The long northern twilight of the summertime and equally long evenings in winter had each their special charm.
The pictures of winter scenes in eastern magazines and books looked strange and unfamiliar to us, but as one saucy girl said to a tenderfoot from a blizzard-swept state, “We see more and deeper snow everyday than you ever saw in your life.”
“How is that?” said he.
“On Mount Rainier,” she answered, laughing.
Even so, this magnificent mountain, together with many lesser peaks, wears perpetual robes of snow in sight of green and blooming shores.
When it came to decorating for Christmas, well, we had a decided advantage as the evergreens stood thick about us, millions of them. Busy fingers made lavish use of rich garlands of cedar to festoon whole buildings; handsome Douglas firs, reaching from floor to ceiling, loaded with gay presents and blazing with tapers, made the little “clam-diggers’” eyes glisten and their mouths water. In the garden the flowers bloomed often in December and January, as many as twenty-six varieties at once.
One New Year’s day I walked down the garden path and plucked a fine, red rosebud to decorate the New Year’s cake.
The pussy-willows began the floral procession of wildlings in January and the trilliums and currants were not far behind unless a “cold snap” came on in February and the flowers dozed on, for they never seem to sleep very profoundly here. By the middle of February there was, occasionally, a general display of bloom, but more frequently it began about the first of March, the seasons varying considerably.
The following poem tells of favorite flowers gathered in the olden time “i’ the spring o’ the year!”
In the summertime we had work as well as play, out of doors. The garden surrounding our cottage in 1863, overflowed with fruits, vegetables and flowers. Nimble young fingers were made useful in helping to tend them. Weeding beds of spring onions and lettuce, sticking peas and beans, or hoeing potatoes, were considered excellent exercise for young muscles; no need of physical “culchuah” in the school had dawned upon us, as periods of work and rest, study and play, followed each other in healthful succession.