task of coaxing the old man to bed. When once there, the medicine given,
and the soup taken, which she could not but notice that he swallowed
greedily, she seated herself before the fire, resolving that, if Amos
did not feel better by nine o'clock, she would have Barney come over for
the night, as of course she must return to be near the Infant.
As she sat there she pictured for the hundredth time how she would
invest her little capital and rearrange her life, if Amos consented to
sell her the farm,--how best to restore the home without elaborating the
care of it, and take one or two people to live with her who had been ill
or needed rest in cheerful surroundings. Not always the same two, for
that is paralyzing after a time when the freshness of energetic
influence wears off; but her experience among her friends told her that
in a city's social life there was an endless supply of overwrought
nerves and bodies.
The having a home was the motive, the guests the necessity. Then she
closed her eyes again and saw the upper portion of the rich meadow land
that had lain fallow so long turned into a flower farm wherein she would
raise blossoms for a well-known city dealer who had, owing to his
artistic skill, a market for his wares and decorative skill in all the
cities of the eastern coast. She had consulted him and he approved her
plan.
The meadow was so sheltered that it would easily have a two weeks' lead
over the surrounding country, and the desirability of her crop should
lie in its perfection rather than rarity. Single violets in frames,
lilies-of-the-valley for Easter and spring weddings, sweet peas, in
separate colours, peonies, Iris, Gladioli, asters, and Dahlias: three
acres in all. Upon these was her hope built, for with a market waiting,
what lay between her and success but work?
Yes, work and the farm. Then came the vision of human companionship,
such as her cousin Bartram and Mary Penrose shared. Could flowers and a
home make up for it? After all, what is home?
Her thoughts tangled and snapped abruptly, but of one thing she was
sure. She could no longer endure teaching singing to assorted tone-deaf
children, many of whom could no more keep on the key than a cow on the
tight rope; and when she found a talented child and gave it appreciative
attention, she was oftentimes officially accused of favouritism by some
disgruntled parent with a political pull, for that was what contact with
the public schools of a large city had taught her to expect.
A log snapped--she looked at the clock. It was exactly nine! Going to
the window, she pulled back the curtain; the old moon, that has a
fashion of working northward at this time, was rising from a location
wholly new to her.
She looked at Amos; he was very still, evidently asleep, yet
unnaturally so, for the regular breathing of unconsciousness was not
there and the firelight shadows made him look pinched and strange.
Suddenly she felt alone and panic stricken; she forgot the tests so well
known to her of pulse taking, and all the countryside tales of strokes
and seizures came back to her. She did not hesitate a moment; a man was
in the same house and she felt entirely outside of the strength of her
own will.
Going to the separating door, she found it locked, on which side she
could not be sure; but seeing a long key hanging by the clock she tried
it, on general principles. It turned hard, and the lock finally yielded
with a percussive snap. Stepping into the hall, she saw a light in the
front of the house, toward which she hurried. _The Man_ was seated by a
table that was strewn with books, papers, and draughting instruments; he
was not working, but in his turn gazing at the flames from a smouldering
hearth fire, though his coat was off and the window open, for it was not
cold but merely chilly.
Hearing her step, he started, turned, and, as he saw her upon the
threshold, made a grab for his coat and swung it into place. It is
strange, this instinct in civilized man of not appearing coatless
before a woman he respects.
"Amos Opie is very ill, I'm afraid," she said gravely, without the least
self-consciousness or thought of intrusion.
"Shall I go for the doctor?" said _The Man_, reaching for his hat and at
the same time opening the long cupboard by the chimney, from which he
took a leather-covered flask.
"No, not yet; please come and look at him. Yes, I want you very much!"
This in answer to a questioning look in his eyes.
Standing together by the bed, they saw the old man's eyelids quiver and
then open narrowly. _The Man_ poured whiskey from his flask into a
glass, added water, and held it to Amos's lips, where it was quickly and
completely absorbed!
Next he put a finger on Amos's pulse and after a minute closed his watch
with a snap, but without comment.
"You feel better now, Opie?" he questioned presently in a tone that, to
the old man at least, was significant.
"What gave you this turn? Is there anything on your mind? You might as
well tell now, as you will have to sooner or later, and Miss Maxwell
must go home presently. You'll have to put up with me for the rest of
the night and a man isn't as cheerful a companion as a woman--is he,
Amos?"
"No, yer right there, Mr. Blake, and it's the idee o' loneliness that's
upsettin' me! Come down ter facts, Mr. Blake, it's the offers I've had
fer the farm--yourn and hern--and my wishin' ter favour both and yet not
give it up myself, and the whole's too much fer me!"
"Hers! Has Miss Maxwell made a bid for the farm? What do you want it
for?" he said, turning quickly to Maria, who coloured and then replied
quietly--"To live in! which is exactly what you said when I asked you a
similar question a couple of months ago!"
"The p'int is," continued Amos, quickly growing more wide awake, and
addressing the ceiling as a neutral and impartial listener, "that Mr.
Blake has offered me five hundred more than Maria Maxwell, and though I
want ter favour her (in buyin', property goes to the highest bidder;
it's only contract work that's fetched by the lowest, and I never did
work by contract--it's too darned frettin'), I can't throw away good
money, and neither of 'em yet knows that whichsomever of 'em buys it
has got ter give me a life right ter live in the summer kitchen and
fetch my drinkin' water from the well in the porch! A lone widder man's
a sight helplesser 'n a widder, but yet he don't get no sympathy!"
_The Man from Everywhere_ began to laugh, and catching Maria's eye she
joined him heartily. "How do you mean to manage?" he asked in a way that
barred all thought of intrusion.
"I'm going to have a flower farm and take in two invalids--no, not
cranks or lunatics, but merely tired people," she added, a little catch
coming in her voice.
"Then you had better begin with me, for I'm precious tired of taking
care of myself, and here is Amos also applying, so I do not see but what
your establishment is already complete!"
Then, as he saw by her face that the subject was not one for jest, he
said, in his hearty way that Mary Penrose likes, "Why not let me buy the
place, as mine was the first offer, put it in order, and then lease it
to you for three years, with the privilege of buying if you find that
your scheme succeeds? If the house is too small to allow two lone men a
room each, I can add a lean-to to match Opie's summer kitchen, for you
know sometimes a woman finds it comfortable to have a man in the house!"
Maria did not answer at first, but was looking at the one uncurtained
window, where the firelight again made opals of the panes. Then turning,
she said, "I will think over your offer, Mr. Blake, if everything may be
upon a strictly business basis. But how about Amos? He seems better, and
I ought to be going. I do not know why I should have been so foolish,
but for a moment he did not seem to breathe, and I thought it was a
stroke."
"I'm comin' too all in good time, now my mind's relieved," replied the
old man, with a chuckle, "and I think I'll weather to-night fer the sake
o' fixin' that deed termorrow, Mr. Blake, if you'll kindly give me jest
a thimbleful more o' that old liquor o' yourn--I kin manage it fust rate
without the water, thank 'ee!"
_The Man_ followed Maria to the door and out into the night. He did not
ask her if he might go with her--he simply walked by her side for once
unquestioned.
Maria spoke first, and rather more quickly and nervously than usual: "I
suppose you think that my scheme in wishing the farm is a madcap one,
but I'm sure I could not see why you should wish to own it!"
"Yes and no! I can well understand why you should desire a broader,
freer life than your vocation allows, but--well, as for reading women's
motives, I have given that up long since; it often leads to trouble
though I have never lost my interest in them.
"I think Amos Opie will revive, now that his mind is settled" (if it had
been sufficiently light, Maria would have seen an expression upon _The
Man's_ face indicative of his belief that the recent attack of illness
was not quite motiveless, even though he forgave the ruse). "In a few
days, when the deeds are drawn, will you not, as my prospective tenant,
come and look over the house by daylight and tell me what changes would
best suit your purpose, so that I may make some plans? I imagine that
Amos revived will be able to do much of the work himself with a good
assistant.
"When would you like the lease to begin? In May? It is a pity that you
could not be here in the interval to overlook it all, for the pasture
should be ploughed at once for next year's gardening."
"May will be late; best put it at the first of March. As to overseeing,
I shall not be far away. I'm thinking of accepting cousin Mary's offer
to stay with her and teach the Infant and a couple of other children
this winter, which may be well for superintending the work, as I suppose
you are off again with the swallows, as usual."
"Oh, no, you forget the reservoir and the tunnelling of Three Brothers
for the aqueduct to Bridgeton!"
"Then let it be March first!" said Maria, after hesitating a moment,
during which she stood looking back at Opal Farm lying at peace in the
moonlight; "only, in making the improvements, please do them as if for
any one else, and remember that it is to be a strictly business affair!"
"And why should you think that I would deal otherwise by you?" _The Man_
said quickly, stepping close, where he could see the expression of her
face.
Maria, feeling herself cornered, did not answer immediately, and half
turned her face away,--only for a moment, however. Facing him, she said,
"Because men of your stamp are always good to women,--always doing them
kindnesses both big and little (ask Mary Penrose),--and sometimes
kindness hurts!"
"Well, then, the lease and all pertaining to it shall be strictly in the
line of business until you yourself ask for a modification,--but be
careful, I may be a hard landlord!" Then, dropping his guard, he said
suddenly, "Why is it that you and I--man and woman--temperamentally
alike, both interested in the same things, and of an age to know what in
life is worth while, should stand so aloof? Is there no more human basis
upon which I can persuade you to come to Opal Farm when it is mine? Give
me a month, three months,--lessen the distance you always keep between
us, and give me leave to convince you! Why will you insist upon
deliberately keeping up a barrier raised in the beginning when I was too
stupidly at home in your cousin's house to see that I might embarrass
you? Frankly, do you dislike me?"
Maria began two different sentences, stumbled, and stopped short; then
drawing herself up and looking _The Man_ straight in the face, she said,
"I have kept a barrier between us, and deliberately, as you say, but--"
here she faltered--"it was because I found you too interesting; the
barrier was to protect my own peace of mind more than to rebuff you."
"Then I may try to convince you that my plan is best?"
"Yes," said Maria, with a glint of her mischievous smile, "if you have
plenty of time to spare."
"And you will give me no more encouragement than this? No good wish or
omen?"
"Yes," said Maria again, "I wish that you may succeed--" here she
slipped her hand in the belt of her gown and drew out a little chamois
bag attached to her watch, "and for an omen, here is the opal you gave
me--you give it a happy interpretation and one is very apt to lose an
unset stone, you know!"
But as neither walls nor leaves have tongues, Mary Penrose never learned
the real ins and outs of this matter.
XVIII
THE VALUE OF WHITE FLOWERS
(Barbara Campbell to Mary Penrose)
_Oaklands, September 29._ Michaelmas. The birthdays of our commuters are
not far apart. This being Evan's festival, we have eaten the annual
goose in his honour, together with several highly indigestible
old-country dishes of Martha Corkle's construction, for she comes down
from the cottage to preside over this annual feast. Now the boys have
challenged Evan to a "golf walk" over the Bluffs and back again, the
rough-and-ready course extending that distance, and I, being "o'er weel
dined," have curled up in the garden-overlook window of my room to write
to you.
It has been a good gardener's year, and I am sorry that the fall
anemones and the blooming of the earliest chrysanthemums insist upon
telling me that it is nearly over,--that is, as far as the reign of
complete garden colour is concerned. And amid our vagrant summer
wanderings among gardens of high or low degree, no one point has been so
recurrent or interesting as the distribution of colour, and especially
the dominance of white flowers in any landscape or garden in which they
appear.
In your last letter you speak of the preponderance of white among the
flowering shrubs as well as the early blossoms of spring. That this is
the case is one of the strong points in the decorative value of shrubs,
and in listing seeds for the hardy or summer beds or sorting the bushes
for the rosary, great care should be taken to have a liberal sprinkling
of white, for the white in the flower kingdom is what the diamond is in
the mineral world, necessary as a setting for all other colours, as well
as for its own intrinsic worth.
Look at a well-cut sapphire of flawless tint. It is beautiful surely,
but in some way its depth of colour needs illumination. Surround it with
evenly matched diamonds and at once life enters into it.
Fill a tall jar with spires of larkspur of the purest blue known to
garden flowers. Unless the sun shines fully on them they seem to swallow
light; mingle with them some stalks of white foxgloves, Canterbury
bells, or surround them with Madonna lilies, a fringe of spirea, or the
slender _Deutzia gracilis_, more frequently seen in florists' windows
than in the garden, and a new meaning is given the blue flower; the
black shadows disappear from its depth and sky reflections replace them.
The blue-fringed gentian, growing deep among the dark grasses of low
meadows, may be passed over without enthusiasm as a dull purplish flower
by one to whom its possibilities are unknown; but come upon it
backgrounded by Michaelmas daisies or standing alone in a meadow thick
strewn with the white stars of grass of Parnassus or wands of crystal
ladies' tresses, and all at once it becomes,--
"Blue, blue, as if the sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall!"
The same white setting enhances the brighter colours, though in a less
degree than blue, which is, next to magenta, one of the most difficult
colours to place in the garden. In view of this fact it is not strange
that it is a comparatively unusual hue in the flower world and a very
rare one among our neighbourly eastern birds, the only three that wear
it conspicuously being the bluebird, indigo bird, and the bluejay.
It is this useful quality as a setting that gives value to many white
flowers lacking intrinsic beauty, like sweet alyssum, candy-tuft, the
yarrows, and the double feverfew. In buying seeds of flowers in mixed
varieties, such as asters, verbenas, Sweet-William, pansies, or any
flower in short that has a white variety, it is always safe to buy a
single packet of the latter, because I have often noticed that the usual
mixtures, for some reason, are generally shy not only of the white but
often of the very lightest tints as well.
In selecting asters the average woman gardener may not be prepared to
buy the eight or ten different types that please her fancy in as many
separate colours; a mixture of each must suffice, but a packet of white
of each type should be added if the best results are to be achieved.
The same applies to sweet peas when planted in mixture; at least six
ounces of either pure white or very light, and therefore quasi-neutral
tints harmonizing with all darker colours, should be added. For it is in
the lighter tints of this flower that its butterfly characteristics are
developed. Keats had not the heavy deep-hued or striped varieties in
mind when he wrote of
"... Sweet Peas on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush: o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things
To bind them all about with tiny rings."
If you examine carefully the "flats" of pansies growing from mixed seed
and sold in the market-places or at local florists', you will notice
that in eight out of ten the majority of plants are of the darker
colours.
There are white varieties of almost every garden flower that blooms
between the last frost of spring and winter ice. The snowdrop of course
is white and the tiny little single English violet of brief though
unsurpassing fragrance; we have white crocuses, white hyacinths,
narcissus, lilies-of-the-valley, Iris, white rock phlox, or moss-pink,
Madonna and Japan lilies, gladiolus, white campanulas of many species,
besides the well-known Canterbury bells, white hollyhocks, larkspurs,
sweet Sultan, poppies, phloxes, and white annual as well as hardy
chrysanthemums.
Almost all the bedding plants, like the geranium, begonia, ageratum,
lobelia, etc., have white species. There are white pinks of all types,
white roses, and wherever crimson rambler is seen Madame Plantier should
be his bride; white stocks, hollyhocks, verbenas, zinnias, Japanese
anemones, Arabis or rock cress, and white fraxinella; white Lupins,
nicotiana, evening primroses, pentstemons, portulaca, primulas, vincas,
and even a whitish nasturtium, though its flame-coloured partner salvia
declines to have her ardour so modified.
Among vines we have the white wisteria, several white clematis, the
moon-flower, and other Ipomeas, many climbing and trailing roses, the
English polygonum, the star cucumber, etc., so that there is no lack of
this harmonizing and modifying colour (that is not a colour after all)
if we will but use it intelligently.
Aside from the setting of flower to flower, white has another and wider
function. As applied to the broader landscape it is not only a maker of
perspective, but it often indicates a picture and fairly pulls it from
obscurity, giving the same lifelike roundness that the single white dot
lends in portraiture to the correctly tinted but still lifeless eye.
Take for instance a wide field without groups of trees to divide and let
it be covered only with grass, no matter how green and luxuriant, and
there is a monotonous flatness, that disappears the moment the field is
blooming with daisies or snowy wild asters.
Follow the meandering line of a brook through April meadows. Where does
the eye pause with the greatest sense of pleasure and restfulness? On
the gold of the marsh marigolds edging the water? or on the silver-white
plumes of shad-bush that wave and beckon across the marshes, as they
stray from moist ground toward the light woods? Could any gay colour
whatsoever compete with the snow of May apple orchards?--the fact that
the snow is often rose tinged only serving to accentuate the contrasting
white.
In the landscape all light tints that at a distance have the value of
white are equally to the purpose, and can be used for hedges,
boundaries, or what may be called punctuation points. German or English
Iris and peonies are two very useful plants for this purpose, flowering
in May and June and for the rest of the season holding their
substantial, well-set-up foliage. These two plants, if they receive even
ordinary good treatment, may also be relied upon for masses of uniform
bloom held well above the leaves; and while pure white peonies are a
trifle monotonous and glaring unless blended with the blush, rose,
salmon, and cream tints, there are any number of white iris both tall
and dwarf with either self-toned flowers, or pencilled, feathered, or
bordered with a variety of delicate tints, and others equally valuable
of pale shades of lilac or yellow, the recurved falls being of a
different tint.
Thus does Nature paint her pictures and give us hints to follow, and yet
a certain art phase proclaims Nature's colour combinations crude and
rudimentary forsooth!
[Illustration: AN IRIS HEDGE.]
Nature is never crude except through an unsuccessful human attempt to
reproduce the uncopyable. Give one of these critics all the colour
combinations of the evening sky and let him manipulate them with wires
and what a scorched omelet he would make of the most simple and natural
sunset!
While Nature does not locate the different colours on the palette to
please the eye of man, but to carry out the various steps in the great
plan of perpetuation, yet on that score it is all done with a sense of
colour value, else why are the blossoms of deep woods, as well as the
night-blooming flowers that must lure the moth and insect seekers
through the gloom, white or light-coloured?
In speaking of white or pale flowers there is one low shrub with
evergreen leaves and bluish-white flowers that I saw blooming in masses
for the first time not far from Boston in early May. There was a slight
hollow where the sun lay, that was well protected from the wind. This
sloped gently upward toward some birches that margined a pond. The
birches themselves were as yet but in tassel, the near-by grass was
green in spots only, and yet here in the midst of the chill, reluctant
promise of early spring was firmness of leaf and clustered flowers of
almost hothouse texture and fragrance. Not a single spray or a dozen,
but hundreds of them, covered the bushes.
This shrub is _Daphne cneorum_, a sturdier evergreen cousin of _Daphne
mezereum_, that brave-hearted shrub that often by the south wall of my
garden hangs its little pink flower clusters upon bare twigs as early as
the tenth of March. Put it on your list of desirables, for aside from
any other situation it will do admirably to edge laurels or
rhododendrons and so bring early colour of the rosy family hue to
brighten their dark glossy leaves, for the sight and the scent thereof
made me resolve to cover a certain nook with it, where the sun lodges
first every spring. I am planting mine this autumn, which is necessary
with things of such early spring vitality.
Another garden point akin to colour value in that it makes or mars has,
I may say, run itself into my vision quite sharply and painfully this
summer, and many a time have I rubbed my eyes and looked again in wonder
that such things could be. This is the spoiling of a well-thought-out
garden by the obtrusive staking of its plants. Of course there are many
tall and bushy flowers--hollyhocks, golden glow, cosmos--that have not
sufficient strength of stem to stand alone when the weight of soaking
rain is added to their flowers and the wind comes whirling to challenge
them to a dizzy dance, which they cannot refuse, and it inevitably turns
their heavy heads and leaves them prone.
[Illustration: DAPHNE CNEORUM.]
Besides these there are the lower, slender, but top-heavy lilies,
gladioli, carnations, and the like, that must not be allowed to soil
their pretty faces in the mud. A little thinking must be done and stakes
suitable to the height and girth of each plant chosen. If the purse
allows, green-painted stakes of sizes varying from eighteen inches for
carnations to six feet for Dahlias are the most convenient; but lacking
these, the natural bamboos, that may be bought in bundles by the
hundred, in canes of eight feet or more, and afterward cut in lengths to
suit, are very useful, being light, tough, and inconspicuous.