CHAPTER X. 



OCTOBER. 



A WRINKLED quince, a rotting pear, three grapes, and a 

 gnarly apple comprise the list of " goodly fruits " that I 

 gathered, this hazy, dreamy second of October,1887, from 

 an old garden, of which but the merest traces are remain- 

 ing. The day was fitted only for retrospective work such 

 as this. The mellow light of the half-hidden sun, the 

 muffled notes of the birds from the fog-wrapped meadows, 

 the steady dropping of decaying leaves, all led to medita- 

 tion. I called back the spring time of another century. 



It was of this garden that Jane Bishop, in May, 1703, 

 wrote : " We have now an abundance of goodly fruit, which 

 father planted some seven years ago ; and it is with joy 

 that I see growing, as we wished, the blossoms that sister 

 and I did gather from the adjoining woods." 



Jane Bishop was young then, and cared far more for 

 flowers and the wild world about her than the monoto- 

 nous tirades against frivolous pleasures to which every 

 First-day she was doomed to listen. Her love of flowers 

 and a spirit of mischief went hand in hand, and she it 

 was who, in October, 1705, deluged a meeting of sedate 

 old Friends, at her father's house, with thousands of scar- 

 let autumn leaves. It was purely an accident, so she said, 

 and of course it was — not. She it was who, on plea of 

 shading the little porch, cunningly chose "Virginia creep- 

 ers, that soon covered the cottage, and made it as brilliant 



