Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/161

Rh of the doubt. She came from up Boston way: that was what saved her. I hope she will really take care of them.”

“I’ve noticed you won’t sell seeds to everybody,” Billy said. “Don’t you like to think that your flowers will be growing everywhere?”

“They won’t grow unless people treat them right,” he answered. “There’s some women, those young giggly things with embroidery  parasols, that think my flowers are ‘so attractive’ and that they can grow them to pin to the  front of their ruffled white dresses. Much good poppies will do any one who tries to wear  them! They droop and die in ten minutes and the sweet young things say ‘Oh, dear!’  and throw them away. And there are others who say my place here is ‘so original and  quaint’ and they must have a corner in their  gardens just like it, so they take the seeds away  to plant them somewhere in the Middle West  where the ground bakes as hard as iron and  the hot air dries up the buds before they can  open. No, poppies have to have cool earth to dig their toes into, and cool salt air to  breathe; it’s sea breezes that put the colour  into them, and a good wet fog is their meat and