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| Lady Petunia flower dollies. |
We used to give great “flower-lady
parties ’’ down in the garden, with sweet-
fern seed and elderberries set out for a
feast, on a palma-chienti leaf for a table.
And oh, what happy times we had in
dressing the “ladies!”
At home, Miss Petunia used to wear
a plain white frock without furbelows, very sweet and becoming.
But for parties there must be party-dresses.
We picked a blossom with a large-enough green stem—that
was Miss Petunia herself in her white home frock.
We put her down to stand alone with her white skirt opened
wide on the garden-walk. The green calyx was her little green
basque with nice green tabs, such as you may see in old-time
fashion pictures.
We stood ever so many petunia-ladies like that on the walk.
Then we picked a great many more petunias of all sizes, and
we pulled each stem and calyx off right at the open throat of
the bell; and then we.dropped one of the round corollas over
Miss Petunia’s head—that made one ruffle on the skirt. And
so on and on, until her skirt was ruffled up to her little green
waist with snowy ruffles, and then we carefully picked out the
little green tabs over the last one.
A floret of verbena pulled from its calyx and put, corolla
down, on her head gave her a hat like the one Mother Goose
wears, with a high wetted crown.
But Lady Bernie did not always go alone to the party.
There were two kinds of petunias in the old garden—the
wide single white ones, and the small bell-shaped red ones, and
we used to dress the little red ones out in red flounces, and play
they were the little girls of the stately matrons, and they went
with their mothers to the party.
Martha Young.
Delightful fabric dolls called Petal Pals by Ariel Appelt.
