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 shimmering knots of gold among the white blossoms. They came here in swarms last Spring, though earlier, when the peach trees were blooming. I remember that Tom called me to come out and see a “yellow peach tree.” He thought there were a hundred or more birds on one tree.
Such a flurry, flutter, and twitter as there was up among those pink blossoms! Such a multitude of little yellow birds we had never before seen. We were as excited as two children. They stayed but a day or two in such numbers, though many remained throughout the Summer.
I suppose this is another party of tourists stopping over with us to-day, thinking they have reached Paradise; and it is little wonder, for it is like it.
I too longed to stay there “and just be glad,” but the vegetables were calling me from below to hurry along and deliver them from the deadly snares of their enemies,—the coiling snake-grass, wire-grass, smart weed, dog’s fennel, and all their myriad foes. Reluctantly leaving the flowery kingdom, with glittering blade of steel I walked down into the valley of distress and began dealing death and destruction right and left. Yet even as I did it I felt a kind of pity for the innocent little trespassers.
I wish you could see this dear old ranch garden,—so quiet and secluded, hedged about by green growing wild things, like a lonely little island. Across one side is an old paling fence, at least so tradition tells us, for if it still is there it is lost to sight and serves only as a support for vines and brambles. There the blackberry trails its flowery sprays, and the wild gourd runs like a creature alive, holding up its slender stems of green, tipped with fragrant starry white blossoms, such as we never saw until we came to Oregon. The farmers call it a pest; if so, it is a most bewitching one. Here too are hazel bushes,—not like ours, but small trees; and wild rose and salmon bushes. The latter I am quite sure you have never seen. Their blossoms are beautiful, like pink hollyhocks in miniature. The humming-birds love them; two burnished beauties were hovering above them when I entered the garden,—different from any we have before seen, making the queerest roaring sounds, not unlike a wild animal. You won’t believe this, nor did I until I had traced the incongruous sounds to them. It seemed preposterous to suppose such dainty bits of iridescence should roar like that; but they did, for I caught them in the very act.
Alders and willows grow about my Eden, and wild plum and crab-apple trees are snowy with bloom and faintly sweet; underneath these is a tangle of low bushes, wild-flowers, tall weeds, and vines. Through this wall of green came a pleasant sound of bubbling waters, gushing from the roots of a group of alders just above me, a pure little rill of it sliding down the hillside, under bending briers, tall grasses, and nodding rushes.
Who wouldn’t enjoy weeding in such a glorified nook, hearing the music of rustling leaves, falling waters, and a chorus of bird voices, a “choir invisible” hidden away in those green temples!
In the early morning the birds seem almost deliriously happy, singing with a “fine, careless rapture,” as if from mere joy of living. In the evening their notes, though very sweet, are more subdued and plaintive, just hinting of unrest. Is it from weariness or is it anxiety? Whatever the cause, it is too elusive to be interpreted by my dull senses.
I am ashamed that I know so little about birds, not even the names of half that we see here; and yet I love them beyond rubies and pearls.
As I crouched there, working, and thinking of these things, I suddenly heard a familiar bird-voice, and looking up I saw perched upon a curving willow wand a little wood-wren that comes many times each day to the porch for crumbs. If I am not in sight, he lights on the railing and calls persistently until I appear. He has become quite fearless, hopping so near that I could reach him with my hand. A most lovable bird is little “Hop o’ My Thumb,” as Tom calls him. He introduced himself to us early last Winter, and now we are intimate friends.
After a time I found the sun was shining down hot, and I was glad when the last of the onions were freed from their tormentors. They stood in long straight ranks, like little soldiers, and I think they saluted me as a conquering hero. I glanced at the parsley bed, and could see the little crinkly newcomers looking up through dog’s fennel, gasping for breath; but so was I, and hence had to ignore their mute appeal.
While I know of no more fascinating work than weeding a garden, the stooping position makes it hard. If the beds were only placed up high, like counters, with light rattan seats running round them, the work would be ideal. I’ll have that kind some day, when my long-overdue ship sails into the harbor. To rest and escape the heat, I recrossed the raging Tiber, went again up in the orchard, sat down under an apple tree, threw off my sunbonnet and with it “the cares that infest the day,” and gave myself up to the spell of that world of bloom and beauty.
“The blossoms drifted at my feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;”
and softly now, in the later morning, their notes blended deliciously with the low murmur of leaves, rippling waters, and the faint tinkling of sheep-bells down the leafy lane. The grass all about me was thickly studded with wild-flowers; everywhere little tongues of flame were darting up through the green, from some queer plant new to me; patches of tall buttercups were waving in the sunshine like cloth of gold; white honeysuckles and purple and lavender fleurs-de-lis were all about me. Above them was a canopy of pink and white; around were the mighty hills spiked with the eternal green of the jagged fir trees, and over all was the arching blue of heaven.
Into my heart stole that peace which passeth understanding, with a tide of thanksgiving toward the all-loving Father, who gives to his poor tired children such glimpses of glory and beauty as they travel the long briery road stretching out from life’s dawn to life’s dusk. Then I pitied all the denizens of great cities imprisoned in brick and stone, so far away from these blessed hills of Oregon, where there’s “room to turn round in, to breathe, and be free.” At such times the world seems remote and unreal. No sound from it pierces our leafy barricade. No clanging bells, no whistles, no shrieking engines, no brass bands nor throbbing drums, invade this sweet peacefulness.
We grow almost conceited, living in this vast solitude, half believing that we are the only inhabitants of the earth, that the machinery of the universe is kept oiled and running just for us—until the mail arrives, some times once a week, but oftener once in two weeks; then, as we unfurl the manifold pages of the metropolitan papers we learn that there are others,—that the classes and the masses are still going up and down the world, toiling and suffering and dying. I suppose that when we received a daily mail this sort of thing came in smaller doses, and we became hardened to it; but coming now en masse, as it does, the whole flood of it poured upon us at once, it is depressing and awful, the gruesome stories echoing sadly through our hearts even in this far-off lotus land “in which it seems always afternoon.”