The Canyon Flowers

: MAY DAY
: Good Stories For Great Holidays

BY RALPH CONNOR (ADAPTED)



At first there were no canyons, but only the broad, open prairie. One

day the Master of the Prairie, walking out over his great lawns, where

were only grasses, asked the Prairie: "Where are your flowers?"



And the Prairie said: "Master, I have no seeds."



Then he spoke to the birds, and they carried seeds of every kind of

flower and strewed them far and ide, and soon the Prairie bloomed with

crocuses and roses and buffalo beans and the yellow crowfoot and the

wild sunflowers and the red lilies, all the summer long.



Then the Master came and was well pleased; but he missed the flowers he

loved best of all, and he said to the Prairie: "Where are the clematis

and the columbine, the sweet violets and wind-flowers, and all the ferns

and flowering shrubs?"



And again the Prairie answered: "Master, I have no seeds."



And again he spoke to the birds and again they carried all the seeds and

strewed them far and wide.



But when next the Master came, he could not find the flowers he loved

best of all, and he said: "Where are those, my sweetest flowers?"



And the Prairie cried sorrowfully: "O Master, I cannot keep the flowers,

for the winds sweep fiercely, and the sun beats upon my breast, and they

wither up and fly away."



Then the Master spoke to the Lightning, and with one swift blow the

Lightning cleft the Prairie to the heart. And the Prairie rocked and

groaned in agony, and for many a day moaned bitterly over its black,

jagged, gaping wound.



But a little river poured its waters through the cleft, and carried down

deep, black mould, and once more the birds carried seeds and strewed

them in the canyon. And after a long time the rough rocks were decked

out with soft mosses and trailing vines, and all the nooks were hung

with clematis and columbine, and great elms lifted their huge tops high

up into the sunlight, and down about their feet clustered the low cedars

and balsams, and everywhere the violets and wind-flowers and maiden-hair

grew and bloomed till the canyon became the Master's place for rest and

peace and joy.