A Kentucky Cardinal | Page 8

red as the berries. Then the voice said again,
"Old man, are you the gardener?"
Of course a person looking down carelessly on the stooping figure of
any man, and seeing nothing but a faded straw hat, and arms and feet
and ankles bent together, might easily think him decrepit with age.
Some things touch off my temper. But I answered, humbly,

"I am the gardener, madam."
"How much do you ask for your strawberries?"
"The gentleman who owns this place does not sell his strawberries. He
gives them away, if he likes people. How much do you ask for your
strawberries?"
"What a nice old gentleman! Is he having those picked to give away?"
"He is having these picked for his breakfast."
"Don't you think he'd like you to give me those, and pick him some
more?"
"I fear not, madam."
"Nevertheless, you might. He'd never know."
"I think he'd find it out."
"You are not afraid of him, are you?"
"I am when he gets mad."
"Does he treat you badly?"
"If he does, I always forgive him."
"He doesn't seem to provide you with very many clothes."
I picked on.
"But you seem nicely fed."
I picked on.
"What is his name, old man? Don't you like to talk?"

"Adam Moss."
"Such a green, cool, soft name! It is like his house and yard and garden.
What does he do?"
"Whatever he pleases."
"You must not be impertinent to me, or I'll tell him. What does he
like?"
"Birds--red-birds. What do you like?"
"Red-birds! How does he catch them? Throw salt on their tails?"
"He is a lover of Nature, madam, and particularly of birds."
"What does he know about birds? Doesn't he care for people?"
"He doesn't think many worth caring for."
"Indeed! And he is perfect, then, is he?"
"He thinks he is nearly as bad as any; but that doesn't make the rest any
better."
"Poor old gentleman! He must have the blues dreadfully. What does he
do with his birds? Eat his robins, and stuff his cats, and sell his
red-birds in cages?"
"He considers it part of his mission in life to keep them from being
eaten or stuffed or caged."
"And you say he is nearly a hundred?"
"He is something over thirty years of age, madam."
"Thirty? Surely we heard he was very old. Thirty! And does he live in
that beautiful little old house all by himself?"

"I live with him!"
"You! Ha! ha! ha! And what is your name, you dear good old man?"
"Adam."
"Two Adams living in the same house! Are you the old Adam? I have
heard so much of him."
At this I rose, pushed back my hat, and looked up at her.
"I am Adam Moss," I said, with distant politeness. "You can have these
strawberries for your breakfast if you want them."
There was a low quick "Oh!" and she was gone, and the curtains closed
over her face. It was rude; but neither ought she to have called me the
old Adam. I have been thinking of one thing: why should she speak
slightingly of my knowledge of birds? What does she know about them?
I should like to inquire.
Late this afternoon I dressed up in my high gray wool hat, my fine
long-tailed blue cloth coat with brass buttons, by pink waistcoat, frilled
shirt, white cravat, and yellow nankeen trousers, and walked slowly
several times around my strawberry bed. Did no see any more ripe
strawberries.
Within the last ten days I have called twice upon the Cobbs, urged no
doubt by an extravagant readiness to find them all that I feared they
were not. How exquisite in life is the art of not seeing many things, and
of forgetting many that have been seen! They received me as though
nothing unpleasant had happened. Nor did the elder daughter betray
that we had met. She has not forgotten, for more than once I surprised a
light in her eyes as though she were laughing. She has not, it is certain,
told even her mother and sister. Somehow this fact invest her character
with a charm as of subterranean roominess and secrecy. Women who
tell everything are like finger-bowls of clear water.
But it is Sylvia that pleases me. She must be about seventeen; and so

demure and confiding that I was ready to take her by the hand, lead her
to the garden-gate, and say: Dear child, everything in here--butterflies,
flowers, fruit, honey, everything--is yours; come and go and gather as
you like.
Yesterday morning I sent them a large dish of strawberries, with a note
asking whether they would walk during the day over to my woodland
pasture, where the soldiers had a barbecue before setting out for the
Mexican war. The