Especially at such a time. All upset, you know, and worried. Oh, yes. You got to; you got to make allowances for 'em."Day by day the air grows balmier and softer on the cheek. Out in the garden, ranks of yellow-green pikes stand stiffly at "Present.
Hump!" and rosettes of the same color crumple through the warm soil, unconsciously preparing for a soul tragedy. For an evening will come when a covered dish will be upon the supper-table, and when the cover is taken off, a subtle fragrance will betray, if the sense of sight do not, that the chopped-up lettuces and onions are in a marsh of cider vinegar, demanding to be eaten. And your big sister will squall out in comic distress: "Oh, ma! You are too mean for anything! Why did you have 'em tonight? I told you Mr. Dellabaugh was going to call, and you know how I love spring onions! Well, Idon't care. I'm just going to, anyhow."
Things come with such a rush now, it is hard to tell what happens in its proper order. The apple-trees blossom out like pop-corn over the hot coals. The Japan quince repeats its farfamed imitation of the Burning Bush of Moses; the flowering currants are strung with knobs of vivid yellow fringe; the dead grass from the front yard, the sticks and stalks and old tomato vines, the bits of rag and the old bones that Guess has gnawed upon are burning in the alley, and the tormented smoke is darting this way and that, trying to get out from under the wind that seeks to flatten it to the ground. All this is spring, and - and yet it isn't. The word is not yet spoken that sets us free to live the outdoor life; we are yet prisoners and captives of the house.
But, one day in school, the heat that yesterday was nice and cozy becomes too dry and baking for endurance. The young ones come in from recess red, not with the brilliant glow of winter, but a sort of scalded red. They juke their heads forward to escape their collars' moist embrace; they reach their hands back of them to pull their clinging winter underwear away. They fan themselves with joggerfies, and puff out: "Phew!" and look pleadingly at the shut windows. One boy, bolder than his fellows, moans with a suffering lament: "Miss Daniels, cain't we have the windows open? It's awful hot!" Frightful dangers lurk in draughts. Fresh air will kill folks. So, not until the afternoon is the prayer answered. Then the outer world, so long excluded, enters once more the school-room life. The mellifluous crowing of distant roosters, the rhythmic creaking of a thirsty pump, the rumble of a loaded wagon, the clinking of hammers at the blacksmith shop, the whistle of No. 3away below town, all blend together in the soft spring air into one lulling harmony.
Winter's alert activity is gone. Who cares for grades and standings now? The girls, that always are so smart, gape lazily, and stare at vacancy wishing . . . . They don't know what they wish, but if He had a lot of money, why, then they could help the poor, and all like that, and have a new dress every day.
James Sackett - his real name is Jim Bag, but teacher calls him James Sackett - has his face set toward: "A farmer sold 16 2-3 bu.
wheat for 66 7-8 c. per bu.; 19 2-9 bu. oats for," etc., etc., but his soul is far away in Cummins's woods, where there is a robbers'
cave that he, and Chuck Higgins, and Bunt Rogers, and Turkey-egg McLaughlin are going to dig Saturday afternoons when the chores are done. They are going to - Here Miss Daniels should slip up behind him and snap his ear, but she, too, is far away in spirit.
Her beau is coming after supper to take her buggy-riding. She wonders. . . . She wonders. . . . Will she have to teach again next fall? She wonders. . . .
Wait. Wait but a moment. A subtle change is coming.
The rim of the revolving year has a brighter and a darker half, a joyous and a somber half, Autumnal splendors cannot cheer the melancholy that we feel when summer goes from us, but when summer comes again the heart leaps up in glee to meet it. Wait but a moment now. Wait.
The distant woodland swims in an amethystine haze. A long and fluting note, honey-sweet as it were blown upon a bottle, comes to us from far. It is the turtle-dove. The blood beats in our ears.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
So gentle it can scarce be felt, a waft of air blows over us, the first sweet breath of summer. A veil of faint and subtle perfume drifts around us. The vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
And evermore as its enchantment is cast about us we are as once we were when first we came beneath its spell; we are by the smokehouse at the old home place; we stand in shoes whose copper toes wink and glitter in the sunlight, a gingham apron sways in the soft breeze, and on the green, upspringing turf dances the shadow of a tasseled cap. Life was all before us then. Please God, it is not all behind us now. Please God, our best and wisest days are yet to come the days when we shall do the work that is worthy of us. Dear one, mother of my children here and Yonder - and Yonder - the best and wisest days are yet to come. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
