"There is no reason in your life.
There is nothing ugly that could offend her or hurt her. The
reason, the real reason, probably lies in the fact that if she
were thinking of caring for anyone it would be for that
attractive young schoolmate she brought up here for me to
exercise my wits upon. It is very likely that she regards me in
the light of a grandfatherly person to whom she can come with her
joys or her problems, as frankly as she has now."
So Peter asked if the irises crossed the brook and ran down both
sides. Linda sat on a packing case and concentrated on the iris,
and finally she announced that they did. She informed him that
his place was going to bc natural, that Nature evolved things in
her own way. She did not grow irises down one side of a brook
and arrowheads down the other. They waded across and flew across
and visited back and forth, riding the water or the wind or the
down of a bee or the tail of a cow. As she served the supper she
had brought she very gravely informed him that there would be
iris on both sides of his brook, and cress and miners' lettuce
under the bridge; and she knew exactly where the wild clematis
grew that would whiten his embankment after his workmen had
extracted the last root of poison oak.
"It may not scorch you, Peter," she said gravely, "but you must
look out for the Missus and the little things. I haven't
definitely decided on her yet, but she looks a good deal like
Mary Louise Whiting to mc.
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