“When the dogwood is in bloom,” she whispered. Her voice was deep and mellow, like a night bird’s call.
“Come on, Jeanne! Snap out of it!” Florence was at her side. “The floor is done. We’re going to have hot chocolate and some of those cake squares they call brownies.”
Once again Jeanne marched across the floor to the back of the room. As she turned, her gaze strayed through the window.
“The hearse,” she whispered with a shudder. “It’s still waiting in the moonlight.”
Having turned quickly about to shut out the scene, she found herself looking at a tall-backed organ standing against the wall. The moonlight falling across its ivory keys, yellow with age, gave it a ghostly appearance.
“Boo! Spooky place!”
She was glad enough to retreat to the narrow circle made by the fire’s yellow glow.
“When the dogwood is in bloom,” she whispered a moment later. With the light of the fire in her eyes, she forgot all else save those far away mountains.
She called back from memory’s hidden places one springtime when, with Bihari the gypsy and his good wife, she had stolen away to the mountains of France in a gypsy van. They had gone to meet the loitering spring.
They had found her lingering among the hills. There tiny flowers were blooming gaily. There, too, they had caught the white drift of blossoming trees.