Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-03-28
Clytie, the Sunfower.

When was little girl used often
to visit a gentle lady who lived st the
edge Of quaint old garden. Holly
hooks and sweetwilliam and mignon-
cite grew in that garden, and away at
the farther end tall, strong stalks with
nodding yellow blossoms at their very
tops. These, the lady said, were sun
flowers; and she told me an interesting
story about them that have never for
gotten.
Once upon a time-hundreds and
hundreds of years ago-there lived in
far-of country called Hellas BEAU
tiful maiden whose name was Clytie.
She was not real maiden but a water
nymph, and her home was in the midst
of forest stream. In those days
every stream and tree had its guard
ian spirit, and the people of Hellas
who were the Greeks, believed that
their land was blessed by these nymphs
and made fruitful. The tree spirits
were called dryads and the water
spirits were naiads. Clytie was naiad
because she guarded sparkling stream
that came flowing down from the
mountain side. She was very beau
tiful. for her hair was long and yellow
her skin was as white as the inner
sue of lily and her eyes were brown
and dancing as the waters are when
they darken among the shadows of the
trees and are rippled by the summer
wind.
The little nymph was very happy in
the pleasant wood where she was born,
and played contentedly all the long,
drowsy mornings and afternoons and
evenings. But one day she ventured
farther than she had ever been before
out into an open space where the
sun was shining like gold on the peb-
bles at the bottom of the stream. Now,
Clytie had never looked upon the sun;
she had only seen the rays on the
stream that was her home as they
drifted down through the leafy
branches. AS she looked toward the
heavens her eyes were dazzled.
Apollo. the young god Of the sun,
was driving, as he drove every day, in
his chariot of fame, from east to west
through the heavens; and Clytie was
charmed. She had never beheld SO
beautiful being, and she called him to
come down and play with her by the
stream-banks in the meadow. But
Apollo kept straight on In his course,
never deigning to notice the little
water-nymph so far below him On the
earth. Clytie sat on the grassy bank
and watched until the chariot of gold
disappeared behind the western hills
and the purple mist of the twilight
came. Then she went home, but was
very lonely. So day after day she came
out from the shadows of the forest to
the open place, where the waters
cleaned ana the fish went darting like
spears of gold. But Apollo never no.
ticed though she called him and called
him TO come and be her playmate. The
people of the earth who came that way
often saw her there by the stream and
neard the sound of her voice, and they
looked on her with awe.
For nine days and nine long nights
the maiden sat and mourned. with her
yellow hair drawn close about her. and
would neither eat nor sleep. She was
very, very sad, this little water-nymph,
but she did not die. Oh, no. On the
morning of the tenth day, when the
children of the valley came to play by
the meadow stream, they found Won
der where the maiden had been sitting
"a tall strong stalk with a nodding
yellow blossom at it's very top. And
when the people watched, day after
day, and saw that the pretty flower
turned its head to follow the course of
the sun from east to west through the
heavens, they knew it was the nymph
of the stream; and they called it Clytie,
the unfiower-Grace Adele Pierce, in
Woman's Home Companion