It was a very large garden, covering quite a quarter of an acre. It was formally laid out in squares, like the streets of the Quaker City. But its luxuriant growth of shrubs and fruit bushes along every walk between vegetable beds, hid all angles. It was entered by a south gate leading to the broad middle walk that ran the full length of the ground to the north wall, which was entirely hidden by a thick hedge of raspberry bushes, now a mass of white blossoms. On the right of the gate, as you entered, in the southeast corner of the wall, was a group of three peach trees, now in full, pink flower. All through the garden, here and there, where they would not interfere with the growth of vegetables or flowers, were isolated fruit trees—pear, quince, apple, plum and cherry trees. In the walks near the house was an affluence of roses over arbors and trellises, and around the edges of the vegetable square, further away, pot herbs and small fruits took the place of the flowers. But now, not only all the spring flowers and all the roses were in bloom, but all the fruit trees and bushes and vines were in full blossom, and the whole garden was one outburst of beautiful color. In the morning the birds sang there in a concert of joy and praise.
But it was now near midday, and they were silent.
Owlet wandered down the middle walk, between the borders of sweet williams, larkspurs, ragged robins, hyacinths, jonquils, daffodils, tulips—and countless varieties of old-fashioned spring flowers, stooping lightly to caress one or another, but never plucking any, and so came at last to the gooseberry bushes, in full bloom, that grew on the borders of a sidewalk on her left.
But it was not the gooseberry bushes that attracted the child. It was what seemed to her to be a flock of little, soft, round, yellow birds running about in the grass, and in and out, under the bars of a wicker coop, in which something was moving and making a gentle noise.
This was, in fact, a coop, with a bantam hen and a brood of newly hatched chickens, which the poultry woman had brought from the poultry yard, for some reason best known to herself, and placed in the gooseberry walk.
But Owlet did not know what they were. Her face grew radiant with delight, and she threw herself on the ground near them.
“Oh, you dear, darling things!” she said, taking the little, round, yellow puffs tenderly in her hand and putting them up to her face. “You sweet, lovely things! I do love you so! You are so sweet, I could eat you!”
“Oh, p’ease, p’ease doane bite ’em! Dey is sich po’ itty sings!” pleaded a baby voice near her.
Owlet looked up, and saw a small negro child standing by her side. It was a strange little human—a child of about her own age, but shorter and plumper than she was, with a skin as black as ink, yet, strange as it may seem to say it, beautiful in face, feature and form, with a well-shaped round head, covered with jet black, silky, closely curling hair, large, soft black eyes, deeply fringed on both upper and lower lids, with long, curly black lashes; a small nose, not very flat; a lovely mouth, a perfect Cupid’s bow in shape, and dark crimson in color, not too vivid a contrast to the black skin. But, after all, the chief beauty of the little face was its expression of more than human tenderness, of a ray of almost heavenly love. She was clothed in a short garment of blue serge that left her shapely little black arms and legs perfectly bare from shoulders to hands and from knees to feet.
Owlet, however, gave her a mere glance that did not take in the perception of her personality in the least degree, and indignantly exclaimed: