Azalea

“ For those who prefer to enjoy the azaleas in their wilder state, there are many places where they can wander undisturbed and inhale their scent which comes wafted on the breeze. I am thinking now of Kasuga Park at Nara, where great stretches of Azalea sinensis form a brilliant foreground for the wistaria-laden trees. Nature seems to have arranged a veritable picture, almost too beautiful to be real. These gorgeous blossoms shade from delicate yellows and pale pink, through to the brightest orange and flame colour, growing as the woodland scrub. ”

“ In front of the houses and along the streets, their purple fragrance welcoming every newcomer, stand the China trees, the haunt of busy bees and their indefatigable pursuer the kingbird, or bee martin.
In the lowlands a short distance back from the beach, the azaleas (Azalea nudiflora) are just dropping the last of their pink bloom, a bouquet thrown at the feet of all-conquering summer. Here and there in these jungles of yupon, bay, buttonwood, etc., appears a shrub clad in a filmy white mist. ”

“ Just then, the man who was sitting next Azalea arose and went over by the window, and a moment later some one slipped down into the place he had left and gave Azalea’s hand a squeeze. Azalea turned her head as quick as a frightened bird, and there sat Carin Carson, smiling at her as if they were old friends.
“I was so glad when I saw you here,” she whispered. “Isn’t it a pity they don’t ask the children to sing? I just love to sing, don’t you?” ”

“ Death had, at last, seemed the only happiness for her, and Azalea loved to think of her as safe and at rest in that much-cared-for lowly bed of hers beneath the Pride of India tree beside Ma McBirney’s door.
And, oh, the long red road! How it wound up the hills and over them. What valleys it glimpsed, what rivers, amber brown beneath the trees, what spots of quietude and peace beneath the pines, what sunny openings, where succulent odors of grass, freshly sprung, came to the travelers! ”

“ Do I look like an 'Azalea' with my dark hair and eyes? They should have had more sense when they christened me. Why, an Azalea ought to be a little, pretty, silly thing, with blue eyes and pink cheeks and golden hair — all beauty, you know, and no brains, like this girl! What's your name? You're more an Azalea than I am. ”

“ Everywhere the exquisite mountain azalea was abloom, its delicate, subtle fragrance pervading the air as the appreciation of some noble virtue penetrates and possesses the soul, so intimate, so indissoluble, so potent of cognition. ”

“ On each side of the fall, planted in the rock wall, stands a thick-set paulownia, with great steady leaves, and bending towards it a willow, whose branches drop far below itself and swing perpetually in the draught of the waterfall. Bunches of pink azalea grow in the hollows of the rocks, and their reflections redden the eddies of the pool. Steps which seem natural lead up the wall of rock; old pines grow against it, and our feet pass through their uppermost branches. ”

“ So it came to pass that Azalea, sitting on the doorstep one morning after her early breakfast, saw three heads appearing above the slope.
“Carin,” she called. “They’ve come!”
“Who? The gypsies?”
“No. The pupils. Oh, where is the key to the schoolhouse? Oh, Aunt Zillah, do I look in the least like a teacher? Come, Carin, we must go meet them.” ”

“ Indeed, many of those they came across seemed not to have energy enough for anything so lively as curiosity. Azalea always had taken an interest in the world, and the best part of the old life had been, to her, the quiet journeys along the roads, with the glimpses they gave of farmhouses and cabins and little towns. ”

“ To Carin, used to luxury and beauty and her parent’s unceasing care, it was an adventure in independence; to Azalea, accustomed to changes, to people of many sorts, to both rough and smooth living, it was one more chapter in a book destined to be filled with curious incidents. To Keefe—but let him speak for himself.
“This place,” he said, “looks to me singularly like Paradise. My own particular habitation is as damp and cold as the Mammoth Cave. My bed is done up in oilskins, and my easel is under the bed. Every stick of wood I have is drenched, and the field mice have got at my food.” ”

“ I was told about that by poor old Betty Bowen that time Sisson kidnapped me.”
“Oh, don’t talk about that, Azalea,” cried her friend, throwing her arms about her and kissing her on the cheek with a sort of desperate tenderness. “I can’t bear it. Oh, those nights that we didn’t know where you were!”
“I only speak of it,” said Azalea, holding her friend close to her, “because that explains why I want to make every place cheerful. I can’t stand gloom and chill and hunger—can’t stand them for myself or anyone else. And then—don’t laugh at me, Carin, please—there’s another reason. ”

“ The traveling men no longer told their stories; Aunt Zillah nodded but dared not doze for fear of missing her station; the mountain woman brooded patiently, caring little, it seemed, as to what fate might have in store for her; and little Constance slept in Azalea’s arms. Carin was supremely patient and quiet; and the bright eyes of Keefe O’Connor gleamed now and then from under the rim of his cap, which was pulled low over his face, and behind which he was occupied in thinking his own thoughts. ”

“ She heard Azalea’s voice going on and on, kindly, gently, insistently; heard Paralee’s gruff answers; but the rain and the wind drowned the words. It was only when Azalea called to her that she learned of the nature of the conversation. Paralee was standing with half dried garments before the fire. She had eaten her little repast, and with her one poor hand was brushing back the hair that straggled about her face.
“Paralee,” said Azalea, “wants to be a teacher, Carin. She has to make her own living, and that is the way she means to do it.” ”

“ And the Western azalea, hardly less flowery, grows in massy thickets three to eight feet high around the edges of groves and woods as far south as San Luis Obispo, usually accompanied by manzanita; while the valleys, with their varying moisture and shade, yield a rich variety of the smaller honey-flowers, such as mentha, lycopus, micromeria, audibertia, trichostema, and other mints; with vaccinium, wild strawberry, geranium, calais, and goldenrod ”

“ Martha was set to watch her early and late, and when she was weary Semmy or I took her place. She was sweet and gay at moments. One afternoon she showed me her painted fans and her jewels, and told me they would be mine, some day, and I was naughty enough to say:
“But madam grandmother, what shall little Azalea do with all those? Don’t you think her little string of ‘Job’s tears’ and a peacock fan made by herself become her better?”
That teased her, as I knew it would.
“My dear Azalea,” she said in her most earnest manner, “you are a true Knox, and these jewels and fans will become you. ”

“ Now it came to her in all its splendor, and explained to her why the azalea was the flower she loved above the [pg 159] peony, the lotus, or even that glorious mystery, the dragon-spume chrysanthemum.
Flowers are so bound up with the lives of the children of Japan that they have a meaning and speak a language to them almost unknown to us.
So Campanula sat immersed in her dream, and Leslie, who had swung a hammock between two cherry trees and was lying in it, little knew what was going on in the small head of the person seated near him on the square of matting. ”

“ Make yourself to home Azalea, for this is where we’re going to stay till them friends of yours is tired of looking for us.”
Azalea drew up nearer to the woman and hid her face against her bosom.
“Why, what’s the matter, you little poor thing?” cried Mrs. McBirney. “You’re not minding a few little bats and spiders, be you? I’ll get them out in no time.”
“No, no!” almost shrieked the girl. “Don’t touch them, please! They’ll fall down on us!”
“Why, what’s this I hear?” demanded ma. “A girl that’s been plumb up against all kinds of trouble, getting scared at a few little beasties! ”

“ Back of their desire to be useful to their less fortunate neighbors, was the hunger for life in the open. They dreamed of the low-lying valleys bathed in purple mist, of the flaming azalea burning on the higher slopes, of the innumerable flowers springing to life along the adventurous p. ”

“ She went poking over chests and drawers, searching for something, and at last she came on some undyed homespun cotton of her own weaving. She sat for several minutes with this on her knees, looking at it. At last she called Azalea to her.
“I’ve half a mind to use that there blue dye Mis’ Leiter brought over, to color this here, so’s I can run up a dress for you, Azalea. I can’t have you go down to town looking like a scarecrow, and I ’clare to goodness, I’m prejudiced against having you go down in that outgrown dress you had on when I saw you first. ”

“ It yielded, and she stepped into a dark little room smelling of firewood. At the far side was an open door, and she groped her way to it and stood on a little framed-in porch with wire netting on the one exposed side. And there, neatly made, was a cot bed, waiting, it seemed, for some weary child to crawl in between its warm blankets. Azalea took off her worn and dusty shoes and her disgraceful frock, and stretched herself between the comforts. ”

“ Annie Laurie returned. “Azalea, have you spoken yet to Pa and Ma McBirney about going?”
Azalea gave a little chuckle, half of amusement, half of affection, as her friend spoke the names of the good mountain people who had taken Azalea into their home when she was orphaned.
“Naturally, I haven’t,” she said, “because until this hour I didn’t know Carin was really planning for it. And now I’ll have to approach the subject cautiously. You know how it is with my dear pretend-parents; they’re mountain people and don’t like to be frightened out of p. 16their wits by having a question hurled at them. ”

“ Azalea was compelled to go in the old covered wagon and to lie down there under a pile of odds and ends. Betty sat beside her son Rafe and directed their course. They had struck an old wood-road, and wound along through the heart of a silent forest, meeting no one. So much more solitary was the road than they had supposed it would be that Betty urged her son to press on. The horses were young and strong—a new team which Azalea had not before seen—and the result was that by twelve o’clock that night they had camped in an out-of-the-way grove across the line dividing the two Carolinas. ”

“ To be sure she grew very weary of going over and over the same thoughts; of wondering and wondering why no one came to her aid; of thinking what would happen to her when they had caught up with Sisson and his show. But when the dread and the fear were at their worst, she remembered certain words that Ma McBirney had spoken to her.
“No matter what comes to you, Azalea,” she had told her once, “you keep your heart full of God’s light and of God’s love, and nothing can really harm you. You mind what I say, child. You do that and the angels of the Lord will compass you about.” ”

“ Come now, and I hope and pray Miss Pace will not accuse me of rudeness!”
“Aunt Zillah? Never!” said Azalea. “It’s a wonderful story you’ve told me, Mrs. Rowantree—so sad I can hardly believe it—much sadder than mine, and that is sad enough. Not that I feel sad,” she added hastily. “Since I became a McBirney I’m a very happy girl.”
“But you’re not really a McBirney, are you? Those good mountain people haven’t really adopted you?”
p. 114“Not by law, ma’am,” smiled Azalea. “But what does that matter if we love each other?”
“And you have Miss Carin and her parents for your friends. ”

“ Some botanists unite the genus azalea to rhododendron. North America abounds in azaleas as well as in rhododendrons, and some of the species have long been cultivated, particularly A. nudiflora and A. viscosa, which have become the parents of many hybrids. Both species abound from Canada to the southern parts of the United States. A. calendulcea, a native of the South, is described as frequently clothing the mountains with a robe of living scarlet. All the American species are deciduous. In cultivation the azaleas love the shade and a soil of sandy peat or loam. ”

“ They used to buy each other to do things, by promising to tell stories. If Jim wanted Azalea to help him gather firewood, he offered to tell her a story in payment for her help. If Azalea wanted Jim to help her scrub the floor, she promised him a story of things that had happened to her when she was “on the road.” One day Jim told Azalea the story his father had told him that day on the mountain, about the old Atherton mansion, and how it had stood vacant for years and years, with the swallows flying in and out its chimneys, and the snakes and squirrels and birds having their way with it. ”

“ From his tone one would have expected the children to enter accompanied by at least a governess and a nurse, but it was the little proud mother herself who brought in Gerald—“my eldest son, Miss Pace,”—and Moira and Michael—“my darling twins, young ladies,”—and led by the hand that wise young person, Constance, who flew like a bird to Azalea’s arms.
“She’s like myself,” said Mrs. Rowantree, “fierce in her affections.”
Azalea laughed. “Oh, so am I,” she said. “Mr. McBirney, my adopted father, always tells me that. He wants me to be calm, but I can’t stay calm.” ”