From The book of Stillmeadow

It might seem as if June were an old story, with so much poetry written about it, and so many songs sung. And yet every time it comes it is as much of a wonder, as much of a delight.

If I had Aladdin's lamp and the usual three wishes, the first would always be, "Give me the first day of June." The whole, complete day, with the sky-blue dawn, and the golden noon, and the violet dusk, and the silvered night. With early roses unfolding and a hummingbird over the border. And a whole packet of smells too. New-cut grass, and pea vines, and freshly hoed garden soil.

When I was growing up. June meant the end of school, and going away for the summer to the cottage. Such packing and unpacking and buying of groceries! And when the car was loaded, there was room for everything except me and one large Irish setter. Papa and Mamma were in front, the lunch basket under Mamma's feet. We always started off with a flourish and got as far as Kaukauna before we remembered something had been left behind. Then we drove back madly and retrieved it and started all over again.

Nothing was more wonderful than the first sight of the cottage. Pine needles had drifted over the steps. The water was that deep June blue, which always made me wonder why they called it Green Bay. Timmie would leap from the car and frantically begin on the squirrels. We would go into the cottage and the smell of winter was still there, and the good odor of unpainted pine boards. There was never any dust. Mamma could whisk the newspapers from the kerosene stove and have a hot supper in no time. I always flew into my heavy wool bathing suit and rushed to the shore. The icy water was delicious. It was almost like being born again.

June in New England is like a lover's dream made tangible. color and scent and sound; the hills indeed sing. Dawn comes so fresh and cool, and the dusk flows like a still river into the deep sea of night. Noons are tranquil gold. There is nothing stern or sober about our Northern countryside now; even the grey rock ledges are gently blurred with silvery green lichens, and in the great cracks time has chipped out, a thousand tiny plants get a precarious hold.

Lilacs make their own purple dusk all day, or lift dreamy clusters of pure pearl. Their scent is cool and mysterious. It is surely one of the most romantic smells - it reminds me of old deserted gardens where long-vanished ladies come again to walk in the moonlight.

The white lilacs have a special delicacy, a purity. I always feel too solid when I pick them, and pick them I must! Their odor is even sweeter. I am sure in the moon my unicorn comes on delicate little hoofs to find the place where the white lilacs grow and crop the flowers. I can tell where he has moved, because the leaves are a little swayed aside. his horn is silver and his eyes are amber. A white unicorn feeding on white lilacs would be a fine sight to see.

This morning I ate breakfast with as good company as I wish to see. honey sat by my side, beautiful and golden. Next to her sat Tigger, blacker than ebony. On the table perched Esme with her smoky Siamese coloring and her blue, blue eyes. Star stood on the other side with Pussy beside her. A good recipe for a human reducing breakfast is a lot of good things to eat, and three spaniels and two cats to eat with.

When I get to Heaven, I am not going to put on golden shoes or cast down golden crowns around a glassy sea or play on my harp. No, I am going to eat all the hot bread and potatoes I want. Cinnamon rolls, pinwheel biscuits, nut muffins, French-fried potatoes, baked potatoes, creamy mashed potatoes. Potato fluff. Butter will go well, too. And fresh-made jam. Or clear amber honey.

An all-white bouquet is lovely. So is an all white garden. Last year at the National Flower Show in New York there was a white garden and it seemed perfect. There were tall pearly white tulips, and white massed shrubs-azaleas, I thought -behind them, and white blossoming fruit trees making a background. There were white pansies for the ground cover under the tulips, and the little inner, secret resting place was a frosty white iron Victorian bench. It seemed as if anyone who sat on a wrought-iron bench under the blossoming pear tree might find all her young dreams again.

I learned something about white gardens. There should be one place where a soft color is used, to emphasize the beauty of the white. One shell-pink azalea had been placed in one corner of this garden, and it was echoed in some smaller pink blossoming shrub at the opposite end.

Anyone can make a garden in such a small space that I think all women should have them unless they live in a city apartment. the merest scrap of back yard can make a place of loveliness. I know nothing at all about expert gardening, but I noticed at the flower show that the little gardens all had one central focus, a tiny pool, or a small arbor, or a comfortable place to sit. The lines of planting always led to this center of interest. All the gardens at the show were enclosed, too, by higher shrubs, or low trees.

Of course, if we had that white garden, it would have to be up the hill, outside the fence, and far removed from roving cocker paws. And if we made it far away, when would we get time to sit there and dream? And what would the dogs do, when we shut the gate on them? Their sad songs would penetrate even the stillest and whitest of gardens.

I am glad to get the picnic things out again. There are just two necessities in picnic equipment - lightness and a full quota of forks. It is hard to have a crock full of hot baked beans, for instance, and then find the forks are ten miles away. I don't like to drink baked beans out of a cup, or to spear them with twigs. I packed supper last night in the light wicker hamper. I keep forks, knives, spoons, salt and pepper and sugar, enameled plates and cups, a can opener, a big knife and paper napkins as standard equipment. I use small covered refrigerator boxes for relishes and small salads. larger ones are perfect for meat loaves or larger salads, and they weigh very little.

We ate on a warm grey ledge over eight mile brook. The beans were piping hot, the crock wrapped in newspapers and covered with a bath towel. Brown bread sandwiches went with the beans, and there were radishes and scallions. Hot coffee, hot cocoa, and fresh thin sugar cookies finished the picnic.

We watched the sun go down along the curve of the stream. The world was filled with cool green light and the water shone like pewter. Down the road came a herd of Holsteins, slow and contented, and a boy and a dog came with them. The boy whistled, the dog wagged his tail.

Don came up to eat the last four cookies, and as Cicely and Dorothy were out of sight, he got them.

"When are you going to make doughnuts?" he said, munching happily. The girls came up with handfuls of sweet wild strawberries. Jill, of course, was trying to take a picture of the sunset. It it were good, I reflected idly, it would appear in some salon as Full Moon on the River, or as Dawn in the Country. Pictures seem to work out that way.

There is a special softness to these late spring evenings in Connecticut. Light lingers on the water long after the hills and fields are deep in dusk. The air has a cool deep sweetness, and is not a single scent but a thousand mingled odors. You can smell, too, the evening water.

Putting the hamper back in the car, I saw above the young maples the first star, round and clear. And into my mind came the words of the psalm: "My cup runneth over."

Just then Cicely loped into sight. "Mamma! A snake! Here's a snake!"

And I thought, "Even in Eden!"

From The Book of Stillmeadow

Leisure is no longer a commodity in this time, and we need it. Ladies no longer dress up in flowered frocks and rock on porches in the summer afternoons. They are in blue jeans weeding madly. Men no longer sit with their feet up talking, without rancor, about the fact that the world is in a bad way. Men are fixing things or changing their clothes to go somewhere for something. there are always meetings, Church, school board, Community chest, Red Cross, Cancer Committee, heart fund. Nobody fritters away any time, and of course time is too valuable to fritter.

But the spirit needs renewing and what a renewal a little quiet time can be! One needs to look at the sky, at the countryside. Or in the city, one needs t sit on a park bench half an hour or an hour and just not be doing anything. A good many problems solve themselves if one is quietly looking as the stars come out. Fatigue blows away on the stir of evening air. Even grief is lessened when one sits quietly in the dusk as the fireflies light the meadow.

We busy ourselves too much. now and then the well of our spirit needs time to fill up so we can draw from it again. and when someone says to me that he or she cannot bear to be alone, I always feel sad for it means the level of the well is so low that no bucket can reach it. Also the people who skim like waterbugs over the surface of life are in a bad way when they need spiritual depths to sustain them. But those who are able to have a quiet time for a small piece of the day always find an armor against trouble.

In June, I find it easy to drop everything and sit in the garden and watch the butterflies and admire the opening roses. Suddenly I feel the wideness of the universe and gain a new sense of well-being. My thoughts are not profound. I think about how much the lemon thyme has spread over the flagstones. I think, without anxiety, that we ought to do something about the rose canes next fall. I think the wasps should not gather right under the arm of my chair. But chiefly I am absorbed in just being.

Then, restored, I am ready to shell peas again!

On a June night, the moon steers her silver sail over a quiet sea of sky. lights are on all along the valley. Children, freed from the imaginary horror of homework, skim about in every yard. They are drunk with the vacation ahead which will bore them in a couple of weeks. The leaves are so thick that we only see a faint gleam from our nearest neighbor's house. All winter, when the blizzards are raging, we peer out and say, "Well they are all right, their lights are on so the electric has not gone off yet."

Now we are isolated by the heavy growth of the trees so that we might be islanded in green,. the telephone is our only link with our neighbors and that is chancy for if I lift the receiver, there is often only a loud buzz. but the road is open and no drifts pen us in, so we know we can drive out any minute if we need to. We miss saying the Thompsons must be out at a meeting, or that they have come home and are safely tucked in. But living in a green world has compensations too. I am reminded of Hudsons's Green Mansions, a very social favorite of mine. For we are able to watch birds flying, see rabbits hopping after our carrots, hear every note of the cicadas. The chunk of the frogs down by the pond is clear, not obscured by any traffic or any sound of radios or hi-fi's.

Our country ears and eyes are attuned to the crackling of a twig as some wild neighbor goes by, maybe a 'coon or woodchuck. I sometimes think I can hear things growing on a still night.

I like to open the door just before going to bed, and lean out and listen to the world breathing. June fills the air with sweetness, and the meadow brims with moonlight. And I have a quick sense of the loveliness of summer.

June light is gold as the afternoon lengthens. It is queer that light is never the same in any two seasons. June sun is like a Chinese lantern, warm and richly glowing, but not yet too intense. It is life-giving, and it is dreamy. The hot dry spell is ahead. The trees have a liquid look about their leaves, from thundershowers. The lawn grass is almost too green to be believable. The garden grows overnight. Some of the early lettuce begins to bolt. The rosy chard and spinach have lustrous leaves.

The Japanese beetles have not yet come, so we do not have to spray incessantly. Everything is quite perfect. nights are cool enough for a small fire on the hearth. Days are full of poetry from the first silvery webs on the grass to the fireflies carrying their lanterns in the dark.

The leaves of the spring bulbs begin to turn brown and lie down. But it is a world of blossoming with the roses and the late, late lilacs. It is good shampooing weather for the dogs, for they can roll in clean grass and dry in the sun. The Irish lies flat, paws upheld, and lets the sun bake her.

Neighbors drop in, easing aching backs as they sit down. The talk is of gardens, naturally, and whether we shall get the tomato blight this year. Everyone has a theory and a remedy. The sweet rocket is spreading, someone says, and so it is. It has taken over half of the side yard. Someone else says he will plant potatoes this year, trying for a succession crop. His first planting is up and those will be pearl nuggets, but he wants enough to "put down" because potatoes have been so poor the past few years.

In the pale green light of dusk, the neighbors go home to finish the chores, let the cat out, let the dog out, let the cat in, let the dog in. And after supper, to reach for a bottle of linament for those garden-weary muscles.

Jill gets out the garden encyclopedia and announces the Mimosa tree should eventually be eight feet tall!

From Stillmeadow Sampler

When I watch the June dusk, and see the sky glow with the color of moonstone, and hear a farm wagon creaking down the silvery road, I know how beautiful the world is.

Surely Gibran was right, and sadness is a wall between two gardens.

From The Book of Stillmeadow

Gladys Taber: Page one  / Gladys Taber: Page Two

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