Chapter 10

LOIS'S GARDEN.

Lois went at her gardening the next morning, as good as her word. It was the last of March, and an anticipation of April, according to the fashion the months have of sending promissory notes in advance of them; and this year the spring was early. The sun was up, but not much more, when Lois, with her spade and rake and garden line, opened the little door in the garden fence and shut it after her. Then she was alone with the spring. The garden was quite a roomy place, and pretty, a little later in the season; for some old and large apple and cherry trees shadowed parts of it, and broke up the stiff, bare regularity of an ordinary square bit of ground laid out in lesser squares. Such regularity was impossible here. In one place, two or three great apple trees in a group formed a canopy over a wide circuit of turf. The hoe and the spade must stand back respectfully; there was nothing to be done. One corner was quite given up to the occupancy of an old cherry tree, and its spread of grassy ground beneath and about it was again considerable. Still other trees stood here and there; and the stems of none of them were approached by cultivation. In the spaces between, Lois stretched her line and drew her furrows, and her rows of peas and patches of corn had even so room enough.

Grass was hardly green yet, and tree branches were bare, and the upturned earth was implanted. There was nothing here yet but the Spring with Lois. It is wonderful what a way Spring has of revealing herself, even while she is hid behind the brown and grey wrappings she has borrowed from Winter. Her face is hardly seen; her form is not discernible; but there is a breath and a smile and a kiss, that are like nothing her brothers and sisters have to give. Of them all, Spring's smile brings most of hope and expectation with it. And there is a perfume Spring wears, which is the rarest, and most untraceable, and most unmistakeable, of all. The breath and the perfume, and the smile and the kiss, greeted Lois as she went into the old garden. She knew them well of old time, and welcomed them now. She even stood still a bit to take in the rare beauty and joy of them. And yet, the apple trees were bare, and the cherry trees; the turf was dead and withered; the brown ploughed-up soil had no relief of green growths. Only Spring was there with Lois, and yet that seemed enough; Spring and associations. How many hours of pleasant labour in that enclosed bit of ground there had been; how many lapfuls and basketfuls of fruits the rich reward of the labour; how Lois had enjoyed both! And now, here was spring again, and the implanted garden. Lois wanted no more.

She took her stand under one of the bare old apple trees, and surveyed her ground, like a young general. She had it all mapped out, and knew just where things were last year. The patch of potatoes was in that corner, and a fine yield they had been. Corn had been here; yes, and here she would run her lines of early peas. Lois went to work. It was not very easy work, as you would know if you had ever tried to reduce ground that has been merely ploughed and harrowed, to the smooth evenness necessary for making shallow drills. Lois plied spade and rake with an earnest good-will, and thorough knowledge of her business. Do not imagine an untidy long skirt sweeping the soft soil and transferring large portions of it to the gardener's ankles; Lois was dressed for her work in a short stuff frock and leggins; and looked as nice when she came out as when she went in, albeit not in any costume ever seen in Fifth Avenue or Central Park. But what do I say? If she looked "nice" when she went out to her garden, she looked superb when she came in, or when she had been an hour or so delving. Her hat fallen back a little; her rich masses of hair just a little loosened, enough to show their luxuriance; the colour flushed into her cheeks with the exercise, and her eyes all alive with spirit and zeal--ah, the fair ones in Fifth or any other avenue would give a great deal to look so; but that sort of thing goes with the short frock and leggins, and will not be conjured up by a mantua-maker. Lois had after a while a strip of her garden ground nicely levelled and raked smooth; and then her line was stretched over it, and her drills drawn, and the peas were planted and were covered; and a little stick at each end marked how far the planted rows extended.

Lois gathered up her tools then, to go in, but instead of going in she sat down on one of the wooden seats that were fixed under the great apple trees. She was tired and satisfied; and in that mood of mind and body one is easily tempted to musing. Aimlessly, carelessly, thoughts roved and carried her she knew not whither. She began to draw contrasts. Her home life, the sweets of which she was just tasting, set off her life at Mrs. Wishart's with its strange difference of flavour; hardly the brown earth of her garden was more different from the brilliant--coloured Smyrna carpets upon which her feet had moved in some people's houses. Life there and life here,--how diverse from one another! Could both be life? Suddenly it occurred to Lois that her garden fence shut in a very small world, and a world in which there was no room for many things that had seemed to her delightful and desirable in these weeks that were just passed. Life must be narrow within these borders. She had had several times in New York a sort of perception of this, and here it grew defined. Knowledge, education, the intercourse of polished society, the smooth ease and refinement of well-ordered households, and the habits of affluence, and the gratification of cultivated tastes; more yet, the _having_ cultivated tastes; the gratification of them seemed to Lois a less matter. A large horizon, a wide experience of men and things; was it not better, did it not make life richer, did it not elevate the human creature to something of more power and worth, than a very narrow and confined sphere, with its consequent narrow and confined way of looking at things? Lois was just tired enough to let all these thoughts pass over her, like gentle waves of an incoming tide, and they were emphazised here and there by a vision of a brown curly head, and a kindly, handsome, human face looking into hers. It was a vision that came and went, floated in and disappeared among the waves of thought that rose and fell. Was it not better to sit and talk even with Mr. Dillwyn, than to dig and plant peas? Was not the Lois who did _that_, a quite superior creature to the Lois who did _this?_ Any common, coarse man could plant peas, and do it as well as she; was this to be her work, this and the like, for the rest of her life? Just the labour for material existence, instead of the refining and forming and up-building of the nobler, inner nature, the elevation of existence itself? My little garden ground! thought Lois; is this indeed all? And what would Mr. Caruthers think, if he could see me now? Think he had been cheated, and that I am not what he thought I was. It is no matter what he thinks; I shall never see him again; it will not be best that I should ever pay Mrs. Wishart a visit again, even if she should ask me; not in New York. I suppose the Isles of Shoals would be safe enough. There would be nobody there. Well--I like gardening. And it is great fun to gather the peas when they are large enough; and it is fun to pick strawberries; and it is fun to do everything, generally. I like it all. But if I could, if I had a chance, which I cannot have, I would like, and enjoy, the other sort of thing too. I could be a good deal more than I am, _if_ I had the opportunity.

Lois was getting rested by this time, and she gathered up her tools again, with the thought that breakfast would taste good. I suppose a whiff of the fumes of coffee preparing in the house was borne out to her upon the air, and suggested the idea. And as she went in she cheerfully reflected that their plain house was full of comfort, if not of beauty; and that she and her sisters were doing what was given them to do, and therefore what they were meant to do; and then came the thought, so sweet to the servant who loves his Master, that it is all _for_ the Master; and that if he is pleased, all is gained, the utmost, that life can do or desire. And Lois went in, trilling low a sweet Methodist hymn, to an air both plaintive and joyous, which somehow--as many of the old Methodist tunes do--expressed the plaintiveness and the joyousness together with a kind of triumphant effect.

"O tell me no more of this world's vain store! The time for such trifles with me now is o'er."

Lois had a voice exceedingly sweet and rich; an uncommon contralto; and when she sang one of these hymns, it came with its fall power. Mrs. Armadale heard her, and murmured a "Praise the Lord!" And Charity, getting the breakfast, heard her; and made a different comment.

"Were you meaning, now, what you were singing when you came in?" she asked at breakfast.

"What I was singing?" Lois repeated in astonishment.

"Yes, what you were singing. You sang it loud enough and plain enough; ha' you forgotten? Did you mean it?"

"One should always mean what one sings," said Lois gravely.

"So I think; and I want to know, did you mean that? 'The time for such trifles'--is it over with you, sure enough?"

"What trifles?"

"You know best. What did you mean? It begins about 'this world's vain store;' ha' you done with the world?"

"Not exactly."

"Then I wouldn't say so."

"But I didn't say so," Lois returned, laughing now. "The hymn means, that 'this world's vain store' is not my treasure; and it isn't. 'The time for such trifles with me now is o'er.' I have found something better. As Paul says, 'When I became a man, I put away childish things.' So, since I have learned to know something else, the world's store has lost its great value for me."

"Thank the Lord!" said Mrs. Armadale.

"You needn't say that, neither, grandma," Charity retorted. "I don't believe it one bit, all such talk. It ain't nature, nor reasonable. Folks say that just when somethin's gone the wrong way, and they want to comfort themselves with makin' believe they don't care about it. Wait till the chance comes, and see if they don't care! That's what I say."

"I wish you wouldn't say it, then, Charity," remarked the old grandmother.

"Everybody has a right to his views," returned Miss Charity. "That's what I always say."

"You must leave her her views, grandma," said Lois pleasantly. "She will have to change them, some day."

"What will make me change them?"

"Coming to know the truth."

"You think nobody but you knows the truth. Now, Lois, I'll ask you. Ain't you sorry to be back and out of 'this world's vain store'--out of all the magnificence, and back in your garden work again?"

"No."

"You enjoy digging in the dirt and wearin' that outlandish rig you put on for the garden?"

"I enjoy digging in the dirt very much. The dress I admire no more than you do."

"And you've got everythin' you want in the world?"

"Charity, Charity, that ain't fair," Madge put in. "Nobody has that; you haven't, and I haven't; why should Lois?"

"'Cos she says she's found 'a city where true joys abound;' now let's hear if she has."

"Quite true," said Lois, smiling.

"And you've got all you want?"

"No, I would like a good many things I haven't got, if it's the Lord's pleasure to give them."

"Suppose it ain't?"

"Then I do not want them," said Lois, looking up with so clear and bright a face that her carping sister was for the moment silenced. And I suppose Charity watched; but she never could find reason to think that Lois had not spoken the truth. Lois was the life of the house. Madge was a handsome and quiet girl; could follow but rarely led in the conversation. Charity talked, but was hardly enlivening to the spirits of the company. Mrs. Armadale was in ordinary a silent woman; could talk indeed, and well, and much; however, these occasions were mostly when she had one auditor, and was in thorough sympathy with that one. Amidst these different elements of the household life Lois played the part of the flux in a furnace; she was the happy accommodating medium through which all the others came into best play and found their full relations to one another. Lois's brightness and spirit were never dulled; her sympathies were never wearied; her intelligence was never at fault. And her work was never neglected. Nobody had ever to remind Lois that it was time for her to attend to this or that thing which it was her charge to do. Instead of which, she was very often ready to help somebody else not quite so "forehanded." The garden took on fast its dressed and ordered look; the strawberries were uncovered; and the raspberries tied up, and the currant bushes trimmed; and pea-sticks and bean-poles bristled here and there promisingly. And then the green growths for which Lois had worked began to reward her labour. Radishes were on the tea-table, and lettuce made the dinner "another thing;" and rows of springing beets and carrots looked like plenty in the future. Potatoes were up, and rare-ripes were planted, and cabbages; and corn began to appear. One thing after another, till Lois got the garden all planted; and then she was just as busy keeping it clean. For weeds, we all know, do thrive as unaccountably in the natural as in the spiritual world. It cost Lois hard work to keep them under; but she did it. Nothing would have tempted her to bear the reproach of them among her vegetables and fruits. And so the latter had a good chance, and throve. There was not much time or much space for flowers; yet Lois had a few. Red poppies found growing room between the currant bushes; here and there at a corner a dahlia got leave to stand and rear its stately head. Rose-bushes were set wherever a rose-bush could be; and there were some balsams, and pinks, and balm, and larkspur, and marigolds. Not many; however, they served to refresh Lois's soul when she went to pick vegetables for dinner, and they furnished nosegays for the table in the hall, or in the sitting-room, when the hot weather drove the family out of the kitchen.

Before that came June and strawberries. Lois picked the fruit always. She had been a good while one very warm afternoon bending down among the strawberry beds, and had brought in a great bowl full of fruit. She and Madge came together to their room to wash hands and get in order for tea.

"I have worked over all that butter," said Madge, "and skimmed a lot of milk. I must churn again to-morrow. There is no end to work!"

"No end to it," Lois assented. "Did you see my strawberries?"

"No."

"They are splendid. Those Black Princes are doing finely too. If we have rain they will be superb."

"How many did you get to-day?"

"Two quarts, and more."

"And cherries to preserve to-morrow. Lois, I get tired once in a while!"

"O, so do I; but I always get rested again."

"I don't mean that. I mean it is _all_ work, work; day in and day out, and from one year's end to another. There is no let up to it. I get tired of that."

"What would you have?"

"I'd like a little play."

"Yes, but in a certain sense I think it is all play."

"In a nonsensical sense," said Madge. "How can work be play?"

"That's according to how you look at it," Lois returned cheerfully. "If you take it as I think you can take it, it is much better than play."

"I wish you'd make me understand you," said Madge discontentedly. "If there is any meaning to your words, that is."

Lois hesitated.

"I like work anyhow better than play," she said. "But then, if you look at it in a certain way, it becomes much better than play. Don't you know, Madge, I take it all, everything, as given me by the Lord to do;--to do for him;--and I do it so; and that makes every bit of it all pleasant."

"But you can't!" said Madge pettishly. She was not a pettish person, only just now something in her sister's words had the effect of irritation.

"Can't what?"

"Do everything for the Lord. Making butter, for instance; or cherry sweetmeats. Ridiculous! And nonsense."

"I don't mean it for nonsense. It is the way I do my garden work and my sewing."

"What _do_ you mean, Lois? The garden work is for our eating, and the sewing is for your own back, or grandma's. I understand religion, but I don't understand cant."

"Madge, it's not cant; it's the plain truth."

"Only that it is impossible."

"No. You do not understand religion, or you would know how it is. All these things are things given us to do; we must make the clothes and preserve the cherries, and I must weed strawberries, and then pick strawberries, and all the rest. God has given me these things to do, and I do them for him."

"You do them for yourself, or for grandma, and for the rest of us."

"Yes, but first for Him. Yes, Madge, I do. I do every bit of all these things in the way that I think will please and honour him best--as far as I know how."

"Making your dresses!"

"Certainly. Making my dresses so that I may look, as near as I can, as a servant of Christ in my place ought to look. And taking things in that way, Madge, you can't think how pleasant they are; nor how all sorts of little worries fall off. I wish you knew, Madge! If I am hot and tired in a strawberry bed, and the thought comes, whose servant I am, and that he has made the sun shine and put me to work in it,--then it's all right in a minute, and I don't mind any longer."

Madge looked at her, with eyes that were half scornful, half admiring.

"There is just one thing that does tempt me," Lois went on, her eye going forth to the world outside the window, or to a world more distant and in tangible, that she looked at without seeing,--"I _do_ sometimes wish I had time to read and learn."

"Learn!" Madge echoed. "What?"

"Loads of things. I never thought about it much, till I went to New York last winter; then, seeing people and talking to people that were different, made me feel how ignorant I was, and what a pleasant thing it would be to have knowledge--education--yes, and accomplishments. I have the temptation to wish for that sometimes; but I know it is a temptation; for if I was intended to have all those things, the way would have been opened, and it is not, and never was. Just a breath of longing comes over me now and then for that; not for play, but to make more of myself; and then I remember that I am exactly where the Lord wants me to be, and _as_ he chooses for me, and then I am quite content again."

"You never said so before," the other sister answered, now sympathizingly.

"No," said Lois, smiling; "why should I? Only just now I thought I would confess."

"Lois, I have wished for that very thing!"

"Well, maybe it is good to have the wish. If ever a chance comes, we shall know we are meant to use it; and we won't be slow!"