Cornelia Meigs

“ A garden such as his, that is planted in the hearts of his fellow men, can never perish. As I have sat at my cobbler’s bench through all these years, toiling for my living in an alien land, I have fought against the thought of Master Simon and of all the good he did to me and to others, but I have fought in vain. The memory grew and grew within my heart, choking out my evil and bitter thoughts, just as his clumps of blossoming plants used to grow until there was no room left for weeds. ”

“ Felix used to think, as the days and weeks passed, and as that strange journey upon which he had launched so suddenly dragged on and on, that the grassy slope above the orchard and the cool dark foliage of the oak tree must be the very greenest and fairest things on earth. There was no green now before his aching eyes, only the wide stretch of yellow-brown prairie, a rough trail, deep in dust, winding across it, a line of white-topped wagons crawling like ants over the vast plain, and a blue arch of sky above, blinding-bright with the heat. ”

“ There is not a minute for you to lose. Beatrice, my dear, my dear, what does anything matter if harm comes to you and your sister? Go! Go!”
A breath of wind touched Beatrice for a second and was gone, yet its icy chill cut her to the very bone. Through the comparative warmth of the air about them it had appeared and vanished like the dread ghost of that bitter cold, reigning up yonder where the snows never melted and the ice-fields clung to the mountain-side the whole year through. Nancy shivered, and the brown horse, trembling too, shouldered close to her. ”

“ For as the ship’s searchlights slanted down upon them a moment too late, cutting a wide, white circle upon the water, they showed him a most unexpected sight. There, bobbing serenely on the waves, her sails drooping and a little bedraggled as though she were very tired, but her gay red pennant fluttering bravely still, rode the little craft that had been the cause of all his adventures. There could surely be no doubt that it was the Josephine. A moment she sailed serenely alongside, then the roar of foaming water from under the destroyer’s bow reached out and caught her. ”

“ David gave one glance and knew better than to pause and look again.
"Quick," he cried, and, seizing her hand, dragged her, almost headlong, across the open space and up another slope of sliding bricks.
The old chimney, split by the lightning and weakened by fire and frost, was ready to tumble at the slightest shock and had received its final impetus from the collapse of the neighboring wall. As Betsey looked at it the whole mass was tottering and, but for David's quickness, would have engulfed them both. As it was they were nearly smothered by the cloud of dust and crumbled mortar. ”

“ In the kitchen garden, the apple trees and the row of beehives beneath them had by chance been spared. Yet to see the apple trees blooming alone in a black and desert waste, to watch the bees flying about in bewilderment, looking for flowers that had once yielded such generous honey, was worse, almost, than to have had all perish together. Clotilde had need, through these days, of all her courage and of all Stephen’s shrewdly comforting sayings, to keep up even a show of cheerfulness. ”

“ There was a long, long reach of steady paddling while the river grew ever wider in its twisted course toward the lake.
Hugh’s blade rose and dipped with the weary regularity of a machine and his eyes were falling to with sleepiness. But he was startled suddenly broad awake when they rounded a sharp bend and came full upon a gigantic moose, its great shoulders, bearded chin and wide sweep of antlers outlined sharp and black against the starlit water. ”

“ Oliver had never seen anything so white and thin and delicate as the frail new cells ready for the fresh honey. He forgot any dread of the myriad creatures buzzing about his head, he forgot even his plan, and his impatience of delay. He bent to peer into the hive, to examine the young bees just hatching, the fat, black, and brown drones and the slim, alert queen bee. The girl, now that the responsibility of helping was off her hands, forgot her own nervousness and pressed forward also to look and ask questions. ”

“ It was thither that the West Wind was to sail, with dispatches for the Commodore of the Mediterranean Fleet. At last the ship was ready, a rare and beautiful sight with her slim hull, her rows of guns and her towering reach of silvery new canvas.
She sailed with the early tide, at daybreak of a mid-April morning, a ghostly fairy-like thing, slipping away in the gray light and the mist of dawn. Miranda stood on the dock to watch her go, with Jonathan beside her staring fixedly after his winged dream, flying at last beyond the seas. ”

“ They scrambled up the hill, out beyond the shadow of the pines to the open pasture land where the trees had been cut, where the new growth was springing up, and where among the old stumps the berry bushes and vines matted the ground. It was a hot summer day, very still, except for the grasshoppers singing shrilly, but not with that peaceful drowsy heat that Nancy knew. The air was far too bracing for any one to feel lazy or sleepy as on the summer days at home. The blue distances shimmered, the sky was cloudless, everything seemed to stir and throb with the energy of living. ”

“ Perhaps it would be so clear that you could see the Highlands, that circle of tremendous peaks beyond the rough brown buttes that hemmed the valley in, the high sky line that often was not visible for weeks together but, on a brilliant day like this, would spring suddenly into being, a vast wall of glittering white, with jagged summits that seemed to touch the very sky. The wind would blow down from the snow fields sharp and chill, it would lift the manes of the horses as they snorted, kicked up their heels and went galloping off down the trail. ”

“ The roses and lilies, the pink peonies and white hollyhocks, bloom on, undisturbed, year after year. The great house of mellow brick, covered now with vines to the very roof, looks out over the sea, unchanged. In the garden, romping down the paths and tumbling on the grass, play Master Simon’s children to a far generation. For but a few years, it seems, they frolic there among the flowers and then, grown to men and women, they set off to do their share of the world’s labour. ”

“ It—it is nothing, you fools," cried Martin Hallowell, but his own voice quavered with terror, and carried little reassurance to the frightened men.
The boat hung doubtfully a ship's length from the pier, the oars dipping to hold it into the wind, the men hesitating, ashamed of their terror yet fearing to come closer. Again the cry broke forth, resounding again and again, mingling in terrible, ghostly fashion with the splashing and gurgling of the water. The boat shot away into the dark, just as Alan came running down the wharf, shouting to them to come back. ”