August 30th. What bird is that? He is in the locust yonder, only his breast visible. It is a vivid yellow, with four irregular scarlet spots—three on one side and one on the other—and across his breast a long zig-zag line of scarlet like a jagged wound. There isn’t any bird like that: I know it; and if he doesn’t, he ought to. Yet there he sits, as calm as if he were in all the books and had as much right in the Garden as I. I have watched him, and recorded him, yet he doesn’t move.
Well, I’ll just make him: I’m not tied to this chair!
A scarlet tanager, moulting! No wonder I never saw that before. He is always scarlet-and-black when he goes through Tennessee in the spring, and yellow and olive when he goes back in the fall. He looks like the clown in a circus now, and I don’t wonder that he seeks the seclusion of the mountains to change his clothes. He is gone, of course, before I can apologize for my intrusion; and I suppose his opinion of me is scarcely fit to print.
September 18th. Caro is back from New York, and we leave a week from today. We have decided to shave a few days off the limit set by the Peon: if we don’t hurry, David will have that house half finished before we get there, and we want to see it go up from the beginning ourselves. Besides, Caro wants a little time with Milly. Her wedding is set for the last of October, and Caro’s is to be six weeks later. I’m afraid it will take strenuous work to get Cousin Jane where we want her by that time; but if we go home and start on her at once, the thing may be done.
September 24th. The last day in the Garden! The Mistress has been out, and I have been trying, in rather a bungling way, to make her understand what she has done for me. Neither she nor the Madam can know the whole of it, and I hope they never will; for they would have to live in the same prison-house to understand what a door of escape means.
Eh, but the summer is over, and I count my stay by hours!—Yes; but the summer will never end. Even when the prison is lost sight of, the door of escape will remain a delight. The things that hurt pass, and are forgotten; things not understood change and grow clear: but joy does not change, not kindness, nor anything that makes life worth while. And so, good-bye to the Garden.
XIII
While the Nest was Building
September 30th. We reached home three days ago, having forestalled the possibility of orders not to come by concealing our plans until we were on the way.