The Flower family lived in a little house in a broad grassy meadow,
which sloped a few rods from their front door down to a gentle,
silvery river. Right across the river rose a lovely dark green
mountain, and when there was a rainbow, as there frequently was,
nothing could have looked more enchanting than it did rising from
the opposite bank of the stream with the wet, shadowy mountain for a
background. All the Flower family would invariably run to their front
windows and their door to see it.
The Flower family numbered nine: Father and Mother Flower and seven
children. Father Flower was an unappreciated poet, Mother Flower was
very much like all mothers, and the seven children were very sweet and
interesting. Their first names all matched beautifully with their last
name, and with their personal appearance. For instance, the oldest
girl, who had soft blue eyes and flaxen curls, was called Flax Flower;
the little boy, who came next, and had very red cheeks and loved to
sleep late in the morning, was called Poppy Flower, and so on. This
charming suitableness of their names was owing to Father Flower. He
had a theory that a great deal of the misery and discord in the world
comes from things not matching properly as they should; and he thought
there ought to be a certain correspondence between all things that
were in juxtaposition to each other, just as there ought to be between
the last two words of a couplet of poetry. But he found, very often,
there was no correspondence at all, just as words in poetry do not
always rhyme when they should. However, he did his best to remedy
it. He saw that every one of his children's names were suitable
and accorded with their personal characteristics; and in his
flower-garden--for he raised flowers for the market--only those of
complementary colors were allowed to grow in adjoining beds, and, as
often as possible, they rhymed in their names. But that was a more
difficult matter to manage, and very few flowers were rhymed, or, if
they were, none rhymed correctly. He had a bed of box next to one of
phlox, and a trellis of woodbine grew next to one of eglantine, and a
thicket of elder-blows was next to one of rose; but he was forced
to let his violets and honeysuckles and many others go entirely
unrhymed--this disturbed him considerably, but he reflected that it
was not his fault, but that of the man who made the language and named
the different flowers--he should have looked to it that those of
complementary colors had names to rhyme with each other, then all
would have been harmonious and as it should have been.
Father Flower had chosen this way of earning his livelihood when he
realized that he was doomed to be an unappreciated poet, because it
suited so well with his name; and if the flowers had only rhymed a
little better he would have been very well contented. As it was, he
never grumbled. He also saw to it that the furniture in his little
house and the cooking utensils rhymed as nearly as possible, though
that too was oftentimes a difficult matter to bring about, and
required a vast deal of thought and hard study. The table always stood
under the gable end of the roof, the foot-stool always stood where it
was cool, and the big rocking-chair in a glare of sunlight; the lamp,
too, he kept down cellar where it was damp. But all these were rather
far-fetched, and sometimes quite inconvenient. Occasionally there
would be an article that he could not rhyme until he had spent years
of thought over it, and when he did it would disturb the comfort
of the family greatly. There was the spider. He puzzled over that
exceedingly, and when he rhymed it at last, Mother Flower or one of
the little girls had always to take the spider beside her, when she
sat down, which was of course quite troublesome. The kettle he rhymed
first with nettle, and hung a bunch of nettle over it, till all the
children got dreadfully stung. Then he tried settle, and hung the
kettle over the settle. But that was no place for it; they had to go
without their tea, and everybody who sat on the settle bumped his head
against the kettle. At last it occurred to Father Flower that if he
should make a slight change in the language the kettle could rhyme
with the skillet, and sit beside it on the stove, as it ought, leaving
harmony out of the question, to do. Accordingly all the children were
instructed to call the skillet a skettle, and the kettle stood by its
side on the stove ever afterward.
Motorhome Facts
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