Dear little Tree that we plant today,

What will you be when we are old and gray?



The savings bank of the squirrel and mouse,
For robin and wren, an apartment house.
The dressing room of the butterfly's ball,
The locusts and katydids' concert hall.
The schoolboys' ladder in the pleasant June,
The schoolgirls' tent in the July noon.
And my leaves shall whisper them merrily
A tale of the children, who planted me."
~19th C Anonymous~

In the Secret Garden...

She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed her. But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her with delight that she almost trembled a little.

"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You do! You are prettier than anything else in the world!"





She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail and twittered. It was as if he were talking. His red waistcoat was like satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and like a human person a robin could be. Mistress Mary forgot that she had ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her to draw closer and closer to him, and bend down and talk and try to make something like robin sounds... ~ Frances Hodgson-Burnett~

The first picture is the main house in Leu Gardens. It reminded me of Anne of Green Gables ...

On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of apple trees and one of cherry trees, also showered over with blossoms; and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below were lilac trees purple with flowers, and their drizzly sweet fragrance drifted up to the window on the morning wind...

Anne's beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily in; she had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; but this was as lovely as anything she ever dreamed.

L.M. Montgomery
~Anne of Green Gables~