Temptations Of A Tulip
Loretta Aaron
The words "Tulip" and "Holland" are synonymous. This aristocrat of the floral kingdom did not originate in Holland, but in the Netherlands it was developed to its present perfection.
Until I had reached the age of eight, I was not aware of the existence of a tulip. Cockleburs, and sometimes wheat, if it rained, grew in Western Oklahoma.
During my third year in school, my life was enriched by a new experience, and I was introduced to the existence of the exotic tulip. My third grade teacher was a Miss Johnson. She made learning an experience. On a hot fall afternoon in a sweltering school room, we were introduced to art. Miss Johnson read a story about Holland, the land of tulips and windmills. To tie this lore together, each eager student was given a mimeographed picture of a tulip. We were instructed to color the tulip red, and the foliage green. I distinctly remember that tulip. One of the broad leaves was bent at a rakish angle. My finished work of art was the one chosen to hang above the blackboard.
Fall quickly passed into spring, and the picture of my tulip was eventually replaced with one of lesser talent.
Spring arrived, and the blue and white daisies brightened the roadside as we trudged the two miles to school each day. One afternoon as I left the schoolhouse, a bright red object across the street from the schoolhouse caught my eye. The object of my attention was in a flowerbed beside the house. I walked across the street, and there in living color were five red tulips. I knew they were tulips, for they resembled the flower I had so carefully colored that hot summer months before. The largest of the tulips had two broad leaves and one was bent at a rakish angle.
At a young age, I had been taught the Ten Commandments. I was supposed to be satisfied with my doll and not covet the larger one of my best friend. I coveted that tulip. To posses it became the uppermost thought in my mind. I never gave a thought as to how I would explain the tulip to my parents if I were successful in liberating it from the flower bed.
My fingers slowly crept down to the end of the stem, tightened, and then caution warned me to stop. Maybe I just imagined there was a ripple behind the lace panel hanging at the window. I hurried away.
I turned back to the street and kicked the dust of the country road as I walked homeward. Over the weekend, temptation had by no means subsided, and I schemed in my mind how I would accomplish the dastardly deed. Ah, I had it! I would seemingly drop my lunch bucket, appear to be picking it up, snatch the tulip, and shove it into the open bucket. My plan was to be put into action after class Monday.
The classroom window was too high to see the house across the street, and the tulip that was to be mine when the day ended. When the final bell rang, I waited around the front of the school until most of the children had left, then I hurried across the street. Heartbreak lay in wait for me. The wind had blown gustily all weekend. My tulip had completed its destiny. The bright red petals lay shriveled upon the ground.
That afternoon I walked home alone with my halo still untarnished--not by choice,. From that childish disappointment was borne the determination to someday, somehow, grow a tulip of my own.
Now many years later, when the fall bulb catalogs arrive and I look at the expensive listings of colorful tulips from Holland, I find I still covet--especially the mass planting of the neighbor across the fence from me.
Did God really mean, "Thou Shalt Not Covet" to include tulips?
(Reprinted from Sooner State Iris News, February - March 1987)