"To say nothing of the scoundrel blackbirds," he said with a frown. "Those rascals wait until the exact moment when the peas have reached perfection; then they walk along the rows and slit the pods with their bills, neat as if they were opening their mail, and there go your peas! Frustrating. Well, I tried everything. Scarecrows never scared them; I put a dozen pin wheels to a row; but they'd wait till the wind died down. Smart villains. Finally I struck on the idea of covering the peas in my garden with mosquito netting, as you see. Worked like a charm. Those birds can eat their own peas. Perfectly fair. But not mine. And it's a pleasure to frustrate them for a change!"
Fatly, the cat, came trotting along a furrow with his collar bell tinkling. He had the sleekness and softness of a healthy country cat. His eyes looked dazzled in the sunshine.
"I frustrate him, too, this time of year," Mr. Payton told them. "I feed him so handsomely each morning that he has no interest whatever in catching birds."
By this time, on a common impulse, they had moved away from the garden and were starting along the path in the direction of Mrs. Cheever's house. To the right of them, the wall of new reeds rippled and shivered; to the left, in the old door yards, persistent garden flowers bloomed again: iris, peonies, poppies, roses.
As they walked, the children remarked on changes in the scene.
"The Delaneys' porch has finally fallen off."
"Look at that big fat wisteria vine on the Vogelharts' barn. I don't remember that."
"The turret on the Thompsons' house is much more sideways than it was."
Aunt Minnehaha's chickens came trotting, helter-skelter, to meet them; her duck, stepping on its own feet, waddled out from under its shade of dock leaves. "Everything is just like last year," Julian said. "Except it's better."
"I know," Portia agreed. "That's because it's ours now, in a way; or else because we're its."