Short story:
The flower above the clouds
Long, long ago when flowers first woke to life on earth, each chose
where it would live as it chose, too, the colour of its petals. "I will
cover the ground and make the bare soil gay with green blades," cried
the grass. "I will live in the fields and by roadsides," laughed the
daisy.
"I too," echoed the buttercup, the cornflower, the poppy and the
clover. "Give me the ponds and the lakes," the water lily called. "And
let us have the streams and the marshes," begged the irises, cowslips,
and Jacks-in-the-pulpit.
"We love the shaded, ferny woodland spots," lisped the shy
forget-me-nots and wood-violets. "And we wish to be petted in gardens,"
declared the rose, the pansies, the sweet Williams, the hollyhocks. "I
love the warm dry sun - I will go to the sandy desert," said the cactus.
So all places except the bare ridges of high mountains were chosen.
To these, no flower wished to go. "There is not enough food there!" the
daisy explained. "There is not enough warmth! There is not enough food!"
all decided. " It is so bare and chilly!"
"Let the gray moss go and cover the rocks," they said. But the moss
was loathe to go. "When one cannot live without moisture, warmth,
nourishment - when one must have petting or live in a garden, surely the
bleak places of the mountains must do without flowers!
How foolish it would be to try to make the ragged, bare mountain-tops
lovely! Let the gray moss go - he has not yet chosen!" So the gray moss
went up the high mountains because he was told to go. He climbed over
the bare rocks beyond the places where forests ceased to grow.
All was desolate and silent up there. Up higher and higher crept the
gray moss. It went even above the clouds where the ragged rocks were
covered with ice and snow. There it stopped short in amazement, for it
found a quiet star-shaped flower clinging to the crags and blossoming!
It was white like the snow around it, and its heart was of soft yellow.
So cold was it up there that the little flower had cased its leaves
in soft wool to keep warm and living in the bleakness.
"Oh!" cried the gray moss, stopping short. "How come you are here
where there is no warmth, no moisture, no nourishment?" It is high above
the forests, high above the clouds! I came because I was sent.
"Who are you?" Then the little starry flower nodded in the chill
wind. "I am edelweiss," it said. "I came here quietly because there was
need of me, that some blossom might brighten these solitudes." "And
didn't they tell you to come?"
"No," said the little flower. "It was because the mountains needed
me. There are no flowers up here but me." The edelweiss is closer to the
stars than the daisy, the buttercup, the iris or the rose.
Those who have courage, like it, have found it high above the clouds,
where it grows ever gladly. They call it Noble White - that is its name,
edelweiss! Love, like the edelweiss, knows not self-sacrifice.
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