They were the first things he learned to love in his baby world. If
he was cross, they had but to lay him on the grass in the garden and
put a daisy in his hand, and he would croon happily over it for
hours. He was four years old when his father took him to a wedding
in the neighborhood. The men guests took a tramp over the farm, and
in the twilight they sat and rested in the meadow, where the spring
flowers grew. The minister began telling them stories about them;
how they all had their own names and what powers for good or ill
the apothecary found in the leaves and root of some of them. Carl's
father, though barely out of college, was a bright and gifted man.
One of his parishioners said once that they couldn't afford a whole
parson, and so they took a young one; but if that was the way of it,
the men of Stenbrohult made a better bargain than they knew. They
sat about listening to his talk, but no one listened more closely
than little Carl. After that he had thought for nothing else. In the
corner of the garden he had a small plot of his own, and into it he
planted all the wild flowers from the fields, and he asked many more
questions about them than his father could answer. One day he came
back with one whose name he had forgotten.
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