It was a spring day—all delicate sunshine and shimmering shadow, all soft with tints of mother-o'-pearl, with hints of after-heats and breaths of bygone bitterness. Above floated "the wind-stirred robe of roseate gray," and beneath the earth lay murmurous, sentient, expectant, and eager, with little streams finding their way to the lake, each seeming the bearer of sweeter secrets than we know.
"O water, thou that wanderest, whispering,
Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last!
What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast,
His message thence to wring?"
A spring day—yet somewhat sad, and strange with the uncertainty of unfulfilled dreams. It was but one minor note in Nature's glad interlude between "winter's rains and ruins" and summer's languorous perfections, fleeting to the eye, elusive to the memory, but lingering long in the heart.
Myron knocked and waited. Presently Liz opened the door. She had a knife in one hand, a potato in the other, and her fingers were stained a deep brown. Liz was cutting seed-potatoes, and even as she walked back to her place by the window, dexterously sliced the potato she held into angled bits, preserving in each an eye for growth to spring from. Mrs. Deans came, and when Myron left she had arranged for another summer's toil under her benign influence.
Mrs. Deans had decided to raise poultry more extensively than ever this year, and, berate Myron as she might, she recognized fully how valuable her faithful services were. Mrs. Deans proposed that My should be left with Ann Lemon during the day, but Myron said humbly but very decidedly that the child must come with her. Mrs. Deans demurred, but read Myron's pale determination aright, and finally consented. It gave her an excuse, however, for still further reducing the meagre pay she had given Myron the summer before.
Myron had been prepared for this, and did not grumble when Mrs. Deans named the lower wage, whereat Mrs. Deans was wroth with herself that she had not said still less.
Ann Lemon went back to her own house, and Myron once more went back and forth to the village. The winter had changed her. She no longer shrank from before the gaze of those cold eyes that met hers daily. Instead, she met their glances with firm lips and unmoved eye, not boldly, not appealingly, but with an acceptance of rebuke and scorn that was stronger in its endurance than wrath, with a patience more pathetic than any appeal.
No smile ever moved her lips, no anger ever raised her voice. If tears ever dimmed her eyes, they were unseen. If any ray of hope yet flickered within her breast, it was well hidden; its fires never flushed her cheeks nor troubled her eyes, and those humble eyes were "deeper than the depth of waters stilled at even."
The spring advanced. Each evening whispered of a new beauty, each night saw the birth of a new mystery, each morning revealed it in nature's mirror, each day bespoke some completion of beauty, some fulfillment of hope.
Spring—"all bloom and desire"—is not the time for love to end. It is rather the growing time of every tender joy, and Homer Wilson found himself hoping against hope. He contrived to meet Myron very often now, in the early mornings or late twilight, as she traversed the road between the village and Mrs. Deans'. He had done what he could to dissuade her from going to Mrs. Deans', but a refusal to do so meant a full acceptance of his aid. Myron held back her hand from such overwhelming alms. Homer had done, therefore, what he could for her—ploughed the little lot about her house and planted it with potatoes and vegetables for her, and mended the fence and piled great heaps of split wood in the woodshed.