apples, and me not know which, and you not know which?” I said to the apple-blossoms when next my head touched them. Of course, you never really speak to things with your throat voice, but you think it at them with your head voice. Perhaps that is the way they answer, and that is why one does not always hear what they say. . . .
The apple-blossoms did not say anything that I could hear. The stillness of things never ceased to surprise me. It would have been far less wonderful to me if the apple-blossoms and the Lombardy poplars and my new shoes had answered me sometimes than that they always kept their unfriendly silence. One’s new shoes look so friendly, with their winking button eyes and their placid noses! And yet they act as cross about answering as do some little boys who move into the neighbourhood.
. . . Indeed, if one comes to think of it, one’s shoes are rather like the sturdy little boys among one’s clothes. One’s slippers are more like little girls, all straps and bows and tiptoes. Then one’s aprons must be the babies, long and white and dainty. And one’s frocks and suits—that is to say, one’s new frocks and
