"Poor girlie," smiled the woman to herself, "what a hard time she would have in life if she could not run and romp all she wanted." But aloud she merely said, "It is too early to make a garden yet, dear. The ground is so cold that the seeds would rot instead of sprouting, and if any little shoots were brave enough to climb through the soil into open air, they probably would get frozen for their trouble. We are apt to have some hard frosts yet this spring. See, the leaves on the trees have scarcely begun to swell yet. They know it isn't time. Be patient a little longer; it can't rain forever."
"It's hard to be patient with nothing to do," sighed the child, pressing her nose flatter and flatter against the glass as she looked up and down the dreary, deserted street, vainly hoping for something to distract her dismal thoughts.
"Have you finished dressing the paper dolls for Allee?"
"Yes, I made ten different suits for every single doll, and there were fifteen, counting in the father and mother and grandma. Saint John has already mailed them. I've read till I'm tired and the back fell off of the book—it wasn't a nice story anyway, 'cause the good girl was always getting whaled for what the bad one did. I whistled Glen to sleep before I knew it and then couldn't wake him up, though I shook and shook him. I've sewed up all today's squares of patch-work and two of tomorrow's; but it isn't int'resting work when you ain't there to tell me stories about them. And anyway, I hate sewing—patch-work 'specially! When I grow up and get married, my husband will have to buy our quilts already made. I'll never waste my time sewing on little snips to hatch up some bed-clothes. They're always covered up with spreads anyway. Rainy days are the dismalest things I know!"
"That is very true if we let it rain inside, too," Elizabeth agreed quietly.
"Let it rain inside! Whoever heard tell of such a thing—'nless the roof was leaky." Peace giggled in spite of her gloom.
"You are letting it rain inside now when you frown and sigh instead of trying to be cheerful and happy in spite of the storm outside. One of our poets says:
"'Whatever the weather may be,' says he,
'Whatever the weather may be,
It's the songs ye sing, and the smiles ye wear
That's a-making the sunshine everywhere!'"
Peace abruptly ceased her drumming on the window-sill and stared thoughtfully through the wet pane at a row of draggled sparrows chirping blithely on a fence across the muddy street. Then she remarked, "What a lot of poetry you know! Seems 'sif I'd struck a poetic bunch since we left Parker. Grandma and grandpa and Miss Edith and Frances, and now you have taken to talking in rhymes—and they are mostly about sunshine, too."
"'When the days are gloomy
Sing some happy song,'"