CHAPTER XII. FLOWERS O' MAY
Accordingly we went a-maying, following the lure of dancing winds to acertain westward sloping hill lying under the spirit-like blue of springskies, feathered over with lisping young pines and firs, which cuppedlittle hollows and corners where the sunshine got in and never got outagain, but stayed there and grew mellow, coaxing dear things to bloomlong before they would dream of waking up elsewhere.
'Twas there we found our mayflowers, after faithful seeking. Mayflowers,you must know, never flaunt themselves; they must be sought asbecomes them, and then they will yield up their treasures to theseeker--clusters of star-white and dawn-pink that have in them the verysoul of all the springs that ever were, re-incarnated in something itseems gross to call perfume, so exquisite and spiritual is it.
We wandered gaily over the hill, calling to each other with laughterand jest, getting parted and delightfully lost in that little pathlesswilderness, and finding each other unexpectedly in nooks and dips andsunny silences, where the wind purred and gentled and went softly. Whenthe sun began to hang low, sending great fan-like streamers of radianceup to the zenith, we foregathered in a tiny, sequestered valley, fullof young green fern, lying in the shadow of a wooded hill. In it was ashallow pool--a glimmering green sheet of water on whose banks nymphsmight dance as blithely as ever they did on Argive hill or in Cretandale. There we sat and stripped the faded leaves and stems from ourspoil, making up the blossoms into bouquets to fill our baskets withsweetness. The Story Girl twisted a spray of divinest pink in her browncurls, and told us an old legend of a beautiful Indian maiden who diedof a broken heart when the first snows of winter were falling, becauseshe believed her long-absent lover was false. But he came back in thespring time from his long captivity; and when he heard that she was deadhe sought her grave to mourn her, and lo, under the dead leaves of theold year he found sweet sprays of a blossom never seen before, andknew that it was a message of love and remembrance from his dark-eyedsweet-heart.
"Except in stories Indian girls are called squaws," remarked practicalDan, tying his mayflowers together in one huge, solid, cabbage-likebunch. Not for Dan the bother of filling his basket with the loosesprays, mingled with feathery elephant's-ears and trails of creepingspruce, as the rest of us, following the Story Girl's example, did. Norwould he admit that ours looked any better than his.
"I like things of one kind together. I don't like them mixed," he said.
"You have no taste," said Felicity.
"Except in my mouth, best beloved," responded Dan.
"You do think you are so smart," retorted Felicity, flushing with anger.
"Don't quarrel this lovely day," implored Cecily.
"Nobody's quarrelling, Sis. I ain't a bit mad. It's Felicity. What onearth is that at the bottom of your basket, Cecily?"
"It's a History of the Reformation in France," confessed poor Cecily,"by a man named D-a-u-b-i-g-n-y. I can't pronounce it. I heard Mr.Marwood saying it was a book everyone ought to read, so I began itlast Sunday. I brought it along today to read when I got tired pickingflowers. I'd ever so much rather have brought Ester Reid. There's somuch in the history I can't understand, and it is so dreadful to read ofpeople being burned to death. But I felt I OUGHT to read it."
"Do you really think your mind has improved any?" asked Sara Rayseriously, wreathing the handle of her basket with creeping spruce.
"No, I'm afraid it hasn't one bit," answered Cecily sadly. "I feel thatI haven't succeeded very well in keeping my resolutions."
"I've kept mine," said Felicity complacently.
"It's easy to keep just one," retorted Cecily, rather resentfully.
"It's not so easy to think beautiful thoughts," answered Felicity.
"It's the easiest thing in the world," said the Story Girl, tiptoeing tothe edge of the pool to peep at her own arch reflection, as some nymphleft over from the golden age might do. "Beautiful thoughts just crowdinto your mind at times."
"Oh, yes, AT TIMES. But that's different from thinking one REGULARLY ata given hour. And mother is always calling up the stairs for me to hurryup and get dressed, and it's VERY hard sometimes."
"That's so," conceded the Story Girl. "There ARE times when I can'tthink anything but gray thoughts. Then, other days, I think pink andblue and gold and purple and rainbow thoughts all the time."
"The idea! As if thoughts were coloured," giggled Felicity.
"Oh, they are!" cried the Story Girl. "Why, I can always SEE the colourof any thought I think. Can't you?"
"I never heard of such a thing," declared Felicity, "and I don't believeit. I believe you are just making that up."
"Indeed I'm not. Why, I always supposed everyone thought in colours. Itmust be very tiresome if you don't."
"When you think of me what colour is it?" asked Peter curiously.
"Yellow," answered the Story Girl promptly. "And Cecily is a sweet pink,like those mayflowers, and Sara Ray is very pale blue, and Dan is redand Felix is yellow, like Peter, and Bev is striped."
"What colour am I?" asked Felicity, amid the laughter at my expense.
"You're--you're like a rainbow," answered the Story Girl ratherreluctantly. She had to be honest, but she would rather not havecomplimented Felicity. "And you needn't laugh at Bev. His stripes arebeautiful. It isn't HE that is striped. It's just the THOUGHT of him.Peg Bowen is a queer sort of yellowish green and the Awkward Man islilac. Aunt Olivia is pansy-purple mixed with gold, and Uncle Roger isnavy blue."
"I never heard such nonsense," declared Felicity. The rest of us wererather inclined to agree with her for once. We thought the Story Girlwas making fun of us. But I believe she really had a strange gift ofthinking in colours. In later years, when we were grown up, she toldme of it again. She said that everything had colour in her thought; themonths of the year ran through all the tints of the spectrum, the daysof the week were arrayed as Solomon in his glory, morning was golden,noon orange, evening crystal blue, and night violet. Every idea came toher mind robed in its own especial hue. Perhaps that was why her voiceand words had such a charm, conveying to the listeners' perception suchfine shadings of meaning and tint and music.
"Well, let's go and have something to eat," suggested Dan. "What colouris eating, Sara?"
"Golden brown, just the colour of a molasses cooky," laughed the StoryGirl.
We sat on the ferny bank of the pool and ate of the generous basket AuntJanet had provided, with appetites sharpened by the keen spring air andour wilderness rovings. Felicity had made some very nice sandwiches ofham which we all appreciated except Dan, who declared he didn't likethings minced up and dug out of the basket a chunk of boiled pork whichhe proceeded to saw up with a jack-knife and devour with gusto.
"I told ma to put this in for me. There's some CHEW to it," he said.
"You are not a bit refined," commented Felicity.
"Not a morsel, my love," grinned Dan.
"You make me think of a story I heard Uncle Roger telling about CousinAnnetta King," said the Story Girl. "Great-uncle Jeremiah King used tolive where Uncle Roger lives now, when Grandfather King was alive andUncle Roger was a boy. In those days it was thought rather coarse for ayoung lady to have too hearty an appetite, and she was more admired ifshe was delicate about what she ate. Cousin Annetta set out to be veryrefined indeed. She pretended to have no appetite at all. One afternoonshe was invited to tea at Grandfather King's when they had some specialcompany--people from Charlottetown. Cousin Annetta said she could hardlyeat anything. 'You know, Uncle Abraham,' she said, in a very affected,fine-young-lady voice, 'I really hardly eat enough to keep a bird alive.Mother says she wonders how I continue to exist.' And she picked andpecked until Grandfather King declared he would like to throw somethingat her. After tea Cousin Annetta went home, and just about darkGrandfather King went over to Uncle Jeremiah's on an errand. As hepassed the open, lighted pantry window he happened to glance in, andwhat do you think he saw? Delicate Cousin Annetta standing at thedresser, with a big loa
f of bread beside her and a big platterful ofcold, boiled pork in front of her; and Annetta was hacking off greatchunks, like Dan there, and gobbling them down as if she was starving.Grandfather King couldn't resist the temptation. He stepped up to thewindow and said, 'I'm glad your appetite has come back to you, Annetta.Your mother needn't worry about your continuing to exist as long as youcan tuck away fat, salt pork in that fashion.'
"Cousin Annetta never forgave him, but she never pretended to bedelicate again."
"The Jews don't believe in eating pork," said Peter.
"I'm glad I'm not a Jew and I guess Cousin Annetta was too," said Dan.
"I like bacon, but I can never look at a pig without wondering if theywere ever intended to be eaten," remarked Cecily naively.
When we finished our lunch the barrens were already wrapping themselvesin a dim, blue dusk and falling upon rest in dell and dingle. But outin the open there was still much light of a fine emerald-golden sort andthe robins whistled us home in it. "Horns of Elfland" never sounded moresweetly around hoary castle and ruined fane than those vesper callsof the robins from the twilight spruce woods and across green pastureslying under the pale radiance of a young moon.
When we reached home we found that Miss Reade had been up to the hillfarm on an errand and was just leaving. The Story Girl went for a walkwith her and came back with an important expression on her face.
"You look as if you had a story to tell," said Felix.
"One is growing. It isn't a whole story yet," answered the Story Girlmysteriously.
"What is it?" asked Cecily.
"I can't tell you till it's fully grown," said the Story Girl. "ButI'll tell you a pretty little story the Awkward Man told us--toldme--tonight. He was walking in his garden as we went by, looking at histulip beds. His tulips are up ever so much higher than ours, and I askedhim how he managed to coax them along so early. And he said HE didn't doit--it was all the work of the pixies who lived in the woods acrossthe brook. There were more pixy babies than usual this spring, and themothers were in a hurry for the cradles. The tulips are the pixy babies'cradles, it seems. The mother pixies come out of the woods at twilightand rock their tiny little brown babies to sleep in the tulip cups. Thatis the reason why tulip blooms last so much longer than other blossoms.The pixy babies must have a cradle until they are grown up. They growvery fast, you see, and the Awkward Man says on a spring evening, whenthe tulips are out, you can hear the sweetest, softest, clearest, fairymusic in his garden, and it is the pixy folk singing as they rock thepixy babies to sleep."
"Then the Awkward Man says what isn't true," said Felicity severely.