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It was the Forsythia, the great bush of "yellow bells," of which Horace Bradford had spoken as blooming in advance of any in the neighbourhood, and for a moment I felt as if I were walking into the pages of a story-book. I wielded the heavy brass knocker on the half-door, with diamond-paned glass top, and paused to look off to where the flower and fruit garden sloped south and west.
Then, suddenly sweet as a draught through a fever-tainted room, the squalid city freshened into jocund, luxuriant suburbs with rollicking tennis courts, and flaming yellow forsythia blossoms, and green velvet lawns prematurely posied with pale exotic hyacinths and great scarlet splotches of lusty tulips.
May I have a sprig of that, too?" and he reached over a big-boned hand to where the greenhouse-bred wands of yellow Forsythia were laid in a formal pattern bordering the paths. "That is the first flower that I remember.
Snowdrop, crocus, hepatica, and coltsfoot, wild honeysuckle, were all about, the forsythia flared out her saucy yellow, the fruit buds swelled. Parties were out in the woods hunting trailing arbutus that has been called the darling of northern skies, that lies hidden in its nest of green leaves, silent, with no wind tossing it to and fro, but betrayed by its sweetness.
"There is the weigelia that Dorothy has in front of this house; and forsythia we forced its yellow blossoms last week, you know; and the flowering almond that has whitey-pinky-buttony blossoms." They laughed at Ethel's description, but they listened attentively while she described the spiky white blossoms of deutzia and the winding white bands of the spiraea bridal wreath.
Hit ain' right ter take de Greenwood cyarpets an' curtains, an' my tablecloths an' de blankets an' sheets an' Ole Miss's fringed counterpanes no'm, hit ain't right eben if de ginerals do sequesterate supplies! How de house gwine look when marster come home?" Molly entered with her knitting. "The forsythia is in bloom! Aunt Lucy, please show me how to turn this heel.
After this they resumed their walk, strolling on with the slowness of unaccustomed holiday-makers from one path to another through budding shrubberies, past grass-banks sprinkled with lilac crocuses, and under rocks on which the forsythia lay like sudden sunshine.
Then: "I walked down this street to Fort Greene this afternoon," she began, "and the little rocky park was so sweet and fragrant with dogwood and Forsythia and new buds everywhere. And I looked out over the rivers and the bay and over the two cities and, Steve, somehow I don't know why I found my eyes filling with tears. I don't know why, Steve "
They drove or rode away, through the April night, by the forsythia and the flowering almond, between the towering oaks, over the bridge with a hollow sound. Those left behind upon the Greenwood porch, clustered at the top of the steps, between the white pillars, stood in silence until the noise of departure had died away.
The big gold bushes of the Forsythia were masses of yellow bloom; crocuses popped up through the grass; a few birds had begun to sing, and the sun shone as if with a settled determination to push the spring ahead as fast as he could. Moreover it was Saturday, which was the best proof of all, of an intelligent and well-behaved Spring.
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