Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1875 — THE HYACINTH SCHOOL. [ARTICLE]

THE HYACINTH SCHOOL.

BY SARA CONANT.

“ You are the most impatient child I ever saw,” said Ann, as she laid down her duster to tie Kitty’s apron.' “ I don’t believe I amJ’ replied Kitty, her good humor fully restored. “ Maybe you’re the slowest Ann in the world,” and with a merry laugh she ran away Not long after breakfast Kitty was teasing again. “ Mother, you said you’d take me out to-day—can’t you go now?” “ Wait a few minutes, dear,” replied her mother, as she counted long columns of figures. “ I can’t wait,” and Kitty kicked impatient feet. Her mother laid down the pencil and said: “Kitty, that is something you must learn—patient waiting. ' Will you begin now and roll these paper-lighters while I finish my work?” Kitty took the slips of paper and in a moment was interested in the task, which she did not wish to leave when her mother was ready to go out. They went to a florist’s and two dried bulbs, looking much like onions, but not smelling like them, were bought, and Kitty was full ot delighted curiosity when told they were for her. “They are hyacinth bulbs,” said her mother. “We will put them in the glasses at home and in a month or so you will have some pretty flowers.” “Why, mother, they look dead?” “ But they are not. A beautiful green leaf will come from this pointed end and then a stalk for flowers.” “ But it’s so long to wait.” “ Yes, but everything has to be waited for.” Kitty took home her bulbs and, putting one in a green glass and the other in a blue one, filled the glasses with water until half of the bulb was covered. The glasses were made on purpose for hyacinths, being sloping glasses about half as tall again as a goblet, with a cupshaped rim to hold the bulb. “Now put the glasses in the dark closet and keep them there three weeks. You must be very patient and only look at them twice a week to see whether they want some water.” “Why, mother, I can’t wait so long,” cried Kitty, after she had put the glasses away. “ Then you cannot have any flowers. And you must wait, for your impatience will not bring them any sooner.” There was truly no alternative and Kitty waited, though she had to be reminded that her hyacinths needed fresh water sometimes. Whether anyone reminded the bulbs What to do we cannot tell, but much was going on under their dried skins.

“Wait, w r ait!” they said to each other. “We will not wait;” and they had not been in the water in the dafk closet one day before they began to move inside. No one could see, no one could hear what they were about, but one morning when Kitty came to give them water she found short, thick, white threads coming out of the under side of the bulb and hanging down into the water. “Oh, mother! see, see!” she said, dancing with delight and spilling the water over her slegye. “ Fes, indeed, those are roots; but put the bulbs back, they are not yet ready to see the light.” “Oh, dear! can’t I have them out now? I hate waiting!” “ You will spoil your pretty blossoms if you do. I wish they might teach you to wait.” The hyacinths went on with their growing so that by the time the three weeks were the lower part of the glasses were filled \frith the white roots which were really little pipes to draw up from the water what the bulb wafited to use. These roots were quite long now, and when Kitty placed the glasses on the window-sill little green bunches were already appearing from the upper parts of the bulbs. “ Like Indian top-nots only they are not hair,” declared Kitty. “ Now have I to wait ever so long for the flowers?” she asked. a 3 impatient as ever. “ Wait, wait!” said one bulb to the. ether. “If she only knew how busy we are.” They passed more tubes into the water, and threw out many slender folded leaves, through which they breathed, and which were "like hands, too, for they took from the sun and air what the bulbs wanted. ODe of them began now to form a stout stalk, and little crumpled knobs of light green gathered on the ends and sides. The other cried to its companion: “Kitty is in a hurry; I’m going to make my flowers fight away;” and it paid no attention to a stalk, but piled lightly folded buds in the little center where the stalk should have been. Boon these b&ds began to change to a deep

pink, and then Kitty spied them and rejoiced. “ This is the best hyacinth,” she cried. “The other is so slow it will never have any flowers. That great thick stalk has not a bit of color.” “ I think,” said the mother, coming to look at the plants, “ that yon will have the most pleasure from the one you now despise. This has been, like you, in a hurry and will not Jiave good blossoms.” * Kitty hardly believed this, but though the hyacinth tried to. repair its mistake—for suqh it found the haste to be—the mother’s prophecy was true. Only two of the tinted buds became pink blossoms —the rest dried, up, crushed in the little space left to them. The leaves seemed to be out of place also and came up crookedly and slowly, so that when the other hyacinth had a tall, graceful stem covered with fragrant purple blossoms, on either side of which green sheathing leaves kept guard, this one loooked like a dwarf. “ That was worth waiting for, mother,” said Kitty, as she smelled her beautiful hyacinth, “ and, mothef, I wonder if the best things don’t take longest to make.” “ I think they do, dear, and that the hyacinths have taught you.” “ They are fanny teachers.” “ Yes, and they’ll keep school for you next year, too, if you plant them this spring.” “ And have more flowers? I’ll do it;” and now Kitty found it hard to wait for the planting. But the time came duly, for each day the sun rose a little earlier and set a little later, and the grass began to spring from the ground, out of which the w ater flowed. When the gardener came to set out the roses and geraniums Kitty’s hyacinths were placed in the center plat, and thus they grew all summer, and Kitty soon forgot them.. The autumn came, then the winter, and after all the snow and ice spring again blew over the garden in the winds of March. April rained many drops on the beds/ and before the sun of May began to shine both the bulbs had pushed green heads through the damp earth. Kitty did not find them until they were quite tall shoots, when she ran with joy tto her mother to tell the news. “ Mother, they’ve been busy all the* time; they don’t wait.” “ They waited all winter, and maybe the lesson they will teach now is that "the best way to wait is to be busy. ” “Then I’ll try that,” replied Kitty, and she went to the hyacinths’ school all summer. If she was in a hurry for them to bloom she watered the other plants and pulled the weeds, and after the blossoms had come and withered she still remembered the two lessons, that the best things take the longest to make, and are worth waiting for, and that the best way to wait is to be busy oneself. — Standard.