The Season Beautiful: A Story

THE

SEASON BEAUTIFUL. BY SUSA A. TALMAGE. We met in the hall as I came from sprinkling the flowers* at twilight; I gathered him up in my arms and together we entered the library and cuddled down in the coziest window corner. Then he threw one arm about my neck and rested his head against my face, so that his curls brushed my cheek. "What shall it be tonight, Boy Beautiful?" I asked. He slipped down into my lap. We both rested our elbows on the sill of the open window and looked out across the glimmering lake to the sunset colors above it! Then Boy Beautiful sp 'ke: "The little white cloud is a fairy story—a Japanese story that you read out of the rice paper book; the red cloud shall be a tale of Balder and Loki, and the tiny golden one a story which is really, truly about someone whom you know." Then we watched and waited. The white cloud faded away into a wonderful mist; the red one left nothing but a patch of rose color where it had been, but the little golden one remained deep and brilliant. Then the arm was thrown again abcut my neck, the curls brushed my cheek, and Boy Beautiful began to count, ' 'One, two, three, four—when I say twenty- five you must begin," and when he called the number I was ready with my story. "Once upon a time, Boy Beautiful, not so very long ago, there was a woman who lived in this very country where we live, and she had a great bed of hyacinths outside of her window just as we have; and in the grass of the lawn, and all along the walks, violets bloomed—thousands of them, deep, deep purple and pure

THE SEASON BEAUTIFUL. 445 white ones. The apple trees were all abloom, and the sunset over the lake was wonderful to see. "This woman loved it all. She filled her house with blossoms, and her soul she filled with the springtime spirit and the great joy of living. "Then there came to this woman an April time and a May- time that were even fairer than any other had been. The hya- cinths were richer in their pink and lavender tints; the violets were larger, and the apple blossoms seemed peerless in their great love- liness. The burst of sunset colors, and the gleam of the waters took on a new meaning, until sometimes it seemed that she must cry out from a realization of what it all meant to her. For one had come into her life who was to her the Being Wonder- ful. He was tall and very, very strong, and his eyes were beau- tiful, and his hair was beautiful, and his voice thrilled like the song of the birds in the tree at the woman's window. This man taught her the new meaning of the springtime loveliness. "Then, one night just at sunset, they walked together to their home. The house was filled with blossoms to welcome her, and the perfume of the violets and the hyacinths came in through the open windows. The woman's dress was white and her hat was pushed back and hung by the ribbon strings so that her happy face was raised to her husband, and there, Boy Beautiful, in his eyes she read the meaning of her life. "Then followed many just such springtimes. In one of them you came, Boy Beautiful, in all the glory of the flowers and the sunset; the woman was almost afraid of her own happiness, then. "Then came a different April time and a different May time. The hyacinths lost their beauty, and violets were no longer deep and wonderful; the apple blossoms seemed no more weighted down with the burden of their own charm; and the sunset colors no longer met in glorious abandon, and the waters of the lake lost their glint and sparkle. "The woman saw it all and felt it all, for the springtime had faded in her heart, and her home also; she seemed helpless to bring back what once had been, and because of her own weak- ness she suffered more than anyone can tell. There were other