It sounded a merry tintinnabulation on Samantha's milk-pans, wafted the scent of dripping honeysuckle into the farmhouse windows, and drenched the night-caps in which prudent farmers had dressed their haycocks.
Next morning, the green world stood on tiptoe to welcome the victorious sun, and every little leaf shone as a child's eyes might shine at the remembrance of a joy just past.
A meadow lark perched on a swaying apple-branch above Martha's grave, and poured out his soul in grateful melody; and Timothy, wakened by Nature's sweet good-morning, leaped from the too fond embrace of Miss Vilda's feather-bed.... And lo, a miracle!... The woodbine clung close to the wall beneath his window. It was tipped with strong young shoots reaching out their innocent hands to cling to any support that offered; and one baby tendril that seemed to have grown in a single night, so delicate it was, had somehow been blown by the sweet night wind from its drooping place on the parent vine, and, falling on the window-sill, had curled lovingly round Gay's fairy shoe, and held it fast!
SCENE XI.
The Honeysuckle Porch.
MISS VILDA DECIDES THAT TWO IS ONE TOO MANY, AND TIMOTHY BREAKS A HUMMINGBIRD'S EGG.
It was a drowsy afternoon. The grasshoppers chirped lazily in the warm grasses, and the toads blinked sleepily under the shadows of the steps, scarcely snapping at the flies as they danced by on silver wings. Down in the old garden the still pools, in which the laughing brook rested itself here and there, shone like glass under the strong beams of the sun, and the baby horned-pouts rustled their whiskers drowsily and scarcely stirred the water as they glided slowly through its crystal depths.
The air was fragrant with the odor of new-mown grass and the breath of wild strawberries that had fallen under the sickle, to make the sweet hay sweeter with their crimson juices. The whir of the scythes and the clatter of the mowing machine came from the distant meadows. Field mice and ground sparrows were aware that it probably was all up with their little summer residences, for haying time was at its height, and the Giant, mounted on the Avenging Chariot, would speedily make his appearance, and buttercups and daisies, tufted grasses and blossoming weeds, must all bow their heads before him, and if there was anything more valuable hidden at their roots, so much the worse!
And if a bird or a mouse had been especially far-sighted and had located his family near a stump fence on a particularly uneven bit of ground, why there was always a walking Giant going about the edges with a gleaming scythe, so that it was no wonder, when reflecting on these matters after a day's palpitation, that the little denizens of the fields thought it very natural that there should be Nihilists and Socialists in the world, plotting to overturn monopolies and other gigantic schemes for crushing the people.