[Illustration: Fig.94 - "Do you know the cultivated Fox Glove?"]
Perhaps you will want the teacher to require each pupil to sing a little song or recite a short verse. When a fairy does that, he moves forward in front of the others, and stays in that place until he has finished. Here is a pretty verse for a flower-capped fairy to recite:
"I wonder what the Clover thinks, Intimate friend of the Bobolinks, Lover of Daisies, slim and white, Waltzer with Buttercups at night.
Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks? No one! Unless the Bobolinks."
[Illustration: Fig.95 - Five living Fairies.]
You use a little pretended magic when you turn a sweet-pea blossom into a peacock, and that makes it seem more mysterious and more interesting. It doesn't take a second but while you are doing it you must repeat this transformation rhyme:
"Sweet Pea, Sweet Pea, Your petals unlock. I turn two down, And you're a peacock."
Pick out a fine, large sweet-pea blossom. It doesn't matter about the color. If you have a number to choose from, suit yourself. Hold the flower in your left hand by its stem and recite the first two lines:
"Sweet Pea, Sweet Pea, Your petals unlock."
[Illustration Fig.96: - "Sweet Pea, Sweet Pea, Your petals unlock."]
[Illustration Fig.97: - "I turn two down and you're a Peacock."]
Then as you reach around to the back of the flower with your right hand and put your thumb on one curled petal, X, and your first finger on the other curled petal, Y (Fig. 96), finish the rhyme:
and at the same time turn these petals down as they are in Fig. 97. You will see right away that the turned-down petals at the sides are the wings, the upright petal at the back is the tail, and the closed middle part is the body. The tipped-up point of the body part makes a very good head for the little sweet-pea peacock.
[Illustration: Fig.98 - The blossoms of the cultivated Snapdragon are large.]
The magic that turns a blossom of the large, cultivated snapdragon into a little lady's head, upon which rests a dainty, ruffled sunbonnet, or into a ferocious-looking lion's head, is the magic of pen and ink, not of rhyme.
[Illustration: Fig.99 - The Snapdragon Lady's Head.]
[Illustration: Fig.100 - The Snapdragon Lion's Head.]