From the Juvenile Instructor, January 1918 –

Wreatha

By Bertha Anderson Kleinmann

Miss Millet shook the little bags mysteriously and smiled back into fifty eager faces.

“Something you will all love to do. Something you all can do. Guess what I have here, children.”

“Salted peanuts!”

“Oh, dear! no.”

“Crayola!”

“No; guess again.”

“Fishhooks!”

“No, I shall have to tell you. They are government seeds from the Experimental Station. Choice aster seeds. Now, you know, there are a number of states that are renowned for their beautiful flowers and we are demonstrating that just about anything will flourish here in Arizona, in the very finest variety. Our country is so new that, heretofore, we have had to give our time to the cultivation of the necessities — grains, fruits, vegetables. But we are finding time to be artistic, too. And now for the big secret.” She glanced carefully over a printed paper in her hand.

“A prize of ten dollars is going to be given to the child who can produce the choicest variety of aster from these seeds, each child to have a package to take home. Read the directions over and over before you begin work, ask all the questions you wish, get all the ideas you can, only do the actual work of planting and caring for them yourselves.”

The seeds were distributed, tucked carefully away and the morning work proceeded. But at rest period the air buzzed with seed chatter.

“Meg, you will be sure to get it; your papa is a gardener.”

“My papa is a horticulturist.” corrected Meg. “But it wouldn’t be fair for him to tend to it and me get the prize. I intend to do it all myself.”

“Yes, you have city water and garden hose,” said Viola. “I shall have to draw water from the well.”

“I shall have to carry ditch water.” laughed Maude, “but won’t it be fun? And, Wreatha, how will you do away off there in shanty-town?”

A dozen faces turned in merriment to Wreatha, who stood with her tiny package squeezed in her bony fingers and her big eyes drinking in the words of the white girls.

On her tightly braided hair were no butterfly ribbons, on her calloused feet no socks and sandals but she lifted her head with a slight toss of defiance.

“Ze ditch water is for me, too. I plant ze bonito* [pretty] ((Rather than entering them as footnotes, the translations provided in the Juvenile Instructor appear here in square brackets.)) by ze big wall.”

“I’ll report you if you don’t talk English on the school grounds,” said Meg sharply, but Wreatha skipped gaily away to a group of other brownies who were keeping monopoly on the swing.

In fifty homes the seeds found welcome and every day some comment went the rounds of the play-grounds.

“Father says it beats anything he ever saw and he has crossed the desert to Florence,” said Maude.

“Aunt Juny says if I don’t get the prize she will do me the honor anyway, because it’s a perfect beauty,” said Viola.

“Mine isn’t much yet,” piped tiny Louise, “but I’ll say my prayers close
to the window-box every might.”

“What will you do with so much money?”

“Oh, put it in the bank, I guess,” said Louise.

“Ten dollars is a big sight for one little girl. What will you do, Meg?”

Meg cocked her head wisely. “Papa says to invest it in other species and keep on experimenting.”

“Oh, well! that’s your papa’s business. Anyone could tell that from the big words you can say.”

“We couldn’t afford to spend money for flowers,” said Viola. “Mother says ten dollars would come in mighty handy to pay on the sewing machine.”

Wreatha sat with her brown hands clasped about her knees and waited to he questioned.

“You would build a new mud hut with all that money, wouldn’t you, Wreatha?” tittered Meg.

“Oh, no!” cried the little girl, “our tent is ze new one, two rooms and ze stall for ze vaca.* [cow] I buy ze brace for Manwell that he can walk and ze go-cart for ze heavy baby and pink socks for ze carnival.”

A dozen voices squeaked and shouted, but Meg followed close to Wreatha as they made for the line. “What’s the matter with Manwell? Is he your brother?” she asked.

“Si,* [yes] ze brother old before me. He never stand up; his head big, like three heads. Ze brace cost much money. I buy it with ze ten peso.”* [dollars]

“And a go-cart too?”

“Seguro!* [Surely] Ze nino* [baby] hang by me all ze day. Mother says I shall need ze brace too, but mothers’ work must be done. You come and see my bonito?”

“Wreatha, you positively must stop your Spanish on the grounds,” said Meg very sternly. “I won’t report you this time and yes — I will come and see your flower.”

In the afternoon Meg gained permission to walk with the Peon girl to the outskirts of the town where a hundred huts and shanties and tents of stained tarpaulin and thatch constituted the Mexican quarter. Wreatha conducted her visitor through a maze of barbed wire, ash heaps and scrap iron to the cleanly swept and hard baked yard of her own home. The tired mother sat in the unscreened doorway, supporting across her knees, with the aid of a camp chair, the pitiable object that was Wreatha’s brother. She drew down her black mantilla and covered the child’s head at the stranger’s approach, but at sound of Wreatha’s voice he reached up to touch the little girl’s face.

“Oh, take me away!” whined Meg; “I didn’t come to see your brother. Take me quickly to see your flower.”

That evening Mr. Vance leaned his rake against the pergola and sat down to listen to Meg’s description of the strange flower garden.

“Why, papa! she keeps it near the cow’s stall, but it is thatched with such tiny twigs — not even a rabbit could get in. And she has a pet toad to eat up the bugs. She has made him a boggy hole so he likes it in there. And she keeps a tapoon stretched across the top so that only a little sun gets in when she wants it. And she sprinkles it by hand — just like drops of rain. And do you know — she keeps a little glass covered box set up against the stall with a candle in it. and she says her beads there right over the asters.”

The little girl laid her hand on her father’s knee.

“Papa, don’t you think Wreatha ought to have the prize?”

Mr. Vance’s face was very earnest, too. but he only asked,

“What about the flower — how does it compare with yours, for instance?”

“It’s not quite so large,” answered Meg thoughtfully, “but there are two weeks more. It could buckle in and beat mine yet.”

“That’s true,” said Mr. Vance, and he went back to his raking.

“Whatever will we do with so many beautiful specimens,” asked Miss Millet one morning, interrupting the chatter of a lively group who were comparing notes on the well loved topic.

“There’s the new hospital,” said one.

“Our church would be dreadfully glad.”

“The Toggery is going to have a grand opening. They could display them.”

“Good ideas, all,” said the teacher, “but not quite remunerative. I mean this, dears, that so many fine specimens, with all your work and petting, should be put to some sensible account — be sold or given to make someone better and happier — don’t you see?”

And every little head nodded thoughtfully.

“Meg, you didn’t have an idea to offer,” added Miss Millet to the little girl who left the group and hurried into the school room. “I suppose flowers are such an every day luxury at your home that you are not very interested.”

“Indeed I am. Miss Millet,” plead the child, “and I want to talk to you all alone, if you please.”

When the conversation was over. Miss Millet walked slowly to her desk, but she still shook her head very decidedly.

“It is the Committee, my dear, who has it in hand and I still repeat, it will be the flower and nothing else that will count.”

* * * * * *

Mr. Vance wrapped the fragile wonder carefully in oiled paper and handed it to the happy child.

“I suppose they will say my profession has had something to do with it,” he remarked. “Perhaps it has. We’ve had some chummy chats about it, eh, daughter? At any rate, the specimen is perfect!”

And at the outskirts of the town two little brown hands were trembling over another wonder, wrapping it jealously — not in oiled paper, but in ferns and cresses gathered from the ditch bank. And wound about it. in reverential climax to the task, was a silver rosary.

Wreatha plaited her hair unusually tight that morning and scrubbed her neck and elbows till they hurt. The tired mother unpinned the scarlet ribbon from her carnival bodice and fastened it in the black braids. Then she pinned the draggled collar and clasped the verde* [green] beads more securely. She shook her head over the bare feet.

“Never mind,” sang Wreatha, “I could not dance with ze zapato* [shoes] over ze toes. And today is ze dance day, seguro!

Miss Millet moved swiftly among the children.

“How hard you have worked and how proud I am of you all! I wish there were fifty prizes.”

She paused at Meg’s desk and bent over the potted treasure.

“It is perfect, child. I never saw anything to equal it.”

Down one aisle and up the other she moved with a kind word and nod for every little upturned face. Over at the right where half a dozen little Peons sat she paused again.

“Wreatha, my dear — “

She said no more but hurried to her desk.

Forgetting all discipline, Meg hurried after her.

“Please — I watched your face — over there. Is it like mine — Wreatha’s —Oh, tell me!”

For an instant Miss Millet shared the child’s suspense.

“The same, child — it is wonderful!”

Then in sudden remembrance and with conscious dignity, she added sharply, “Go back to your seat at once. Do you hear me?”

Then began the work of the inspection committee. They, too, nodded and smiled and approved as each little hand was thrust out with its coveted treasure. At Meg’s desk there was a sudden halt. Choking and weeping, the little girl pointed to a bruised mass at her feet.

“Why, it has been trampled!”

“Whoever did so cruel a thing!”

“It is utterly spoiled!”

“Poor little dear, what a sad waste!”

“Child, child, how could you be so careless?”

But it was no time to wrest explanations from the sobbing child and, patting her head as it lay upon her arms, they passed on.

Over at the right another long halt was made and Meg wiped her wet cheeks and tried to listen. In the hush that followed, she clenched her hands and the warm flush mounted her face. Then somebody’s name was called and a little figure in faded dress danced lithely to the front. Meg sobbed aloud and hid her face in her hands, but a keen triumph had turned her blue eyes to stars.

There was music and speeches of commendation and then the committee waited to hear what should be done with the many flowers.

Miss Millet stood very erect in her white dress, and if she had spoken sharply to Meg, her face was all tenderness now as she turned it upon the little girl.

“An arrangement has been made to sell the plants at one dollar apiece to teachers in the building and a number of interested patrons, the proceeds to purchase a .surgical brace for a little unfortunate whom we all know. Wreatha has grown very dear to us and we are all happy to help her little brother. The idea is well worthy of mention and it belongs to a little child. Margaret Vance is truly a heroine!”

And sweeter than any music the word tinkled down in Meg’s heart where every pulse was warm and vibrant with the emotion of childish sacrifice.