alder bloom, the last of the lilacs she had found in a cool,
shaded place, pink filaree, blue lupin, and white mahogany
panicles. "Peter," she cried. "you can't guess what I have been
doing!"

Peter glanced at the flowers.

"Isn't it obvious?" he inquired.

"No, it isn't," said Linda, "because I am capable of two
processes at once. The work of my hands is visible; with it I am
going to decorate your table. You won't have to go down to the
restaurant for your supper tonight because I have brought my
supper up to share with you, and after we finish, you're going to
read me your article as you have rewritten it. I am going to
decorate it and we are going to make a hit with it that will be
at least a start on the road to greater fame. What you see is
material. You can pick it up, smell it, admire it and eat it.
But what I have truly been doing is setting Spanish iris for
yards down one side of the bed of your stream. When I left it
was a foot and a half high Peter, and every blue that the sky
ever knew in its loveliest moments, and a yellow that is the
concentrated essence of the best gold from the heart of
California. Oh, Peter, there is enchantment in the way I set it.
There are irregular deep beds, and there are straggly places
where there are only one or two in a ragged streak, and then it
runs along the edge in a fringy rim, and then it stretches out in
a marshy place that is going to have some other wild things,
arrowheads, and orchids, and maybe a bunch of paint brush on a
high, dry spot near by. I wish you could see it!"