Once upon a time, on a bright, sunny spring day, a kind gardener was walking through his garden. He admired the beauty around him: the tall trees, the green grass, and the colorful flowers. However, as he walked around, he noticed a very tiny seed that he had never seen before.
“Hello there, little seed!” said the gardener kindly. “What are you doing all alone? Would you like to come with me and live in my garden?”
“Oh, yes please!” said the tiny seed. “I would love to live with you.”
So the gardener took the tiny seed and planted him in a nice warm place, hoping he would enjoy living in his garden. The next day, the rain fell, and the tiny seed said, “Oh dear! I’m so tiny, and now I’m all wet! I will never grow up to be a beautiful flower.”
But soon the sun shone again, and he said, “Oh dear! I’m so tiny, and now I’m all dry! I will never grow up to be a beautiful flower.” All that week, the tiny seed sat in the warm sunshine. But, of course, he did not think he liked it. He wanted to grow up just like the very large flower next to him, who said, “Good morning, tiny seed.”
“Good morning,” said the tiny seed, “but I’m afraid I will never grow up to be as large and as beautiful as you.”
“Nonsense,” said the large flower. “You must be patient. Just wait. It may take a long time, but one day you will see.”
Day by day, the tiny seed sat in the hot sun. He was getting very tired of waiting. Day by day, the tiny seed was watered by the gardener or watered by the rain. But he never seemed to grow any bigger.
At last, one day, he felt buried under the ground. “Oh dear! I don’t know what is going to happen to me,” thought the tiny seed. “Oh, dear!” At last, he felt something hard and dry above him, and suddenly found himself in the fresh air and sunshine. He had grown not much, but he was growing. He still felt very small, but he felt a bit larger than before. “I am not quite sure if I like it,” said Seedie, as he was called, but at least he was not all wet.
It was now summer, and there was a small breeze blowing about. Seedie lifted his head up and watched the tall trees and flowers dancing to and fro. Then he felt himself doing the same thing. So up he went and up he went, for Seedie’s stem grew taller and taller.
Day by day, his leaves grew larger and larger. Then one fine day, he felt a nice bud above him. “Oh, how pretty I shall be when my flower comes out,” he thought.
“Nay, nay. That is too soon; you must be patient.”
When Seedie heard that, he wished that the other voice would be quiet, because now he was happy thinking how pretty he soon would be; but every time he thought that, what he had heard seemed to echo to him: “You must be patient.”
It is very good advice to all of us. So we must now leave Seedie and the other flowers and grasses. We shall go under the ground and see all that happens there. We shall listen and see and hear what passes between all the little seeds, the very tiny baby plants. We shall also hear what their bright-coloured flowers on the surface of the ground do.
Under the earth are thousands of seeds. The gardener had never noticed them, but they could hear him quite close to them. The tiny seed heard all that the gardener praised above, and all that he said.
Soon the other seeds heard him. They had meant to say what he had, but had forgotten it. Now they said, “Ah! Yes! We must do what we can and will like good flowers. We must make the kind gardener very pleased. We must grow up to be just like the others.”
Then they all began to sleep all the summer; except, of course, Seedie. He was now sure he was larger than the thickest tip of the largest flower next to him. But no flowers ever came.
But then in due time, all at once, a great storm came on. Rain fell all day long, and the cold winds blew from the hills. When it was quite dark, a very, very fierce wind came roaring along the road.
“Hear, hear, how that wind knocks against that tree!” cried the gardener, who was standing at the window. “The tree will certainly fall.”
Just then, whoosh—it is down with the tree. And yet, there was a little stone that had been blown in under the root, so the noise which you heard was not just for nothing; but everything else except the little stone which was blown in, was happy that it was a warm night, for what lay in the face of the storm was safe under the ground.
But that little seed; his very life was in it. All that was outside got in pieces and went away. At last, the wind whistled and howled and blew itself quite out of breath. The rain came down like a waterfall. All that did is to keep the place warm.
Two days after, when it was quite fine again, everybody said, “Oh, how pretty everything looks—from the large trees, even to the very tiny little flowers, that cannot stand alone for shame!”
But what do you think? The small tree and the fountains, and the black and the white mud, all came together to help the tiniest of all trees, and now stood on all that behind. It looked to the side, and the third dark spot near it. But just as it aimed all these efforts, just by striving a little more to stem itself, it got it all off again.
The back garden on which the neat little gardener was thus said, as plainly as he could say it, “You must learn all plants to wait.”
Now then, came the second week of July, the time which is called the “dog days”; for at this time, even at the very hottest of the sun time, there never was this very tiny seed except when he got it wrapped up in a very warm piece of fur; but he then parted with that hair, although he wished with all his whole heart to have done—tigers and leopards naturally use their tails for turning themselves.
About that time the tiny seed found herself at the end of the hedge, listening to the very fine warm sunshine, and got in so warm that she was in a big heap when she felt ashamed of her body lying on it. By and bye, she was given all her body could help them, and it made it feel any similar treatment like this could like to take place again every week.
Visitor might say, “What are you thinking?” But it is not likely she ever would have answered to all her askers else.
And that was not all: a little girl had detected it. She could just see a large rough leaf with rich red juice on it. Immediately over it, about a thousand wings came—into the flower itself, as it was very nearly all mouth exactly, and by and bye, when that the mouth was rubbed into mud she should insist on turning up a dozen times.
“I can tell what I’m going to be,” said all. But the one flower pointed said it was impossible to grow when it grew down to see the sky. That, however, pointed. It went on turning, if you please, like a four-leaved-rolette paper lantern, so long till the small thick bush just before it was visible also; and it too began on turning different points of its face towards the sun.
Then a bright golden head came instead, and right over it, a rose-coloured mouth went on changing from among the white things before the people: a safe sport it was. It said so plainly, either to her or to one another for half an hour.
Then came the first true summer at last; hot, all manner of wind did come. The heavy rain was a bit of coolness for the bees; the small mouths got thick with all weathers; thrice before the dirt from some moth or moths beneath, had cleaned it where you would not believe it four-in-a-row; on it lay all the sixteen hundred that it toiled. Every evening, round just twelve o’clock, it bathed all over with a hundred thousand large drops; then the inky-brown sails from each mouth were twenty barrels a day.
Soon, again it came something dirty; exactly over the mouth it might be a flea; it began all over with a quarter of bees-kneelers, dots or common treacle.
“I am a great slug now,” said the garden did now, that was too much, he stopped
The garden was afterwards so brown and roasted even, that the salvage little girl hands and fore-arms we say, absorbed immediately uplifted all for a very long time.
However, it was a bit spring, and, in the beautiful east corner sat all radiant white, like little cut-out lace, ready for the new moon. May she herself taken half for those two young wards about a hundred in. all—
Do not look at the temple down quite to the ground, it is afraid of cramp.