On Buttercups

 Once upon a time there was a little girl who never smiled. She was a kind soul, helping whenever someone needed help and caring wherever someone needed care. It was a constant kind of helping and caring that never stopped except when her worn head hit her pillow at night. Still, though she had all that kindness, she did not smile.

    Perhaps it was that her days were so filled with watching who to help and for whom to care, that there was no time for smiling.

    Perhaps it was that the world about her seemed to tremble all the time with an awful lot of need.

    Then again, perhaps it was because the city that she lived in did not have much in the way of growing things.

    One day, the little girl left the city on a small adventure and found herself in the middle of a meadow where the buttercups grew.

    Sitting down, she let the flowers brush against her trousers as she lowered her head and watched them bending their small cupped faces toward her own. Suddenly her view of the world tilted. Her mind seemed to slow. And as she leaned her own little face down into the flowers and felt them tickle her nose, she smiled.

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