It is rather sad that even dreams go, as well as actualities.

However, the sister seemed not to mind so very much.
Very little, except the pleasure which she took in watching the cherry-tree, gave evidence that she lamented anything that she had lost or merely missed in life.

In general she had an air of such utter placidity and acquiescence that it almost amounted to numbness.
The book-keeper at this time of year scratched away every evening with a hoe and trowel in his half of the backyard, where he was making a tiny garden-patch.
The garden represented to him, as the tree did to his sister, his one ladder by which his earthly dreams might climb higher.

One night he came home and there were three green spears of corn piercing the mould, and he fairly chuckled.
"The corn has come up," said he.
"So it has," said his sister.
A widow woman and her son, who worked in one of the great retail stores, lived down-stairs in the building.

The young man, rather consequential but interested, strolled out in the backyard and surveyed the corn.