XIII
A Golden Picnic
Anne, on her way to Orchard Slope, met Diana, bound for Green Gables,just where the mossy old log bridge spanned the brook below the HauntedWood, and they sat down by the margin of the Dryad's Bubble, where tinyferns were unrolling like curly-headed green pixy folk wakening up froma nap.
"I was just on my way over to invite you to help me celebrate mybirthday on Saturday," said Anne.
"Your birthday? But your birthday was in March!"
"That wasn't my fault," laughed Anne. "If my parents had consulted meit would never have happened then. I should have chosen to be born inspring, of course. It must be delightful to come into the world with themayflowers and violets. You would always feel that you were their fostersister. But since I didn't, the next best thing is to celebrate mybirthday in the spring. Priscilla is coming over Saturday and Jane willbe home. We'll all four start off to the woods and spend a golden daymaking the acquaintance of the spring. We none of us really know heryet, but we'll meet her back there as we never can anywhere else. Iwant to explore all those fields and lonely places anyhow. I have aconviction that there are scores of beautiful nooks there that havenever really been SEEN although they may have been LOOKED at. We'llmake friends with wind and sky and sun, and bring home the spring in ourhearts."
"It SOUNDS awfully nice," said Diana, with some inward distrust ofAnne's magic of words. "But won't it be very damp in some places yet?"
"Oh, we'll wear rubbers," was Anne's concession to practicalities."And I want you to come over early Saturday morning and help me preparelunch. I'm going to have the daintiest things possible . . . things thatwill match the spring, you understand . . . little jelly tarts and ladyfingers, and drop cookies frosted with pink and yellow icing, andbuttercup cake. And we must have sandwiches too, though they're NOT verypoetical."
Saturday proved an ideal day for a picnic . . . a day of breeze and blue,warm, sunny, with a little rollicking wind blowing across meadowand orchard. Over every sunlit upland and field was a delicate,flower-starred green.
Mr. Harrison, harrowing at the back of his farm and feeling some of thespring witch-work even in his sober, middle-aged blood, saw four girls,basket laden, tripping across the end of his field where it joined afringing woodland of birch and fir. Their blithe voices and laughterechoed down to him.
"It's so easy to be happy on a day like this, isn't it?" Anne wassaying, with true Anneish philosophy. "Let's try to make this a reallygolden day, girls, a day to which we can always look back with delight.We're to seek for beauty and refuse to see anything else. 'Begone, dullcare!' Jane, you are thinking of something that went wrong in schoolyesterday."
"How do you know?" gasped Jane, amazed.
"Oh, I know the expression . . . I've felt it often enough on my own face.But put it out of your mind, there's a dear. It will keep till Monday. . . or if it doesn't so much the better. Oh, girls, girls, see that patchof violets! There's something for memory's picture gallery. When I'meighty years old . . . if I ever am . . . I shall shut my eyes and seethose violets just as I see them now. That's the first good gift our dayhas given us."
"If a kiss could be seen I think it would look like a violet," saidPriscilla.
Anne glowed.
"I'm so glad you SPOKE that thought, Priscilla, instead of justthinking it and keeping it to yourself. This world would be a much moreinteresting place . . . although it IS very interesting anyhow . . . ifpeople spoke out their real thoughts."
"It would be too hot to hold some folks," quoted Jane sagely.
"I suppose it might be, but that would be their own faults for thinkingnasty things. Anyhow, we can tell all our thoughts today because we aregoing to have nothing but beautiful thoughts. Everybody can say justwhat comes into her head. THAT is conversation. Here's a little path Inever saw before. Let's explore it."
The path was a winding one, so narrow that the girls walked in singlefile and even then the fir boughs brushed their faces. Under the firswere velvety cushions of moss, and further on, where the trees weresmaller and fewer, the ground was rich in a variety of green growingthings.
"What a lot of elephant's ears," exclaimed Diana. "I'm going to pick abig bunch, they're so pretty."
"How did such graceful feathery things ever come to have such a dreadfulname?" asked Priscilla.
"Because the person who first named them either had no imagination atall or else far too much," said Anne, "Oh, girls, look at that!"
"That" was a shallow woodland pool in the center of a little open gladewhere the path ended. Later on in the season it would be dried upand its place filled with a rank growth of ferns; but now it was aglimmering placid sheet, round as a saucer and clear as crystal. Aring of slender young birches encircled it and little ferns fringed itsmargin.
"HOW sweet!" said Jane.
"Let us dance around it like wood-nymphs," cried Anne, dropping herbasket and extending her hands.
But the dance was not a success for the ground was boggy and Jane'srubbers came off.
"You can't be a wood-nymph if you have to wear rubbers," was herdecision.
"Well, we must name this place before we leave it," said Anne, yieldingto the indisputable logic of facts. "Everybody suggest a name and we'lldraw lots. Diana?"
"Birch Pool," suggested Diana promptly.
"Crystal Lake," said Jane.
Anne, standing behind them, implored Priscilla with her eyes not toperpetrate another such name and Priscilla rose to the occasion with"Glimmer-glass." Anne's selection was "The Fairies' Mirror."
The names were written on strips of birch bark with a pencil Schoolma'amJane produced from her pocket, and placed in Anne's hat. Then Priscillashut her eyes and drew one. "Crystal Lake," read Jane triumphantly.Crystal Lake it was, and if Anne thought that chance had played the poola shabby trick she did not say so.
Pushing through the undergrowth beyond, the girls came out to the younggreen seclusion of Mr. Silas Sloane's back pasture. Across it theyfound the entrance to a lane striking up through the woods and votedto explore it also. It rewarded their quest with a succession of prettysurprises. First, skirting Mr. Sloane's pasture, came an archway of wildcherry trees all in bloom. The girls swung their hats on their armsand wreathed their hair with the creamy, fluffy blossoms. Then the laneturned at right angles and plunged into a spruce wood so thick and darkthat they walked in a gloom as of twilight, with not a glimpse of sky orsunlight to be seen.
"This is where the bad wood elves dwell," whispered Anne. "They areimpish and malicious but they can't harm us, because they are notallowed to do evil in the spring. There was one peeping at us aroundthat old twisted fir; and didn't you see a group of them on that bigfreckly toadstool we just passed? The good fairies always dwell in thesunshiny places."
"I wish there really were fairies," said Jane. "Wouldn't it be nice tohave three wishes granted you . . . or even only one? What would you wishfor, girls, if you could have a wish granted? I'd wish to be rich andbeautiful and clever."
"I'd wish to be tall and slender," said Diana.
"I would wish to be famous," said Priscilla. Anne thought of her hairand then dismissed the thought as unworthy.
"I'd wish it might be spring all the time and in everybody's heart andall our lives," she said.
"But that," said Priscilla, "would be just wishing this world were likeheaven."
"Only like a part of heaven. In the other parts there would be summerand autumn . . . yes, and a bit of winter, too. I think I want glitteringsnowy fields and white frosts in heaven sometimes. Don't you, Jane?"
"I . . . I don't know," said Jane uncomfortably. Jane was a good girl,a member of the church, who tried conscientiously to live up to herprofession and believed everything she had been taught. But she neverthought about heaven any more than she could help, for all that.
"Minnie May asked me the other day if we would wear our best dressesevery day in heaven," laughed Diana.
"And didn't you tell her we would
?" asked Anne.
"Mercy, no! I told her we wouldn't be thinking of dresses at all there."
"Oh, I think we will . . . a LITTLE," said Anne earnestly. "There'll beplenty of time in all eternity for it without neglecting more importantthings. I believe we'll all wear beautiful dresses . . . or I supposeRAIMENT would be a more suitable way of speaking. I shall want to wearpink for a few centuries at first . . . it would take me that long to gettired of it, I feel sure. I do love pink so and I can never wear it inTHIS world."
Past the spruces the lane dipped down into a sunny little open wherea log bridge spanned a brook; and then came the glory of a sunlitbeechwood where the air was like transparent golden wine, and the leavesfresh and green, and the wood floor a mosaic of tremulous sunshine. Thenmore wild cherries, and a little valley of lissome firs, and then a hillso steep that the girls lost their breath climbing it; but when theyreached the top and came out into the open the prettiest surprise of allawaited them.
Beyond were the "back fields" of the farms that ran out to the upperCarmody road. Just before them, hemmed in by beeches and firs but opento the south, was a little corner and in it a garden . . . or what hadonce been a garden. A tumbledown stone dyke, overgrown with mosses andgrass, surrounded it. Along the eastern side ran a row of garden cherrytrees, white as a snowdrift. There were traces of old paths still anda double line of rosebushes through the middle; but all the rest of thespace was a sheet of yellow and white narcissi, in their airiest, mostlavish, wind-swayed bloom above the lush green grasses.
"Oh, how perfectly lovely!" three of the girls cried. Anne only gazed ineloquent silence.
"How in the world does it happen that there ever was a garden backhere?" said Priscilla in amazement.
"It must be Hester Gray's garden," said Diana. "I've heard mother speakof it but I never saw it before, and I wouldn't have supposed that itcould be in existence still. You've heard the story, Anne?"
"No, but the name seems familiar to me."
"Oh, you've seen it in the graveyard. She is buried down there in thepoplar corner. You know the little brown stone with the opening gatescarved on it and 'Sacred to the memory of Hester Gray, aged twenty-two.'Jordan Gray is buried right beside her but there's no stone to him. It'sa wonder Marilla never told you about it, Anne. To be sure, it happenedthirty years ago and everybody has forgotten."
"Well, if there's a story we must have it," said Anne. "Let's sit rightdown here among the narcissi and Diana will tell it. Why, girls, thereare hundreds of them . . . they've spread over everything. It looks as ifthe garden were carpeted with moonshine and sunshine combined. This isa discovery worth making. To think that I've lived within a mile of thisplace for six years and have never seen it before! Now, Diana."
"Long ago," began Diana, "this farm belonged to old Mr. David Gray. Hedidn't live on it . . . he lived where Silas Sloane lives now. He had oneson, Jordan, and he went up to Boston one winter to work and whilehe was there he fell in love with a girl named Hester Murray. Shewas working in a store and she hated it. She'd been brought up in thecountry and she always wanted to get back. When Jordan asked her tomarry him she said she would if he'd take her away to some quiet spotwhere she'd see nothing but fields and trees. So he brought her toAvonlea. Mrs. Lynde said he was taking a fearful risk in marrying aYankee, and it's certain that Hester was very delicate and a very poorhousekeeper; but mother says she was very pretty and sweet and Jordanjust worshipped the ground she walked on. Well, Mr. Gray gave Jordanthis farm and he built a little house back here and Jordan and Hesterlived in it for four years. She never went out much and hardly anybodywent to see her except mother and Mrs. Lynde. Jordan made her thisgarden and she was crazy about it and spent most of her time in it. Shewasn't much of a housekeeper but she had a knack with flowers. And thenshe got sick. Mother says she thinks she was in consumption before sheever came here. She never really laid up but just grew weaker and weakerall the time. Jordan wouldn't have anybody to wait on her. He did it allhimself and mother says he was as tender and gentle as a woman. Everyday he'd wrap her in a shawl and carry her out to the garden and she'dlie there on a bench quite happy. They say she used to make Jordan kneeldown by her every night and morning and pray with her that she might dieout in the garden when the time came. And her prayer was answered. Oneday Jordan carried her out to the bench and then he picked all the rosesthat were out and heaped them over her; and she just smiled up at him. . . and closed her eyes . . . and that," concluded Diana softly, "wasthe end."
"Oh, what a dear story," sighed Anne, wiping away her tears.
"What became of Jordan?" asked Priscilla.
"He sold the farm after Hester died and went back to Boston. Mr. JabezSloane bought the farm and hauled the little house out to the road.Jordan died about ten years after and he was brought home and buriedbeside Hester."
"I can't understand how she could have wanted to live back here, awayfrom everything," said Jane.
"Oh, I can easily understand THAT," said Anne thoughtfully. "I wouldn'twant it myself for a steady thing, because, although I love the fieldsand woods, I love people too. But I can understand it in Hester. Shewas tired to death of the noise of the big city and the crowds of peoplealways coming and going and caring nothing for her. She just wanted toescape from it all to some still, green, friendly place where she couldrest. And she got just what she wanted, which is something very fewpeople do, I believe. She had four beautiful years before she died. . .four years of perfect happiness, so I think she was to be envied morethan pitied. And then to shut your eyes and fall asleep among roses,with the one you loved best on earth smiling down at you . . . oh, I thinkit was beautiful!"
"She set out those cherry trees over there," said Diana. "She toldmother she'd never live to eat their fruit, but she wanted to think thatsomething she had planted would go on living and helping to make theworld beautiful after she was dead."
"I'm so glad we came this way," said Anne, the shining-eyed. "This ismy adopted birthday, you know, and this garden and its story is thebirthday gift it has given me. Did your mother ever tell you what HesterGray looked like, Diana?"
"No . . . only just that she was pretty."
"I'm rather glad of that, because I can imagine what she looked like,without being hampered by facts. I think she was very slight and small,with softly curling dark hair and big, sweet, timid brown eyes, and alittle wistful, pale face."
The girls left their baskets in Hester's garden and spent the restof the afternoon rambling in the woods and fields surrounding it,discovering many pretty nooks and lanes. When they got hungry they hadlunch in the prettiest spot of all . . . on the steep bank of a gurglingbrook where white birches shot up out of long feathery grasses. Thegirls sat down by the roots and did full justice to Anne's dainties,even the unpoetical sandwiches being greatly appreciated by hearty,unspoiled appetites sharpened by all the fresh air and exercise they hadenjoyed. Anne had brought glasses and lemonade for her guests, but forher own part drank cold brook water from a cup fashioned out of birchbark. The cup leaked, and the water tasted of earth, as brook wateris apt to do in spring; but Anne thought it more appropriate to theoccasion than lemonade.
"Look do you see that poem?" she said suddenly, pointing.
"Where?" Jane and Diana stared, as if expecting to see Runic rhymes onthe birch trees.
"There . . . down in the brook . . . that old green, mossy log with thewater flowing over it in those smooth ripples that look as if they'dbeen combed, and that single shaft of sunshine falling right athwart it,far down into the pool. Oh, it's the most beautiful poem I ever saw."
"I should rather call it a picture," said Jane. "A poem is lines andverses."
"Oh dear me, no." Anne shook her head with its fluffy wild cherrycoronal positively. "The lines and verses are only the outward garmentsof the poem and are no more really it than your ruffles and flounces areYOU, Jane. The real poem is the soul within them . . . and that beautifulbit is the soul of an unwritten poem. It is not every day
one sees asoul . . . even of a poem."
"I wonder what a soul . . . a person's soul . . . would look like," saidPriscilla dreamily.
"Like that, I should think," answered Anne, pointing to a radiance ofsifted sunlight streaming through a birch tree. "Only with shape andfeatures of course. I like to fancy souls as being made of light. Andsome are all shot through with rosy stains and quivers . . . and somehave a soft glitter like moonlight on the sea . . . and some are pale andtransparent like mist at dawn."
"I read somewhere once that souls were like flowers," said Priscilla.
"Then your soul is a golden narcissus," said Anne, "and Diana's is likea red, red rose. Jane's is an apple blossom, pink and wholesome andsweet."
"And your own is a white violet, with purple streaks in its heart,"finished Priscilla.
Jane whispered to Diana that she really could not understand what theywere talking about. Could she?
The girls went home by the light of a calm golden sunset, their basketsfilled with narcissus blossoms from Hester's garden, some of which Annecarried to the cemetery next day and laid upon Hester's grave. Minstrelrobins were whistling in the firs and the frogs were singing in themarshes. All the basins among the hills were brimmed with topaz andemerald light.
"Well, we have had a lovely time after all," said Diana, as if she hadhardly expected to have it when she set out.
"It has been a truly golden day," said Priscilla.
"I'm really awfully fond of the woods myself," said Jane.
Anne said nothing. She was looking afar into the western sky andthinking of little Hester Gray.
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