breast only drooped and drooped the more and said not a word. ”

“ Children worship them in their delight and greet one another with “The poppies are in bloom!” then scamper off by dozens to the mesas, where they deck their hair with poppy garlands and race to and fro like butterflies, wading knee-deep in poppy dust of gold. ”

“ They cannot move of themselves, but the wind sways the poppy pod this way and that on its long stalk, and the little seeds are shaken out only to be caught by the wind and blown away.
Perhaps you think that is not a very sure way for [60] the seeds to escape, but if you examine a poppy head that has been ripe for some time you will find scarcely a seed in it, so it proves to be a better way than it looks.
Nature’s way is generally the best way to accomplish an object.
Poppies are often seen growing by the roadside or in the garden, far from the flower beds ”

“ Myriads of rich, gorgeous, brilliant poppies nod, lean, dance and swing their dainty cups of gold in the breeze. A mass of tossing gold, sheets of gold fire running up the valley, hill slopes and mountains. The pasture, mesa and uplands are all aglow. Poppies everywhere, found along the sea-shore in great patches, by the roadside, hid in the fence corners, in the green grass, at the edge of the woods, in the deserts and waste places. ”

“ The story of the Shirley Poppies is one of magic, that a flower-loving clergyman who in 1882 sowed the seed of one specially beautiful Poppy which had no black in it, and then sowed those of its fine successors, produced thus a variety which has supplied the world with beauty. ”

“ As we approached them, the ruffling wind laid its hand on the grasses, and they became emerald waves, a green spray of blades tossing and flashing in the full sunlight. As we passed, the same wind bowed them before it, and they were a shining, silken cloth. The poppies were a larger sort than those in the wheatfields, and of a very glorious crimson. ”

“ The homesickness and redness of weeping had gone forever from her eyes, for they were looking now upon the King in his beauty! In her hand, now cold and waxen, she held one little silky poppy, red with edges of white. Polly had gone home.
There was a whisper among the poppies that grew behind the cookhouse that morning as the first gleam of the sun came yellow and wan over the fields; there was a whisper and a shivering among the poppies as the morning breezes, cold and chill, rippled over them, and a shower of crystal drops mingled with the crimson petals that fluttered to the ground. ”

“ She carried a child's parasol, which she was careful not to tear against the scrubby branches and bramble bushes as she sought for wild poppies along the edge of the fence. They were late poppies, a third generation, which had been unable to resist the call of the warm October sun. ”

“ She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, and she went away. Then I put up more signs.
At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As between the destructive forces and the will "to live," the poppies maintained an equilibrium with their environment. ”

“ Poppea's character in the rather fantastic performance was that of a young girl of the pastoral type, who for a part of the play personated an actress, and for this scene, in which there was a dance, she was to utilize the green muslin Perdita gown of her first appearance at Quality Hill. Of course at this season the poppies must be artificial and more abundant for stage effect, and after many protestations she was told that she simply must have her eyes pencilled and a dash of color added to her cheeks to guard against nervous pallor. ”

“ Of course you are only a girl ... a good girl!... gates and girls! ... gates!..." Suddenly he leaned closer to her and peered into her face, striving to distinguish the features he instinctively knew were lovely. "Who are you? What are you?" he strangely asked.
"I am a poppy ... a poppy growing in Africa," said she, smiling subtly to herself, but trembling—trembling.
"A poppy!... then that is why your hair has that mystic odour!... 'Give me of poppy and mandragora.'... Poppies give sleep ... I believe that is what I want ... I am a sick man ... ”

“ They are the first of the annual Poppies to bloom. Then comes the variety which grows wild in France and Germany,—scarlet, with black blotches at the base of the petals. Last to bloom are the tall, fringed double and single Poppies,—white, pink and scarlet, growing on strong stems three feet high. Poppies must be sown thinly and the earth only sprinkled over the seeds. Sow as early in the spring as the ground can be worked, and thin out to six inches apart when the plants are well up. ”