“’And then my heart with pleasure thrills
And dances with the daffodils––’
It was very thoughtful of old Wordsworth, and Shakespeare, and Masefield, and all the rest to write nice things about the daffodils, wasn’t it, John? I wonder if gardens would be so wonderful if it weren’t for all their literary suggestions, and the lovely things they remind you of? Gardens have so much atmosphere! Oh, spring, spring, hurry and come!”
I forgot my lame back in her enthusiasm, and later, when the apples were gathered, the potatoes dug, the beets and carrots in the root cellar, our own sweet cider foamed in a glass pitcher on our table, and the first snow spits of December whistled across the fields, we put a little long manure over the irises and other bulbs, and pine boughs over the remaining perennials, and wrapped the ramblers in straw, with almost as much laughing tenderness as you would put a child to bed.
The cows were back in the stable, and Mike had revised his opinion of cork-asphalt floors when he realized the ease of cleaning with a hose; the potatoes and apples and onions and beets and carrots for our family use were stored in barrels and bins in the cellar, or spread on shelves, or buried in sand. The vegetable garden was newly ploughed, and manure spread on the hayfield. Antony and Cleopatra had been captured and brought into the dining-room, where they were to spend the winter in a glass bowl. Epictetus and Luella and Gladys and Gaynor had all burrowed out of sight into the ground. The pageant of autumn on our hills was over, only an amethyst haze succeeding at sunset time. Wood fires sparkled on our twin hearths. The summer residents had departed. Our first Thanksgiving turkey had been eaten, though a great stone crock of Mrs. Pillig’s incomparable mincemeat still yielded up its treasures for ambrosial pies.
“And now,” said Stella, “I’m going to find out at last what a country winter is like!”
“And your friends are pitying you down in town,” said I. “Don’t you want to go back to them till spring?”
Stella looked at the fires, she looked out over the bare garden and the ploughed fields to the dun hillsides, she listened a moment to the whistle of the bleak December wind, she looked at me.
In her eyes I read her answer.