She was
as thin as a grasshopper, this busy little gardener, and hardly turned
to give us a glance, as we drove slowly up the hill close by. The sun
will brown and dry her like a spear of grass on that hot slope, but a
spark of fine spirit is in the small body, and I wish her a famous
crop. I hate to say that the piece looked backward, all except the
sage, and that it was a heavy bit of land for the clumsy hoe to pick
at. The only puzzle is, what she proposes to do with so long a row of
sage. Yet there may be a large family with a downfall of measles yet
ahead, and she does not mean to be caught without sage-tea.
Along this road every one of the old farmhouses has at least one tall
bush of white roses by the door,--a most lovely sight, with buds and
blossoms, and unvexed green leaves. I wish that I knew the history of
them, and whence the first bush was brought. Perhaps from England
itself, like a red rose that I know in Kittery, and the new shoots
from the root were given to one neighbor after another all through the
district. The bushes are slender, but they grow tall without climbing
against the wall, and sway to and fro in the wind with a grace of
youth and an inexpressible charm of beauty. How many lovers must have
picked them on Sunday evenings, in all the bygone years, and carried
them along the roads or by the pasture footpaths, hiding them clumsily
under their Sunday coats if they caught sight of any one coming. Here,
too, where the sea wind nips many a young life before its prime, how
often the white roses have been put into paler hands, and withered
there!
In spite of the serene and placid look of the old houses, one who has
always known them cannot help thinking of the sorrows of these farms
and their almost undiverted toil.
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