all leaves and no blossoms?"

I looked in the direction of her pointing finger and saw a long line
of flowerless plants, standing like sad and silent guests at the
festival of spring.

"It's been six years since I set 'em out there," said Aunt Jane
impressively, "and not a flower have they had in all that time. Some
folks say it's because I moved 'em at the wrong time o' the year. But
the same week I moved these I moved some from my yard to Elizabeth
Crawford's, and Elizabeth's bloom every year, so it can't be that.
Some folks said the place I had 'em in was too shady, and I put 'em
right out there where the sun strikes on 'em till it sets, and still
they won't bloom. It's my opinion, honey, that they're jest homesick.
I believe if I was to take them daffydils back to Aunt Matilda's and
plant 'em in the border where they used to grow, alongside o' the sage
and lavender and thyme, that they'd go to bloomin' again jest like
they used to. You know how the children of Israel pined and mourned
when they was carried into captivity. Well, every time I look at my
daffydils I think o' them homesick Israelites askin', 'How can we sing
the songs o' Zion in a strange land?'

"You needn't laugh, child. A flower is jest as human as you and me.
Look at that vine yonder, takin' hold of everything that comes in its
way like a little child learnin' to walk. And calycanthus buds, see
how you've got to hold 'em in your hands and warm 'em before they'll
give out their sweetness, jest like children that you've got to love
and pet, before they'll let you git acquainted with 'em. You see that
pink rose over by the fence?" pointing to a La France heavy with
blossoms. "Well, that rose didn't do anything but put out leaves the
first two years I had it. A bud might come once in a while, but it
would blast before it was half open. And at last I says to it, says I,
'What is it you want, honey? There's somethin' that don't please you,
I know. Don't you like the place you're planted in, and the hollyhocks
and lilies for neighbors?' And one day I took it up and set it between
that white tea and another La France, and it went to bloomin' right
away. It didn't like the neighborhood it was in, you see. And did you
ever hear o' people disappearin' from their homes and never bein'
found any more? Well, flowers can disappear the same way. The year
before I was married there was a big bed o' pink chrysanthemums
growin' under the dinin'-room windows at old