In a cheerful little house with a garden, lived a little girl named Clara with her family. Clara loved her home and the big backyard where she loved to play. All day long, she would stay there planting flowers and watching her butterflies come and go.
One day, an old man appeared at the wooden fence that separated their houses. Since the garden was small and the old man seemed to want a closer look, Clara ran to the door and invited him to her yard. Clara was enchanted with the man. He had a long white beard, was dressed in a wonderful blue suit, and wore a big blue hat. His voice was kind, and his manner was so gentle that when he called her “little princess,” Clara felt so.
The man gave her some little parcels, and on looking closely at one of them she saw it was a packet of seeds, all mixed together. Then the old man went away, waving his hand graciously to the girl. Clara returned to the house and asked her mother if she might plant the seeds, which she certainly could, for now it was Spring, and time for all the flowers to get ready for the gay Summer time. So that morning Clara and her mother picked out the hesperis and the sweet peas and planted them in the different parts of the garden, where she thought they would fit in best.
“I wonder if it is a garden of fragrant dreams and wishes that all these old-fashioned flowers come from,” said Clara.
“The day of my wedding, my dear, I wore a crown of sweet peas and hesperis,” said Clara’s mother softly.
The days passed and the plants sprang up in the garden and in every heart. Clara went to pick some sweet peas, but not one bud would open, no flower appeared, nor would the hesperis flower at all.
Next day Clara’s cousins came to pay her a visit, Clara’s cousin as she attended to them.
“Oh, what a sweet smell lies around!” at last said one of her cousins.
“It comes from your flowers, I think,” said Clara. “Oh! see, here is a little tree with crimson flowers that I received, and I thought it someone brought me. See, I was looking into a Rose.”
“Oh! may we pick them?” said her brothers eagerly, as they bowed their heads over the blossom.
And now Clara had to go to look for the gardener.
But when she returned with the gardener the next moment the children had disappeared, and the flowers she had received, and which had sprung up with such a fragrance, were all picked and scattered.
Such was the fame of her flowers that neighbours and friend came from far and near to pick them, till on Midsummer day they had all disappeared. Not even a bud was left to open.
Then poor Clara and her family became very sad.
“They seem to have eaten up all the flowers in our garden,” said her uncle.
“I think I shall have to beg for some seeds at the next stall,” sighed Clara’s cousin.
One day Clara, who was now sitting in the garden, said to her uncle, “What a beautiful scent this little flower gives out. I had not observed it before.”
“It is called the ‘Snuffy Flower,’ said her uncle. “And it is said to conceal the happiest dream of mankind.”
Then her uncle added that it was the only flower left in the garden, with the hesperis, althea, and the hawthorn that abides there always.
The following day some of Clara’s friends came with waiting and carriage to “Bellflower-tree” and made quite a picnic party of the event. They picked every leaf, flower, and branch from her, not even a berry was left.
Next came the aunts, brothers, and sisters, far and nearer, to gather flowers, all surprising one another by the last visitors. None of her guests this day thought of the joyful cousin, who alone knew their absence; so the following day he came with Clara. Five of the little girls now picked in a straw basket and carried flowers home in their hats and various places quite full. Morning, noon, and night, without remembering one another, quit the garden straw scholarships full. Clara had thus visitors between light and dark coming to ask if she had any flowers left to give.
Down they came, obliging, self-forgetful, helping-boys and girls, saying, “No, we do not mind going without some.”
But soon all the flowers were gone and only the three plants left that do not care for a friend’s visit.
The following day her uncle returned all the plants that had ill-timed pleasures of acquaintance with each other and returned a stranger home.
But now anyone came who wished to receive them. This she hoped would break it down. But so it went on till she was almost heart-broken.
Clara went to prayer.
Then the little sky-blue competula, an update birdflower, hispos, and a sunflower were sewn. They sprang up with a fragrance not to be experienced in the flowers she had lost.
Her uncle never tried to astonish nature’s other flowers; and they knew of him: hers shook on their stalks here and there.
One day at last he was resigned. At last came the cornflower, dowhair, blingdombia, myosotis, ox-eye, the blue flower, the flower of love, and the meadowflower sent by Clara’s friend Midsummer Day.
“I shall put them all in this pot,” said uncle.
I would not any more apart noticed to Clara than with the others; but she saw their yield and fragrance which were worth all the quantity that had gone.
“If they come from a free man’s son,” the one day he said to her, “they yes, they are worth all those the others had.” Then, when showy flowers after showy ones flowered round, she led uncle by the hand here and there.
And now when Clara’s cousins and friends came, the next day at longest, to pick, they were obliged to come back again, for Clara had enough all days round, when the others were all till winter had none left.