Lorinia Allen’s

marigolds

Marigolds is another flower that needs you is what Lorinia said. Some don’t. Easter lilies, nekkid ladies, forsythia, lily of the valleys. They just grow by themselves and spread if the conditions is right.

But marigolds, maybe she didn’t want to buy them next year, more really for the fun of having her own seeds though, she collected the seeds and cared for them. She would rub the warm ripe flower heads between her thumb and finger to until the seeds came out. Miss Allen would hold them in her hand for a while. Then she’d let them dry before she put them in a jelly jar to keep away the mice.

Lorinia had a hotbed and a cold frame. Every year she had the neighbor kids dig out the hot bed in the fall so they could fill it with fresh manure in January so she could start the marigold seeds in flats in April. She’d sow them pretty thick because not all of them sprouted. When it warmed up, she moved them to the cold frame. She always managed to keep it from getting too hot in the day or too cold at night by opening or closing the cold frame.
The frost date around here is May 10th so she’d wait a week after that before she planted them on the borders of their lawn, around their tomato plants, and in with their beans.
She taught third grade. Everyone said she was the best teacher. They remembered how good they felt around her. She never had no kids of her own. Her and Mrs. Calentine’s older sister, the one that taught fourth grade. They lived together in that nice old house for years.