Therefore it had been made to teem with animal
and vegetable plenty.
On one side of the house lay an orderly garden of vegetables and
berry-bearing shrubs; the yard itself was in reality an orchard of
fruit trees, some warmed by the very walls; under the shed there
were beegums alive with the nectar builders; along the garden walks
were frames for freighted grape-vines. The work of regeneration
had been pushed beyond the limits of utilitarianism over into a
certain crude domain of aesthetics. On one front window-sill what
had been the annual Christmas box of raisins had been turned into a
little hot-bed of flowering plants; and under the panes of glass a
dense forest of them, sun-drawn, looked like a harvest field swept
by a storm. On the opposite window ledge an empty drum of figs was
now topped with hardy jump-up-johnnies. It bore some resemblance
to an enormous yellow muffin stuffed with blueberries. In the
garden big-headed peonies here and there fell over upon the young
onions. The entire demesne lay white and green with tidiness under
yellow sun and azure sky; for fences and outhouses, even the trunks
of trees several feet up from the ground, glistened with whitewash.
So that everywhere was seen the impress and guidance of a spirit
evoking abundance, order, even beauty, out of what could so easily
have been squalor and despondent wretchedness.
This was the home of Pansy Vaughan; and Pansy was the explanation
of everything beautiful and fruitful, the peaceful Joan of Arc of
that valley, seeing rapt visions of the glory of her people.
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