Jennette Lee

“ Hudson Bowley's thoughts were a little cynical as he stood looking at the darkened house. No light appeared in it anywhere, and the moon rising behind the house made the darkness of the front seem almost black. But in the yard the light blooming flowers and the low shrubs stood out in shimmering relief. ... All the flowers in the yard had been planted since Cyrus Adams's death. ”

“ Everybody who knew Cyrus Adams knew that he was a selfish man—but not a hoarding one. He spent his money for whatever would give him pleasure or add to his importance, and Cynthia as part of his importance was always comely and well dressed, and her clothes were chosen with the exquisite taste that was a part of Cynthia. ”

“ Then to their surprise Miss Cynthia laughed out. She threw back her head and laughed like a girl—laughed till little tears twinkled in her eyes—and they all joined in, looking at one another shyly.
Cynthia wiped the tears away and regarded Lydia. "You're very conscientious, aren't you, child?" The little quivering smile danced on her lips.
"Yes-m." It was a venture on Lydia's part. She saw deep water ahead.
Cynthia patted the dark, straight little braids. "That's right! But be careful, dear—not to be too conscientious, won't you? It's dangerous, being too conscientious! ... ”

“ Hudson Bowley had been at first startled by Miss Cynthia's careless, happy recognition of him as he passed her gate, then he had been a little piqued, and finally indignant. And his indignation had grown. If Cynthia Adams thought she could treat him like an ordinary man—she would find she was mistaken! He swung his cane a little and walked on.
He reached the gate, and saw her with her watering-can standing among the flowers in the side yard. He opened the gate and came up the path. ”

“ And every day Cynthia worked among the flowers.
Hudson Bowley knew pretty well what went on in Miss Cynthia's yard. He passed it four times a day on the way to the mill and back. Sometimes Cynthia looked up and bowed to him distantly. But more often she bent in absorption over her flowers. And he went by without a glance. He had never stood as he was standing now, staring in on the flowers that lifted themselves in the mysterious half-light against the blackness of the house. ... A subtle fragrance stole over the fence, of mignonette and phlox and candytuft. ”

“ But when she saw her face and eyes in the glass as she put on the hat, she took it off hastily and ran up-stairs and bathed her face and eyes again and again.
When at last she came down and stepped out into the sunlight she had a sense that a new Cynthia went with her down the path—a Cynthia strangely like a girl she had known, but stronger and full of buoyant life. She moved along the paths, gathering handfuls of flowers and filling the basket on her arm. Voices from over the fence came to her and she moved toward it, and paused. Then she went quickly to the gate and opened it. ”

“ I've seen Cynthia at two funerals without a tear—one of 'em her own father. I don't know as I blame her so much for that one!" he added, with a grim smile.
"Jim—!"
"Well, just because a man's dead, don't make what he's been any better, does it? Cyrus Adams was a mean, self-centered, hard-hearted man. You know that!" ”

“ He could not rid himself of "Miss Cynthia and her rosebush"—and Cynthia crying!
He went on, past the fence, across the park to Main Street, and turned in at the drug-store for a box of matches. When he had lighted his pipe again he strolled back across the little park. In the shrubbery on the right a marble figure gleamed mistily. There was a bench near the statue, and he went in and sat down, smoking and looking up at the graceful half-poised figure that seemed to spring out of the green tracery of the leaves and branches and hold itself back from flight. ”

“ Every day he saw them meet life. And he knew that they literally "halved sorrows and doubled joys. ..." For himself, he had missed it! He knocked the ashes from his pipe on a fence railing, and stowed it in his pocket.
Then he saw that the fence was Miss Cynthia's. It was almost the only fence left in town, he thought, grimly. Cyrus Adams had insisted on keeping up his fences to the last. He didn't want folks tramping all over his grass, he said. Well, he had a fence around his lot in the cemetery now, cast-iron, painted black. Nobody trampled on his grass there, either. ”

“ And all the while underneath her thoughts ran the happy sense that beauty and cleanliness were only a part of life—and duty was only a part. Yet for years she had known only duty and cleanliness and beauty—nothing else. ”

“ He knew suddenly why he liked the statue and why he had so often turned in here to sit with his paper or his pipe. It had been a kind of assurance to him that change was not needed—that, once a choice was made and accepted, it had a beauty and meaning of its own. And now the quiet was broken for him. Miss Cynthia had been crying in her front yard. Cynthia crying—that hurt a little, somehow!
He got up impatiently and moved off. There was nothing a man could do—and what did he want to do? Nothing. Of that he was sure. ... ”