"Oh, Elspeth, ain't they lovely?" she sighed. "Don't they make you feel like heaven? Wouldn't you like a great, big bunch of them under your nose always? I wonder why the folks who live there don't give them away. I should if they b'longed to me. Think how many people would be glad to get them. May I go over in the field to play? I won't break one of Saint John's plants or touch a single lilac, truly, if I can just play where I can smell their smell as it comes fresh from the bush. We only get the wee, ragged edges of it over here."
Elizabeth came out of her own revery at the sound of Peace's gusty sigh of longing, and readily gave her consent, as this was Saturday morning and school did not keep. So, like a bird trying its wings after a long imprisonment, the brown-eyed maid with arms flapping and curls bobbing, skipped happily across the road to the field where she had helped the minister plant a little vegetable garden, and which already was lined with irregular rows of pale green shoots where beans and potatoes, turnips and cabbages, had pushed their way up through the black earth.
Peace was even prouder of the small truck patch than the preacher himself, if such a thing were possible, and it was a favorite pastime of both these gardeners to walk back and forth between the rows each day and count the tender sprouts which had appeared during the night. So this morning from force of habit, Peace strolled up and down the length of the garden, counting in a sing-song fashion as she greedily filled nostrils and lungs with the sweet scent of the lilac bushes just beyond, drawing nearer and nearer the hedge with its delicate, dainty sprays.
Unconsciously her counting changed into the humming refrain of the Gleaner's motto song, and she danced lightly down the last row of crisp cornblades, joyously chanting words which fitted into the happy music: "Oh, you pretty lilacs, growing by the wall! How I'd like to have you for my very own. I would pick your blossoms, lavender and white, and give them all to sick folks, shut in from the light.—Why, that rhymed all of its own self!"
She paused abruptly beside the lilac bushes, her arms still uplifted and fingers outstretched as if beckoning to the plumy sprays above her Head. "Isn't it queer how such things will happen when if I'd been trying to make poetry in my dairy I couldn't have thought of those words for an hour? I guess it was the lilacs that did it. Oh, you are so beautiful! You'd make anything rhyme, wouldn't you? What is it that gives you your sweetness? I wish you could tell me the secret. Oh, you lovely lilacs, growing up so high; swinging in the sunshine—" Again her made-up words came to a sudden end, and she stood motionless, her head cocked to one side, listening intently to a brilliant trill of melody from the other side of the hedge.
"There goes my bird again! Saint John says it must be a canary which b'longs to the stone house that owns these lilacs, but I don't b'lieve it would sing like that if it was shut up in a cage."
She held her breath again to harken to the music, then puckered her lips and mocked its song. The feathered musician broke off in the midst of his rhapsody, surprised at the strange echo of his own notes. There was a moment of silence; then he began again, and once more Peace mimicked the warbler. This time there was a stir on the other side of the bushes, and the purple-tasseled branches were cautiously parted where the foliage was thinnest, but Peace was too much absorbed in watching the topmost boughs—for the music seemed to come from overhead somewhere—to see the startled eyes looking at her through the tangle of leaves and blossoms. All unconscious of her hidden audience, she joyously trilled the canary bird's chorus.
Then miracle of miracles—or so it seemed to Peace—there was a whir of wings, and a bright-eyed, yellow-coated, saucy, little bird perched on a twig just above her head. Peace gasped and was silent.
The bird chirped a note of defiance and hopped to the branch below. Peace advanced a cautious step; the canary did not retreat, but tipped its dainty head sidewise and eyed the child curiously. A small brown hand shot out unexpectedly, dexterously, and the yellow songster found itself a helpless prisoner in the child's tight grasp.
Peace was almost as surprised as the bird. She had not really thought to capture the creature so easily, and to find it in her hand sent a thrill of delight through her whole being. She snuggled it close in her neck and crooned: