“But you said you wanted David for her,” I objected in as dolorous a voice as I could muster.
“I ain’t so favorable to David as I was,” she answered frankly. “He’s got a mighty ugly temper. He flared up at me downright impudent that time I spoke to him about Caroline; an’ he good as turned me out of your room one day, without opening his mouth. He’d lead Caroline a hard life. Of course I didn’t say a word to Bob, but I saw by the way he went on how it was. A keen business man like him don’t go a hundred miles out of his way to visit a girl for nothin’. I know.”
“But you thought David cared,” I pleaded.
“If he does, let him do somethin’ to prove it, ’stead o’ settin’ like a bump on a log. I ain’t goin’ to help him another mite.”
Cousin Jane’s visits certainly add to one’s list of mercies. I’ve been telling Grumpy all the week that nothing can be very bad as long as she no longer smiles on David, but afflicts Bob White with her disastrous friendship. My clouds are silver-lined indeed!
January 29. The first spring signs the birds give us: we must look skyward for them, past earth altogether. The next spring signs are hidden deep, in those dark places where sunlight never comes. For the violets which empurple the long borders, like the song of the Carolina wren, are not a sign of spring, but a constant witness to ever-present life. They bloom every month of the winter, just as the bird sings. The spring-time message is brought by something of a frailer courage than theirs—something which must needs retrace steps the violets have never taken.
So today, as the Peon wheeled me out to the maple, he stopped at one of the jonquil beds while I climbed down to brush aside the leaves which protect the bulbs from frost, and to stir the earth with loving fingers. Not yet. Life is at work, I know, but too deep down to be seen as yet. I drew the leaves back again, my hands shaking a little with the joy of grubbing in the dirt again—real outdoor dirt, that runs clear through to blue sky on the other side, instead of stopping at a saucer six inches from the top of a pot. How many years! Would I ever make up for the lost years, I wondered, and then caught my breath and the Peon’s hand with a laugh. For the cardinal was singing again—Cheer! Cheer! Cheer! A-wet-year! A-wet-year! Cheer! Cheer!
It was a dull, cloudy day; but vision had come to him, and what he saw he would live up to. He sat on the grape arbor, back of the jonquil bed, and sang, deliberately at first, stout-heartedly, but with a rising tide of joy—A-wet-year! Cheer! Cheer! A wet year seems to be his idea of heaven and spring-time rolled into one. Rain—and swelling life! The lost years will be made good yet. And shall one grudge the time for rain?