﻿SAY IT WITH FLOWERS 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
Half the people in these states know practically nothing about botany and can’t tell asparrowgrass from a vegetable oyster, so fearfully has their education been neglected. Half of ‘em hasn’t the slightest idea what garlic looks like and could be sold a bunch of persimmons or caraway seeds instead. And there is only one way for them to find out––go into a feed store and order a dozen bulbs. Is it then any wonder they can not describe the looks of one of the most beautiful flowers, the spondulics––half say its green, half say its yellow and there you are. 
Here’s a flower that makes orchids (they don’t know what orchids are; neither do I), makes orchids look like some thing the consumptive spit out and the populace are in blissful ignorance as to its existence. They must be color blind. 
I’ve often wondered why he menfolk on their rounds do not gather a bunch of those lovely spondulics and take them home to the wife of kinda square themselves in her eyes for past, present and future infractions of various moral codes and codicils of deportment; for I have it from undisputed authority that there’s nothing like a vaseful of spondulics to keep peace in the family. 
Not a woman would have the nerve to peel the bark from her dear hubby’s nose with a frying pan if a bunch of fragrant spondulics decorated the dining room table. Peace would be so profound the neighbors would rush in hoping to find the pair of ‘em lying dead, battered beyond recognition. And there they are, sitting peacefully beaming at each other like a case of love at first sight . . . 
“Oh, Mrs. Noseby,” exclaims the now docile virago, jumping up from her husbands lap, “look at the pretty flowers Hennery brought me.” 
“My goodness gracious!” gasps Noseby through her sparse teeth, “how beautiful; they must be tens and twenties.” 
“Yes Mrs. Noseby, there isn’t a five or a two or a one in the whole bunch. Hennery said he could have picked up an armload of fives and ones but he thought I’d like the tens and twenties best––especially the twenties––and I do, too,” she cooed bashfully. 
“But don’t you think, Mrs. Knockimstiff, a fifty or a hundred stuck in here and there would enhance the beauty of the bouquet?” says Mrs. Noseby, spitefully. “Indeed it would, Mrs. Noseby, and I’m sending him out to gather a few––ones and twos and fives, as I’m just after telling him, may be all right for a boutonierre, to pin on a coat lapel, but they would never, never do, to put on the centerpiece, near food.” “I quite agree with you, Mrs. Knockimstiff, you have a rare artistic sense and taste for true beauty.” “Thank you, Mrs. Noseby, I’m sorry you can’t stay––do so love to talk with you––but stay, take a few of these flowers with you to show your husband what they look like––mebbe he would like to go out and pick a few after he recovers from the beating-up you gave him.” 
Ain’t nature grand! 
Perpetual strife, clawing, kicking, mayhem, assault and battery, torture, assassination and what not all turned into a beautiful love scene just by a few stray blossoms of the esoteric spondulics –– spontaneous spondulics. But, as I said before, the people are poorly informed as to the powers of those flowers to quell the rising insurgency of the redoutable female –– nip it in the bud, so as to say––and many is the man carried into hospital for major repairs who lies on the operating table fully unconscious of the flower that would have spared him untold suffering, the disgrace of ignoble defeat at the hands of his dear wife and saved the doctor the trouble of stitching him up and stretching his hide to reach over bare spots. Such is the sad state of botanical erudition in this otherwise happy land of ours–– people eat a pan full of poisonous toadstools all the while thinking they are treating themselves to a mess of mushrooms; trembling husbands and fathers reach home, after an all night session at stud-poker debating circle, fondly hugging a delusion and a bouquet of daisies or posies or pansies when they should have an armful of spondulics––ain’t I right editor? 
Course I’m right––and then David Starr Jordan has the unmitigated guts to say “no use loading a $10,000 education on a 50c boy.” (He means by that that you shouldn’t spoil a good half-dollar kid with too much useless education––he’s subtle.) 
Well, now, it isn’t going to cost no $10,000 to learn to pick spondulics. The I. W. W. agrees to teach every man that now stands in terror of his wife and the landlord how to distinguish between spondulics and spoilt-bananas. 
It absolutely guarantees its instructions to the end that each student will be able to recognize the different kinds of spondulics at a glance and be able to select the harmless from harmful . . . 
Mysterious are the ways of nature and she has so arranged it that some are good and some are rotten––but she also has placed clear markings on all spondulics so it’s your own fault if you pick the wrong kind. 
The ones and twos and fives are considered every bit as poisonous as toadstools––indeed, in some places they are called toadskins –– too dangerous to handle bare-handed. 
It is high time the American people (the workers) begin using these highly ornamental flowers for the purpose nature intended them: to assuage the griefs and calm the feelings of an excited missus. It’s the only way––and the only way we can depart this life with a whole skin unmarked by bludgeonings of the better half: 
Take out a course of instructions in the I. W. W., the scientific way to gather spondulics––it will cost you one quarter dozen dollars 
What’s three bucks, when it preserves your beauty unmarked for all time––you’d spend that much for courtplaster alone to say nothing about doctor bills––and it saves you the trouble of trying to convince St. Peter you had a run-in with a wild-cat. 
Let us have peace. 
T-b. S.