A discreet silence had settled over the countryside, just as though all the fields were on their best behavior. The rows and rows of conscientiously trained beets and onions drew themselves up in the pride of their posture. They too are very orthodox. They look down upon those of their vegetable brethren who have allowed themselves to be blown away from the straight and narrow path while still in the seed stage. It is fair, in a kingdom of stones, that these should do penance by eternal excommunication from the pale. And thus pondering, in pious disgust, the beets and carrots were spending their Sunday.
The truant asparagus, long since reformed from rigid rows, was glorifying heaven in its own sweet way. It sprawled over the edge of its patch, as though to cover as much of the earth as possible—to be as near to her as possible. It does her honor, by dressing up in feathery finery to adorn her. It even catches the dew-drops, and roguishly uses them as pearls; for it makes its religion a perpetual pageant to glorify nature, and it scorns the priggish severity of the onion elders who have carefully stored up all their dew, for the cultivation of orthopedic roots.
These were the extremes of the vegetable Sunday behavior, and they are interspersed with just such in between stages as the meadows show,—a sort of tired business man-ish relief from the droning haying machines, and the hard cobble-stone wall.
Over the vegetable kingdom the round stones rule in their smooth sly fashion, appearing in the furrows to retard the busy harrower in his task, and censoring the human children’s play.
But past them all the Little Girl ran, laughing at the wind, brushing off the dirt that spotted her starched dress, and forgetting all about her bruises and scratches. On and on she ran, her eye fixed on the fleecy white cloud, her heart aching to fondle it, and her legs tireless in their never-ending race for the stars.
TO PLEASE EIGHT AND A HALF
First of all there was Mildred, who was eleven, and quite sedate. Then there were the twins, Eveline and Madeline, who were eight and a half and eight and a half and ten minutes old, respectively, and who liked stories.
“Can you tell ’em?” Madeline inquired anxiously. She was curled up in my lap, and when she spoke she wrinkled up her nose in a funny little way that hid the one freckle on its tip that was the only means of distinguishing her from Eveline.
“I’ll try,” I offered.
“Make it about goblins, please,” ordered Madeline.