The Lilac Girl | Page 5

all as Ed had described it; the white church with its tall
spire lost behind the high branches, the Town Hall guarded by an
ancient black cannon, the white houses, the green blinds, the lilac
hedges, the toppling hitching-post before each gate. Tottingham Center
succeeded East Tottingham and they eventually reached Eden Village
twenty minutes behind schedule.
It was difficult to say where country left off and village began, but after
passing the second modest white residence Wade believed he could
safely consider himself within the corporate limits. Before him
stretched a wide road lined with elms. So closely were they planted that
their far-reaching branches formed a veritable roof overhead, through
which at this time of day the sunlight barely trickled. They were sturdy

trees, many of them larger in the trunk than any hogs-head, and
doubtless some of them were almost as old as the village itself. The
cool green-shadowed road circled slightly, so that as they travelled
along it the vista always terminated in a wall of green, flecked at
intervals with a gleam of white where the sun-bathed front of some
house peeked through. Wade viewed the quaint old place with interest,
for here Ed had lived when a boy, and many a story of Eden Village
had Wade listened to.
The houses were set, usually, close to the street, with sometimes a
wooden fence, sometimes a hedge of lilacs before them. But more often
yard and sidewalk fraternized. Flowers were not numerous;
undoubtedly the elms threw too much shade to allow of successful
floriculture. But there were lilacs still in bloom, lavender and white,
and their perfume stirred memories. The houses in Eden Village were
not crowded; for the first quarter of a mile they passed hardly more
than a dozen. After that, although they became more neighborly, each
held itself well aloof. Then came a small church with a
disproportionately tall spire, a watering trough, the Town Hall, and
"Prout's Store, Zenas Prout 2nd, Proprietor." Here the gray sidled up to
the ancient hitching-post. The boy tossed the reins over the dashboard
and jumped out. "You don't need to hold him," he said reassuringly.
Presently he was back. "It's further up the street," he announced. "But
he says there ain't anybody livin' there an' the house is locked up."
"I've got the key," answered Wade. "Go ahead."
They went on along the leafy nave. Now and then a road or
grass-grown lane started off from the main highway and wandered back
toward the meadow-lands. Presently the street straightened out, the
elms presented thinner ranks, houses stood farther apart. Then the street
divided to enclose a narrow strip of common adorned with a flagpole
greatly in need of a new coat of white paint. The elms dwindled away
and an occasional maple dotted the common with shade. The driver
guided the patient gray to the left and, near the centre of the common,
drew up in front of a little white house, which, like the picket fence in
front of it, the flagstaff on the common, and so many other things in

Eden Village, seemed to be patiently awaiting the painter.
Inside the fence, thrusting its branches out between the pickets, ran a
head-high hedge of lilac bushes, so that, unless you stood directly in
front of the gate, all you saw of the first story were the tops of the front
door and the close-shuttered windows. Between house and hedge there
was the remains of a tiny formal garden. Rows of box, winter-killed in
spots, circled and angled about grass-grown spaces which had once
been flower-beds. The dozen feet of path from gate to steps was paved
with crumbling red bricks, moss-stained and weed-embroidered. The
front door had side-lights hidden by narrow, green blinds and a
fan-light above. Wade drew forth the key entrusted to him by the agent
and tried to fit it to the lock. But although he struggled with it for
several moments it refused stubbornly to have anything to do with the
keyhole.
"There's a side door around there," advised the boy from the carryall.
"Maybe it's the key to it."
"Maybe it is the key to it," responded Wade, wiping the perspiration
from his forehead. He pushed his way past the drooping branches of an
overgrown syringa, tripped over a box-bush, and passed around the left
of the house, following the remains of a path which led him to a door in
an ell. Back here there were gnarled apple and pear and cherry trees, a
tropical clump of rhubarb, and traces of what had evidently been at one
time a kitchen garden. Old-fashioned perennials blossomed here and
there; lupins and Sweet Williams and other sturdy things which had
resisted the encroachment of the grass. The key fitted readily, scraped
back,