elin', I ricollect, but it looked more like ruinin'
to me. Old Lady Harris was like myself; she couldn't git enough of
these yeller flowers. She had a double row of 'em all around her
gyarden, and they'd even gone through the fence and come up in the
cornfield, and who ever plowed that field had to be careful not to
touch them daffydils.

"Well, as soon as the new man got possession he begun plowin' up the
gyarden, and one evenin' the news come to me that he was throwin' away
Johnny-jump-ups by the wagon-load. I put on my sunbonnet and went out
where Abram was at work in the field, and says I, 'Abram, you've got
to stop plowin' and put the horse to the spring wagon and take me over
to the old Harris place.' And Abram says, says he, 'Why, Jane, I'd
like mighty well to finish this field before night, for it looks like
it might rain to-morrow. Is it anything particular you want to go
for?'

"Says I, 'Yes; I never was so particular about anything in my life as
I am about this. I hear they're plowin' up Old Lady Harris' gyarden
and throwin' the flowers away, and I want to go over and git a
wagon-load o' Johnny-jump-ups.'

"Abram looked at me a minute like he thought I was losin' my senses,
and then he burst out laughin', and says he: 'Jane, who ever heard of
a farmer stoppin' plowin' to go after Johnny-jump-ups? And who ever
heard of a farmer's wife askin' him to do such a thing?'

"I walked up to the plow and begun to unfasten the trace chains, and
says I: 'Business before pleasure, Abram. If it's goin' to rain
to-morrow that's all the more reason why I ought to have my
Johnny-jump-ups set out to-day. The plowin' can wait till we come
back.'

"Of course Abram give in when he saw how I wanted the flowers. But he
broke out laughin' two or three times while he was hitchin' up and
says he: 'Don't tell any o' the neighbors, Jane, that I stopped
plowin' to go after a load of Johnny-jump-ups.'

"When we got to the Harris place we found the Johnny-jump-ups lyin' in
a gully by the side o' the road, a pitiful sight to anybody that loves
flowers and understands their feelin's. We loaded up the wagon with
the pore things, and as soon as we got home, Abram took his hoe and
made a little trench all around the gyarden, and I set out the
Johnny-jump-ups while Abram finished his plowin', and the next day the
rain fell on Abram's cornfield and on my flowers.

"Do you see that row o' daffydils over yonder by the front fence,
child--