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Perhaps even more remarkable than any of the foregoing, which are more or less automatic in their movements, is the truly astonishing and seemingly conscious mechanism displayed in the wild arum of Great Britain the "lords and ladies" of the village lanes, the foreign counterpart of our well-known jack-in-the-pulpit, or Indian-turnip, with its purple-streaked canopy, and sleek "preacher" standing erect beneath it.
Without it the seasons would halt. Though science lay me by the heels, I'll assert that the crocus, which is a pioneer on the windy borderland of March, would not show its head except on the sounding of the hurdy-gurdy. I'll not deny that flowers pop up their heads afield without such call, that the jack-in-the-pulpit speaks its maiden sermon on some other beckoning of nature.
And so the sleepy old Evergreens thought they were the ones who awakened the flowers and preached to them about their duty, and no one ever told them about little Jack-in-the-pulpit, who always has and always will preach about the spring and summer to all the woodland dwellers. Mr. Coon and Mr.
Dorothy walked immediately behind Helen. She was dressed like a garden lily, her petals wired so that they turned out and up at the tips. She wore yellow stockings and slippers as a reminder of the anthers or pollen boxes on the ends of the stamens of the lilies. Dicky's costume created as much sensation as Roger's. He was a Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
Whereat she held out to Tavia the "angelic" bouquet. "Oh Dorothy Darling Dale! I never saw such flowers! I have always thought the wild kinds prettier than those that grew so proud-like but there is just as much difference between a Jack-in-the-pulpit and a real Jack rose as there is between you and me!"
In each tangled ravine Flora's little pious mortals of the May anemone, yellow violet, blood-root, mustard, liverwort, and their yet humbler neighbors and kin heard mass, or held meeting whichever it was and slept for blissful lack of brain while Jack-in-the-pulpit preached to them, under Solomon's seal, and oriole, tanager, warbler, thrush, up in the choir-loft, made love between the hymns, ate tidbits, and dropped crumbs upon wake-robin, baby-toes, and the nodding columbine.
She knew when the time was come for the bloodroot to lift its pure white petals about the golden hearts in the spot where the rich mould at the base of some giant tree nurtured the blooded plants. She could find the canopied Jack-in-the-pulpit and the pink azalea on the hill near her home.
Then the Jack-in-the-pulpit closed down the umbrella top over the rabbit, and he was hidden away as nice and snug as could be wished. Pretty soon that bad savage wolf came prancing along, and he looked all over for the rabbit. Then he sniffed and cried: "Ha! I smell him somewhere around here! I'll find him!" But he couldn't see Uncle Wiggily because he was safely hidden in the Jack-in-the-pulpit.
"That is a Jack-in-the-pulpit," answered the bunny uncle, "and the Jack is the funny green thing. Jack preaches sermons to the other flowers, telling them how to be beautiful and make sweet perfume." "I'm going to put a Jack in the bouquet for the lady mouse teacher," said Jimmie, and he did.
Even now the man had but to shut his eyes to recall it with the senses of the boy. Cowslip, wood violet, and Jack-in-the-pulpit bloomed again, the scent of mint was in his nostrils, fairy lakes lured amidst the ferns, and the way wound through lofty halls whose wonderful pillars set foot in emerald pools and sprang in vaulting hung high with wild grape.
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