The Garden, You, and I

by Mabel Osgood Wright

I said that I would write to you at once and ask you or Evan to tell us about the best way to transplant all the wild things, except woody shrubs and trees, because we know it's best to wait for those until leaf fall. But as it turns out, I've waited six days—oh! such aggravating days when there is so much to decide and do!

That afternoon The Man rode home with us, as a matter of course, we quite forgetting that instead of late dinner, as usual, the meal would be tea, as the Infant and Maria Maxwell are to dine now at one! As a shower threatened, it seemed much more natural for us to turn into the house than the camp, and before I knew how it happened I was sitting at the head of my own table serving soup instead of tea! I dared not look at Maria, but as the meal was nearly ended she remarked demurely, looking out of the west window to where the shower was passing off slantwise, leaving a glorious sunset trail in its wake, "Wouldn't you like to have your coffee in camp, as the rain forced you to take dinner indoors?" by which I knew that Maria would not allow us to lose sight of our outdoor intentions.

Bart laughed, and The Man, gazing around the table innocently said, "Oh, has it begun, and am I intruding and breaking up plans? Why didn't you tell me?"

So we went out through the sweet-smelling twilight, or rather the glow that comes before it, and as we idly sipped the coffee, lo and behold, the old farm lay before us—a dream picture painted by the twilight! The little window-panes, iridescent with age and bulged into odd shapes by yielding sashes, caught the sunset hues and turned to fire opals; the light mist rising over the green meadows where the flowers now slept with heads bent and eyes closed lent the green and pearl tints of those mysterious gems to which drops of rain or dew strung everywhere made diamond settings.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Bart, "how beautiful the Opie farm looks to-night! If a real-estate agent could only get a photograph of what we see, we should soon have a neighbour to rescue the place!"

"You mustn't call it the Opie farm any more; it is Opal Farm from to-night!" I cried, "and no one shall buy it unless they promise to leave in the old windows and let the meadow and crab orchard stay as they are, besides giving me right of way through it quite down to the river woods!"

But to get back by this circuitous route to the threatened danger with which I opened this letter—

The postman whistled, as he has an alluring way of doing when he brings the evening mail, always hoping that some one will come out for a bit of evening gossip, in which he is rarely disappointed.

We all started to our feet, but Maria, whose special duty it had become to look over the mail, distanced us all by taking a short cut, regardless of wet grass.