Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/152

 ranks, like little soldiers, and I think they saluted me as a conquering hero. I glanced at the parsley bed, and could see the little crinkly newcomers looking up through dog’s fennel, gasping for breath; but so was I, and hence had to ignore their mute appeal.

While I know of no more fascinating work than weeding a garden, the stooping position makes it hard. If the beds were only placed up high, like counters, with light rattan seats running round them, the work would be ideal. I’ll have that kind some day, when my long-overdue ship sails into the harbor. To rest and escape the heat, I recrossed the raging Tiber, went again up in the orchard, sat down under an apple tree, threw off my sunbonnet and with it “the cares that infest the day,” and gave myself up to the spell of that world of bloom and beauty.

and softly now, in the later morning, their notes blended deliciously with the low murmur of leaves, rippling waters, and the faint tinkling of sheep-bells down the leafy lane. The grass all about me was thickly studded with wild-flowers; everywhere little tongues of flame were darting up through the green, from some queer plant new to me; patches of tall buttercups were waving in the sunshine like cloth of gold; white honeysuckles and purple and lavender