"A strange scratching along the wall,—I thought it was a whole lot of snakes climbing up to our window. There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of, and that is snakes."
"Mammy Susan says that 'endurin' of the war, they is sho' to be mo' snakes than in peaceable times.' Of course she has no idea that this war is away off across the water, and if it were inclined to breed snakes, it wouldn't breed them over here. But that snake you heard last night was Mary Flannagan scaling the wall. She is practicing all the time for the movies."
"Pig, not to call us!"
"I was dying to, but was afraid of raising too much rumpus."
The garden was beautiful at all times, but at that early hour it was so lovely it made us gasp. A row of stately hollyhocks separated the flower garden from the vegetables. Banked against the hollyhocks were all kinds of old-fashioned garden flowers: bachelor's buttons, wall-flowers, pretty-by-nights, love-in-a-mist, heliotrope, verbena, etc. There was a thick border of periwinkle whose glossy dark green leaves enhanced the brilliancy of the plants beyond. One great strip was given up entirely to roses,—and such roses!
"Gee! This is the life!" cried Dum, kneeling down among the roses, going kind of mad as usual over the riot of color. Dum's love of color and form amounted to a passion. "Only look at the shape of this bud and at the color way down in its heart. Oh, Page, I am so glad we came out! Only think, this rosebud might have opened and withered with not a soul seeing it if we had not happened along:
"'Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear—
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'"
"I wonder where the servants are?" I queried. "At this hour in the country they are usually beginning to get busy. I tell you, Mammy Susan has 'em hustling by this time at Bracken."
"I'm hungry as a bear! Don't you think we might get the old cook to hand us out a crust?" suggested Dum. "Getting up early always makes me famished."
"Sure! She is a nice-looking old party and no doubt would be as pleasant as she looks. Her name is Aunt Milly."