I Bring Fresh Flowers by Robert F. Young

You know Rosemary Brooks. You have known her for many years.

It is said that when she was a little girl her favorite poem was Barbara Frietchie, and it is told how she would sometimes poke her pretty head out of her bedroom window, survey the suburban street with her blue-sky eyes, and cry, ”Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag!”

Yes, you know Rosemary. You know her very well.

Like all little girls, Rosemary grew up. But Rosemary did not change. This is not to say that she did not turn into an attractive young lady. She turned into a most attractive one indeed. Fragilely beautiful, airy of tread, she should have been the reigning rose of every dance she went to, but she was not. Rarely did the young men of her acquaintance ask her to dance, and never did one of them approach her and say, “Come into the garden, Rosemary, for the black bat, night, has flown.” She did not go to very many dances in any event, and looking back, one realizes that the few she did attend, she attended primarily to please her mother. The reason behind Rosemary’s wallflowerhood is simple: the young men of her acquaintance knew that with her, God and the United States of America came first, and that accompanying her through life, or even accompanying her home from a dance for that matter, meant being relegated to a back seat. It is alright for little girls to be Barbara Frietchies, you see, but not for big ones.