Chapter 8 THE QUEST FLOWER

The garden in the ravine had been put into fine order to exhibit to Jewel's father and mother. Fresh ferns had been planted around the still pond where Anna Belle's china dolls went swimming, and fresh moss banks had been constructed for their repose. The brook was beginning to lose the impetuosity of spring and now gurgled more quietly between its verdant banks.

It delighted Jewel that the place held as much charm for her mother as for herself, and that she listened with as hushed pleasure to the songs of birds in the treetops too high to be disturbed by the presence of dwellers on the ground. It was an ideal spot wherein to read aloud, and the early hours of that sunshiny afternoon found the three seated there by the brookside ready to begin the Story Book.

"Now I'll read the titles and you shall choose what one we will take first," said Mrs. Evringham.

Jewel's attention was as unwinking as Anna Belle's, as she listened to the names.

"Anna Belle ought to have first choice because she's the youngest. Then I'll have next, and you next. Anna Belle chooses The Quest Flower; because she loves flowers so and she can't imagine what that means."

"Very well," returned Mrs. Evringham, smiling and settling herself more comfortably against a tree trunk. "The little girl in this story loved them too;" and so saying, Jewel's mother began to read aloud:-

THE QUEST FLOWER

Hazel Wright learned to love her uncle Dick Badger very much during a visit he made at her mother's home in Boston. She became well acquainted with him. He was always kind to her in his quiet way, and always had time to take her on his knee and listen to whatever she had to tell about her school or her plays, and even took an interest in her doll, Ella. Mrs. Wright used to laugh and tell her brother that he was a wonderful old bachelor, and could give lessons to many a husband and father; upon which uncle Dick responded that he had always been fond of assuming a virtue if he had it not; and Hazel wondered if "assuming-a-virtue" were a little girl. At any rate, she loved uncle Dick and wished he would live with them always; so it will be seen that when it was suddenly decided that Hazel was to go home with him to the town where he lived, she was delighted.

"Father and I are called away on business, Hazel," her mother said to her one day, "and we have been wondering what to do with you. Uncle Dick says he'll take you home with him if you would like to go."

"Oh, yes, I would," replied the little girl; for it was vacation and she wanted an outing. "Uncle Dick has a big yard, and Ella and I can have fun there."

"I'm sure you can. Uncle Dick's housekeeper, Hannah, is a kind soul, and she knew me when I was as little as you are, and will take good care of you."

The evening before Hazel and her uncle were to leave, Mrs. Wright spoke to her brother in private.

"It seems too bad not to be able to write aunt Hazel that her namesake is coming," she said. "Is she as bitter as ever?"

"Oh, yes. No change."

"Just think of it!" exclaimed Mrs. Wright. "She lives within a stone's throw of you, and yet can remain unforgiving so many years. Let me see-it is eight; for Hazel is ten years old, and I know she was two when the trouble about the property camp up; but you did right, Dick, and some time aunt Hazel must know it."

"Oh, I think she has lucid intervals when she knows it now," returned Mr. Badger; "but her pride won't let her admit it. If it amuses her, it doesn't hurt me for her to pass me on the street without a word or a look. When a thing like that has run along for years, it isn't easy to make any change."

"Oh, but it is so unchristian, so wrong," returned his sister. "If you only had a loving enough feeling, Dick, it seems as if you might take her by storm."

Mr. Badger smiled at some memory. "I tried once. She did the storming." He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm a man of peace. I decided to let her alone."

Mrs. Wright shook her head. "Well, I haven't told Hazel anything about it. She knows she is named for my aunt; but she doesn't know where aunt Hazel lives, and I wish you would warn Hannah not to tell the child anything about her or the affair. You know we lay a great deal of stress on not voicing discord of my kind."

"Yes, I know," Mr. Badger smiled and nodded. 'Your methods seem to have turned out a mighty nice little girl, and it's been a wonder to me ever since I came, to see you going about, such a different creature from what you used to be."

"Yes, I'm well and happy," returned Mrs. Wright, "and I long to have this trouble between you and aunt Hazel at an end. I suppose Hazel isn't likely to come in contact with her at all."

"No, indeed; no more than if aunt Hazel lived in Kamschatka. She does, if it's cold enough there."

"Dear woman. She ignored the last two letters I wrote her, I suppose because I sided with you."

"Oh, certainly, that would be an unpardonable offense. Hannah tells me she has a crippled child visiting her now, the daughter of some friends. Hannah persists in keeping an eye on aunt Hazel's affairs, and telling me about them. Hannah will be pleased to have little Hazel to make a pet of for a few weeks."

He was right. The housekeeper was charmed. She did everything to make Hazel feel at home in her uncle's house, and discovering that the little girl had a passion for flowers, let her make a garden bed of her own. Hazel went with her uncle to buy plants for this, and she had great fun taking geraniums and pansies out of their pots and planting them in the soft brown earth of the round garden plot; and every day blue-eyed Ella, her doll, sat by and watched Hazel pick out every little green weed that had put its head up in the night.

"You're only grass, dearie," she would say to one as she uprooted it, "and grass is all right most everywhere; but this is a garden, so run away."

Not very far down the street was a real garden, though, that gave Hazel such joy to look at that she carried Ella there every day when it didn't rain, and would have gone every day when it did, only Hannah wouldn't let her.

The owner of the garden, Miss Fletcher, at the window where she sat sewing, began to notice the little stranger at last; for the child stood outside the fence with her doll, and gazed and gazed so long each time, that the lady began to regard her with suspicion.

"That young one is after my flowers, I'm afraid, Flossie," she said one day to the pale little girl in the wheeled chair that stood near another window looking on the street.

"I've noticed her ever so many times," returned Flossie listlessly. "I never saw her until this week, and she's always alone."

"Well, I won't have her climbing on my fence!" exclaimed Miss Fletcher, half laying down her work and watching Hazel's movements sharply through her spectacles. "There, she's grabbing hold of a picket now!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I'll see to her in quick order."

She jumped up and hurried out of the room, and Flossie's tired eyes watched her spare figure as she marched down the garden path. She didn't care if Miss Fletcher did send the strange child away. What difference could it make to a girl who had the whole world to walk around in, and who could take her doll and go and play in some other pleasant place?

As Hazel saw Miss Fletcher coming, she gazed at the unsmiling face looking out from hair drawn back in a tight knot; and Miss Fletcher, on her part, saw such winning eagerness in the smile that met her, that she modified the sharp reproof ready to spring forth.

"Get down off the fence, little girl," she said. "You oughtn't ever to hang by the pickets; you'll break one if you do."

"Oh, yes," returned Hazel, getting down quickly. "I didn't think of that. I wanted so much to see if that lily-bud had opened, that looked as if it was going to, yesterday; and it has."

"Which one?" asked Miss Fletcher, looking around.

"Right there behind that second rosebush," replied Hazel, holding Ella tight with one arm while she pointed eagerly.

"Oh, yes." Miss Fletcher went over to the plant.

"I think it is the loveliest of all," went on the little girl. "It makes me think of the quest flower."

"What's that?" Miss Fletcher looked at the strange child curiously. "I never heard of it."

"It's the perfect flower," returned Hazel.

"Where did you ever see it?"

"I never did, but I read about it."

"Where is it to be bought?" Miss Fletcher was really interested now, because flowers were her hobby.

"In the story it says at the Public Garden; but I've been to the Public Garden in Boston, and I never saw any I thought were as beautiful as yours."

Hazel was not trying to win Miss Fletcher's heart, but she had found the road to it.

The care-lined face regarded her more closely than ever. "I don't remember you. I thought I knew all the children around here."

"No 'm. I'm a visitor. I live in Boston; and we have a flat and of course there isn't any yard, and I think your garden is perfectly beautiful. I come to see it every day, and it's fun to stand out here and count the smells."

Miss Fletcher's face broke into a smile. It did really seem as if it cracked, because her lips had been set in such a tight line. "It ain't very often children like flowers unless they can pick them," she replied. "I can't sleep nights sometimes, wishing my garden wasn't so near the fence."

The little girl smiled and pointed to a climbing rose that had strayed from its trellis, and one pink flower that was poking its pretty little face between the pickets. "See that one," she said. "I think it wanted to look up and down the street, don't you?"

"And you didn't gather it," returned Miss Fletcher, looking at Hazel approvingly. "Well, now, for anybody fond of flowers as you are, I think that was real heroic."

"She belongs to nice folks," she decided mentally.

"Oh, it was a tame flower," returned the child, "and that would have been error. If it had been a wild one I would have picked it."

"Error, eh?" returned Miss Fletcher, and again her thin lips parted in a smile. "Well, I wish everybody felt that way."

"Uncle Dick lets me have a garden," said Hazel. "He let me buy geraniums and pansies and lemon verbena-I love that, don't you?"

"Yes. I've got a big plant of it back here. Wouldn't you like to come in and see it?"

"Oh, thank you," returned Hazel, her gray eyes sparkling; and Miss Fletcher felt quite a glow of pleasure in seeing the happiness she was conferring by the invitation. Most of her friends took her garden as a matter of course; and smiled patronizingly at her devotion to it.

In a minute the little girl had run to the gate in the white fence, and, entering, joined the mistress of the house, who stood beside the flourishing plants blooming in all their summer loveliness.

For the next fifteen minutes neither of the two knew that time was flying. They talked and compared and smelled of this blossom and that, their unity of interest making their acquaintance grow at lightning speed. Miss Fletcher was more pleased than she had been for many a day, and as for Hazel, when her hostess went down on her knees beside a verbena bed and began taking steel hairpins from her tightly knotted hair, to pin down the luxuriant plants that they might go on rooting and spread farther, the little girl felt that the climax of interest was reached.

"I'm going to ask uncle Dick," she said admiringly, "if I can't have some verbenas and a paper of hairpins."

"Dear me," returned Miss Fletcher, "I wish poor Flossie took as much interest in the garden as you do."

"'Flossie' sounds like a kitten, returned Hazel.

"She's a little human kitten: a poor little afflicted girl who is making me a visit. You can see her sitting up there in the house, by the window."

Hazel looked up and caught a glimpse of a pale face. Her eyes expressed her wonder. "Who afflicted her?" she asked softly.

"Her Heavenly Father, for some wise purpose," was the response.

"Oh, it couldn't have been that!" returned the child, shocked. "You know God is Love."

"Yes, I know," replied Miss Fletcher, turning to her visitor in surprise at so decided an answer from such a source; "but it isn't for us to question what His love is. It's very different from our poor mortal ideas. There's something the matter with poor Flossie's back, and she can't walk. The doctors say it's nervous and perhaps she'll outgrow it; but I think she gets worse all the time."

Hazel watched the speaker with eyes full of trouble and perplexity. "Dear me," she replied, "if you think God made her get that way, who do you think 's going to cure her?"

"Nobody, it seems. Her people have spent more than they can afford, trying and trying. They've made themselves poor, but nobody's helped her so far."

Hazel's eyes swept over the roses and lilies and then back to Miss Fletcher's face. The lady was regarding her curiously. She saw that thoughts were hurrying through the mind of the little girl standing there with her doll in her arms.

"You look as if you wanted to say something," she said at last.

"I don't want to be impolite," returned Hazel, hesitating.

"Well," returned Miss Fletcher dryly, "if you knew the amount of impoliteness that has been given to me in my time, you wouldn't hesitate about adding a little more. Speak out and tell me what you are thinking."

"I was thinking how wonderful and how nice it is that flowers will grow for everybody," said Hazel, half reluctantly.

"How's that?" demanded her new friend, in fresh surprise. "Have you decided I don't deserve them?"

"Oh, you deserve them, of course," replied the child quickly; "but when you have such thoughts about God, it's a wonder His flowers can grow so beautifully in your yard."

Miss Fletcher felt a warmth come into her cheeks.

"Well," she returned rather sharply, "I should like to know what sort of teaching you've had. You're a big enough girl to know that it's a Christian's business to be resigned to the will of God. You don't happen to have seen many, sick folks, I guess-what is your name?"

"Hazel."

"Why, that's queer, so is mine; and it isn't a common one."

"Isn't that nice!" returned the child. "We're both named Hazel and we both love flowers so much."

"Yes; that's quite a coincidence. Now, why shouldn't flowers grow for me, I should like to know?"

"Why, you think God afflicted that little girl's back, and didn't let her walk. Why, Miss Fletcher," the child's voice grew more earnest, "He wouldn't do it any more than I'd kneel down and break the stem of that lovely quest flower and let it hang there and wither."

Miss Fletcher pushed up her spectacles and gazed down into the clear gray eyes.

"Does Flossie think He would?" added Hazel with soft amazement.

"I suppose she does."

"Then does she say her prayers just the same?"

"Of course she does."

"What a kind girl she must be!" exclaimed Hazel earnestly.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I wouldn't pray to anybody that I believed kept me afflicted."

Miss Fletcher started back. "Why, child!" she exclaimed, "I should think you'd expect a thunderbolt. Where do your folks go to church, for pity's sake?"

"To the Christian Science church."

"Oh-h, that's what's the matter with you! Some of Flossie's relatives have heard about that, and they've been teasing her mother to try it. I'm sure I'd try anything that wasn't blasphemous."

"What is blasphemous?"

"Why-why-anything that isn't respectful to God is blasphemous."

"Oh!" returned Hazel. Then she added softly, "I should think you were that, now."

"What!" and Miss Fletcher seemed to tower above her visitor in her amazement.

"Oh-please excuse me. I didn't mean to be impolite; but if you'll just try, you'll find out what a mistake you and Flossie have been making, and that God wants to heal her."

The two looked at one another for a silent half-minute, the little girl's heart beating faster under the grim gaze.

"You might come and see her some day," suggested Miss Fletcher, at last. "She has a dull time of it, poor child. I've asked the children to come in, and they've all been very kind, but it's vacation, and a good many that I know have gone away."

"I will," replied Hazel. "Doesn't she like to come out here where the flowers are?"

"Yes; it's been a little too cloudy and threatening to-day, but if it's clear to-morrow I'll wheel her out under the elm-tree, and she'd like a visit from you. Are you staying far from here?"

"No, uncle Dick's is right on this street."

"What's his last name?"

"Mr. Badger," replied Hazel, and she didn't notice the sudden stiffening that went through Miss Fletcher.

"What is your last name?" asked the lady, in a changed voice.

"Wright."

This time any one who had eyes for something beside the flowers might have seen Miss Fletcher start. Color flew into her thin cheeks, and the eyes that stared at Hazel's straw tam-o'-shanter grew dim. This was dear Mabel Badger's child; her little namesake, her own flesh and blood.

Her jaw felt rigid as she asked the next question. "Have you ever spoken to your uncle Dick about my garden?"

"Yes, indeed. That's why he let me make one; and every night he asks, 'Well, how's Miss Fletcher's garden to-day,' and I tell him all about it"

"And didn't he ever say anything to you about me?"

"Why, no;" the child looked up wonderingly. "He doesn't know you, does he?"

"We used to know one another," returned Miss Fletcher stiffly.

Richard had certainly behaved very decently in this particular instance. At least he had told no lies.

"Hazel is such an unusual name," she went on, after a minute. "Who were you named for?"

"My mother's favorite aunt," returned the child.

"Where does she live?"

"I don't know," replied Hazel vaguely. "My mother was talking to me about her the evening before uncle Dick and I left Boston. She told me how much she loved aunt Hazel; but that error had crept in, and they couldn't see each other just now, but that God would bring it all right some day. I have a lovely silver spoon she gave me when I was a baby."

Miss Fletcher stooped to her border and cut a bunch of mignonette with the scissors that hung from her belt. "Here's something for you to smell of as you walk home," she said, and Hazel saw her new friend's hand tremble as she held out the flowers. "Do you ever kiss strangers?" added the hostess as she rose to her feet.

Hazel held up her face and took hold of Miss Fletcher's arm as she kissed her. "I think you've been so kind to me," she said warmly. "I've had the best time!"

"Well, pick the climbing rose as you pass," returned Miss Fletcher. "It seems to want to see the world. Let it go along with you; and don't forget to come to-morrow. I hope it will be pleasant."

She stood still, the warm breeze ruffling the thin locks about her forehead, and watched the little girl trip along the walk. The child looked back and smiled as she stopped to pick the pink rose, and when she threw a kiss to Miss Fletcher, that lady found herself responding.

She went into the house with a flush remaining in her cheeks.

"How long you stayed, aunt Hazel," said the little invalid fretfully as she entered.

"I expect I did," returned Miss Fletcher, and there was a new life in her tone that Flossie noticed.

"Who is that girl?"

"Her name is Hazel Wright, and she is living at the Badgers'. She's as crazy about flowers as I am, so we had a lot to say. She gave me a lecture on religion, too;" an excited little laugh escaped between the speaker's lips. "She's a very unusual child; and she certainly has a look of the Fletchers."

"What? I thought you said her name was Wright."

"It is! My tongue slipped. She's coming to see you to-morrow, Flossie. We must fix up your doll. I'll wash and iron her pink dress this very afternoon; for Hazel has a beauty doll, herself. I think you'll like that little girl."

That evening when uncle Dick and Hazel were at their supper, Mr. Badger questioned her as usual about her day.

"I've had the most fun," she replied. "I've been to see Miss Fletcher, and she took me into her garden, and we smelled of all the flowers, and had the loveliest time!"

Hannah was standing behind the little girl's chair, and her eyes spoke volumes as she nodded significantly at her employer.

"Yes, sir, she told Miss Fletcher where she was visiting, and she gave her a bunch of mignonette and a rose to bring home."

"Yes," agreed Hazel, "they're in a vase in the parlor now, and she asked me to come to-morrow to see an afflicted girl that's living with her. You know, uncle Dick," Hazel lifted her eyes to him earnestly, "you know how it says everywhere in the Bible that anybody that's afflicted goes to God and He heals them; and what do you think! Miss Fletcher and that little Flossie girl both believe God afflicted her and fixed her back so she can't walk!"

Mr. Badger smiled as he met the wondering eyes. "That isn't Christian Science, is it?" he returned.

"I'd rather never have a garden even like Miss Fletcher's than to think that," declared Hazel, as she went on with her supper. "I feel so sorry for them!"

"So you're going over to-morrow," said Mr. Badger. "What are you going to do; treat the little invalid?"

"Why, no indeed, not unless she asks me to."

"Why not?"

"Because it would be error; it's the worst kind of impoliteness to treat anybody that doesn't ask you to; but I've got to know every minute that her belief is a lie, and that God doesn't know anything about it."

"I thought God knew everything," said Mr. Badger, regarding the child curiously.

"He does, of course, everything that's going to last forever and ever: everything that's beautiful and good and strong. Whatever God thinks about has got to last." The child lifted her shoulders. "I'm glad He doesn't think about mistakes,-sickness, and everything like that, aren't you?"

"I don't want sickness to last forever, I'm sure" returned Mr. Badger.

The following day was clear and bright, and early in the afternoon Hazel, dressed in a clean gingham frock, took her doll and walked up the street to Miss Fletcher's.

The wheeled chair was already out under the elm-tree, and Flossie was watching for her guest. Miss Fletcher was sitting near her, sewing, and waiting with concealed impatience for the appearance of the bright face under the straw tam-o'-shanter.

As soon as Hazel reached the corner of the fence and saw them there, she began to run, her eyes fixed eagerly on the white figure in the wheeled chair. The blue eyes that looked so tired regarded her curiously as she ran up the garden path and across the grass to the large, shady tree.

Hazel had never been close to a sick person, and something in Flossie's appearance and the whiteness of her thin hands that clasped the doll in the gay pink dress brought a lump into the well child's throat and made her heart beat.

"Dear Father, I want to help her!" she said under her breath, and Miss Fletcher noticed that she had no eyes for her, and saw the wondering pity in her face as she came straight up to the invalid's chair.

"Flossie Wallace, this is Hazel Wright," she said, and Flossie smiled a little under the love that leaped from Hazel's eyes into hers.

"I'm glad you brought your doll," said Flossie.

"Ella goes everywhere I do," returned Hazel. "What's your doll's name?"

"Bernice; I think Bernice is a beautiful name," said Flossie.

"So do I," returned Hazel. Then the two children were silent a minute, looking at one another, uncertain how to go on.

Hazel was the first to speak. "Isn't it lovely to live with this garden?" she asked.

"Yes, aunt Hazel has nice flowers."

"I have an aunt Hazel, too," said the little visitor.

"Miss Fletcher isn't my real aunt, but I call her that," remarked Flossie.

"And you might do it, too," suggested Miss Fletcher, looking at Hazel, to whom her heart warmed more and more in spite of the astonishing charges of the day before.

"Do you think I could call you aunt Hazel?" asked the child, rather shyly.

"For the sake of being cousin to my garden, you might. Don't you think so?"

"How is the quest flower to-day?" asked Hazel.

"Which? Oh, you mean the garden lily. There's another bud."

"Oh, may I look at it?" cried Hazel, "and wouldn't you like to come too?" turning to Flossie. "Can't I roll your chair?"

"Yes, indeed," said Miss Fletcher, pleased. "It rolls very easily. Give Flossie your doll, too, and we'll all go and see the lily bud."

Hazel obeyed, and carefully pushing the light chair, they moved slowly toward the spot where the white chalices of the garden lilies poured forth their incense.

"Miss Fletcher," cried Hazel excitedly, dropping on her knees beside the bed, "that is going to be the most beautiful of all. When it is perfectly open the plant will be ready to take to the king." The little girl lifted her shoulders and looked up at her hostess, smiling.

"What king is going to get my lily?"

"The one who will send you on your quest."

"What am I to go in quest of?" inquired Miss Fletcher, much entertained.

"I don't know;" Hazel shook her head. "Every one's errand is different."

"What is a quest?" asked Flossie.

"You tell her, Hazel."

"Why, mother says it's a search for some treasure."

"You must tell us this story about the quest flower some day," said Miss Fletcher.

"I have the story of it here," returned Hazel eagerly. "I've read it over and over again because I love it, and so mother put it in my trunk with my Christian Science books. I can bring it over and read it to you, if you want me to. You'd like it, I know, Miss Fletcher."

"Aunt Hazel told me you were a Christian Scientist," said Flossie. "I never saw one before, but people have talked to mother about it."

"I could bring those books over, too," replied Hazel wistfully, "and we could read the lesson every day, and perhaps it would make you feel better."

"I don't know what it's about," said Flossie.

"It's about making sick people well and sinful people good."

"I'm sinful, too, part of the time," answered Flossie. "Sometimes I don't like to live, and I wish I didn't have to, and everybody says that's sinful."

Sudden tears started to Miss Fletcher's eyes, and as the little girls were looking at one another absorbedly, Hazel standing close to the wheeled chair, she stole away, unobserved, to the house.

"She ought to be cured," she said to herself excitedly. "She ought to be cured. There's that one more chance, anyway. I've got to where I'm ready to let the babes and sucklings have a try!"

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