COMMUTER'S WIFE 9 



were a dozen of the flowers themselves, anticipating 

 spring after their hopeful habit. 



Violets were my mother's flowers, and this was her 

 seat. She went away when I was five years old, but 

 I have not forgotten, and I always called this great 

 apple with its ample branches that furnished nooks 

 alike to me and to the robins and bluebirds, the 

 Mother Tree. I used to make bouquets and 

 wreaths of my best flowers, and stick them hi the 

 knot-holes or hang them on the branches the particu- 

 lar day in June when father always shut himself into 

 his study, and would not speak even to me. 



Aunt Lot had said that I was a pagan to make an 

 idol out of a tree and hang flowers on it, and scolded 

 until I cried bitterly. Father, hearing my distress, 

 came out to find the cause, and sat with me under 

 the tree all the afternoon. From that day we under- 

 stood each other, and the study door was never 

 closed between us. Here, too, it was that he told 

 me of his plans for the hospital that now stands 

 over yonder by the town, where he meant to help all 

 women for mother's sake. I only understood his 

 moods gropingly in those days; for the subtle language 

 of the human heart cannot be imagined, but may only 

 be read by those who love and are loved in return, and 

 the other love also came to me through loving father. 



