Half an hour later I stood before the cottage, set
primly in the center of a great lot that extended for
half a square on all sides. A winter-sodden, bare enough
sight it was in the gray of that March day. But it was
not long before Alma Pflugel, standing in the midst of it,
the March winds flapping her neat skirts about her ankles,
filled it with a blaze of color. As she talked, a row of
stately hollyhocks, pink, and scarlet, and saffron,
reared their heads against the cottage sides. The chill
March air became sweet with the scent of heliotrope, and
Sweet William, and pansies, and bridal wreath. The naked
twigs of the rose bushes flowered into wondrous bloom so
that they bent to the ground with their weight of crimson
and yellow glory. The bare brick paths were overrun with
the green of growing things. Gray mounds of dirt grew
vivid with the fire of poppies. Even the rain-soaked
wood of the pea-frames miraculously was hidden in a hedge
of green, over which ran riot the butterfly beauty of the
lavender, and pink, and cerise blossoms. Oh, she did
marvelous things that dull March day, did plain German
Alma Pflugel! And still more marvelous were the things
that were to come.
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