St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 8/The Rose
THE ROSE THAT WENT TO THE CITY
BY MARGARET EYTINGE
One morning in the lovely month of June, a rose-bush in a large country garden was proudly holding up to the golden sunshine many beautiful pink roses. A tall boy who was going to work in the great city near by, stopped and picked one and put it in a buttonhole of his coat. “Good-by. sister,” called the others, as he hurried away. And then they began to talk, “It is too bad,” they said, “that our sister should be taken from her delightful garden home. We fear she will not live long. How we pity her!”At that moment, along came a pleasant young breeze “You need not pity her,” he said, as the roses gave him fragrant kisses of welcome. “She may not live as long as you do, but while she does live, she will bring happy thoughts to all those who see her. The boy who plucked her smiled as he did so, and thought, ‘How sweet my mother used to look with a rose like this in her dark hair.’ And all the poor children he will meet to-day will say in glad voices, ‘Oh, the pretty, pretty flower!’ and their pale faces will grow bright. And in the dark office where the boy works from morn till night, the fragrance of the rose will bring to the tired men who work there too, memories of the country homes and old-fashioned gardens of their boyhood.
“So you see, my dear flower-friends, though the rose that went to the noisy, dusty city may not live as long as you who remain here in this beautiful garden, her life will be thrice blessed, because of the happy moments she will bring to those who need happy moments.” And the roses nodded gracefully as the breeze once more flew lightly on its way.