still there. She drew aside the curtains of the little bed. There they all lay,
but quite faded; much more so than the day before. Sophy was lying in the
drawer where Ida had placed her; but she looked very sleepy.
“Do you remember what the flowers told you to say to me?” said little
Ida. But Sophy looked quite stupid, and said not a single word.
“You are not kind at all,” said Ida; “and yet they all danced with you.”
Then she took a little paper box, on which were painted beautiful birds,
and laid the dead flowers in it.
“This shall be your pretty coffin,” she said; “and by and by, when my
cousins come to visit me, they shall help me to bury you out in the garden;
so that next summer you may grow up again more beautiful than ever.”
Her cousins were two good-tempered boys, whose names were James and
Adolphus. Their father had given them each a bow and arrow, and they had
brought them to show Ida. She told them about the poor flowers which were
dead; and as soon as they obtained permission, they went with her to bury
them. The two boys walked first, with their crossbows on their shoulders,
and little Ida followed, carrying the pretty box containing the dead flowers.
They dug a little grave in the garden. Ida kissed her flowers and then laid
them, with the box, in the earth. James and Adolphus then fired their
crossbows over the grave, as they had neither guns nor cannons.
