In those days the apple tree would be blooming, and the petals would sift down on Gabriella. Looking up at the marriage bell of blossoms, and speaking in the language of her grandmother, she would say:—
"Milly, when I grow up and get married, I am going to be married out of doors in spring under an apple tree."
"I don' know whah I gwine be married," Milly would say with a hoarse, careless cackle. "I 'spec' in a brier-patch."
Gabriella's first discovery of what meanness human nature can exhibit was connected with this garden. So long as everything was sour and green, she could play there by the hour; but as soon as anything got ripe and delicious, the gate with the high latch was shut and she could never enter it unguarded. What tears she shed outside the fence as she peeped through! When they did take her in, they always held her by the hand.
"DON'T hold my hand, Sam," pleadingly to the negro gardener. "It's so HOT!"
"You fall down and hurt yourself."
"How absurd, Sam! The idea of my falling down when I am walking along slowly!"
"You get lost."
"How can you say anything so amusing as that, Sam! Did I ever get lost in here?"
"Snakes bite you."