She was perhaps the only one of all the watchers who did not
applaud, as the eight powerful oxen came slowly down the sunshiny
street, guided by the tall, lean driver who walked beside them, and
dragging the great wagon and its freight of rapturous children.

Only an old hay-wagon, after all; only a team of shabby oxen, such
as a thousand lumber-camps in California might supply; only a score
or more of the ill-nourished, untrained children of the very poor;
but what an enchantment of love and hope and summer-time had been
flung over them all! The body of the wagon was entirely hidden by
exquisite hydrangeas; the wheels were moving disks of the pale pink
and blue blossoms; the oxen, their horns gilded, their polished
hoofs twinkling as they moved, wore yokes that seemed solidly made
of the flowers, and great ropes of blossoms hid the swinging chains.
Over each animal a brilliant cover had been flung; and at the head
of each a young Indian boy, magnificent in wampum and fringed
leather, feathers and beads, walked sedately. The children were
grouped, pyramid-fashion, on the wagon, in a nest of hydrangea
blooms, the pink, and cream, and blue of their gowns blending with
the flowers all about them, the sunlight shining full in their happy
eyes. Over their shoulders were garlands of poppies, roses, sweet-
peas, daisies, carnations, lilies, or other blossoms; their hands
were full of flowers. But it was the radiance of their faces that
shone brightest, after all. It was the little consumptive's ecstatic
smile, as she sat resting against an invisible support; it was the
joy in Mary Scott's thin eager face, framed now in her loosened dark
hair, and with the shadow, like her crutch, laid aside for a while,
that somehow brought tears to the eyes that watched. Santa Paloma
cheered and applauded these forgotten children of hers; and the
children laughed and waved their hands in return.