The Happy Garden 



charge. He is never happier than when he can 

 procure a situation as a temporary nurse. 



When the blossoms arrive, there is often a gap 

 between spring and summer, until one day we wake 

 up to discover that the painter of the sunrise has 

 dropped red splashes here and there in the garden, 

 and when we look closer we discover that they are 

 roses. . . . Out come the hammocks, wide-brimmed 

 hats are unearthed, cricket-bats are oiled, mos- 

 quitoes come up from the cellar : — it is summer. 

 The young herons chatter through the night, and 

 it seems years since we saw the father of all the 

 herons flying over to the post office to send tele- 

 grams conveying the glad announcement. 



The busy artist paints sunrise after sunrise, 

 sunset after sunset for the great picture which will 

 never be finished, and drops more and more red 

 paint into the garden. Bits of the sky and 

 the sun fall down and the gardener and the 

 gardener's boy, and I, hang them up in their 

 places. Sad winter thoughts of workaday are 

 rolled up and put away in drawers, and all the 

 jolly thoughts of the last summer are taken out 

 and polished up and set to gather sunbeams and 

 store them up against the long nights, and one is 

 kept to light the Christmas fire, for Yule logs can 

 only be kindled by a summer sunbeam. 



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