Towser was growling at something, much to Jack's amusement.
"You funny old dog, you," said Jack, patting him on the head, "trying to
make us think you're a cat, purring away like that. You can't fool me."
* * * * *
COULDN'T COUNT.
"How many pieces of candy have you had, Wallie?"
"I don't know, mammy. I tan't tount over sebben."
* * * * *
A FLOWER CLOCK.
An English journal contains the following ingenious hint to the little
gardeners. We have not tested the scheme ourselves, but it reads
plausibly as follows:
It is quite possible to so arrange flowers in a garden that all the
purposes of a clock will be answered. In the time of Pliny forty-six
flowers were known to open and shut at certain hours of the day, and
this number has since been largely increased. For instance, a bed of
common dandelions would show when it was 5.30 in the morning and 8.30 at
night respectively, for those flowers open and shut at the times named,
frequently to the minute. The common hawk-weed opens at 8 in the
morning, and may be depended upon to close within a few minutes of 2 in
the afternoon. The yellow goat's-beard shuts at 12 o'clock noon
absolutely to the minute, sidereal time--that is, when the sun attains
its highest altitude. Our clocks do not follow the sun, but are
generally a few minutes fast or slow, according to the longitude of the
place where they are. The goat's-beard, however, is true time all the
world over. The sowthistle opens at 5 A.M. and closes at 11-12 A.M. The
white-lily opens at 7 A.M. and closes at 5 P.M.: the pink opens at 8
A.M. and closes at 6.30 P.M. In the towns few people know about such
details as these; nor are the flower clocks often seen anywhere, though
they have been constructed occasionally. Even in these days, however,
farm servants often take their dinner-hour from the sun, or, failing
that, from the yellow goat's-beard, which is never mistaken, whether it
can see the sun or not. Should any of the readers of the ROUND TABLE
test the accuracy of this singular time-keeping garden it is to be hoped
they will communicate the result of their experiment to the world.
End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, December 10, 1895, by Various
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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