Hoodie marched Lucy straight off to the wood. Primroses were the flowers on which her heart was set, for birdie's grave, as Maudie had guessed. She had seen them growing in the wood in the spring in great numbers and beauty, and no flower, she had settled in her mind, could look so pretty on birdie's grave. She said very little to Lucy, having satisfied herself that the knife to dig the roots up with and the basket to carry them home in had not been forgotten, she walked along in silence. But when they reached the wood and had gone some little way into it and no primroses were to be seen Hoodie looked very much disappointed. "There were such lots," she said to herself. "Lots of what, Miss Hoodie?" asked Lucy, thinking her charge the oddest child she had ever had to do with. "Of p'imroses," said Hoodie. "That's what I came for, to plant them on birdie's grave, you know, Lucy." "Primroses," repeated Lucy. "Of course not now, Miss Hoodie. They're over long ago. See, these are their leaves--lots of them." She stooped as she spoke, and pointed out the primrose plants clustering thickly at their feet. Hoodie stooped too, to look at them. "Oh dear," she exclaimed. "Are the flowers all gone? What shall I do? If we unplanted one, Lucy, and took it home, and watered it _lots_, twenty times a day p'raps, wouldn't more flowers come?" [Illustration: "Oh dear," she exclaimed. "Are the flowers all gone?"] "Not this year, Miss Hoodie," said Lucy. "Not all the watering in the world would make any flowers come before the spring, and watering too much would kill the plant altogether." "Oh dear," repeated Hoodie, "what shall I do?" "Won't no other flowers do?" said Lucy. "There's violets still, and lots of others in the garden that Hopkins would give you--much prettier than primroses." "No," said Hoodie, shaking her head, "none but p'imroses would do. Birdie liked them best, I know, for when I put some once in the wires of his cage, he chirped. When will the spring come, Lucy?" "Not for a good bit, Miss Hoodie," said Lucy, "it's only July now. There's all the summer to go through, and then autumn when it begins to get cold, and then all the cold winter, before the spring comes. A good while--eight months, and there's more than four weeks in each month, you know." "I can't help it," said Hoodie, "only p'imroses will do. Please dig some roots up, Lucy, and we'll plant them on birdie's grave. The green leaves are a little pretty, and in the spring the flowers will come. And if I'm dead before the spring," she added solemnly, "you mustn't forget to water them all the same." "Miss Hoodie!" said Lucy, reproachfully, "you should not talk that way really. Your mamma wouldn't like it." "Why not?" said Hoodie, "there's lots about deadening in the Bible and in the church books, so it can't be naughty. I wouldn't mind, if only I thought birdie was in heaven."