XIV
This, Nell, is the loveliest of May mornings, the sky as blue as a robin’s egg.
“There’s a rustle of leaves in the tall forest trees,
And the brook sings a lullaby sweet.”
For two hours I have been at work in the garden, weeding onion, radish, and lettuce beds. Though this sounds prosaic, it was really idyllic. I had started upon my errand with but little enthusiasm, being tired from churning,—eighty revolutions per minute,—but after my first glimpse of the glory of the orchard I couldn’t hurry fast enough to that bower of pink-and-white beauty lying on the sunlit hillside in all the dewy freshness of the early morning. As I reached it, it seemed to me nothing in the wide world could be sweeter. The air, so soft and pure, was filled with the delicate perfume of pear, plum, and apple blossoms; shadow and shine rippled through the tall grass; swaying upon and flashing through the flowery branches were plump robins with satiny vests of orange, the bluest of bluejays with drum-major topknots, and a shining host of wild canaries. A big pear tree seemed alive and fluttering with these canaries,—little shimmer-
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