XXVIThe lilacs, growing bold too long, had over-reached themselves. In their eighteen years since Nellie had planted them, they had grown faster than Nat, now nearly as tall as his father. The mass of lavender pannicles made a hanging garden of its own, the fragrance almost too much of a sweetness, so that Ase Linden shook his head to free his nostrils. Slyly, through the years, the lilacs had sent out insidious suckers. Ase saw with surprise that the young shoots had not only encroached on a portion of the graveled driveway and on the smooth lawn, but were flourishing in a veritable thicket beyond the west fence, and into the field which he planned to plant this spring to buckwheat.
He brought a grubbing hoe and set to work to rout them out. They were tough, resistant. He felt the landsm
