The “Wonder Flower” is a little booklet I made long ago. I shall be endlessly grateful to my mother who saved it somewhere among her mementoes. According to a friend who taught children’s art, I made it when I was about 10 years old. Here’s the title page:
I’m amused to see that I didn’t want to sign my name to it. Possibly because my mother had already told me numerous times: “Don’t think you’re so great.” Ozma and Dorothy were the heroines of a long series of books, starting with the Wizard of Oz, that I read over and over.
“Once there was a wonder flower. When anyone wished on that flower, the wish would come true.”
“One day a little yellow kitten came. She wish-ed for a pink bow. A little brown dog came and wished for an emerald ring to put around his ear. They got their wishes.
“Faraway lived a king. Now this king was different. He was a mean king and when he heard about the flower, he ordered it brought to him.”
“The king wished to have a treasure box full of treasures. But his wish didn’t come true because he was not kind. “What is the matter?” cried the surprised King. “You are not kind” said the flower.”
“Iff I were kind I could not rule” said the king. “Well,” said the flower, “good-by.” And she disappeared. All that was left of her was the flower-pot.
“All the people who wanted wishes were around the hole. The people were surprised to see the flower come back that they jumped.”
“It was gett near Easter and a rabbit went to the wishing flower. He wish to be an Easter Bunny. And he was.
“One day the Easter Bunny (who had a kind heart) thought that the wishing flower might be lonesome. So he went to her and wished a lot of other flowers to make friends with her.
“The End
“(turn to other page and see the other flowers)”
Here are: the food flower, the music flower, the fire flower (Danger), and the box flower.
The spelling and grammar are as they are in the book. If you click on a picture it will enlarge so you can see all the details (!)
The part of this story I hadn’t remembered was the Easter Bunny’s understanding that the flower might be lonely. That nearly made me cry. Of course, this booklet tells us a lot about Little Jenny. She was creative, she thought she should be invisible, her father was mean, and she was lonely for her own kind.