The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1903-04-03
THE FLORISTS GIRL KNEW,
From the Flowers the Man Bouqht She
Had Figured Out His Story.

Had Figured Out His Story.
Chicago Tribune: The girl behind the
florists counter smiled and sighed sym
pathetically as she tucked the card hand
ed her by her last customer in among the
fragrant, sweet smelling blossoms filing
the huge box.
II hope they'll be happy she said.
I've stood behind this counter for
eleven years." she explained to the fell
low worker, who INDUCED in a question:
ing grimace, land I've learned to recog-
nize proposal symptoms at sight. That
man, for instance, began sending flowers
to the girl who is to receive these gorge
GUS beauties more than three years ago.
He began with huge, costly American
beauty roses. One day the girl happened
to come into the store with him-I knew
she was his girl because he called her by
the name [ always placed on the boxes
and because of some remarks she made
about t1owers-and 1 saw at once that she
wasn't that kind of a girl. I knew, intu-
itively, she'd prefer violets or small,
odorous white blossoms. BY and by, too,
he found this out. His orders became less
lavish, but more frequent. Then I knew
that he'd settled down to steady adora-
ton. And I knew, too, that she wasn't
being too easily won.
B and by he stopped sending her flow
ers su~ddenly-neyer gave us an order for
weeks and weeks. Then he began send
ing the huge roses a~gain-but to another
girl. A little later the first girl came into
the store, ~ accident, seemingly, and
slipped into conversations with me, She
was looking almost as thin and troubled
as the man who no longer sent her flow
ers, and I was willing to help them both
If l could. So when, after a long and
roundabout season of chatter, she asked
me II the young man who had used to
send Miss s. flowers ever came into
the shop. I said nothing about the
address of the big red roses. But 1 ex-
plated upon the fact that he'd given us a
funeral order a week or two before and
that he didn't look well or happy. TIL.
girl looked happy as she went out again,
and-two weeks later they made up their
quarrel. I knew it, because he stopped
sending the other girl red roses and be-
gan to order violets and white roses sent
to the old address.
Hes never missed many lays since
his renewed happiness. and just now he
rushed In, his eyes all shining and a
beati1c smile on his face, and ordered
flowers enough to decorate a dozen girls
sent up in a great hurry. SO I know he's
proposed and been accepted and I only
hope that the wedding blossoms will come
from here"
The girl who had been guilty of the
questioning grimace smiled grlmly.
Why not carry the matter to a define
-dHu r. she In
CURED. "A flower movemen repeat,
crescendo, climax, diminuendo, retardan-
40. full stop-the latter when they've been
married a year or two. Can't you carry
your sign reading as far as that? It's the
way the blossom march goes, according
10 my way Of thinking"
Not always" returned the cheerful OBJ
timist, stoutly. Il had a customer until
lately who always ordered a bouquet of
mixed flowers. just the same kind of flow
ars, for a certain date every year. Some
Of these flowers are expensive and hard
to get in the winter, but he never minded
paying for them, although he was by no
means a rich man. And he always or
dered them a week or SO beforehand, so
that no single blossom of his list might be
missing. He told me once that he'd or
Tered just hat kind of a bouquet annually
for forty years. l believe he would have
taken a trip across the continent, around
the world, for that matter, sooner than,
miss that bouquet.
didn't come to early as usual his
year, and l wondered, for I've learned to
know the date. But just as ] was getting
| nervous about him., who should come in
ut a sad looking woman in widows
weeds who ordered the Identical bouquet
the missing man had liked. / couldn't re-
frain from drawing her out a little, and
[ learned that the man, her husband, had
Just died. She told me- moreover, that the
dead man had made up for her a dainty
bouquet of blossoms, plucked in her IA
theirs conservatory, the day she had con-
scented to marry him. And every ami
versary Of that day he had marked with
a bouquet of just such blossoms. This
year, as he could no longer bring the dear
ly loved flowers to her, she had decided
to place them on his grave"