Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/78

 well with his daffodils. He had planted the bulbs too deep, so they were always later than the neighbours' daffies, and every spring he had to scratch away the earth to help them through; but he enjoyed them all the more when they came. Under his dining-room windows, on the south side of the house, they grew and trembled in the breeze. He was so used to his flowers being less beautiful than other people's that he almost imagined there must be some mistake. He would go out to look at them, and say to himself "If they knew they were mine they wouldn't dare be so lovely."

It's hard to know what to do about daffodils. It is true that they are beautiful in a bowl in the dining room, and very likely people drink their milk and finish their spinach better when there are flowers on the table. Yet they are so graceful and perfect where they grow, especially if there aren't very many of them, it is difficult to decide whether to pick them. It is a hard problem, one of those problems that make life interesting.

That was the problem he was thinking about. There were ten daffodils under the dining-room windows. He had watched them growing and the buds fattening, and now they were all in flower.