Flowers and Their Friends

How flowers and insects came to need each other, explained to children by a teacher who refused to talk down — “it would be very stupid indeed to try to read a book written in Arabic,” she begins, so look up every word you don't know.

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A Dainty Cave

TOUCH-ME-NOT has a dainty cave Spotted with red and poised in the air.

Touch-me-not is a pretty knave With ruby spots and yellow cave, Swinging there So fresh and fair.

So fresh and fair.
So fresh and fair.

TOUCH-ME-NOT.

TOUCH-ME-NOT lives in moist places. Her feet stand in the damp earth and her head looks up above the bushes. Other plants love the damp, rich soil along the brookside, and Touch-me-not is sometimes crowded for room.

She is a tender little plant, this Touch-me-not, and yet she is brave and wise. She knows that if she is to live she must have strong seeds, and that to produce strong seeds she must be strong herself and beautiful.

A Dainty Cave — from Flowers and Their Friends (1897)
yet she is brave and wise. She knows
yet she is brave and wise. She knows

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