第84章 CHAPTER XV(7)

He filled the last cup with turpentine, set it with the other under the work bench, stacked the remaining pieces, polished the saucer he was baking, and went to bring a dish pan and towel. He drew some water from the pipes of the evaporator, put in the soap, and carried it to the work room. There he carefully washed and wiped all the pieces, save two cups and one saucer. He did not know how long it would require to bake the grease from that, but he was sure it was improving. He thought he could clean the paint cup, but he imagined the harness oil one would require baking also.

As he stood busily working over the dishes, with light step the Girl came to the door. She took one long look and understood. She turned and swiftly went back to the cabin, but her shoulders were shaking. Presently the Harvester came in and explained that after finishing in the dry-house he had gone to do the feeding. Then he suggested that before it grew dark they should go through the rooms and see how they appeared, and gather the flowers the Girl wanted. So together they decided everything was clean, comfortable, and harmonized.

Then they went to the hillside sloping to the lake. For the dining-room, the Girl wanted yellow water lilies, so the Harvester brought his old boat and gathered enough to fill the green bowl. For the living-room, she used wild ragged robins in the blue bowl, and on one end of the mantel set a pitcher of saffron and on the other arrowhead lilies. For her room, she selected big, blushy mallows that grew all along Singing Water and around the lake.

"Isn't that slightly peculiar?" questioned the Harvester.

"Take a peep," said the Girl, opening her door.

She had spread the pink coverlet on her couch, and when she set the big pink bowl filled with mallows on the table the effect was exquisite.

"I think perhaps that's a little Frenchy," she said, "and you may have to be educated to it; but salmon pink and buttercup yellow are colours I love in combination."

She closed the door and went to find something to eat, and then to the swing, where she liked to rest, look, and listen. The Harvester suggested reading to her, but she shook her head.

"Wait until winter," she said, "when the days are longer and cold, and the snow buries everything, and then read. Now tell me about my hedge and the things you have planted in it."

The Harvester went out and collected a bunch of twigs.

He handed her a big, evenly proportioned leaf of ovate shape, and explained: "This is burning bush, so called because it has pink berries that hang from long, graceful stems all winter, and when fully open they expose a flame-red seed pod. It was for this colour on gray and white days that I planted it. In the woods I grow it in thickets. The root bark brings twenty cents a pound, at the very least. It is good fever medicine."

"Is it poison?"

"No. I didn't set anything acutely poisonous in your hedge. I wanted it to be a mass of bloom you were free to cut for the cabin all spring, an attraction to birds in summer, and bright with colour in winter. To draw the feathered tribe, I planted alder, wild cherry, and grape-vines. This is cherry. The bark is almost as beautiful as birch. I raise it for tonics and the birds love the cherries. This fern-like leaf is from mountain ash, and when it attains a few years' growth it will flame with colour all winter in big clusters of scarlet berries.

That I grow in the woods is a picture in snow time, and the bark is one of my standard articles."

The Girl raised on her elbow and looked at the hedge.

"I see it," she said. "The berries are green now. Isuppose they change colour as they ripen."

"Yes," said the Harvester. "And you must not confuse them with sumac. The leaves are somewhat similar, but the heads differ in colour and shape. The sumac and buckeye you must not touch, until we learn what they will do to you. To some they are slightly poisonous, to others not. I couldn't help putting in a few buckeyes on account of the big buds in early spring. You will like the colour if you are fond of pink and yellow in combination, and the red-brown nuts in grayish-yellow, prickly hulls, and the leaf clusters are beautiful, but you must use care. I put in witch hazel for variety, and Ilike its appearance; it's mighty good medicine, too; so is spice brush, and it has leaves that colour brightly, and red berries. These selections were all made for a purpose.

Now here is wafer ash; it is for music as well as medicine.