Page:Chinese Fables and Folk Stories.djvu/32

28 is so numerous that the earth seems hardly large enough for it.

Once there was a marigold family that lived beneath an evergreen tree. They grew together all summer long, side by side, arms interwoven with arms, and leaves mingling with leaves.

Every year the tree grew larger, until at last no more sunshine or rain could come through its thick leaves and branches.

One day the marigold said to the evergreen tree, "Whom does this mountain belong to? You are only one, while our family grow in thousands everywhere. We have beautiful flowers from the summer time until the autumn comes. These flowers bear seeds that live through the winter, and in the spring another generation appears. In the summer time people come many miles to this mountain to see us.

"These people take our flowers home. Some of us they put in baskets and call basket flowers. Some they put in the maidens' hair and they call us maiden flowers. School boys like us on their tables and the pupils say we are their flowers. Old people gather us for their birthdays and we are called long-life flowers, and when maidens are married, our flowers are placed in a dish and they worship the Flower God, and call us the pure flower.