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Little Bluewing Finds The Goldpowder
by
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One morning Little Bluewing went out for a walk. She ran through fields and meadows, singing songs which nobody had ever heard, and which came into her heart from nowhere. The morning sun shone brightly and seemed so young, as if it had only just been born; the air was fresh and sweet, and the evaporating dew cooled her little face.
When she came to the wood, she met an old man in a green dress.
“Good morning, Little Bluewing,” said the old man, “I am the gardener at Sunnyglade; come and look at my flowers.”
“Too much honour for me,” answered Little Bluewing.
“Not at all, for you have never ill-used flowers.”
They walked together to the strand and crossed a little bridge, which led to an islet.
On the islet was a wonderful garden. Every flower, large and small, grew there, and everything was in order, just as if the garden had been a book.
The old man lived in a house which was built of growing ever-green trees-pines, fir trees, and junipers; the floor consisted of growing ever-green shrubs. Moss and lichen grew in the crevices and held them together. The roof was made entirely of creepers, Virginia creeper, Caprifolium, and ivy, and it was so thick that not a drop of rain could come through. A number of bee-hives stood before the door, but butterflies lived in them instead of bees; just think of the lovely sight when they swarmed!
“I don’t like torturing bees,” explained the old man. “And, moreover, I consider them not at all pretty; they look like hairy coffee-beans and sting like adders.”
And then they went into the garden.
“Now, you may read in the book of nature and learn the secrets and sensibilities of the plants. But you must not ask questions, only listen to what I say and answer me . … Now, look here, little one, on this grey stone something is growing which looks like grey paper. This is the first thing which grows when the rock becomes damp. It grows mouldy, you see, and the mould is called lichen. Here are two kinds: one looks like the horns of a reindeer, it is called reindeer-moss, and the reindeer feeds on it; and the other is called Iceland-moss, and looks like … now, what does it look like?”
“It looks like lungs, anyhow it says so in the natural history book.”
“Quite right; looked at through a magnifying glass, it has exactly that appearance, and that is how people came to think of using it as a remedy for all sorts of diseases of the chest. Later, when the lichen has gathered enough vegetable soil, the mosses appear; they have quite simple flowers and grow seed. They are not unlike ice-flowers, but they are also like heather and fir trees and all sorts of other things, for all plants are related. The wall-moss here looks like a fir tree, but it has seed cases, like a poppy, only rather more simple. Once moss has begun to grow an a spot, heather is not very long in coming. And if you examine heather through a strong magnifying-glass, it is like milk-wort, Epilobium in Latin or a rhododendron, or like an elm tree, which is nothing more nor less than a huge nettle.
“Now, we have a perfect covering for the rocks, and in this mould everything will grow. Man has domesticated a number of plants, but nature herself has directed him which to take and how to use their is so extraordinary as the colour and ornaments which the flowers have acquired to tell the bees where the honey is. You have often seen an ear of rye, which shows a baker’s implements like a signboard. And if you look at the flax, the most useful of all the plants, you will have to admit that it is the plant itself which has taught man to spin. Look right into the heart of the flower and you will find the filaments wound round the style like flax round a spindle. And to make her meaning even more plain, nature has planted a parasite, the bind-weed by its side, which winds itself round and round the plant up and down, to and fro, like a weaver’s shuttle. And isn’t it wonderful that not a man, but a butterfly, first thought of spinning the flax? People call it ‘flax-spinner,’ for with its own silk and the leaves of the plant it weaves little sheets and blankets for its young ones. And so cunning it is that when flax began to be cultivated, it completely adapted itself to the new conditions, so that the young ones should be hatched before the flax was harvested. And now, look at the medicinal herbs! Look at the large poppy, for instance, fiery red it is, like fever and insanity! But in the heart of the blossom is a black cross, just like the cross on the chemist’s label which he puts on his poisons. In the middle of the cross is a Roman vase with little grooves. When these grooves are pricked the drug runs out, the powerful drug, which will call either death, or death’s gentle brother, sleep. Yes, now you can form an idea of the generosity and wisdom of nature.