“Well,” he said, proud, yet rather sheepish, “what is there so funny about that? I gave up half a day to it.”
“Funny! It isn’t funny—exactly. You don’t mind my laughing a little? Why, you’ve lived down the fountain pen—we’ll forget the pen—”
“Oh, no, you won’t forget the pen either,” he said, with a certain pleasant grimness.
“Well, perhaps not—of course it would be a pity to forget that. Suppose I say, then, that we’ll always regard the pen in the light of the violet hat-box?”
“I think that might do.” Then he had an alarming afterthought. “But, see here—you won’t expect me to do things like that often?”
“Dear me, no! People can’t live always on their highest levels. Perhaps you’ll _never_ do it again.” Jonathan looked distinctly relieved. “I’ll accept it as a unique effort—like Dante’s angel and Raphael’s sonnet.”
“Jonathan,” I said that evening, “what do you know about St. Anthony of Padua?”
“Well, you ought to. He helped you to-day. He’s the saint who helps people to find lost articles. Every man ought to take him as a patron saint.”
“And do you know which saint it is who helps people to find lost virtues—like humility, for instance?”
“I didn’t suppose you did,” said Jonathan.
It was a little tree-toad that began it. In a careless moment he had come down to the bench that connects the big maple tree with the old locust stump, and when I went out at dusk to wait for Jonathan, there he sat, in plain sight. A few experimental pokes sent him back to the tree, and I studied him there, marveling at the way he assimilated with its bark. As Jonathan came across the grass I called softly, and pointed to the tree.
“And isn’t his back just like bark and lichens! And what are those things in the tree beside him?”
“Yes. After tapping. Uncle Ben used to tap these trees, I believe.”
“Jonathan! I didn’t know these were sugar maples.”
“The whole row? Why, there are ten or fifteen of them! And you never told me!”
“Knew! I don’t know anything—I should think you’d know that, by this time. Do you suppose, if I had known, I should have let all these years go by—oh, dear—think of all the fun we’ve missed! And syrup!”
“Well, then, I’ll _come_ in February. Who’s afraid of February?”
I did. But not in February. Things happened, as things do, and it was early April before I got to the farm. But it had been a wintry March, and the farmers told me that the sap had not been running except for a few days in a February thaw. Anyway, it was worth trying.