The Long Ago | Page 2

There's something distinctive and individual about the paths in a garden
- they either "belong," or they do not. Imagine cement walks in
grandmother's garden! Its walks are as much to a garden as its flowers
or its birds or its beetles, and express that dear, indescribable intimacy
that makes the Phlox a friend and the Johnny-Jump-Up a play-fellow.
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The best place for angle-worms was underneath the white Syringa bush
- the tallest bloomer in the garden except the great Red Rose that
climbed over the entire wall of the house, tacked to it by strips of red
flannel, and whose blossoms were annually counted and reported to the
weekly newspaper.
Another good place was under the Snowball bush, where the ground
was covered with white petals dropped from the countless
blossom-balls that made passers-by stop in admiration.
Still another good digging-ground was in the Lilac corner where the
purple and white bushes exhaled their incomparable perfume.
Grandmother forbade digging in the flower-beds - it was all right to go
into the vegetable garden, but the tender flower-roots must not be
exposed to the sun by ruthless boy hands intent only on the quest of
bait.

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Into the lapel of my dress coat She fastened a delicate orchid last night.
It must have cost a pretty penny, at this season - enough, no doubt, to
buy the seeds that would reproduce a half-dozen of my grandmother's
gardens. And as we moved away in the limousine She asked me why I
was so silent. She could not know that when she slipped its rare stem
into place upon my coat, the long years dropped away - and I stood
again where the Yellow Rose, all thorn-covered, lifted its sunny top
above the picket fence - plucked its choicest blossom, put it almost
apologetically and ashamed into the buttonhole of my jacket - stuffed
my hands into my pockets and went whistling down the street, with the
yellow rose-tint and the sunlight and the curls on my child head all
shining in harmony. The first boutonniere of my life - from the bush
that became my confidant through all those wondrous years before they
packed my trunk and sent me off to college!
To be sure, I loved the bright-faced Pansies which smiled cheerily up at
me from their round bed - and the dear old Pinks, of a strange fragrance
all their own - and the Sweet William, and even the grewsome
Bleeding Heart that drooped so sad and forlorn in its alloted corner. Yet
it is significant that last night's orchid took me straight back over
memory's pathway to that simple yellow rosebush by the fence!
-
Tonight, with the forgotten orchid in my lapel, and all the weight of the
great struggle lying heavy against my heart, I stand where the night-fog
veils the scraggly eucalyptus, and the dense silence blots out all the
noises that have intervened between the Then and the Now - and I can
see again the gorgeous Peonies, pink and white, where they toss their
shaggy heads, and gather as of old the flaming Cock's Comb by the
little path. I hear the honeybees droning in the Crab Apple tree by the
back gate, and watch the robins crowding the branches of the Mountain
Ash, where the bright red berries cluster. I see the terrible bumble-bee
bear down the Poppy on its slender stem and go buzzing threateningly
away, all pollen-covered.

And shining clear and true through the mist I see her who was the Spirit
of the Garden. There she stands, on the broad step beside the bed where
the Lilies of the Valley grew, leaning firmly upon her one crutch,
looking out across her garden to each loved group of her flower-friends
- smiling out upon them as she did each day through fifty years -
turning at last into the house and taking with her, in her heart, the glory
of the Hollyhocks against the brick wall, the perfume of the Narcissus
in the border, the wing-song of the humming-bird among, the
Honey-suckle, and the warmth of the glad June sunshine.

The River

The river wasn't a big river as I look back at it now, yet it was wide and
wandering and deep, and flowed quietly along through a wonderful
Middle West valley, dividing the Little Old Town geographically and
socially. Its shores furnished such a boy playground as never was
known anywhere else in all the world - for it was a gentle river, a
kindly playfellow, an understanding friend; and it seemed fairly to thrill
in responsive glee when I plunged, naked and untamed, beneath the
eddying waters of the swimming-hole under the overhanging
wild-plum tree.
Its banks, curving in a semi-circle around the village, marked