Olivia's Sun-Dial

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Title:     Olivia's Sun-Dial
Author: Anna Fuller [More Titles by Fuller]

"It's all we need to make it the prettiest garden in Dunbridge."

"Hm! And why must we have the prettiest garden in Dunbridge?"

"Why shouldn't we?"

Here was a deadlock--a thing quite shockingly out of place in a garden, and one's own particular garden at that!

Olivia Page could make almost anything grow, as she had abundantly proved, but even her garden-craft could hardly suffice for the setting of a sun-dial on a pedestal of snow-white marble over there where the four triangular rose-beds converged to a circle, and where the south sun would play on it all day long.

For a year Olivia had dreamed of this, and, since she was not a churlishly reticent young person, it was not the first intimation her father had received of her desire. Not until to-day, however, had she asked outright for what she wanted.

"I wish you would say something more," she remarked, glancing sidewise at the professor's deeply corrugated countenance, which, for all their intimacy, was sometimes difficult to decipher. She had heard of girls who could twist their parents round their fingers; she wondered how they did it.

The two were sitting on the white half-circle of a bench that stood at the west boundary of the old tennis-court, just where one end of the net used to be staked up. Excepting for that break, three sides of the garden were fenced in by the high wire screen originally designed to keep the tennis balls within bounds, and now doing duty as a trellis over which a luxuriant woodbine clambered, waving its reddening tendrils in the light September breeze. Wide flowerbeds bordered the entire court, the central turf being broken only by the cluster of rose-beds at the further end. From the white bench one looked across the grass to a broad flight of veranda steps, flanked on the right by a mass of white boltonia, while on the left a superb growth of New England asters reared their sturdy heads.

The garden had been a great success this year, quite the admiration of the neighbourhood. Really, Papa must be proud of it, and it was all Olivia's doing. Who would ever guess that it had had its modest beginnings in half a dozen tin cracker-boxes with holes bored in the bottoms, where, in March, two years ago, she had planted queer little brown seeds as hard as pebbles, which Nature had straightway taken in hand, softening and expanding them down there in the dark, till they came alive, and began feeling their way up to meet the sun. Ah, the bliss of seeing those first tiny shoots turn into stems and leaflets, ready to play their part in the great spring awakening! Would Olivia ever love any flowers quite as she had loved those first seedlings, especially a certain pentstemon, which blossomed "white with purple spots," exactly as the seed-catalogue had promised?

Yes, the garden was a great success, and just now it was at one of its prettiest moments, gay with autumn colours; the rudbeckia in its glory, and the great pink blossoms of the hibiscus spreading their skirts for all the world like ladies in an old-time minuet, while over yonder the soldier spikes of the flame-flower threatened to set the woodbine afire. Olivia loved the Latin names, but somehow "tritonia" did not seem to express those spikes of burning colour. And the roses! How lovely those late hybrids were! Why, the way that Margaret Dickson drooped her head above the pansies, still blooming freely at her feet, was enough to melt the heart of a Salem gibraltar! A pity that the professor's attention seemed for the moment to be riveted upon the toe of his boot!

"I wish you would say something more," Olivia repeated.

"Something different, you mean," and Doctor Page smiled, benignly and stubbornly.

"For instance, you might tell me why you are opposed to it."

"You wouldn't understand."

"I might; you said, only the other day, that I sometimes displayed almost human intelligence!"

The professor liked to have his jokes remembered; but still he seemed inclined to temporise.

"I might say that we couldn't afford it. It is generally conceded that Alma Mater is not a munificent provider."

"Yes; and you might say that my great-grandfather was not an East India trader--only you don't tell fibs."

"Or that a sun-dial is an anachronism."

"You are too good a Latin scholar for that."

"So a subterfuge won't do? Very well; then you'll have to put up with a psychological proposition."

"How interesting!"

The professor glanced at the expectant young face turned toward him, and he could not but admit that his estimate of its owner's intelligence had been well within the truth.

"You think a sun-dial would make it the prettiest garden in Dunbridge?"

"I'm sure it would."

"And that is what you are aiming at?"

"Yes."

"Now, I have noticed that when you have got what you are aiming at you lose interest in it."

"O Papa!"

"There was tennis," he went on, marking off the list on a combative forefinger, "and cookery; there was the Polyglot Club, and the Sketching Club, and----"

"But, Papa! They were every one of them good things, and I got a lot out of them; truly, I did."

"No doubt; but as soon as you could play tennis, or sketch a pine tree, or toss an omelette a little better than the other girls, you had squeezed your orange dry."

"But, Papa! I've stuck to gardening for more than two years!" Olivia's tone seemed to give those years the dignity of centuries.

"True; but you haven't got your sun-dial. You will consider that the finishing touch, and then before we know it you will be wanting to turn the whole thing into a sand-garden for the little micks at the Corners."

"Not such a bad idea," Olivia admitted unguardedly.

"There you are! The mere mention of a new scheme is enough to set you agog!"

But this was not their first fencing match, and Olivia had learned to parry.

"I thought you believed in people being open-minded," she ventured demurely.

"And so I do; but not so open-minded that for every new idea that comes in an old one goes out."

"Oh, the sun-dial hasn't got away yet," she laughed, springing to her feet and going over to the court-end of the garden, where she placed herself in the exact centre of the converging rose-beds.

"There!" she cried; "don't you see how my white gown lights up the whole place? It's just the high light that it needs."

And so it was: a fact of which no one was better aware than the professor. As he, too, rose and sauntered toward the house he could not deny that Olivia's ideas were usually good. The only trouble was that she had too many of them; and here was the kernel of truth that gave substance to his whimsical argument. The beauty of the garden was not lost upon him, nor yet the skill and industry of the young gardener. But more important than either was the advantage to the girl's health. Olivia was sound as a nut; of course she was! There could be no doubt of that. But--so had her mother seemed, until that fatal winter ten years ago. He did not fear for Olivia; why should he? Only--well, this out-of-door life was a capital thing for anybody. No, he could not have her tire of her garden.

At the foot of the veranda steps Dr. Page paused and glanced again at his daughter. She had left the rose-beds and was already intent upon her work, pulling seeds from the hollyhocks over yonder. She made a pretty picture in her white gown, standing shoulder-high among the brown stalks, her slender fingers deftly gleaning from such as showed no rust. The child was really very persistent about her gardening; she had fairly earned an indulgence. Perhaps, after all, she might be trusted. He moved a few steps toward her.

"Olivia," he said,--and the first word betrayed his relenting,--"Olivia, your sun-dial scheme is not such a bad idea. I should rather like that white-petticoat effect myself. Supposing we say that if between now and next June you don't think of anything you want more, we'll have it."

"Oh, you blessed angel! What could I want more?"

"Time will show," the blessed angel replied, retracing his steps toward the house--unaided by angelic wings!

"Yes," Olivia called confidently. "It's the sun-dial that time will show, and afterward--why, the sun-dial will show the time!"--and although he made no sign, she knew there were little puckers of amused approval about her father's mouth.

As if she could ever want anything more than a sun-dial! she thought, while she passed along the borders, harvesting her little crop. She had finished with the hollyhocks, and now she was bending over a bed of withered columbines. And there were the foxglove seeds still clinging. Really, it was almost impossible to keep up. How brilliant the salvia was to-day, and what a brave second blossoming that was of the delphinium, its knightly spurs, metallic blue, gleaming in the sun!

"No," she declared to herself, "there will never be anything so much worth while as the garden. Why, of course there won't; because Nature is the best thing in the world--the very best."

"Plase, ma'am, will ye gimme a bowkay?"

Olivia turned, startled by a voice so near at hand, for she had heard no footfall on the thick turf. There, in the centre of the grass-grown space, stood two comical little midgets, their smutty yet cherubic faces blooming brightly above garments highly coloured and earthy, too, as the autumn garden-beds.

"Dear me!" Olivia laughed, "how things do sprout in a garden! Did you come right up out of the ground?"

"Plase, ma'am, a bowkay! Me mudder's sick an' me fader's goned away."

The speaker, a boy of five, stood holding by the hand something in the way of a sister, about two sizes smaller. At Olivia's little joke, which they did not in the least understand, they had both grinned sympathetically, showing rows of diminutive teeth as white and even as snow-berries.

"Bless your little hearts, of course you shall have a bouquet! Come and choose one,"--and taking a hand of each Olivia led them slowly along the brilliant borders.

They were a bit shy at first, but they soon picked up their courage, and Patsy fell to accumulating a mass of incongruous blossoms whose colours fought each other tooth and nail. Little Biddy, more modest, as beseemed her inferior rank in the scale of being, fixed her heart upon a single flame-flower which absolutely refused to reconcile itself with the ingenuous pink of her calico frock.

"How long has your mother been ill?" Olivia asked of the boy, who by this time was quite hidden behind a perfect forest of asters and larkspur and lobelia cardinalis.

"Me mudder's always sick. She coughs an' coughs, and den she lays on de bed long whiles."

"And she likes flowers?"

"Yes, ma'am; me an' Biddy picked a bowkay outen a ashba'l oncet, an' me mudder sticked it in a tumbler an' loved it. Come, Biddy, make de lady a bow!" Upon which the small Chesterfield stood off a few steps and gave an absurd little bob of a bow which Biddy gravely endeavoured to imitate.

"I think I'll go with you," said Olivia, open-minded as ever to a new interest; and hand in hand and chattering amicably, the three moved across the turf and down the long gravel walk to the dusty street. Surprising how short the distance was between the sweet seclusion of the old tennis-court and the squalid quarter where these little human blossoms grew!

Olivia was thinking of that as she stood on the veranda an hour later, looking down upon the flowery kingdom to which all her interest and ambition had been pledged. Yes, it was lovely, lovely in the long afternoon light, and it would have been lovelier still with the gleaming marble she had dreamed of. She really tried to keep her mind upon it, to forget the little drama over there in the stuffy tenement. But no; she was too good a gardener for that. Was not a whole family broken and wilting for lack of means to transplant it?

The doctor had ordered Mrs. O'Trannon to Colorado, and Mike had dropped his work as "finisher"--whatever that might be--and had gone out to prepare the way for the others to follow. He had found no chance to work at his trade, but he had got a job on a ranch, where the pay was small, but the living good. A fine place it would be for the invalid and the children, when once he could get together the money to send for them. But meanwhile here they were, and the winter coming on.

As Olivia stood looking down upon her beloved garden, she could not seem to see anything but brown stalks and dead blossoms. All that lavish colour looked fictitious and transitory; she had somehow lost faith in it.

Mrs. O'Trannon had been pleased with the flowers; she had grown up on a farm, she said. Sure she never'd ha' got sick at all if she'd ha' stayed where she belonged. But then, where would Mike have been, and the babies? And where would Mike be, and the babies, Olivia thought with a pang,--where would they be if the mother wilted and died? She turned, suddenly, and passed in at the glass doors and on to her father's study.

At sight of the kind, quizzical face lifted at her entrance, Olivia winced a bit. About an hour and a half it must be, since he said it, and he had given her a year! As if that made any difference! she told herself, with a little defiant movement of the chin, as she crossed the room and seated herself at the opposite side of the big writing-table where she could face the music handsomely.

"Well, Olivia; changed your mind yet?" the professor inquired, struck, perhaps, by the resolution of her aspect.

"Yes," she answered, in an impressive tone, "I've thought of something I should prefer to a sun-dial."

Dr. Page took off his glasses and laid them upon his open book. He did not really imagine that she was serious--such a turn-about-face was too precipitate even for Olivia; but it pleased him to meet her on her own ground.

"And what is it this time? A sixty-inch telescope? Or a diamond tiara?"

"Well, no. Those are things I had not thought of--before! It's a kind of gardening project--a little matter of transplanting."

"Will it cost a hundred and fifty dollars?"

"About that, I should think, to do it properly and comfortably. And--it can't wait till June. It's the kind of transplanting that has to be done in the autumn."

Then, dropping the little fiction, and resting her chin upon her folded hands, the better to transfix her father's mocking countenance,--"Papa," she said, "there's a poor family down at the Corners,--our neighbours, you know,--and the mother is dying for want of transplanting, just like the beautiful hydrangea--you remember?--that I didn't understand about till it was too late. I never knew what too late meant, till I saw that splendid great bush lying stone-dead on the ground when we came home from the Adirondacks last year. A great healthy hydrangea dying just for lack of the right kind of soil! And now, here is this good human woman, that might live out her life and bring up her little family, and be happy and useful for years to come. Such a nice woman she must be to name her babies Patsy and Biddy, when she might have called them Algernon and Celestina, you know, and just spoiled it all!--and such a nice, kind husband to take care of her on a big ranch where there's good air, and lots to eat, and plenty of work and not too much, and--why Papa! they might have a garden out there! who knows? What a thing that would be for the prairie! A real New England garden!"

"With a sun-dial?" the professor interposed.

For an instant Olivia's face fell, but only for an instant.

"I've been thinking," she said, with a very convincing seriousness, "that perhaps a sun-dial is not so important, after all. At any rate it's not so important as the mother of a family; now, is it, Papa?"

"That depends upon the point of view," the professor opined. "As a high light among the rose-bushes I should be constrained to give my vote for the sun-dial."

Olivia sprang to her feet.

"That means that you are coming straight over with me to see Mrs. O'Trannon," she cried, "and that you are going to have the whole family packed off to Colorado quicker'n a wink! Come along, please! There's plenty of time before dinner!"

* * * * *

"It's just another of Nature's miracles!" Olivia observed, as she and her father stood one morning in late October watching the workmen pack the sods about the beautiful pedestal, now securely planted upon its base of cement and broken stone. "It always makes me think of the wonderful things that came up in those tin cracker-boxes you used to make such fun of. There really doesn't seem to be any place too unlikely for Nature to set things going in."

The marble was but roughly hewn, in lines that held the suggestion of an hourglass. The top only was smoothly finished, while here and there on the curving sides the hint of a leaf, a blossom, a trailing vine, came and went with the point of view, like cloud-pictures or the pencillings of Jack Frost. It was as if a 'prentice-hand had tried to express the soul of an artist, too self-distrustful to work more boldly.

"Funny, how things come into your head," Olivia went on. "Do you know, Papa, that day when I was helping Mrs. O'Trannon with her preposterous packing and suddenly came upon this miracle hidden away under an old bedquilt, the only thing I could think of was the way my first pentstemons came out, 'white with purple spots,' exactly as I had chosen them by the seed-catalogue. And to think that she had bought it for a dollar of that poor stone-cutter's widow that was moving out--bought it to make pastry on because the top was smooth and cold! And then had never had time to make but one pie in the three years! I wish you could have heard her tell about it. 'Faith, it cost me a dollar, me one pie did, an' Mike says it's lucky it was that I didn't make a dozen whin they come so high! Silly b'y, that Mike!' O Papa, isn't it heavenly that they're together again?"

"So you think there is nothing Nature can't do?" Dr. Page mused, with apparent irrelevance. "How about the sun-dial itself?"

"Oh, Nature will attend to that, too."

"She will, will she? And in what particular tin cracker-box should you look for it to come up?"

"It wouldn't be polite to say," Olivia declared, looking with unmistakable significance straight into her father's face.

"Saucebox!" he chuckled.

And when, in early June, the brass disk of the sun-dial had begun its record of happy hours, and still Olivia toiled with unabated zeal at her garden, the rose of health blooming ever brighter in her face, a great sense of satisfaction and approval took possession of her father's mind. But he only remarked, in a casual manner, as they sat together on the white bench one fragrant sunset hour:

"After all, I'm not sure but Nature's biggest miracle has been performed in the saucebox."

And Olivia, smiling softly, answered: "I told you, you know, that there isn't any place too unlikely for Nature to set things going in!"

[The end]
Anna Fuller's short story: Olivia's Sun-Dial

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