Where Lilacs Still Bloom Read Online Free PDF Page A

Berringer.” Bill leaned into the dark cab and offered his hand before the driver could.
    Shelly placed her fingers in his palm, and he closed his hands around the warm flesh. She hadn’t worn gloves. “Welcome.” His words didn’t quell the look of surprise when Shellyput her foot out on the step and he saw the tops of her black high-button shoes and a hemline barely reaching the top of them. She exposed a portion of striped-stocking-covered leg the width of a mum above her shoes.
    “Your … dress,” Bill gasped.
    “I hope you like it. It’s the rage for casual wear, like picnics. Which is what we’re having, isn’t it, Mr. Snyder?”
    “A picnic? Well …”
    “I mean, we are having brunch in your fabulous garden you said. I’m sure it will be fabulous.”
    “As are you. I … I didn’t expect—”
    “The reform dress?” Shelly finished for him. She’d chosen a black-and-white skirt whose hemline came a good foot above the ankle now that she stood. She wore no bustle, no corset but a wide belt and a loose white blouse with a scoop neckline trimmed in two black rows of ribbon. She carried a small straw hat. It was the latest in women’s fashion—suffrage fashion. Not at all the gossamer yellow he’d seen her in when they’d first met.
    “I’ve never actually seen the garb on a person, but I’ve read of it.”
    “And the consternation it can cause in certain social circles.” Shelly smiled at him. Would he meet her test?
    “Yes, circles visited by my mother and friends.”
    “You said you liked an independent woman, Mr. Snyder.”
    “I do.” He smiled then. “I’m glad to see you are one.”
    He put his elbow out for her to take, and they began walking toward the cab he’d hired for the drive from the stage stop to his estate.
    “What are we having for lunch?” Shelly wanted to sing with joy that he’d so graciously accepted her uniform of the day.
    “Watercress and cucumber sandwiches, a fruit aspic, and perhaps a chocolate mousse. Do those appeal?”
    “They do, they do. Your mother will join us?”
    “Alas, just as your aunt had complications, so did my mother. She was called away suddenly, so I didn’t have time to let you know you’d be with me unchaperoned.”
    “My aunt didn’t really have other plans today … I never let her know.”
    Bill squeezed her arm as he helped her into the cab. “My mother, too, had planned to be gone. I never let—”
    “Ah, then another day they’ll be introduced to our reforming ways.”
    “They will indeed.” He patted her hand, skin to skin. “I hope you like chrysanthemums,” Bill said then. “I’ve a centerpiece of yellow ones.”
    “I’m partial to lilacs myself.” He had blue eyes that Shelly began to sink into.
    She sneezed as they stepped out of the cab and approached Bill’s garden. “Those mums just don’t like me. They just don’t like me, Mr. Snyder.”
    “Never mind about them. I like you.” He leaned closeto her ear. “We’ll move them. Better yet, we’ll move the luncheon.”
    “But I want to see your garden.”
    “You will, you will,” Bill said, and Shelly noted he repeated words just as she did. “To the front lawn. We’ll have lemonade and sandwiches there and give the neighbors news to tell my mother when she returns.”
    “I like a man who can adapt,” Shelly said.
    “The strongest plants always do.”



S IX

S ALACIOUS J OY
Hulda, 1901
    F rank painted a sign that said Daffodil Farm and stuck it near the road that passed the house. People often stopped by on a Sunday afternoon in spring to look at the wash of yellow. I’d cut stems, and the children would put them in water, and we’d give bouquets away. In the fall, people returned, and I’d give them bulbs to plant. I took such pleasure in walking past a neighbor’s house to see yellow bobbing daffodils or tulips I recognized by hue as mine.
    Delia, my middle girl, cut lilac blooms too, in season, and we gave starts away. The