"SPRING IS COMING:--THE STORM.--THE FAIRY FOREST: A TALE."
"The brown buds thicken on the trees,
Unbound the free streams sing,
As March leads forth across the leas
The wild and windy Spring.
"When in the fields the melted snow
Leaves hollows warm and wet,
Ere many days will sweetly blow
The first blue violet."
"I have all my life possessed such a love for nomadic adventure, that I
often wondered if I have any real gipsy blood in me."
This was a remark I made an evening or two after Frank had told us all
about his friends the Arctic bears. I was looking at the fire as I
spoke, as one does who is in deep thought.
"What do you see in the fire?" asked Frank.
"I see," I replied, without removing my eyes from the crackling logs and
melting sea-coal, "I see a beautifully fitted caravan, drawn by two nice
horses, jogging merrily along a lovely road, among green trees,
rose-clad hedgerows and trailing wild flowers. It is a beautiful
evening, the clouds in the west are all aglow with the sunset-rays. I
see figures on the broad _coupe_--female figures, one, two, three; and I
can almost hear the jingle of the silver bells on the horses' harness."
"Who are the ladies--can you distinguish them?" asked Frank.
"Not quite."
"O! I know, it's me and ma and Maggie May." This from little Ida.
"Ida," I said, "your language is alliterative, but hardly grammatical."
"Never mind about the grammar," said Frank, laughing. "You've got an
idea of some sort in your head, so just let us have it."
"I have it already," cried Maggie May, springing towards me with a
joy-look in her eyes, and a glad flush on her cheek. "I dreamt it," she
added. "The caravan is already built, and you are going to take us all
gipsying when summer comes."
I am not good at equivocation, so I confessed at once that Maggie May
was right, and from the amount of pleasurable excitement the
announcement gave her, I augured well. Indeed, we all felt sure that
from our romantic trip, Maggie May would return home as well as ever she
had been in all her little life.
There is nothing to be compared to the joy of anticipating pleasure to
come. And from the very day our beautiful caravan rolled into the yard
and was drawn up on the lawn, everybody set about doing what he or she
could towards the completion of the fittings, of the already luxuriously
furnished saloon of the house upon wheels. [Note 1.]
This was indeed a labour of love. There were so many little things to
be thought about, to say nothing of decorations, neat and pretty
curtains, a lovely little library of tiny but nicely bound books,
mirrors, flower vases, etc.
The cooking department had its head centre in the after-cabin; here,
however, no bulky open and dusty stove burned, but a pretty little oil
range, and the kitchen fittings and pantry fixings would have compared
favourably even with those of Lady Brassey's yacht, the _Sunbeam_.
Frank and I, being both old campaigners, saw to everything else.
We had a good coachman, two splendid horses, besides an extra smaller
covered cart in which Frank himself, who was to be both valet and cook,
could sleep at night.
To make sure of not being robbed on the road we had good revolvers, and,
better than all, our noble Newfoundland, Hurricane Bob.
When everything was complete and ready for the road, we had nothing to
do but sit down and long for spring to come.
"I really believe," said honest Frank to me one bright beautiful morning
in March, "that the child is better already with the thoughts of going
on this romantic tour of yours."
And so indeed it seemed, and that forenoon, when my friend and I
prepared to go out for a ramble, Maggie May was by our side, fully
equipped and in marching order.
"It really does seem," she said joyfully, "that spring is coming."
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