Anne Of Ingleside √ (Project K.)

CHAPTER 14

It was what Susan called a streaky winter . . . all thaws and freezes that kept Ingleside decorated with fantastic fringes of icicles. The children fed seven blue-jays who came regularly to the orchard for their rations and let Jem pick them up, though they flew from everybody else. Anne sat up o' nights to pore over seed catalogues in January and February. Then the winds of March swirled over the dunes and up the harbors and over the hills. Rabbits, said Susan, were laying Easter eggs.

"Isn't March an INciting month, Mummy?" cried Jem, who was a little brother to all the winds that blew.

They could have spared the "incitement" of Jem scratching his hand on a rusty nail and having a nasty time of it for some days, while Aunt Mary Maria told all the stories of blood-poisoning she had ever heard. But that, Anne reflected when the danger was over, was what you must expect with a small son who was always trying experiments.

And lo, it was April! With the laughter of April rain . . . the whisper of April rain . . . the trickle, the sweep, the drive, the lash, the dance, the splash of April rain. "Oh, Mummy, hasn't the world got its face washed nice and clean?" cried Di, on the morning sunshine returned.

There were pale spring stars shining over fields of mist, there were pussywillows in the marsh. Even the little twigs on the trees seemed all at once to have lost their clear cold quality and to have become soft and languorous. The first robin was an event; the Hollow was once more a place full of wild free delight; Jem brought his mother the first mayflowers . . . rather to Aunt Mary Maria's offence, since she thought they should have been offered to her; Susan began sorting over the attic shelves, and Anne, who had hardly had a minute to herself all winter, put on spring gladness as a garment and literally lived in her garden, while the Shrimp showed his spring raptures by writhing all over the paths.

"You care more for that garden than you do for your husband, Annie," said Aunt Mary Maria.

"My garden is so kind to me," answered Anne dreamily . . . then, realizing the implications that might be taken out of her remark, began to laugh.

"You do say the most extraordinary things, Annie. Of course I know you don't mean that Gilbert isn't kind . . . but what if a stranger heard you say such a thing?"

"Dear Aunt Mary Maria," said Anne gaily, "I'm really not responsible for the things I say this time of the year. Everybody around here knows that. I'm always a little mad in spring. But it's such a divine madness. Do you notice those mists over the dunes like dancing witches? And the daffodils? We've never had such a show of daffodils at Ingleside before."

"I don't care much for daffodils. They are such flaunting things," said Aunt Mary Maria, drawing her shawl around her and going indoors to protect her back.

"Do you know, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan ominously, "what has become of those new irises you wanted to plant in that shady corner? She planted them this afternoon when you were out right in the sunniest part of the back yard."

"Oh, Susan! And we can't move them because she'd be so hurt!"

"If you will just give me the word, Mrs. Dr. dear . . ."

"No, no, Susan, we'll leave them there for the time being. She cried, you remember, when I hinted that she shouldn't have pruned the spirea before blooming."

"But sneering at our daffodils, Mrs. Dr. dear . . . and them famous all around the harbour . . ."

"And deserve to be. Look at them laughing at you for minding Aunt Mary Maria. Susan, the nasturtiums are coming up in this corner, after all. It's such fun when you've given up hope of a thing to find it has suddenly popped up. I'm going to have a little rose garden made in the southwest corner. The very name of rose garden thrills to my toes. Did you ever see such a blue blueness of sky before, Susan? And if you listen very carefully now at night you can hear all the little brooks of the countryside gossiping. I've half a notion to sleep in the Hollow tonight with a pillow of wild violets."