Stranica 572 [572]
OCR
BESXOND: TER MOÚNTALN S grass in the corner beds. One of the servants, "Uncle Stephen, an autocratic white-haired old negro butler, announced as an undisputed fact that Easter eggs boiled with a kettle full of pink hyacinths would absorb the lovely colour of the latter. ‘The children of that day were only too ready to believe him and gathered masses of the fragrant blossoms for the purpose. When the eggs remained hopelessly white ‘Uncle Stephen” was not in the least embarrassed, but turned upon the old fat cook “Aunt Esther’’ and accused her bitterly of conjuring them. The lower half of the garden was divided into rectangular beds, and most of the small fruits, damsons, plums, currants, and gooseberries, bordered them, while Indian peaches, wax-heart cherries, Siberian crab-apples and golden-yellow pears were planted in the long beds nearer the eastern fence. On the slope of the hill, and covering the space of two beds, variety was given by a circle of cedar trees with low-growing branches, that completely surrounded a large, octagonal summerhouse. The old variety of sweet pea—a hardy vine bearing clusters of magenta-colored blossoms, struggled to keep a place with the climbing roses tangled in the lattice. Sidney Lanier’s lines always seemed to express the feeling given by entering this covert sweetscented with cedar and violets: “QC, braided dusk of the trees and woven shades of the vine, While the riotous noonday sun of the June-day long did shine; Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine.” For five generations the children of The Meadows have played in the old garden. In summer, hiding in the thick shrubbery, pulling the flowers with a lavish hand and eating the fruit, ripe and unripe. In winter, when the shrubs were half-buried by snow and all paths obliterated, they have felt the spell of the garden even more, perhaps. The exquisite stillness, the flash of a redbird and the scurry of a little molly-cottontail seeking shelter, are apt to sink deep into a child’s memory. [351]
