Country Neighbors

								

secondary part to that sweet inclosure--all bees and blossoms. Ellen and
her mother duly slept in the house, and through the barren months it did
very well for shelter while they talked of slips and bulbs and thirsted
over the seed-catalogue come by mail. But from the true birth of the
year to the next frost they were steadily out-of-doors, weeding,
tending, transplanting, with an untiring passion. All the blossoms New
England counts her dearest grew from that ancient mould, enriched with
every spring. Ladies'-delights forgathered underneath the hedge, and
lilies-of-the-valley were rank with chill sweetness in their time. The
flowering currant breathed like fruitage from the East, and there were
never such peonies, such poppies, and such dahlias in all the town.
Ellen herself had an apple-bloom face, and violet eyes down-dropped;
some one said their lashes were long enough to braid. Fine gold hair
flew about her temples, and her innocent chin sank chastely like a
nun's. She and her mother never had a minute for thinking about clothes,
and so they wore soft sad-colored stuffs rather like the earth; but
these quite satisfied Ellen, because they were warm or cool to suit the
weather, and beauty, she thought, grew only from the ground.
One spring twilight Mrs. Withington was putting out her geraniums, while
Ellen leaned over the gate and talked with Susan Long. The frogs were
peeping down by the mill, and a breath of dampness came from the
upturned soil. Susan Long was the only one of the old schoolgirls with
whom Ellen had kept any semblance of intimacy; the rest of them thought
her oddly unsuited to their grown-up pastimes. She was like a bud, all
close and green, while they flared their petals to the sun and begged
for cherishing.
"Just think," said Ellen in her reedy voice, never loud enough to be
heard at "teacher's desk" in school, "while we've been standing here
three couples have gone by. I never saw so much pairing off."
Susan laughed exuberantly. She was a big girl, with a mariner's walk and
hard red cheeks.
"Anybody but you'd seen 'em a good many times," she remarked. "If you
ain't the queerest! Why, they're fellers and girls!"
"Yes, I know it," said Ellen innocently. "One was John Davis and Maria
Orne, one was--"
"Oh, I don't mean that! I mean they're goin' together. Ain't you heard
what old uncle Zephaniah said down to the Ridge? He told father this
year'd be known as the time o' the flood, all creation walkin' two and
two. Why, everybody in Countisbury's gettin' married. Courtin' begun in
the fall, with singin'-school, and this is the upshot. What do you
s'pose I'm waitin' here for, 'sides talkin' with you? Just hold on a
minute and you'll see Milt Richardson pokin' along this way. Then
there'll be four couples instead o' three."
"O Sue!" said Ellen, in a little bruised tone. She felt disturbed, as if
the spring twilight had in some manner turned to a much-revealing day.