The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-09 00:00:00

FLOWERS AND TREES.

BY ELIZA COOK.
(Written expressly for the Odd Fellows' Magazine).

Who amongst us does not love flowers, trees, and
grass ? We have only to cast our eyes around on
the varied paths of life, and ample evidence will be
afforded that there is an immortal influence in
" The pomp of groves and garniture of fields."

Mankind has ever revelled in the scent of the
blossoms and shadow of the boughs, and ever will.
The tawny savage of the backwoods strides over
the wide prairie's purple bells, and gazes on the
pine giants of his native forests with an ex-
ulting, although an indefinite joy. The ducal
master of Chatsworth breathes among his choice
exotics, and treads daintily beneath the branches
of his ancestral oaks and beeches with in-
finite pride and pleasure: The same instinct
dwells in each bosom—though one is girded
by the ribbon of the Bath, and graced with the star
of blazing gems ; and the other is swathed in the
buffalo's skin and chequered .with the red tatoo.
They both love flowers and trees. The infinite and
the beautiful erects its altar alike in the hearts of
the Indian Pawnee and the English peer.
Most of us have our earliest recollections asso-
ciated with " buttercups and daisies," cowslip hells,
and palm branches. The " Field of the Cloth of
Gold" that saw the meeting of Harry of England
and Francis of France, bore no such extatic hearts
and bounding limbs as Old Farley's meadow did
when ho allowed some dozen town-born children
—myself included—the free range of it in full
buttercup season. What a memorable day it was !
The meridian sun was blazing away in cloudless
glory. The scarlet poppies along the hawthorn
hedge banks seemed to have breathed their opium
into the wings of young Zephyrus, and put a stop
to his gadding for the day. The 13,,es had been so
thirsty that they had drank too much red clover wine,
for they blundered against each other, and staggered
and tumbled about with aimless indecision of place
and purpose, and evidently did not know a corn-
cockel from a dandelion. We heard a couple of
them attempting to hum some snatch of melody—
but the incoherent style of their performance left a
doubt as to whether they intended it for " Jolly
companions" or "We won't go home till morning."
The barn cat had found a shady spot in the ro-
mantic recess of a dilapidated pig-sty—so completely
overcome by the heat that two audacious kittens
were uninterruptedly playing at scratch-cradle with
her tail, passing it frdm one to the other in the
most intricate lines and angles imaginable.
The cows and ducks had been in the pond since
sunrise, and appeared thoroughly determined to
pursue the hydropathic system until sunset. Every-
thing was dry and dusty, or bright and burning.
Old Farley expressed an opinion at the meadow
gate that it. would be "too hot" for us; but our
rush in a body—such as never tried a pit entrance
on Edmund Kean's benefit nights, soon rendered
that opinion null and void—away we went, like the
starters for the Derby, and the gorgeous yellow
prairie was attacked with an onslaught that few
blossoms, save the immortal buttercup, could pro-
voke. _ _

How we danced, and jumped, and leaped about
that beautiful field—now screaming with delight
over a lot of brazen ox-eyed daisies, and pulling up
handfulls of them at a clutch—roots and all ; then
shouting over a patch of sweet scented bind-weed,
and then flying off to seize the tall fox-gloves,
rather out of reach on the banks. Any rational
looker-on would have imagined us to be com-
pounded of the greyhound and the grasshopper—
such lithe activity—such uncaleulating gymnastics
were. displayed. What boughs we pulled of horn-
beam and dogrose—what bundles of ferns and
dodder-grass—what armfulls of sorrel, until, utterly
exhausted, we flung ourselves down under the lop-
elms, with countenances that amalgamated the de-
licate tints of a postman's coat and an over-ripe
pickling cabbage, and with elfin tresses and excited
skins that no Rowland's Macassar or Kalydor
could have made decently presentable. 'Well do
we remember the tea and fruit we had that day—
what delicious broad and butter, so moist and fresh
—what luxurious cream, so white and thick—
what heaps of strawberries, real Elton pines—
what baskets of cherries, true black hearts, which
added vastly to the complexional beauty of our
faces—what pottles of raspberries, rill pulp and
perfume—and how we did cat—city aldermen
would have been ashamed of us ; and how well do
we remember that the tables and chairs in old
Farley's big parlour were covered with our gathered
spoils, for the revelling joy of a fruit feast could
not exclude our demonstrative admiration for the
lovely " nosegays" we had crillected. This heap
of marsh-mallows was prominently held up to
notice, and that lot of feather-grass claimed distinct
praise. 'rho bunches of buttercups and daisies
were gigantic and countless, and the branches of
nut-trees and silver-ash afforded no mean resem•
blance to the celebrated march of Birnam Wood.
How carefully we tied them up—how zealously we
guarded them on our way to town--how we loved
those sweet and simple things—and how innocent
and happy were those days, when green leaves and
wild flowers formed a paradise for us, with no Worse
serpent to ruin its character than a mother's gentle
reprimand for bringing home such a " lot of rub-
bish ;" and yet we have seen that mother quite as
great an idolator of them as we were, only in a
more subdued style of worship ; and many a time
have discovered her cherishing some of the lot of
rubbish with fresh water, and arranging them with
tasteful hands.

We meet on Sunday morning idlers by the dozens,
strolling through the streets of our great city. Let
us just glance at them. We see a brawny dray-
man who has evidently forgotten to shave himself,
and not been too particular as to the set of his
neck-tie. Ho has on the same rough, tough, dirty,
thick, blanket-sort of jerkin in which he let down
innumberable butts of " Barclay's best" into dingy
cellars during the week ; but in a button hole of
the said jerkin there is a splendid carnation. He
has consumed some seconds of time in placing it
safely and conspicuously, and walks slowly on,
eyeing it every now and then with great self-satis-
, faction ; and his satisfaction is not unglued, for,
while observing his warm appreciation of the really
exquisite blossom, we feel a degree of pride also
that one of a class who had the courage to pelt
Haynau, the woman-whipper, should love flowers.
A little further, and we encounter a grimy son of
Vulcan, who is carrying off a large bunch of all
sorts, beginning with old man and ending with
prince's feathers ; he says his "little Polly, who
ain't over well, likes the smell on 'em ;" whether
the smell may be very beneficial to the young suf-
ferer Ave will not inquire, but the tendency to love
flowers claims our admiration under any circum-
stances. A lank pale woman has spent an extra-
vagant halfpenny on a dozen brilliant sweet-peas,
which she declares " will keep beautiful for a whole
week, with plenty of water. A charity boy has
picked up a bit of double-stock, and, with earnest
endeavour, fixes it above his badge of poverty—and
then as earnestly bends his head to try and get a
whiff of its odorous breath. There, at that stall
yonder, are a decent man and tidy wife, who have
suddenly discovered that they have an " odd penny"
out of the shoulder of mutton which the man carries
in a flag basket, in immediate conjunction with a
monster cabbage—and it is as suddenly imagined
that the odd money cannot be better laid out than
in one of those tempting clusters of roses, as they
happen to be just " a penny a lot ;" and away the
couple go, to gladden the eyes of their young
Tommy and Nancy with the sight of real, smelling,
lovely roses. Aye ! ye children Of toil ; ye " love
flowers."

We loiter on, and down a close iron-railed area
we-see a goodly number of half-dead plants, with
their brown leaves supported- by green sticks, in
pots of extreme brunette complexion, some of which
plants' are so totally devoid of " character" in their,
foliage that their "order" is a mystery. These are
the. especial and treasured property of the cook, who
isnever known to abuse her favourite tabby, a match-
less mouser—save when he surreptitiously nibbles at
the white pinks; she has serious thoughts ofrubbing
them. with mustard, to deter him from the indul-
gence, having tried pepper without any success. In
the balcony of the drawing room above we perceive
snow camelias and gorgeous cactuses and oleanders
standing up in their rich china vases, in attractive
splendid magnificence. They belong to the young
heiress, who tends thein daily with her own deli-
cate and jewelled fingers, and who dispensed as
decided and vulgar a box on the ear of her juvenile
sister, for destroying the bud of a matchless arum,
as could hare been bestowed by the most unrefined
of exasperated young ladies. It is plain that those
above and those below "love flowers."
The old red night-capped cobbler, who labours
continually in a tubbed-up shed at the corner of a
street in oar neighbourhood, has a beloved idol by
his side in the shape of a pot of mignionette ; sown
by himself, watered by himself, put in the sun-
shine by himself, and carefully preserved from all
the incidental damage likely -to ensue in such '
limited space. Wel suspect that the tubbed-up
shed, with its abominable effiuvia of horse-hide and
stronger wax ends, is rendered a degree more
cheerful to the eyes and senses of the poor inhabi-
tant by the presence of that pot of mignionette.
The old cobbler, though he is accused of making too
frequent "morning calls" at the adjacent " Cow
and. Compasses," " loves flowers."
As for " gardens," they are as old as Paradise it-
self—and we see the original occupation of the
" old Adam" peeping out still when the over-fed,
gold-surfeited citizen betakes hiniself to a detached
villa, " within twenty miles of London,' and two of
a railway statical," where he puddles and pokes
with his sp4clQ owl rake, in his loose jacket, and