14. Definition Of Life (1/2)
chapter xiv
when july came hester really started to feel that the summer has started. it could be felt, at last. she did feel the warm air and saw how the trees blossomed a whole month earlier but somehow nothing about summer could be felt just yet, it was as if the soul of the summer was stretched out painfully because of the leaving of phillip and could not come back to its shape for a little while. and it finally did.
when july begun and hester, lily, marion and vance were invited by ada to stay at green gables for one week, hester could eventually feel the summer in the air and she was simply delighted and that delight was refelected in her flushed cheeks and shining hazel eyes of hers. so the girls and selwyn (as he was invited by his friend david) as their "guardian" took a train to avonlea and when they arrived at the doorstep of green gables they all felt the
eeze of summer flying around them and the aura of separating from the stressful life at school to mix in with that
eeze.
di and jack were very welcoming and opened the door to them with wide smiles spreading on their faces. before anyone knew what to say or do, ada and david popped their heads from behind their parents and ada em
aced all of the girls she loved and who loved her back and selwyn shared a
otherly hug with david with the mutual shyness he and david always shared with one another.
"oh, we will have so much fun together!" ada exclaimed when she was still kissing hester's cheek "i have to show you what david and i did in the back of the garden." she then stepped inside the house again and when she realised that nobody quite knew what to do she waved at them hurriedly "come on you all!" she said.
so the whole big group of young people stormed into the old and ancient walls of green gables and quickly ran out to the garden at the back of it, following jolly steps of ada and david. when they finally saw what ada wanted to show them, selwyn looked at hester knowingly, lily looked at marion also knowingly and vance chuckled with ada while holding her hand. there was a tree house on the old cherry tree, the snow queen once called by a red-headed girl without whom nobody from the people standing in that garden on that day would have existed.
"we shall spend our evenings together there." ada announced.
"while eating cookies and cakes until we will all turn too fat to move around!" lily laughed joufully and people around her joined in merrily.
"i wouldn't imagine doing anything else." david said and a small grin filled his jolly young face which looked just like the perfect mixture of di's and jack's facial features.
a wave of laughter filled the warm air again and when the wrights, blythes, fords and one douglas girl started arguing in their funny way who will go up to the tree house first, di and jack observed them from behind the window and chuckled together as if their age had suddenly shrunk back to the age of their those happy children themselves.
"hester, hester, hester…" lily sighed with an air of laziness wondering around her "you know that i never actually thought about it before but oh my, i love your name!" she said to the black-haired girl sitting in front of her, their feet playing their own little fight across the floor of the tree house in the garden of green gables.
it was the sixth day after the "children of glen and four winds" came to avonlea for their holidays and therefore it was the last day of their holiday there. it was a glorious evening with the stars spread across the dark-blue sky, a soft wind blowing from time to time as if it carried messages from one tree to another. the tree house was a very
ight place at that moment, not just because of the two big candle lights that were put inside it but also because of the
ight and jolly people sitting inside the tree house enjoying each other's precious company.
the tree house seemed even
ighter when the people inside it laughed merrily together at the statement lily made. "why, thank you lily." hester said, still chuckling "i do like my name, it isn't plain and it's not too strange either."
"what's wrong with strange names?" lily replied, her face shining with happiness she always carried with her "i love them even more than the normal names!"
everyone laughed together again "would you enjoy being called green or blue then, lily?" asked selwyn with a small grin of amusment on his lips.
"why not?" she said and flipped her red curls to the back "i would love to be called a name which nobody apart from me has."
"that's actually a nice idea." ada agreed "say, why won't we all put our names on pieces of paper then we will put them in a basket, each of us will take out one piece of paper and will have to think of an unusual or maybe even strange..." she glanced for a moment at lily who smiled at her radiantly "-names for that person whom we chose and those names will be our own secret names." she smiled with contentment and looked at each of her friends expectantly.
"i think that's a great idea." hester said excitedly "what does everyone else think?"
"i would like that." marion said.
"seems very fun." vance added with a light grin on her thin lips.
"let's do it!" sewyn and david said at the same time.
so that's what they did. ada ran back to green gables and asked her mother for a basket and piece of paper and a pen, she then came back with those and additional cookies di insisted them to eat. lily then ripped the paper in seven pieces and wrote down all seven names belonging to each of her friends sitting around her with merry smiles lightening their faces.
finally lily put all the pieces of paper into the basket and shook it so they could mix. she then turned her head to face the others and grinned mischievously at them "ada, since you were to suggest this idea, you go first." lily said to the red-haired girl sitting beside her.
ada excitedly took out a piece of paper from the basket "i got… you lily!" she giggled and everyone else followed with cheering, getting excited for the event.