Did you ever shut your
eyes and see things again just as they were a long time ago? If I were
blind-folded and my hands tied behind me I could find just where every
flower used to grow in mother's garden, if I could go in it again."
Like a flood overleaping the barrier that held it back, the words came
eagerly. To keep her from talking would do more harm than to let her
talk. The fever in her soul was greater, more consuming, than that in
her body. I did not try to stop her.
"I don't remember where each thing was in grandmother's garden." I
moved my chair a little closer to her cot. "But I remember the
gooseberry-bushes were just behind a long bed of lilies-of-the-valley.
It seemed so queer they should be together."
"Lilies of the valley grow anywhere. Mother's bed got bigger every
year. There was a large circle of them around a mound in the middle of
our garden, and they were fringed with violets. One February our
minister's wife died. They didn't have any flowers, and it seemed so
dreadful not to have any that I went into the garden to see if I
couldn't find something.
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