I didn’t spend much time down-town, but I stopped at the post-office and got my mail to read while I waited at the drug-store for Mr. Simmons to put up some of every kind of flower and vegetable grandmother mentioned—­if it was still in stock.  He offered me a book of instructions, which I declined.  I meant to garden by ancestral tendencies.  And while I waited I looked over my letters.  The volume from Peter I put aside to enjoy in a leisure hour, as I felt sure that I knew what was in it; but I opened another thin one that looked as if it might be from him, if he had written it in an unpoetic mood.  It was from Judge Vandyne, and I then understood Peter’s sudden determination to come down and live with Sam for a time, though I don’t believe Peter knew the real reason of it himself.  The judge is a great diplomat, and knows just when and to whom to be frank.  We have always understood each other from the first vacation I spent with Mabel, and I value his confidence highly.  He wrote: 

No man can get a hold on the complex problems of this day and especially the next, who doesn’t go at them with at least some sunburn on his neck and a few horny spots on his hands.  Put Pete at it, you and Sam.  Your description of Sam’s habitation and vocation in letter to Mabel made me feel twenty-five again.  I never had the real thing; but Peter shall.  Ease him along.  If he kicks over the traces let me know.  When are you coming North again?  Soon, I hope,

Your aged admirer,
Peter Vandyne, Sr.

P.S.—­Thought I’d better say that Dr. Herbrick doesn’t like
Peter’s weight—­one sixteen.  You understand.

I wonder what the paternal Keats was like.  I don’t remember, and I must look him up to see.  It’s funny how sturdy-oak fathers can have ferny-mimosa sons.  Mothers can stand producing poets, but it is hard on fathers.  I felt that I must help out Judge Vandyne, and with that resolve I headed Redwheels out along Providence Road.

As I had told mother, the sobs and tears of the April day had been wilfully misleading demonstrations, for by ten o’clock the whole face of nature wore a sun-sweetened smile that was positively entrancing.  The young April world seemed to spring dripping from a bath that glistened all over with crystal water gems.  Winter is staid and dignified and grand with its stark trees and mantle of brown earth, and summer is glowing and glorious; but very young spring is so sappy and curly and yellow and green and lavender that you take it to heart and let it nestle there to suck its pink apple-blow thumb, and curl up its young sprout toes sheltered away from the cold that sets it back and the sun that forces it to break bud.  Sometimes it stays with you a day and sometimes a week and a day, but you can’t hold it back.  You can just be thankful that you had it.  I was.