Birds built nests within the vine, and hatched their young, and sang loudly and sweetly to their friends in the hut as often as they cared to hear.
CHAPTER XX.
OLD REUBEN DEAD.
Nothing pleased Reuben half as much as to sit in the shadow of the vines, watch the flowers grow, and feel that all this beauty was Violet's work; for the old gardener loved flowers dearly; and when he had grown too old to work himself, he was so glad to feel that his garden pets need not be smothered up in weeds, and die.
So there he sat in the sun day after day, while he grew thinner and more feeble; and one pleasant afternoon, when Violet thought he had taken too long a nap, she went to waken him for fear he might take cold.
But she paused to look at the good old man as he sat there with his hands folded on his bosom, and such a beautiful smile on the wrinkled face, and the wind stirring the gray locks, while his head rested among the fresh summer leaves.
Reuben never awoke; he was dead.
Violet burst into tears, and wished for a moment that she could die herself; but she thought of the mother who was too infirm to take care of herself, and who had lived with Reuben longer and would feel his loss more than she.
Just then a bird flew from his nest in the vine, and soaring slowly, sang low at first, and sweetly, and then louder and louder, till he was lost among the clouds.