`` That was n't my fault , '' laughed Anne . `` If my parents had consulted me it would never have happened then . I should have chosen to be born in spring , of course . It must be delightful to come into the world with the mayflowers and violets . You would always feel that you were their foster sister . But since I did n't , the next best thing is to celebrate my birthday in the spring . Priscilla is coming over Saturday and Jane will be home . We 'll all four start off to the woods and spend a golden day making the acquaintance of the spring . We none of us really know her yet , but we 'll meet her back there as we never can anywhere else . I want to explore all those fields and lonely places anyhow . I have a conviction that there are scores of beautiful nooks there that have never really been SEEN although they may have been LOOKED at . We 'll make friends with wind and sky and sun , and bring home the spring in our hearts . '' `` It SOUNDS awfully nice , '' said Diana , with some inward distrust of Anne 's magic of words . `` But wo n't it be very damp in some places yet ? '' `` Oh , we 'll wear rubbers , '' was Anne 's concession to practicalities . `` And I want you to come over early Saturday morning and help me prepare lunch . I 'm going to have the daintiest things possible ... things that will match the spring , you understand ... little jelly tarts and lady fingers , and drop cookies frosted with pink and yellow icing , and buttercup cake . And we must have sandwiches too , though they 're NOT very poetical . '' Saturday proved an ideal day for a picnic ... a day of breeze and blue , warm , sunny , with a little rollicking wind blowing across meadow and orchard . Over every sunlit upland and field was a delicate , flower-starred green .
Mr. Harrison , harrowing at the back of his farm and feeling some of the spring witch-work even XXXXX his sober , middle-aged blood , saw four girls , basket laden , tripping across the end of his field where it joined a fringing woodland of birch and fir .
Over across although at for in of since that though