The poppies you may not pick to-day are the
poppies I did not permit to be picked yesterday and the day before.
Therefore, believe me, you are denied nothing."
"But the poppies are here to-day," she said, glaring carnivorously
upon their glow and splendour.
"I will pay you for them," said a gentleman, at another time. (I had
just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sudden shame, I know not
why, unless it be that his words had just made clear to me that a
monetary as well as an aesthetic value was attached to my flowers.
The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed me, and I said
weakly: "I do not sell my poppies. You may have what you have
picked." But before the week was out I confronted the same gentleman
again. "I will pay you for them," he said. "Yes," I said, "you may
pay me for them. Twenty dollars, please." He gasped, looked at me
searchingly, gasped again, and silently and sadly put the poppies
down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain the sheerest
pitch of audacity.
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