Only Tony Luttrell troubles me, he is so quiet for him; and when he walked home with me, he was as gentle and affectionate to me as if I had been sick.  Could something be the matter with me and I not know it?  I felt like I did when the secret was first stolen two weeks ago, though Roxanne and the Idol seem to have forgotten all about it and nobody else knows.

There is such a lovely moon out over the garden that I can’t put out the light and go to bed, though I saw Roxanne put hers out a half-hour ago.  I wonder why I ever started a record of myself and my friends like I am doing?  But I’m glad I did; for as I turn each leaf of you, leather Louise, things seem to get brighter and happier for me, and as I look at all these clean sheets in the future I wonder what I can find to make them as lovely as the happenings on the others have been.  I’m thankful for the air that makes Mother sleep, and for the moral surroundings for Father, and for the loving-kindness of my fellow-men—­girls and boys—­to me.  Yes, I realize that being beloved is a novelty to me, but I know better than to think it will ever wear off—­the pleasures of it, I mean.  Good-night!

CHAPTER VII

When you live in the city, or various cities, as I have done, you have various things that distract your attention from the miracle that is spreading all over the earth when the spring comes.  Do such things happen every spring, or is it just something that has unblinded my eyes?  Maybe I have really caught that rosy hue habit from Roxanne; but the apple-trees this week have been almost too much for me.  There are great, gnarly, old apple-trees in every spare corner of Byrdsville, where you wouldn’t even expect a tree to be; and ever since I have been in this town I have been finding a new one stretching out its crooked old arms to me as if to welcome me or bar my path.  There is one that grows half in and half out of Judge Luttrell’s yard, so the fence has to consider it a kind of post and stop at it to begin again on the other side, while three of them are trying to completely close up the door of the court-house on the Public Square.  All the streets are bordered with them, set along at ragged intervals with the tall old maples, and all the gardens and yards have regiments of them camped about the doors and walks.

Three nights ago I went to sleep in a nice orderly old town, and I awoke the next morning in the middle of a great white and pink and green bouquet, which must smell up at least to the first of the seven heavens, and which is buzzing so with bees that it sounds like an orchestra getting ready to burst out into some kind of a new, great hymn.  And everybody in Byrdsville is buzzing around in a chorus with the bees, cleaning house and going visiting and shopping at the stores down on the Square.  I am as industriously doing likewise as I can, and have bought things from almost everybody until my brain is feeble from trying to think up things to ask for in the different stores.  Oh, the things I could buy if Roxanne would just let me!