These dispensed their sweet odors so generously that it was a favorite
diversion among the village children to stand in rows outside the fence,
and, elevating their bucolic noses, simultaneously "sniff Miss Cummins'
peas." The garden was large enough to have little hills and dales of its
own, and its banks sloped gently down to the river. There was a gnarled
apple tree hidden by a luxuriant wild grapevine, a fit bower for a
"lov'd Celia" or a "fair Rosamond." There was a spring, whose crystal
waters were "cabined, cribbed, confined" within a barrel sunk in the
earth; a brook singing its way among the alder bushes, and dripping here
and there into pools, over which the blue harebells leaned to see
themselves. There was a summer-house, too, on the brink of the hill; a
weather-stained affair, with a hundred names carved on its venerable
lattices,--names of youths and maidens who had stood there in the
moonlight and plighted rustic vows.

If you care to feel a warm glow in the region of your heart, imagine
little Timothy Jessup sent to play in that garden,--sent to play for
almost the first time in his life! Imagine it, I ask, for there are some
things too sweet to prick with a pen-point. Timothy stayed there
fifteen minutes, and running back to the house in a state of intoxicated
delight went up to Samantha, and laying an insistent hand on hers said
excitedly, "Oh, Samanthy, you didn't tell me--there is shining water
down in the garden; not so big as the ocean, nor so still as the harbor,
but a kind of baby river running along by itself with the sweetest
noise. Please, Miss Vilda, may I take Gay to see it, and will it hurt it
if I wash Rags in it?"

"Let 'em all go," suggested Samantha; "there's Jabe dawdlin' along the
road, and they might as well be out from under foot."