E Nesbit

Harding's Luck E Nesbit

Book Excerpt: ...der whether the Artistic Bird Seeds had come up parrot-colored. He had been a very long time in the hospital, and it was August now. And the nurses had assured him that the seeds must be up long ago--he would find everything flowering, you see if he didn't. And now he went out to look. There was a tangle of green growth at the end of the garden, and the next garden was full of weeds. For the Man Next Door had gone off to look for work down Ashford way, where the hop-gardens are, and the house was to let. A few poor little pink and yellow flowers showed stunted among the green where he had sowed the Artistic Bird Seed. And, towering high above everything else--oh, three times as high as Dickie himself--there was a flower--a great flower like a sunflower, only white."Why," said Dickie, "it's as big as a dinner-plate."It was.... It stood up, beautiful and stately, and turned its cream-white face towards the sun."The stalk's like a little tree," said Dickie; and so it was