I am not going into the psychology or soul-language of that flower. I am not going to argue about it at all, but simply tell what it did for me. Perhaps, if you want to lay it all to something, you may say it was because I was out of my head a part of the time with fever. But that flower was my doctor through the days of torture and hopelessness that followed. Now and then a bird sang near me; occasionally a wild thing would come and peer at me curiously, then go its way. But the flower never left me, and only turned its face partly away from me in the hours of its evening worship. For its God was the sun. It faced the sun in the morning, wide-awake and open. Late in the afternoon, it would turn a little on its stem, and with the setting of the sun, its soft petals would begin to close, and it would go to sleep, like a little child, with the coming of dusk. Day after day, it grew nearer and more of a beloved comrade to me. After the fourth day, it did not, for an instant, allow me to think that I was going to die. Never for an instant did it lose its cheer and confidence. It was there to say “Hello!” to me every morning, and there to say “Good-night” to me when the shadows grew deep--and all through the day it talked to me, and bobbed its little head in the whispers of the breezes, and I had the foolish sentiment, at times, that it was actually flirting with me. I do not think I realized how precious it had become to me until, one day, there came a terrific thunder-storm. I thought the first blast of the wind and beat of rain were going to destroy my comrade, and, almost in a panic, I dragged myself right and left, forgetful of pain, until I had built a protection about my flower. That was the sixth day, and, from that day, the swelling and the pain began to leave my limb. On the tenth, I could move about a little on my feet. On the fifteenth, I was prepared to undertake my journey again. I felt a real grief in leaving that solitary flower. It had become a part of me, had encouraged me in my blackest hours, had cheered and comforted me even in the darkness of nights, because I knew it was there--my little comrade--waiting for the sun. For me, it had individualized itself from among all the other flowers in the forest. And now, when I was about to go, I saw that the flower itself had about lived the span of its life; in a very short time it would fade and die. On the morning I left, the petals were drooping, and its tiny face did not look up at the sun and at me as brightly as before, and I fancied that I could hear its little voice saying, “Please take me with you.” And I did. Call it foolish and trivial sentiment if you will, but the flower and I went together, and afterward I wrote a novel and called it “Flower of the North.” I have often heard strong men say, “Oh, that is merely a matter of sentiment. Life is too hard and real for a thing like that.”