Then he promised every little thistle flower which unfolded itself that it
also should be put into a pot, and perhaps into a buttonhole, the highest
honor that could be attained. But not one of them was put into a pot, much
less into a buttonhole. They drank in the sunlight and the air; lived on the
sunlight by day, and on the dew by night; bloomed-were visited by bees and
hornets, who looked after the honey, the dowry of the flower, and they took
the honey, and left the flower where it was.
“The thievish rabble!” said the Thistle. “If I could only stab every one of
them! But I cannot.”
The flowers hung their heads and faded; but after a time new ones came.
“You come in good time,” said the Thistle. “I am expecting every
moment to get across the fence.”
A few innocent daisies, and a long thin dandelion, stood and listened in
deep admiration, and believed everything they heard.
The old Ass of the milk-cart stood at the edge of the field-road, and
glanced across at the blooming thistle bush; but his halter was too short, and
he could not reach it.
And the Thistle thought so long of the thistle of Scotland, to whose
family he said he belonged, that he fancied at last that he had come from
Scotland, and that his parents had been put into the national escutcheon.
That was a great thought; but, you see, a great thistle has a right to a great
thought.
“One is often of so grand a family, that one may not know it,” said the
Nettle, who grew close by. He had a kind of idea that he might be made into
cambric if he were rightly treated.
And the summer went by, and the autumn went by. The leaves fell from
the trees, and the few flowers left had deeper colors and less scent. The
gardener’s boy sang in the garden, across the palings:
“Up the hill, down the dale we wend,
That is life, from beginning to end.”
