Once upon a springtime, on a pretty little hill, there lay a tiny seed all covered with brown ground. The warm sun was shining down on it, the light winds were blowing around it. The seed thought it was very happy, for all nature was singing with joy.
But as it listened to the merry songs of the birds, and looked up at the blue sky, and down at the pretty green grass, it whispered to itself, “I wish I could be a flower, and look up to the blue sky. I wish I could feel the sweet light wind brushing over me; I wish I could see the little bees running in and out among my bright-colored petals.”
Then a little voice spoke out of the ground. It was Mother Nature’s voice. “Little seed,” she said, “you must be very patient. I am nourishing you so that you will have strength to burst through the hard shell that covers you. I am making the soft ground under you ready for your little roots to take hold of it. I am sending the gentle rains to make you grow.”
“Oh!” said Sunny, “I don’t want to wait. I want to grow this very minute. I want to be a flower.”
Little seed, little seed,
Won’t you stay?
Soon you will be a flower,
If you wait a day.
The winds danced around and said:
“Little seed, little seed,
Won’t you stay?
All of us love happy flowers,
Then wait a day.”
The bright sun leaned down to whisper in the little seed’s ear:
“Little seed, little seed,
Won’t you stay?
I shine in the sky to warm sweet flowers,
Then wait a day.”
While the winds were singing and the sun was speaking, the rain was falling all around.
“There, there, little seed,” said the rain; “mother Nature has promised that you shall become a flower, if you will only be patient. Surely you can wait one day.”
At last the little seed answered, “I will try, but I hope it won’t be a long day.”
And so it lay down in the warm brown ground listening to the sweet voices of nature. The blue sky soon went to sleep, for it was night, while the bright stars gazed lovingly down upon the earth. The big round moon wandered over to the little hill where the seed lay, and said, “Little seed, little seed,
Sleep and rest your weary head;
Mother Nature will watch over you,
While you are asleep in bed.”
The next day was sweet to see. An early sunbeam came wandering to the little seed and roused it from its slumber. The little mountain bluebirds sang out:
“Little seed, little seed,
You will be a flower;
The rain and the sun and we little birds
Have talked it over this hour.
Up, up, up you must go,
Down, down, down go your roots,
Out, out, out shines the sun.
Now do you know
What the white rain has done?”
Then the tiny seed found out that it had little roots to send down into the warm ground. It had broken its hard shell, and felt only warm brown earth all around it.
“Now,” said the seed, “I shall grow. I will stretch up my little leaves into the warm sunshine. Now I shall have some manly crops; now the white snow will not fall on my head; for see, I have already got several little green leaves.”
Soon, however, the little leaves were covered with a white sheet of snow, and a cold winter wind came up to them saying,
“Little flower, little flower,
Soon I am coming to stay four months in the year. I will try my best, flower fresh from earth,
To car the life out of you. So we’ll have a good time together.”
It blew and blew, it tried to freeze up the little flower’s roots, but in vain; the roots still struggled all through the brown ground. And one sunny day spring came again and the little flower was ready to look upon the warm sunshine.
“I don’t like this spring,” said the wind. “I wish it would go to sleep and let me come back.”
Then all nature laughed, for it liked the little flower. Nature watered it with the rain, and fed it with the sunshine. Then once more Mother Nature smiled upon it saying:
“Now, little seed, little seed,
All ready to become a flower;
You have waited many days
And have grown more than in half an hour.”
And really, dear children, the little seed slept all through the winter under the ground, in the good mother’s soft bed. Since it bore with patience, always doing its best, it now had become a lovely flower. All the rain and all the sun’s rays and all the sighing winds, were only to make it grow. But the first day it had made itself sick with fretting and fuming.
Don’t be impatient. Don’t fret, children, any more than the little flower did, and play and sing as the song of the little seed says:
Little children, little children,
Be but patient day by day;
Our Father never hurries,
Holds our lives in gentle sway.
All the birds and winds and flowers
Wait His time and learn to sing,
“Soon in Christ I’ll be a blossom,
Blooming evermore in spring.”