When I declined payment and demanded my plucked
beauties, she refused to give them up. "I picked these poppies," she
said, "and my time is worth money. When you have paid me for my time
you may have them." Her cheeks flamed rebellion, and her face,
withal a pretty one, was set and determined. Now, I was a man of the
hill tribes, and she a mere woman of the city folk, and though it is
not my inclination to enter into details, it is my pleasure to state
that that bunch of poppies subsequently glorified the bungalow and
that the woman departed to the city unpaid. Anyway, they were my
poppies.
"They are God's poppies," said the Radiant Young Radical,
democratically shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my
field. And for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I
sought her out and explained. I explained at length. I told the
story of the poppy as Maeterlinck has told the life of the bee. I
treated the question biologically, psychologically, and
sociologically, I discussed it ethically and aesthetically.
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