get out on the rocks or the fields or the water and spout them." Captain Jim had come up that afternoon to bring Anne a load of shells for her garden, and a little bunch of sweet-grass which he had found in a ramble over the sand dunes. "It's getting real scarce along this shore now," he said. "When I was a boy there was a-plenty of it. But now it's only once in a while you'll find a plot-and never when you're looking for it. You jest have to stumble on it-you're walking along on the sand hills, never thinking of sweet-grass-and all at once the air is full of sweetness-and there's the grass under your feet. I favor the smell of sweet-grass. It always makes me think of my mother." "She was fond of it?" asked Anne. "Not that I knows on. Dunno's she ever saw any sweet-grass. No, it's because it has a kind of motherly perfume-not too young, you understand-something kind of seasoned and wholesome and dependable-jest like a mother. The schoolmaster's bride always kept it among her handkerchiefs. You might put that little bunch among yours, Mistress Blythe. I don't like these boughten scents-but a whiff of sweet-grass belongs anywhere a lady does." Anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea of surrounding her flower beds with quahog shells; as a decoration they did not appeal to her on first thought. But she would not have hurt Captain Jim's feelings for anything; so she assumed a virtue she did not at first feel, and thanked him heartily. And when Captain Jim had proudly encircled every bed with a rim of the big, milk-white shells, Anne found to her surprise that she liked the effect.
( L.M. Montgomery )
[ The Anne Stories (Anne of ]
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