Mother Nature's Toy-Shop by Lina Beard
Mother Nature's Toy-Shop by Lina Beard
What You Can Do with Them
Wild flowers, like children, are up early. They don't want to lie abed after their long winter's sleep; they want to be awake and see what is going on in the world. While you think it is still winter there is a stirring going on under the blankets of brown earth, and sometimes before the snow is off the ground you may find the little things working up through the stiff soil and opening their eyes to the gentle spring sunshine.
It is remarkable the way the soft, tender sprouts force their way through hard ground that we would have to take a knife or trowel to dig into. But they do it. Not all at once with a great, blustering rush, but gently, steadily, and quietly they push and keep on pushing until their heads are above ground; then they begin to grow in good earnest, and pretty soon they laugh right out into blossom.
The pleasure these earliest wild flowers give us is in going out to look for them and in gathering handfuls to carry home and put into little glass bowls to be "Oh'd" over and wondered at, to be admired and loved because they are lovely, and because they bring some of the sweet outdoors of spring into the furnace-heated house.
They are too delicate and fragile, these anemones, hepaticas, and bloodroots, to be handled and played with, but later come the stronger, sturdier flowers and with many of these you can do all sorts of entertaining things. You don't have to look very far for them either. They are in the fields, by the roadsides, and even along the edges of the streets of a village or small town. You won't find them in the city.
To begin with, there are the daisies. How white the fields are with them! If they are fine, large daisies on tall, strong stems they will reach up to your waist-that is, if you are a little girl. If you are bigger they will come well above your knees. There are a number of things that you can do with them. First, you can make a really beautiful
Daisy Crown
for a May queen, or to wear yourself just for the fun of it.
Fig.1 - Begin the wreath in this way.
Fig.2 - Turn the stem of B under the stem of A
Gather a whole lot of daisies with rather long stems. They will stay fresh longer if you put them into a pail of cool water and let them drink a little before using them; and if they have wilted while you carried them, the water will bring them up again as fresh as-why, as fresh as a daisy to be sure. This is the way to make the crown. It is a new way and a good way.
Fig.3 - Bring B around and in front of it's own upright.
Take one daisy in your left hand and hold it, not upright but in what is called a horizontal position like the one marked A in Fig. 1, then with your right hand hold another daisy upright and place its stem in front of and across the stem of the first, as you see it in Fig. 1.
Fig.4 - Let the stem of B rest on the stem of A
This second daisy we will call B. Now turn the stem of B under the stem of A and up at the back as it is in Fig. 2. Bring this same stem, B, around and in front of its own upright part like Fig. 3. Turn it all the way around the upright part and let the stem of B rest on top of the stem of A. Fig. 4 shows this, but in the drawing the stems are separated a little so that you may see each one plainly. It is something like weaving, you see. And it is weaving of a sort.
Fig.5 - Weave another daisy, C, on the first two stems.
Across the stems of the daisies A and B, two stems this time, place the stem of another daisy that we will call C, and weave it on the first two stems exactly as you wove B onto A (Fig. 5). The stem of the fourth daisy will have to cross three stems, A, B, and C. The fifth daisy-stem will cross four stems, but after that the end of the daisy-stem A will probably have been passed and you will be weaving on the others. It depends upon the length of the stems how many are woven over; sometimes there may be five. It is not well to have more than that number. You can cut a stem off when it seems to be going too far around the crown.
Fig.6 - A new way to make a Daisy Wreath.
Place the daisies close enough together to have their petals touch, or even crowd a trifle, because when the crown is curved and the ends brought together the flowers will separate and leave wider spaces. When you have woven enough daisies to make your crown the proper size to fit your head, cut the last stems off about two inches from the last flower and, with a strong blade of grass or piece of string, tie them to the stem of the daisy A, just back of the flower. Fig. 6 shows what the daisy crown looks like when finished.
* * *
I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.
Isabelle's love for Kolton held flawless for fifteen years-until the day she delivered their children and slipped into a coma. He leaned to her ear and whispered, "Don't wake up. You're worthless to me now." The twins later clutched another woman's hand and chirped, "Mommy," splintering Isabelle's heart. She woke, filed for divorce, and disappeared. Only then did Kolton notice her fingerprints on every habit. They met again: she emerged as the lead medical specialist, radiant and unmoved. But at her engagement gala, she leapt into a tycoon's arms. Jealous, he crushed a glass, blood wetting his palm. He believed as soon as he made a move, Isabelle would return to him. After all, she had loved him deeply.
For eight years, Cecilia Moore was the perfect Luna, loyal, and unmarked. Until the day she found her Alpha mate with a younger, purebred she-wolf in his bed. In a world ruled by bloodlines and mating bonds, Cecilia was always the outsider. But now, she's done playing by wolf rules. She smiles as she hands Xavier the quarterly financials-divorce papers clipped neatly beneath the final page. "You're angry?" he growls. "Angry enough to commit murder," she replies, voice cold as frost. A silent war brews under the roof they once called home. Xavier thinks he still holds the power-but Cecilia has already begun her quiet rebellion. With every cold glance and calculated step, she's preparing to disappear from his world-as the mate he never deserved. And when he finally understands the strength of the heart he broke... It may be far too late to win it back.
Unlike her twin brother, Jackson, Jessa struggled with her weight and very few friends. Jackson was an athlete and the epitome of popularity, while Jessa felt invisible. Noah was the quintessential "It" guy at school-charismatic, well-liked, and undeniably handsome. To make matters worse, he was Jackson's best friend and Jessa's biggest bully. During their senior year, Jessa decides it was time for her to gain some self-confidence, find her true beauty and not be the invisible twin. As Jessa transformed, she begins to catch the eye of everyone around her, especially Noah. Noah, initially blinded by his perception of Jessa as merely Jackson's sister, started to see her in a new light. How did she become the captivating woman invading his thoughts? When did she become the object of his fantasies? Join Jessa on her journey from being the class joke to a confident, desirable young woman, surprising even Noah as she reveals the incredible person she has always been inside.
Aurora woke up to the sterile chill of her king-sized bed in Sterling Thorne's penthouse. Today was the day her husband would finally throw her out like garbage. Sterling walked in, tossed divorce papers at her, and demanded her signature, eager to announce his "eligible bachelor" status to the world. In her past life, the sight of those papers had broken her, leaving her begging for a second chance. Sterling's sneering voice, calling her a "trailer park girl" undeserving of his name, had once cut deeper than any blade. He had always used her humble beginnings to keep her small, to make her grateful for the crumbs of his attention. She had lived a gilded cage, believing she was nothing without him, until her life flatlined in a hospital bed, watching him give a press conference about his "grief." But this time, she felt no sting, no tears. Only a cold, clear understanding of the mediocre man who stood on a pedestal she had painstakingly built with her own genius. Aurora signed the papers, her name a declaration of independence. She grabbed her old, phoenix-stickered laptop, ready to walk out. Sterling Thorne was about to find out exactly how expensive "free" could be.
Yelena discovered that she wasn't her parents' biological child. After seeing through their ploy to trade her as a pawn in a business deal, she was sent away to her barren birthplace. There, she stumbled upon her true origins-a lineage of historic opulence. Her real family showered her with love and adoration. In the face of her so-called sister's envy, Yelena conquered every adversity and took her revenge, all while showcasing her talents. She soon caught the attention of the city's most eligible bachelor. He cornered Yelena and pinned her against the wall. "It's time to reveal your true identity, darling."
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