VIOLET TIME.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 143, 2 June 1911, Page 7

VIOLET TIME.

Violet time is coming. Already the little purple faces are peeping out from green leaves, and the fresh, sweet scent comes over many a garden fence. Already- the streetsellers are hanging their bundles of purple paper above their baskets, to show that the favourite flowers are there: and many- a girl stops to spend a hard-earned sixpence on a bunch of the purple sweetness, “for her soul’s sake.” There is hardly a garden throughout the length and breadth of the country which does not poscess its rows and clumps of violets, [ for their is no flower—not even the s rose—more universally loved ; but <in all those thousands of gardens j there are millions of blossoms (which die every day, wasting*their ! sweetness and beauty, and robbind thousands of people of an hour’s pure pleasure. It is perhaps only the woman who has lived without a garden who can fully realise the joy that lies in a bunch of fragrant, freshly-plucked flowers ; but all garden-lovers must know, if they stop to think, that it lies within their power to bring sunshine and sweetness into many lives by the sharing of their treasures. In one of Sydney's suburbs lives a woman who has grasped this truth. For many- years she lived in a city street, where no flowers grew, and when fate moved her to a beautiful suburb, with a big garden of her own, her first thought was to share her new riches with her less fortunate friends. AH the year round great bunches of flowers go from that garden every day to city homes; but it is at violet time that her gifts* are widest spread. It is difficult to take more than two bunches of roses or dahlias at a time, but an ordinary basket will hold a dozen fair-sized posies of violets ; and so, two or three days a week throughout the season, this woman spends a couple of morning hours picking violets, and tying them into bunches; and in the afternoon her basket goes forth laden with sweetness. Sometimes she takes it, to friends in town —girls working in offices, typists, teachers, who have no gardens and little money to spare for flowers; very- often she carries the basket with her while she is shopping, and many- a tired shopgirl is surprised and delighted by the gift of a fragrant posy. , “But isn’t it a trouble to pick all those flowers ?” is a question she is sometimes asked. It is a trouble—or rather a labour ; but anything that is worth while is worth an effort; and never for a moment does she doubt that this labour of love is worth while. From her own past knowledge she knows what sunshine may be wrapped in a bunch of fresh flowers, and she knows now what joy there is to the giver in sharing her treasures with those who have none. Violet time is coming, and perhaps this year more than one woman will be looking out her flat basket to carry the blossoms to those who wiH appreciate their freshness and beauty.