They could
recover their poise; he with the health of a simple mind, and they as
children will. Yet he was truly stunned by the blow; and I hoped, on
the day of the funeral, that he did not see what I did. When we went
out to get our horse and wagon, I caught my foot in something which at
once gave way. I looked down--at a broken wicket and a withered apple
by the stake.
Quite at the other end of the town is a dooryard which, in my own mind,
at least, I call the traveling garden. Miss Nancy, its presiding
mistress, is the victim of a love of change; and since she may not
wander herself, she transplants shrubs and herbs from nook to nook. No
sooner does a green thing get safely rooted than Miss Nancy snatches it
up and sets it elsewhere. Her yard is a varying pageant of plants in
all stages of misfortune. Here is a shrub, with faded leaves, torn from
the lap of prosperity in a well-sunned corner to languish under
different conditions. There stands a hardy bush, shrinking, one might
guess, under all its bravery of new spring green, from the premonition
that Miss Nancy may move it tomorrow. Even the ladies'-delights have
their months of garish prosperity, wherein they sicken like country
maids; for no sooner do they get their little feet settled in a dark,
still corner than they are summoned out of it, to sunlight bright and
strong.
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