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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56526 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE GARDEN GREW
+
+BY
+
+MAUD MARYON
+
+    "Mary, Mary, quite contrairy,
+        How does your garden grow?"
+
+
+_With Four Illustrations by Gordon Browne_
+
+
+LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+
+39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
+
+NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
+
+1900
+
+
+
+To
+
+HIS REVERENCE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                            PAGE
+
+ SEASON I.--WINTER            3
+
+ SEASON II.--SPRING          71
+
+ SEASON III.--SUMMER        127
+
+ SEASON IV.--AUTUMN         191
+
+ INDEX                      253
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                            PAGE
+
+ WINTER                       2
+
+ SPRING                      70
+
+ SUMMER                     126
+
+ AUTUMN                     190
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WINTER]
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE GARDEN GREW
+
+SEASON I
+
+Winter
+
+"Now is the winter of my discontent."
+
+
+I have not had charge of my garden very long; and I am not sure that I
+should have undertaken such a charge had there been anyone else to do
+it. But there was no one else, and it so obviously needed doing.
+
+Of course there was the gardener--I shall have to allude to him
+occasionally--but just now I will only mention the fact that his
+greatest admirer could not have accused him of _taking care_ of the
+garden.
+
+Then there was his Reverence; he was by way of being in charge of
+everything, me included, I suppose, and of course nominally it was so.
+He had the parish and the church, and the rectory and his family, and
+the men-servants and the maid-servants, a horse and a pony _and_ the
+garden! He managed most things well, I will say, and the kitchen garden
+gave some account of itself, but in the flower garden desolation cried
+aloud.
+
+I was moved one day to say I thought it disgraceful. "There are
+no flowers anywhere; nothing but some semi-red geraniums and some
+poverty-stricken calceolarias and scraggy lobelias. We have none of
+those nice high blue things, what do you call them? or those yellow
+round things with red fringes, like daisies, which are not daisies; we
+have no sweet-Williams even, though they are the sort of flowers that
+grow in every _cottage_ garden!"
+
+There was a twinkle in his Reverence's eye.
+
+"You seem to know a good deal about flowers, Mary; I can't even follow
+your descriptions. I try my best with the carrots and onions. You must
+acknowledge you have vegetables."
+
+"Oh, vegetables!" I cried with a tone of contempt.
+
+"Yes, vegetables! You don't seem to despise them at dinner."
+
+"No, but vegetables! Anyone can buy vegetables."
+
+"Anyone can buy flowers, I suppose, if they have the money to spend."
+
+"They can't buy the look of flowers in the garden," I argued; "that is
+what one wants; not a few cut things on the table."
+
+"Well, I spend," began his Reverence, and then paused, and looked
+through a little drawer of his table that contained account-books.
+
+An idea struck me. I waited eagerly for his next words.
+
+"Let me see," continued his Reverence, running his eye down long rows
+of figures. "Ah! here is one of last year's bills for seeds, etc. Just
+on ten pounds, you see, and half of that certainly was for the flower
+garden. There were new rose trees."
+
+"They are mostly dead. Griggs said it was the frost," I interpolated.
+
+"And some azaleas, I remember."
+
+"They don't flower."
+
+"And bulbs."
+
+"Oh! Griggs buried _them_ with a vengeance."
+
+"Well, anyway, five pounds at least was--"
+
+"Was wasted, sir; that is what happened to that five pounds. Now, look
+here."
+
+His Reverence looked.
+
+"Give me that five pounds."
+
+"That particular one?"
+
+"Of course not. Five pounds, and I will see if I can't get some flowers
+into the garden. Five pounds! Why, my goodness, what a lot of things
+one ought to get with five pounds. Seeds are so cheap, sixpence a
+packet I have heard; and then one takes one's own seeds after the first
+year. Come, sir, five pounds down and every penny shall go on the
+garden."
+
+"Dear me! but according to you five pounds is a great deal too much.
+I can't say that it has produced very fine results under Griggs's
+management; but at sixpence a packet!"
+
+"No, sir, it is not too much really," I said gravely. "I shall have to
+buy a heap of things besides seeds, I expect. But you shall see what I
+will do with it. I want that garden to be full of flowers."
+
+His Reverence looked out of the study window. It was a bleak, windy day
+towards the end of November. A few brown, unhappy-looking leaves still
+hung on the trees; but most of them, released at last, danced riotously
+across the small grass plot in front of the old red brick house, until
+they found a damp resting-place beneath the shrubbery. The border in
+front looked unutterably dreary with one or two clumps of frost-bitten
+dahlias and some scrubby little chrysanthemums.
+
+"Full of flowers!" The eye of faith was needed indeed.
+
+"I don't mean before Christmas," I added, following his Reverence's
+eye. "But there are things that come out in the spring, you know, and
+perhaps they ought to be put in now. Is it a bargain?"
+
+"Yes, Mary, it shall be a bargain. Here is the fiver. Don't waste it,
+but make the best of that garden. You had better consult old Griggs
+about bulbs and such-like. There ought to be some. I don't think the
+few snowdrops I saw can represent all I bought."
+
+"They never came up. I know they didn't. I believe he planted them
+topsy-turvy. I suppose there is a right side up to bulbs, and if so,
+Griggs would certainly choose the wrong. It's his nature. Can't we get
+rid of him, sir? Isn't there any post besides that of gardener which he
+might fill?"
+
+His Reverence will not always take my words of wisdom seriously.
+
+"What, more posts! Why, he is clerk and grave-digger and bell-ringer!
+Would you like me to retire in his favour?"
+
+"_I_ am speaking seriously, Father. If anything is to be made of this
+garden it can't be done whilst that old idiot remains here."
+
+"I fear he must remain here. I have inherited him. His position is as
+firm as mine."
+
+"Not as gardener!"
+
+"No; but he can't live on his other earnings. No, Mary, put your best
+foot foremost and make something of old Griggs and the garden and the
+five pounds. And now take this bulb catalogue. I have not had time to
+look it through, and perhaps it may not be too late to get some things
+in for the spring. But don't spend all the five pounds on bulbs," he
+shouted after me as I left the study.
+
+And so I plunged into gardening, a very Ignoramus of the Ignorami,
+and what is herein set down will be written for the edification,
+instruction, warning and encouragement of others belonging to that
+somewhat large species.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I opened the bright-coloured catalogue. Oh! what fascination lurks in
+the pages of a bulb catalogue. The thick, highly-glazed leaves turn
+with a rich revelation on both sides. It scarcely needs the brilliant
+illustrations to lift the imagination into visions of gorgeous beauty.
+Parterres of amazing tulips, sheets of golden daffodils, groups of
+graceful, nodding narcissus, the heavy, sweet scent of hyacinths comes
+from that glorious bloom "excellent for pot culture"; and here in more
+quiet letters grow the early crocus--yellow, white, blue and mixed--and
+snowdrops. Ah! snowdrops, coming so early, bringing the promise of all
+the rich glory that is to follow. And scillas, aconites, chionodoxa or
+"Glory of the Snow"!
+
+What were all those lovely, to me half unheard-of names that could be
+had for two shillings and sixpence, three shillings or four shillings
+and sixpence a hundred? They bloomed in February and March, they were
+hardy and throve in any soil. Oh! how they throve in the pages of that
+catalogue.
+
+And anemones! My mind rushed to the joys of the Riviera, revealed in
+occasional wooden boxes, mostly smashed, sent by friends from that land
+of sunshine, and whose contents, when revived, spoke of a wealth of
+colour forever to be associated with the name of anemone. To grow them
+myself, rapture! "Plant in October or November." It was still November;
+they must be ordered at once, "double," "mixed," "single," "fulgens";
+they were "dazzling," "effective," "brilliant," and began to flower in
+March.
+
+I was plunged into a happy dream of month succeeding month, bringing
+each with it its own glory of radiant bloom, very much after the manner
+of Walter Crane's picture-books. Life was going to be well worth living.
+
+So now to make my first list and secure all this treasure for the
+coming beautiful flower-laden year.
+
+I made a list; and then, mindful of the limited nature of even five
+pounds and all that would be required of it, I made up a long row of
+figures. This gave me an ugly jar.
+
+Flowers should be given freely and graciously, not bought and sold, to
+everyone by everyone for the promotion of beauty and happiness upon
+earth. Any good Government should see to this. But present arrangements
+being so defective, I had to remodel my list considerably. I cheered up
+with the thought, however, that bulbs were not annuals, but on their
+own account, so I had heard, grew and multiplied quietly in the earth.
+
+What could have become of those planted by Griggs last year? Did worms
+eat bulbs?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I wandered round the garden, seeing possibilities and refusing to be
+depressed by the sadness of sodden grass, straggling rose branches bare
+of beauty, heavy earth that closed in dejected plants, weeds or what
+not; I saw them all with new eyes and scanned them closely. Did they
+mean flowers? Down in their hearts could those poor draggled, tangled
+specimens dream of radiant blooms turned to the sun? I had not studied
+my garden before; there were prisoners in it. Care and attention, the
+right food and freedom, should bring new beauties to light. I had
+grumbled and growled for over two years at the hopelessness of it,
+and at the dearth of flowers for house decoration. Now all was to be
+changed; the garden was to be beautiful! I thought of that catalogue.
+
+Griggs was digging in the kitchen garden; not hard, not deep, still,
+no one could say he was unemployed. He was himself very muddy, and gave
+one the idea of working with all parts of his person except his brains.
+My former interviews with him had been short if not sweet; but there
+was no open quarrel.
+
+He paused as I stood near him, wiping his spade with his hands, kicking
+at the clods of earth round him as though they were troublesome.
+
+"Is that for potatoes?" I asked, wishing to show not only interest but
+knowledge.
+
+He tilted his cap to one side and viewed the bare expanse of upturned
+earth.
+
+"Oi 'ad taters in 'ere last; thought oi'd dig it a bit. Diggin' allays
+comes in 'andy."
+
+"Oh, yes;" and then I made a fresh start. "I wanted to know about those
+bulbs you planted last autumn. Did they come up?"
+
+This was evidently an awkward question.
+
+"Bulbs! Oh, there wur a few wot the Rector give me some toime back lars
+year. They didn't come to much. Never knows with bulbs, you don't!"
+
+"Oh! but bulbs ought to come up."
+
+"Some on 'em do, some times. Don't 'old myself with them furrin koinds."
+
+"What, not with Dutch bulbs? Why, they grow the best kind in Holland."
+
+"Maybe they do; over there. P'haps this soil didn't soute 'em. Wot I
+found diggin' the beds I put in them two round beds on the lawn. They
+wasn't no great quantity. Most on 'em perished loike, it 'pears to me."
+
+"Perhaps you did not put them in right," I ventured. "How deep should
+you plant them?"
+
+Oh! how ignorant I was. I did not feel even sure that I knew the right
+side up of a bulb.
+
+Griggs gave a hoarse chuckle.
+
+"They don't need to go fur in; 'bout so fur," and he made a movement
+that might indicate an inch or a yard; "but there's lots o' contrairy
+things that may 'appen to bulbs same as to most things. En'mies is wot
+there is in gardins, all along o' the curse."
+
+Griggs was clerk; he never forgot that post of vantage. He looked at
+me as he said the word "curse." I wondered if his mind had made the
+connection between Eve and her daughter. But to return to the bulbs.
+Were worms the enemies in this particular case?
+
+I knew they buried cities and raised rocks, and were our best diggers
+and fertilisers, because I had once read Darwin on the subject; but
+were they the enemies of bulbs?
+
+"I am going to take the garden in hand a bit," I said after a pause. "I
+think it needs it."
+
+"Well, I could do wi' a bit o' elp," and he wiped more mud from his
+spade to his hands, and from his hands to his trousers, and then back
+again, until I wondered what his wife did with him when she got him
+home. "But I reckon a boy 'ud be more 'andy loike. There's a lot o'
+talk," he added, half to himself.
+
+I remembered with a feeling of pain how our old cook and factotum had
+received the news that I was taking cooking lessons in much the same
+spirit; but my newly-found energy was not going to be suppressed by
+Griggs.
+
+"I am going to order some more bulbs," I began.
+
+"Ah! you might do _that_. The gardin needs things puttin' into it,
+that's what it needs."
+
+I looked at him sternly. "And things taken out of it too. I never knew
+such a place for weeds."
+
+"No more didn't I. It's fearful bad soil for weeds; but maybe if there
+warn't so much room for 'em they'd get sort of crowded out."
+
+"You have been here a good many years," I said, not without an
+afterthought.
+
+"Yes; that's wot I 'ave been. I come first in ole Mr Wood's time; 'e
+was a 'and at roses, 'e was; somethin' loike we 'ad the place then, me
+an' 'im. Then Mr 'Erbert took it, that's when ole Woods, 'is father as
+'twere, doied. But 'e didn't stay long; went fur a missunairy 'e did to
+them furrin parts and never come back, 'e didn't neither. Then come Mr
+Cooper, ten years, no, 'levin, he was 'ere and never did a bit to the
+gardin; took no interes', no cuttin's, no seeds, no manure, no nothink.
+That's 'ow the weeds overmastered us."
+
+"But at least you might have dug up the weeds."
+
+"Allays callin' me away for some'ot, they was. The Bath chair for 'is
+sister as lived with 'im, allays some'ot. Talk o' gardinin'! The weeds
+just come."
+
+Then his tone brightened a bit; the Bath chair had been an unpleasing
+retrospect.
+
+"But if the Rector looks to spend a bit, we might get some good stuff
+in." A pause, and a searching look at the setting sun. "I must be
+going. Got a bit to see to up at my place. Can't never git round with
+these short days."
+
+Griggs collected his implements and with fine independence walked off,
+giving me a backward nod and a "Good evenin', miss. We could do wi' a
+few bulbs and such loike."
+
+I was to divide Griggs's time with his Reverence, but Griggs seemed
+quite able to dispose of it himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I opened a strong wooden box with much interest and examined the
+result of my first venture in bulbs. Brown paper bags full of little
+seeds in which were carefully packed the firm dry brown roots, big
+and little, round and oblong. How wonderful that these "dead bones"
+should be capable of springing up into the glories of sight and
+smell foretold by my catalogue. This withered brown ball a hyacinth!
+unfolding, unfolding, until green tips, broadening leaves, and at last
+a massive crown of flowers appear. And the magician's wand to work this
+transformation? Just the good old brown earth, the common rain, and the
+wonderful work-a-day sun.
+
+I was soon busy in the garden depositing my various bulbs in heaps
+where I intended them to be buried.
+
+I called Griggs and requested suitable tools for the work.
+
+"I am going to plant daffodils under these trees," I said; "and I want
+you to take that bag of crocuses and put them in all over the grass in
+front. Put them anywhere and everywhere, like the daisies grow."
+
+"What! front of the Rector's winder?"
+
+"Yes; all over."
+
+"'Ow many 'ave you got 'ere?"
+
+"Three hundred; but they don't take long planting."
+
+"'Ope not! I've got a good bit else to to do; can't fiddle faddle over
+them."
+
+"Put them in the right side up. I want them to grow," I called after
+his retreating figure. Then I eyed my pile of bulbs.
+
+Of course I did know the right side up of a bulb; of course everybody
+did; and if anyone was likely to make a mistake it was surely Griggs,
+so it was clearly no use asking him. Nice brown thing, why had you not
+given just one little green sprout as the crocuses and snowdrops had
+done, so that there _could_ be no mistake? And what would happen if
+they were planted topsy-turvy? Could they send up shoots from anywhere
+they chose? or would the perversity of such a position be too much
+for their budding vitality? I did not wish to try the experiment; my
+daffodils _must_ make their appearance next March. I ranged them out
+in broad circles under one or two trees, in patches at the corner of
+projecting borders, and walked away to see the effect from different
+points; the effect, not of brown specks, but of sheets of gold that
+were to be.
+
+His Reverence found me with my head on one side taking in the future
+from the drawing-room windows.
+
+"You seem very busy, Mary."
+
+"I am. You see, it is a great thing to place them where they can stay.
+I like permanent things. It will be lovely, won't it, to see that
+golden patch under the mulberry tree and another at the corner there;
+and then under the chestnut just a sheet of white?"
+
+"Oh, lovely! And what kind of sheet or wet blanket is old Griggs
+preparing for my eyes in front?"
+
+"Oh, the old owl! I must run and see he is doing as I told him. You
+might be useful, sir, for a bit, mightn't you? and begin popping in
+those daffodils under that tree exactly as I have arranged them. I will
+be back directly."
+
+His Reverence loved walking round with a tall spud prodding up weeds,
+but it was a new idea to set him to work in other ways. I left him for
+some time and came back with a heated face.
+
+"Just imagine! Oh, really, sir, we can't go on with
+that--that--unutterable idiot! He won't do as he is told. What do you
+think he was doing? I told him to plant all that front piece of grass
+with crocuses, you know--told him as plainly as I could speak--and
+there he was burying my crocuses, by handfuls I think, in the border."
+
+"Oh, well, he doesn't understand your ideas, you see, Mary; he has not
+seen them carried out yet."
+
+"Oh, but he did understand, only he said it would take longer to plant
+them in the grass and they would come up better in the border. 'I want
+that for tulips,' I said, and stood over him while he unburied all he
+had done. Then he said, 'Can't stand cuttin' up the grass like this;
+better put 'em straight 'long that shady border there, give a bit o'
+colour to it.' 'I want them here, in the grass,' I said. 'And how
+'bout my mowing? I shall cut 'em to pieces.' That was a bright idea,
+he thought. 'You don't begin mowing until after the crocuses are well
+over; that won't hurt.' And now I have spread them all over the lawn
+myself and left him to put them in. He can't make any further mistake I
+hope."
+
+His Reverence was laughing. Old Griggs amused him much more than he did
+me.
+
+"How many have you done?" I asked, and I looked at the still unburied
+bulbs. "Why, sir--"
+
+"I have done two, Mary, really; but look at this pile of plantains! Oh,
+these horrid things! you must clear the garden of them."
+
+"I can't," I said sternly. "There is too much else to do. What we want
+is colour, flowers everywhere. The plantains are green so they don't
+disturb the harmony. But you may take them up if you like."
+
+"Colour! harmony! If you talk to old Griggs like that he will think you
+are mad. And, Mary, you bought _all_ these bulbs? Remember there is the
+spring and summer to be reckoned with. How much has gone?"
+
+"Two pounds. It ought to have been twenty. Seeds are cheaper, you
+know. I must do a lot with seeds, I find. But bulbs go on, that is the
+comfort of them. They will be there for always!"
+
+"Well, I won't interfere. Don't bully my old Griggs." And his Reverence
+walked off.
+
+I proceeded, yes, I will confess it, carefully to open up one of the
+bulbs he had planted. Yes, there it was, it had its point upward. Oh!
+I hoped he really knew. And so all the others were placed snugly in
+their narrow beds, and patted down with a kind of blessing. "Wake up
+soon and be glorious, brilliant, effective."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were hours of deep dejection after all my planting was done. It
+was December, and so much ought to have been done in November, October,
+and even September. In fact, I ought to have begun nine months ago. And
+those nine months could not be caught up for another year, depressing
+thought! Wallflowers, polyanthus, forget-me-nots, sweet-Williams, all
+the dear, simple things of which I wanted masses, instead of the one or
+two stalky bushes that grew down a long herbaceous border, all these
+should have begun their career, it appeared, last February or March if
+I wanted them to flower next spring. I must wait. I had not set out on
+my gardening experience to learn patience, it is always being rubbed
+into one; but I warn you, O brother or sister Ignoramus! that of all
+stocks you will need patience the most.
+
+My garden was now a white world. Snow buried everything: hopes and
+depressions were equally hidden. A fine time for castle-building, for
+hurrying through the seasons and imagining how many treasures ought to
+be, might be, should be hidden beneath that cold, pure coverlid and
+warmly, snugly nestling in Mother Earth's brown bosom. What energy must
+be at work, what pushing, struggling, expanding of little points of
+life downwards, upwards, until they burst into resurrection with little
+green hands folded as in thanksgiving.
+
+In the meantime I turned to books, on gardening, of course. My
+new "fad," as the Others called it, having announced itself in
+plenty of time for Christmas, my pile of gifts presented a most
+learned appearance. This was my first taste of that fascinating
+literature. His Reverence had handed over to me a brown-clad work
+on gardening--somewhat ancient I must say--at the beginning of my
+enterprise. I had scanned it critically and compared it to an ordinary
+cookery-book in which recipes are given, and unless you are already
+familiar with the art you are continually faced with difficulties. The
+cookery-books tell one to "make a white sauce of flour, butter and
+milk," but how? Wherein lies the mystery of that delicately-flavoured,
+creamy substance or that lumpy kind of paste? Just so my regular
+handbook to gardening. For example:--
+
+"They vary very much in habit, but should be of easy cultivation. The
+compost required is rich, deep and moist. Any sourness in the soil will
+be fatal to flowering. When planting supply liberally with manure, and
+occasionally mulch in dry weather."
+
+But what did it all mean? How test the soil and the sourness which
+would be fatal to flourishing? The proof of the pudding would be in the
+eating, but how prevent any tragic consequences?
+
+But these other books, this literature on gardening! They are generally
+better than the garden itself. Practical they are not, but why ask it
+of them? They are the seductive catalogue turned into finest art. One
+wanders with some sweet, madonna-like lady of smooth fair hair, mild
+eyes and broad-brimmed hat, or with a courtly parson of the old school,
+in a garden where the sun always shines. Green stretches of lawn (no
+plantains), trees grouped from their infancy to adorn and shade and
+be the necessary background to masses of flowering shrubs. Through
+rockeries, ferneries, nut-groves, copses we wander as in a fairy dream.
+Borders laid out to catch the sun, sheltered by old red brick walls
+where fruit ripens in luscious clusters. Rose gardens, sunk gardens,
+water gardens lead on to copses where all wild things of beauty are met
+together to entrance the eye. Broad walks between herbaceous borders,
+containing every flower loved from the time of Eve; sheltered patches
+where seedlings thrive, a nursery of carefully-reared young. And in
+this heaven of gardening land gardeners galore flit to and fro, ever
+doing their master's behest, and manure and water, and time and money
+may be considerations but are not anxieties. I ought to have begun
+years ago; seven, nine, fifteen, and even twenty-five years are talked
+of but as yesterday. I felt out of it in every sense. My garden lay
+out there in the cold, grey mist; it had been neglected, it held no
+rippling stream, no nut-grove, it ran upward into no copse or land of
+pine and bracken and heather. It had a hedge one side and a sloping
+field the other. The straight kitchen garden was bounded by no red
+brick wall, and the birds from the convenient hedges ate all the fruit,
+unless gooseberries and currants were so plentiful that we also were
+allowed a share. Griggs talked of an 'urbrageous' border. But what a
+border! Evening primroses, the common yellow marigold, a few clusters
+of golden-rod, and other weed-like flowers that persist in growing of
+themselves, with Griggs, five pounds a year and an Ignoramus to work it!
+
+Oh! why had I so cheerfully undertaken such an apparently hopeless task?
+
+But my honour was now at stake. I had said I would have flowers on five
+pounds a year, and I could not draw back. Let me clear away the mists
+that had arisen. After all, that tree down there was a pink chestnut,
+and beneath it lay my sheet of snowdrops and blue scillas. Before it
+burst into beauty they would have done their share of rejoicing the
+eye. At that corner, where the field sloped so prettily downwards,
+daffodils were hidden, and under the clump just over the fence more and
+more daffodils. A row of stately limes, dismally bare now, carried
+the eye down to the next field. There, where it was always shady, I
+pictured future ferns and early wild-flowers, and maybe groups of
+foxgloves.
+
+I turned again to my gardening books. I too would have a garden "to
+love," to "work in"; if not a "Gloucestershire garden," or a "German
+garden," or a "Surrey" one, still a garden. Months with me, also,
+should be a successive revelation of flowers; though I knew not a Latin
+name I would become learned in the sweet, simple, old-fashioned flowers
+that cottagers loved, and though I could not fit poetry on to every
+plant, I would have a posy for the study table right through the year.
+
+That was my dream!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first, the very first produce of the opening year in my garden was
+a winter aconite.
+
+The little dead-looking roots had been planted in a sunny shrubbery
+border and had quickly thrust up their golden crowns, circled with the
+tender green collar. Have you ever noticed how a winter aconite springs
+from its bed? Its ways are most original. The sturdy little stem comes
+up like a hoop; at one end is the root, at the other the blossom, with
+its green collar drooped carefully over the yellow centre. Gradually it
+raises itself, shakes off the loosened mould--you may help it here if
+you like--lays back its collar and opens its golden eye.
+
+I picked every one I could find. It seemed sinful, but occasionally
+pride overcomes the most modest of us.
+
+"There," I cried, "my garden is beginning already. Just look at them!
+Are they not lovely?"
+
+"What, buttercups?" asked one of the Others.
+
+"No, oh, ignorant one! they are not buttercups. They are winter
+aconite; note the difference."
+
+"Let's look!" and the brown little fist of one of the youngest of the
+Others was thrust forth.
+
+"All that fuss about those! You wait a minute!"
+
+He ran off, returning shortly with quite a big bunch of my yellow
+treasures in his hand.
+
+"Where did you get them? Jim, you bad boy! you must not pick my
+flowers," I exclaimed.
+
+"_Your_ flowers! and you hadn't an idea that they grew there. These are
+from _my_ garden, and no one has given _me_ a fiver to raise them with.
+Come, Mary, I shall cry halves. You had better square me!"
+
+"Oh, Jim, where did you find them?" was all I could gasp.
+
+I did square Jim, but it was in "kind," and then he showed me much
+winter aconite hidden away in an unfrequented shrubbery, where his
+quick little eyes had spied it. I thought of moving it to where it
+would show. Everything with me was for show in those early days; but
+these surprises hold their own delight, and I learnt to encourage them.
+
+I suffered many things at the hands of the Others for spending five
+pounds on winter aconite when already the garden held "such heaps
+"--that was their way of putting it.
+
+I began to hope that more surprises of such sort might be in store
+for me. It is wonderful how one may avoid seeing what is really just
+under one's nose. The Others might laugh, but I doubt if they even
+knew winter aconite as the yellow buttercup-looking thing before that
+morning.
+
+Another yellow flower tried to relieve the monotony of that dead
+season of the year. Struggling up the front of the house, through the
+virginian creeper and old Gloire de Dijon rose, were the bare branches
+of a yellow jasmine. From the end of December on through January and
+February it did its poor best to strike a note of colour in the gloom.
+But why was it not more successful? Judging from its performance, I had
+formed the meanest opinion of its capabilities, until one bright day
+in January my eye had been caught by a mass of yellow--I say advisedly
+a mass--thrown over the rickety porch of old Master Lovell's abode.
+Yellow jasmine! yes, there was no mistake about it, but the bare
+greenish stems were covered with the brilliant little star-flowers,
+shining and rejoicing as in the full tide of summer. I thought of my
+bare straggling specimen and stopped to ask for the recipe for such
+blossoming. Old Lovell and old Griggs had both lived in Fairleigh all
+their lives, and there was an old-timed and well-ripened feud between
+the pair.
+
+"A purty sight I calls that," said old Lovell, surveying his porch,
+"an' yourn ain't loike it, ain't it? Ah! and that's not much of a
+surprise to me. Ever see that old Griggs up at th' Rectory working away
+wi' his shears? Lor' bless you, he's a 'edging and ditching variety
+of gardener, that's wot I calls 'im. Clip it all, that's 'is motive,
+autumn and spring, one with another, an' all alike, and then you
+'spects winter blooming things to pay your trouble! But they don't see
+it, they don't."
+
+"Oh! it's the clipping, is it? Well, then, how do you manage yours? It
+is quite beautiful." I always dealt out my praise largely in return for
+information.
+
+"Leaves it to Natur', I do. You wants a show? 'Ave it then and leave
+interfering with Natur'. She knows 'er biz'ness."
+
+I did not feel quite convinced of this axiom; gardening seemed to be a
+continual assistance or interference with Nature in her most natural
+moods. So I said dubiously,
+
+"Yellow jasmine should never be cut at all, then?"
+
+"Look you 'ere, miss, at them buds all up the stem. If I cuts the stem
+wot becomes of them buds, eh?"
+
+Unanswerable old Lovell! But as I looked at the thick matted trailings
+that covered his porch, it dawned on me that perhaps a judicious
+pruning out of old wood at the right season would help and not hinder
+the yellow show.
+
+"Does it bloom on the new wood?" I asked with a thought most laudable
+in an Ignoramus.
+
+"Blooms! why, it blooms all over. Look at it!" And having sounded the
+depth of old Lovell's knowledge, I left him with more words of praise.
+
+So that was it! And my yellow jasmine might be blooming like that
+if left alone, or better, if rightly handled; and doubtless the
+poverty-stricken appearance of the white jasmine, the small and
+occasional flowers of the clematis, were due to the same cause. Here
+was a new and important department of my work suddenly opened up. I
+determined Nature should have a free hand until I could assist her
+properly. Until I knew the how, when and why of the clipping process,
+the edict should go forth to old Griggs, "Don't _touch_ the shears."
+
+On examining my own decapitated climbers I found that Griggs had indeed
+been hedging and ditching in the brutal way in which the keepers of our
+country lanes perform their task. It had often grieved my spirit to
+see the beautiful tangle late autumn produces in the hedges ruthlessly
+snipped and snapped by the old men, told off by some of the mysterious
+workings of the many councils under which we now groan, to do their
+deed of evil. That it ever recovers, that spring again clothes the
+hedges brilliantly, that the wild rose riots, the wild clematis
+flings itself, the honeysuckle twines, all again within the space of
+six or eight months, is an ever-recurring miracle. But my creepers
+and climbers did not so recover; their hardy brethren in the hedges
+outstripped them. Griggs impartially clipped the face of the house in
+the autumn when ivy is trimmed, and, now that I noticed it, the results
+overpowered me with wrath. How extraordinary that people should let
+such things go on, should live apathetically one side of the wall when
+flowers were being massacred on the other; should have streamers of
+yellow glory within their reach in December and January, and should
+sit placidly by the fire when the iron jaws were at work and never
+shout to the destroyer, "Hold!" Well, it was no use carrying every tale
+of woe to his Reverence or the Others. Jim was fully informed, and
+being, as I have often noticed, a person of immense resource, he very
+shortly afterwards whispered to me that the "old guffoon" would have
+great difficulty in finding his shears again. If I would obtain proper
+advice on the point it was a department, he thought, peculiarly suited
+to his abilities. I might grow giddy on a ladder, but as the navy was
+to be his profession he thought the opportunity one to be taken.
+
+There was nothing to cut of the yellow jasmine; it must grow first, and
+then the older stems might be judiciously trimmed after its flowering
+time is over. A year to wait for that, to Jim's disgust, but toward
+the end of February we cautiously trimmed the Japanese variety of "old
+man's beard," called by the learned "clematis flamulata." It grew
+on the verandah, and one of the Others had driven Griggs off when
+he approached with his shears. She said he looked like murder, and
+whether it was right or not it should not be done. I had to give her
+chapter and verse for it that this variety of clematis ought to have
+a very mild treatment, a sort of disentanglement, and thus help it to
+long streamers before she would allow Jim and me and a modest pair of
+scissors to do ever so little work. Jim sighed for the shears, and I
+had to warn him against the first evidence of the murderous spirit of
+old Griggs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In one garden book of the most precious description I read of
+"hellebore." Now I am writing for Ignoramuses. Do you know what
+"hellebore" is? No! of course not, nor did I, but it was spoken of as
+forming "a complete garden full of flowers in the months of February
+and March," so of course I wanted it. Out-door flowers are scarce in
+February, but I learned as time went on that most flowers announced for
+an early appearance generally arrive a month late, at least it is so
+with me.
+
+None of the Others, not even his Reverence, had heard of hellebore. It
+continued to haunt me for some time. February was near and I sighed for
+that "complete garden."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was encouraging my snowdrops with welcoming smiles as they pierced
+through the damp grass, and dreaming of hellebore, for the name
+attracted me strongly, when his Reverence's Young Man joined me. He has
+not much to do with the garden, though he often strayed into it--very
+often, in fact--so he ought to be mentioned. As my book is about
+my garden, only the people who either help or hinder there need be
+introduced. His Reverence's Young Man was really his curate. Our parish
+was not a large one, but very scattered, and a little distant hamlet
+with a tiny chapel necessitated a Young Man. He was a great favourite
+with his Reverence, who would often walk about with him, leaning on his
+arm, and this had caused old Master Lovell, the village wit, to call
+him his Young Man. Of course he had to see his Reverence occasionally,
+and if he did not find him in the study he generally looked for him in
+the garden.
+
+"What is growing here?" he asked.
+
+"Look!" I answered.
+
+"Grass? It is grass, isn't it?"
+
+"It is a comfort to find some people, and clever people withal, even
+more ignorant than I am. Snowdrops and scillas."
+
+"Oh! I see, you are making progress, at least, I beg pardon, _they_
+are. I positively see some white."
+
+"Now can _you_ tell me what are hellebores?"
+
+"Ask another!"
+
+"That is worthy of Jim. You don't know?"
+
+"But wait a bit, I have heard of them, I really have. Isn't it deadly
+nightshade, or something like that?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"It is worse to know wrong than not at all."
+
+"But if you don't know, how do you know I am wrong?"
+
+"Because they form a complete garden in February and March--there!"
+
+"A complete garden! How wonderful. Doesn't anyone know? Doesn't Griggs?"
+
+"I haven't asked him, of course he wouldn't know. Here he is, we will
+see what he says. Griggs, do you know what flower is called hellebore?"
+
+Griggs had no spade and no mud handy; he was very much nonplussed.
+
+"El-bore!--did you say? Whoi, el-bore? Don't seem to have 'eeurd of 'em
+before; not by that name leastways. You never can tell in these days;
+lot o' noo-fangled words they call 'em. Oi might know it right 'nuff if
+you could show me. Dessay it's a furriner. I must be goin'."
+
+He wandered down the garden. There was not much I could give him to do,
+but I knew from my gardening books that he should be trimming trees, or
+marking those to come down, or cutting stakes, and lots of other useful
+things. I possessed no woods, or groves, or copses, however, so I gave
+Griggs over unreservedly to his Reverence, and he dug and banked up
+celery.
+
+"Shall I write and ask my mother?" said the Young Man. "She is quite a
+gardener, you know; and when they divide up roots--as they do, don't
+they?--she would send you some, I am sure. Geraniums and fuchsias
+and--and lilies. They always divide them up, don't they? and throw away
+half."
+
+"I don't think they throw away half, not always. But would she really?
+It would be awfully kind; and I might send her things when I had
+anything to send. Only I don't want geraniums; I can't bear them, and
+old Griggs has filled our one and only frame with nothing else. They
+seem to me a most unnecessary flower."
+
+I spoke in my ignorance, and I learnt the use of geraniums later on.
+
+His Reverence's Young Man never smiled when I spoke of sending things
+back to his mother; perhaps he did inside him, for she had a lovely
+garden and half a dozen gardeners, but still was chief there. I was
+overcome when I paid her a visit and remembered my offer; but again
+I spoke in my ignorance and thought it showed the right gardener's
+spirit, and perhaps it did.
+
+His Reverence's Young Man grew to take the greatest interest in
+gardening. He was one of my first converts; but I learnt about
+hellebore from someone else.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now the Master must be introduced. I cannot tell what particular
+month he came into my garden, but I remember when I first went into his.
+
+He had a genius for flowers. I do not know if he looked at children
+and animals with that light of fatherly love in his eyes, but I think
+it must have been there for all things that needed his care and
+protection. Flowers, however, were his "dream children."
+
+His was no ideal garden, and he had never written about it. It was
+scarcely larger or more blessed by fate than mine, but was as perfect
+as could be. He knew each flower intimately; he had planted each shrub,
+and I never met a weed or a stone on his borders. He had but little
+glass, and no groves and copses and woods, or heather, or pine, or any
+unfair advantages in that way; but when I looked at his herbaceous
+border in the autumn I could not help thinking of harvest decorations.
+Such a wealth of colour was piled up, it hardly seemed possible it
+could all be growing on the spot. From early spring to late autumn
+a succession of brilliant blooms reigned one after another in that
+border; to look upon it was indeed "seeing of the labour of one's hands
+and being satisfied."
+
+And he had said, "There is no reason why you should not have it too."
+
+I think that border sowed the first seeds of gardening love in my heart.
+
+"But when you came here was it like this?" I asked.
+
+"It was a pretty bad wilderness," he said with a look round.
+
+"Oh! things take _such_ a time," I groaned.
+
+"I have been here twenty-five years. I have planted nearly everything
+you see, except the big trees."
+
+"Twenty-five years! But I!--I can't begin planting things for
+twenty-five years hence. It is too bad of one's predecessors to leave
+one nothing but weeds and stones and Griggs!"
+
+"Yes. Well, you have got to make things better for your successors. Not
+but what you can get results of some sort under twenty-five years. All
+this"--and he waved his hand to that wonderful border--"comes, at least
+comes in part, with but eighteen months' careful tending."
+
+Even eighteen months seemed to my impatient spirit too long; I wished
+for a fairy wand. But fairy effects have a way of vanishing like the
+frost pictures on the window pane.
+
+"Well, if ever I try to make our wilderness blossom like the rose I
+will just grow perennial things and pop them in and have done with it."
+
+At which the Master laughed.
+
+"Oh, will you? I don't think I shall come to admire your garden then.
+Why are you so afraid of time? You are young. But I suppose that is the
+reason."
+
+After I had made the plunge we talked again on this matter.
+
+"Most of these people who write of their gardens own them. They have
+lived there and will live there always. But in a Rectory garden one is
+but a stranger and a pilgrim. Don't you feel this?"
+
+"No. We are growing old together, and perhaps it will be given me to
+stay here; anyway, my garden is better than I found it. Is not that
+something?"
+
+"Oh, yes," I said discontentedly.
+
+He laughed. "Ah! the spirit will grow; you are cultivating it just as
+surely as you are the seeds."
+
+"There are plenty of weeds and stones to choke all the seeds
+everywhere," I answered. "Old Griggs's way of weeding is to chop off
+the heads, dig everything in again, and for a fortnight smile blandly
+over his work. Then he says that it is no use weeding, 'Just look at
+'em again.'"
+
+"Old Griggs seems to afford you plenty of parables from Nature, anyhow.
+He is instructive in his way. But can't he be retired?"
+
+"Alas, no! he is a fixture."
+
+"And you the pilgrim! Well, go ahead. And now come and see what the
+nurseries contain; there is always to spare in the nurseries."
+
+Many of his spare children found their way to my garden, and it grew
+quite a matter of course to turn to him in any dilemma. But Ignoramuses
+must learn, in gardens as in everything else, to work out their own
+salvation. So in fear and trembling, and a good deal of hope, too, I
+made my own experiments; for hill and dale divided the Master's garden
+from mine, and I doubt if even he could grasp the utter ignorance of
+the absolutely ignorant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ice and snow and thaw, and again thaw and ice and snow had held
+their sway through January and early February, and my garden slept.
+Another year I would have violets growing in the narrow border under
+the verandah, and tubs--big green tubs--of Christmas roses under its
+shelter. Were they expensive, I wondered? And thus I found out, by
+the simple process of asking at a florist, that for one shilling and
+sixpence or two shillings a root I could buy--why, hellebores! But for
+me they will always be "Christmas roses." At present the verandah was
+bare, oh, so bare! It needed more roses to climb up the trellis and the
+newness of its two years' existence to be hidden. It held attraction
+for the birds, however, this cold winter time; crumbs and scraps were
+expected by them as regularly as breakfast and dinner by us. The pert
+sparrow came by dozens, of course, but out of our four robins one knew
+himself to be master of the ceremony. He came first, at a whistle,
+the signal for crumbs, and he allowed the sparrows to follow, really
+because he could not help himself. But should another robin come--his
+wife or their thin-legged son--he made for them and spent the precious
+moments pecking them away while the sparrows gobbled. His is not a
+beautiful disposition, I fear, but oh! how gladly one forgives him for
+the sake of his bold black eye, cheering red breast and persistent
+joyfulness of song. The colder weather brought other pensioners,
+chaffinch, bullfinch, even hawfinch, and, of course, the thrush
+and blackbird; a magpie eyed the feast from afar, but the starlings
+waddled boldly up, not hopping as birds, but right-left, right-left
+like wobbling geese; and the tom-tits and blue and black-tits, came and
+continued to come as long as they found a cocoa-nut swinging for their
+benefit. None of the other birds would touch it. Next winter they shall
+have hellebore for their table decoration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oh! how lucky men are, they have so many things we women seem forever
+to miss.
+
+Very thick, sensible boots that won't get wet through; no skirts to
+get muddy when gardening; the morning paper first, of course, because
+they are men and politics are for them; voting powers, too, which on
+occasions give them a certain very much appreciated weight; and money,
+even if poor, always more money than their wives and daughters.
+
+These reflections, and I notice you may reflect on most irrelevant
+matter in a garden, were called forth by a boy-man who kindly took me
+in to dinner one evening. I soon discovered he had a little "diggings"
+and was going in for gardening "like anything." Yet was my soul not
+drawn to him. "Bulbs, oh, rather! Had a box over from Holland the
+other day, just a small quantity, you know. Mine isn't a large place,
+but five thousand or so ought to fill it up a bit; make a mass of
+colour, that's what I go in for. Told my man to plant 'em in all over,
+thick as bees. Then I had great luck. Dropped in at an auction in the
+City just in the nick of time, got a box-load of splendid bulbs for
+half-a-crown--worth a guinea at the very least--shoved them all in too.
+I shall have a perfect blaze, I tell you. Like you to come and look me
+up in April if you go in for that kind of thing."
+
+But I hated the boy-man. Five thousand bulbs! without a second thought.
+And then--according to the rule that works so invariably among material
+goods, "to him that hath shall be given"--this aggressive youth also
+buys a guinea's worth of bulbs for half-a-crown. Think what I would
+have given to be at that auction. But women can't "drop in" in the City.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Towards the end of February my snowdrops made their appearance. The
+scillas followed a little later and with less regularity. They were
+not quite the perfect sheet I had dreamt of, but each little bulb did
+its duty manfully and raised one slender stem with its bell-like head.
+One at every few inches over a space of some yards was not wealth; and
+I almost wept when some of them were sacrificed for the drawing-room.
+The Others said, "A garden should grow flowers for the house. Who
+wanted them out there in the cold, where no one would see them!" But
+I did, for out there in the cold they lived for weeks and in the warm
+room a few days faded them. I must have more and more so that we may
+all be satisfied. In the Master's garden I found sixteen varieties of
+snowdrops, not very many of each, but he has no Others. What I longed
+for was quantity; and as for quality, each snowdrop holds its own, I
+think.
+
+Up through the softened grass came the strong, pointed leaves of the
+daffodils. My mass of gold promised to be very regular, but the small
+crocus leaves were harder to find, and they had no sign of yellow
+points as yet. And the anemones! What had happened to them? I nearly
+dug them up to see.
+
+Were the buds on the trees swelling? The birds were twittering busily
+on the branches, as though they knew their covering would not be
+long delayed, but the little brown knobs, so shiny and sticky on the
+chestnuts, appeared hardly to have gained in size since they pushed
+off the old leaf in the autumn. For in the time of scattering wind and
+falling leaf it is well to remember that it is the coming bud which
+loosens the hold of the old leaf. Life, and not death, which makes the
+seasons and the world go round.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was busy again with catalogues. "Begin things in time," preached
+the Master; but ah! I seem to have been born a month too late, for I
+never catch up time in my garden, except when there is nothing to do,
+and then you _can_ do nothing. Nature has cried a "halt," and all the
+fidgeting in the world will not start the race before "time" is said.
+So I studied my catalogue and made my list in February.
+
+Stocks. I need them in plenty, but I must walk warily amongst such
+luxuries with only three pounds to spend and so many other things to
+buy. Wallflowers, red and gold; but, alas! the Master has warned me
+these are for next year, as also many other things. The polyanthuses,
+that I long to see in masses like a fine Persian carpet, the pansies
+and violas, the forget-me-nots, even the Canterbury bells and
+campanulas and sweet-Williams must be thought of now, and will need
+the year round before coming to flowering time. Still, down they go on
+my list. And gaillardias, too, they look so handsome in the picture
+and promise so much: "showy, beautiful, brilliant, useful for cutting"
+(there were those Others to think of), and they were perennials.
+Blessed perennials! Then larkspur or delphinium, I should say, for I
+did not want the annual variety. I could not wait, however, to grow
+those tall, beautiful spikes of bright blue, Oxford and Cambridge in
+colour, from seed, I must indulge in plants. Hollyhocks must also be
+bought ready-made, and phlox. Oh! the poverty-stricken little specimens
+that grew in my garden, flowers capable of such beauty. I had seen them
+growing in the Lake country and marvelled at their upstanding mass of
+brilliant heads. They were a revelation as to what the phlox family
+could do.
+
+And there were all the magnificent possibility of lilies, of gladiolas
+and montbresias, and ixias. These must be bought. I must have them,
+but oh! the years before I could make a home for all. I turned to
+the annuals; they sounded as easy to grow as Jack's bean-stalk. What
+a list! Antirrhinum--that is, snapdragon, but one gets used even to
+spelling the other name--red, white and yellow; the taller kind call
+themselves half-hardy perennials, but I don't believe they would stand
+my winter, and the dwarf variety do their duty nobly for one summer.
+Mignonette, that was a necessity; marguerites, annual chrysanthemums
+sounded inviting; "continuous blooming" would suit the Others.
+
+Convolvulus and heaps of nasturtium, canariensis and other little
+tropoeoleum. Balsam and asters; no, though I liked the sound of balsam,
+still I could do without it, and I must do without something! But of
+sweet-peas I could not have too many, even though most of the "dukes"
+and "duchesses" cost a shilling a packet. I pictured hedges and hedges
+of sweet-peas in the garden, and bowls and bowls of blossom in the
+house. Sunflowers again--"golden-nigger," "æsthetic gem," "Prussian
+giant"--how could one help sampling such seductive names? And tagetes,
+the Master had said, "Get tagetes, it is a useful border." Marigolds,
+too, they were not a favourite of mine, but they lasted well into the
+autumn, and I had to think of the failing months. Zinnias I could
+not resist because they are so "high art" in their colouring; and
+salpiglosis, the Master had a lovely group of these daintily-pencilled
+belles.
+
+Then I made up my list, threepence, and sixpence, and one shilling,
+and one shilling and sixpence. How they mounted up. Thirty shillings
+in seeds! and I had to buy plants and bulbs too. But I could cut out
+nothing, though it had been very easy to make additions.
+
+But now to get all these thousands of seeds sown. They could not all
+be sown in the open; I knew so much. Those for coming on quickly would
+need little wooden boxes and a place in the one frame full of bothering
+geraniums; and when they were bigger they would need pricking out
+in more wooden boxes, and could only be planted out permanently the
+beginning of June.
+
+Well, what for the open? Sweet-peas--thank goodness for that!--and
+the wallflowers, Canterbury bells--cup and saucer variety had taken
+my fancy--sweet-Williams, sunflowers, nasturtium, mignonette and
+forget-me-nots, they could all be trusted straight to Mother Earth;
+and I had enough of the dear brown bosom, bare of all children, down in
+that long desolate border. And for the boxes and pricking out and glass
+frame I would begin with antirrhinum, stocks, violas, tagetes, zinnia,
+salpiglosis, lobelias, polyanthus and columbine. That must suffice for
+the first year. But oh! what a lot of flowers there were to be had,
+and how lovely a garden might be if only--well, if only one had a real
+gardener, money, the sunny border, good soil, and--if they all came up!
+
+And what flowers had I omitted? Of simple things that even an Ignoramus
+may have heard. There were all the poppy tribe, Iceland, Shirley, the
+big Orientals, Californian, though these are not poppies proper at all;
+verbena, the very name smelt sweet; gypsophila, a big word, but I knew
+the dainty, grass-like flower from London shops; penstemons, carnation,
+scabious, or lady's pincushions. The only way was to shut that book
+resolutely and go and write to Veitch.
+
+The book said, and so did each little neat packet of seeds, "sow
+in pots or pans," or "sow in heat," and talked of a cool frame and
+compost, so, armed with this amount of knowledge, I took my seeds out
+to old Griggs.
+
+"Griggs, have you any wooden boxes or pans or things in which we can
+sow these seeds?"
+
+Griggs looked at me suspiciously; he did not like my energy, there was
+no doubt of that, but since he was a gardener he recognised that flower
+seeds, or such-like, ought to be in his line.
+
+He took the packets.
+
+"P'haps I can knock up a box or two. That frame's mostly full of
+janiums, though. I've a nice quantity of them saved."
+
+"But we can't fill the garden with nothing but geraniums, you know. I
+want to have a great show this year; don't you? Wouldn't it be more
+satisfactory to you to see the garden looking nice than like a howling
+wilderness?"
+
+Griggs laughed, positively.
+
+"You've got to spend money if you wants flowers, and the old rector as
+was 'e never put 'is 'and in 'is pocket for no sich thing as flowers.
+I dunno 'bout a 'owling wilderness. My fancy is them janiums brightens
+up a place wonderful."
+
+I pushed open the lights of the long frame by which we were standing
+and looked at the stalky, unpromising appearance of old Griggs's
+favourites. There were other lean and hungry-looking plantlets there, a
+bit yellow about the tips.
+
+"What are those?" I asked, pointing.
+
+"Oh, them's marguerites, white and yellow. I got Mr Wright up at the
+'All to give me them cuttings. They wanted a bit of water this morning
+so I give it em."
+
+I pressed my finger on the sodden soil of the box that held the
+drooping cuttings. "They have had too little, and now you have given
+them too much," I said sternly. How could I trust my precious seeds to
+this old murderer? "Griggs, if you would only _love_ the flowers a bit,
+they would grow with you."
+
+"Bless you! they'll grow, they 'aven't took no hurt. Let's look at your
+seeds. Anti--rrh--well, what's this name?"
+
+"Snapdragon."
+
+"Oh, and violas and polyan--thus. Well, we can get 'em in. I've a box
+or two."
+
+But I grabbed all my packets quickly.
+
+"All right, get the boxes ready and I will come and sow them myself."
+
+The boxes were filled with a light soil, mixed with sand and leaf
+mould. I turned it over myself to look for worms or other beasts,
+and very, very thinly, as I thought, I scattered the tiny seeds over
+the surface and gave them a good watering. Then out with some of the
+scraggiest of Griggs's plants and in with my precious boxes.
+
+I felt Griggs's hands must not touch them. He had something wrong about
+him, for a gardener, that is to say. He always broke the trailing
+branch he was supposed to be nailing up; he always trod on a plant in
+stepping across a border; if he picked a flower he did it with about an
+inch of stalk and broke some other stem; no blessing flowed from his
+hand when he planted out the flowers.
+
+I sowed the end of February, and in March little tiny green heads were
+peeping up in most of the boxes. The violas still remained hidden. If
+Griggs had sown I should have said he had done it very irregularly, for
+the green heads came in thick patches and then again very sparingly;
+but I knew, of course, it must have been the seeds' own fault, since I
+had done it myself!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was standing with his Reverence at the study window watching a
+squirrel swing himself from bough to bough, and I think we were both
+envying him, when my eye caught some specks of colour on the grass
+plot in front, that grass plot which ought to have a sun-dial in the
+centre and a stately bed of flowering shrubs as a background instead
+of laurels! What was it growing in the grass? White, yellow, purple,
+a touch here and there, all across, straight across, in one horrid
+straight line! Could it be?
+
+"Look, Mary, there he goes! See him spring up that tree?"
+
+"Look," I said in a tragic voice, "look at them! Do you think--can it
+be--are they my crocuses?"
+
+"Where? Oh, there! Yes, I thought they looked like a rather straggly
+regiment this morning, marching single file. Was that your idea?"
+
+"My idea! a straight line! Oh, how can you! That old fiend of a
+Griggs!" And then I rushed out to see the full extent of the horror.
+
+It was too true. In spite of my careful scattering the old ruffian had
+drawn my crocus bulbs into line. I can see how he did it, striding
+across the grass, clutching bulbs to right and left, sticking them in
+under his nose, and probably sweeping up those outside his reach with
+the dead leaves. What a show! Many had not come up, and many had no
+flower, so the regiment was ragged. I could have cried.
+
+Jim had joined me.
+
+"Don't think much of this idea anyhow Mary."
+
+"Don't you know how I meant it to be? Haven't you seen the Park?"
+
+"Can't say I've given it my undivided attention lately. Shall I go and
+pitch into old Griggs?"
+
+"It would be no good. I must do that."
+
+"That isn't fair, Mary. If I'm to help you I must have some of the fun."
+
+"Jim! It is no fun to me. You can't _murder_ him, and nothing else
+would be any good. What shall I do with them?"
+
+I looked at my poor little first-fruits. They did look so forlorn and
+battered. A crocus all alone, separated from its kind by a foot or so,
+has a most orphaned and cheerless appearance.
+
+"Let's have 'em up," said Jim, the man of action.
+
+"No, they mustn't be moved in flower, not even till their leaves die,
+and by that time the grass will be mowed and I shan't know where they
+are, and then it will look like this next year too."
+
+"Oh rot!" said Jim, "something has got to be done. Can't have these
+stragglers roaming across the lawn and never getting home. I know,"
+and off he was and returned with a lot of little sticks which he
+proceeded to plant by the side of each crocus. "Now we will locate the
+gentlemen and have 'em up when their poverty-stricken show is over."
+
+Afterwards, when Jim saw in my account that crocuses were two shillings
+a hundred, he said I did not value his time very highly. He thought by
+my face we were dealing with things of value. But anyway we moved that
+ragged regiment on and stationed them in clumps at the foot of trees,
+where they will look more comfortable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+March should be a very busy month, and old Griggs found employment in
+the kitchen garden. I should have moved plants now, and arranged the
+neglected herbaceous border of the autumn, but, alas! all the new green
+things coming up were strangers to me, and I saw quickly that in their
+present state Griggs was as likely to make mistakes as I. He hazarded
+names with a scratch of the head and a pull at the tender green shoots
+that made me angry.
+
+"Them's a phlox, and them's--oi can't quite mind, it's purple like;
+and them's flags, but they ain't never much to look at; too old, I
+reckon. That's a kind of purple flower, grows it do, and that 'ere's a
+wallflower." This was said with decision, and I too could recognise the
+poor specimen of a spring joy.
+
+So I left well, or ill, alone until the nature of the plant should be
+declared, and then, if useless, out it could come later.
+
+We prepared a long narrow bed alongside a row of cabbages, made a neat
+little trench some three inches deep, put in a layer of manure and
+mould on top, and there my first sowing of sweet-peas was placed, and
+carefully covered and watered and patted down. I felt like a mother who
+tucks her child in bed. Surely the pat did good! February, March and
+April were all to have their sowing, and then the summer months should
+have a succession of these many-coloured fragrant joys.
+
+In March also the other annuals found resting-places; some in square
+patches down the long border, some in rows that looked inviting down
+the side and cross paths of the kitchen domain. It was encroaching, of
+course, but no one used the spare edges, and it seemed kind to brighten
+up the cabbages and onions, all now coming up in long thread-like lines
+of green. I had added a few more seeds to my list, so a long row of
+tiny seeds that were to be blue cornflowers, with another row in front
+of godetia, would provide, I hoped, a very bright sight and be so
+useful for cutting.
+
+On Shirley poppies, too, I ventured. It seemed so easy just to sow a
+few seeds and trust to Nature to do the rest. I did not then appreciate
+the backache caused by the process "thinning out."
+
+People may talk of sowing in February, but one cannot sow in either
+frozen ground or deep snow. Some Februarys may be possible, but it was
+the beginning of March that year before I committed my seeds to Mother
+Earth, and even then it seemed a very unsafe proceeding. However, a lot
+of tiny green pin points soon appeared, and the only havoc wrought by
+birds, mice and rabbits--Griggs suggested every imaginable animal--was
+amongst the sweet-peas. These had to be protected with a network of
+cotton.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the winter slipped away very gradually, for even after the first
+breath of spring, which comes to us from afar and thrills us as no
+other fragrance of air, frost, snow, rain and biting winds triumph
+again, and bud and sprouting green seem to shrink up and cower away.
+Yet we know the winter is surely passing and the first trumpet-blast of
+spring's procession has blown.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SPRING]
+
+
+
+
+SEASON II
+
+Spring
+
+    "And then my heart with pleasure fills,
+    And dances with the daffodils."
+
+
+Daffodils always make me glad. From the moment their strong, blue-green
+blades pierce the grass, they give one a feeling of strength,
+vigour, activity and determination to be up and doing, unmindful of
+wind or weather; in fact, using all for their own purpose, bending
+circumstances to their own development.
+
+And when the big golden bell bursts its sheath of pale green it does it
+with fine independence, and then swings on its strong stem, ringing out
+lustily that the spring is here, the sun is shining, for the sun always
+seems to shine on the daffodils, they reflect his glory under all
+clouds, and depression flies before their sturdy assumption of "All's
+well with the world."
+
+And so I felt very hopeful as I saw my circles, my clusters, my rows
+of daffodils, one by one, flashing up from the delicious blue-green
+blades. They none of them failed me, none, bless them! So plant
+daffodils, O friend Ignoramus! the single, the double, and any other of
+that dear family, the narcissus.
+
+The birds were singing, and oh, so busy making late love, building and
+even nesting! The trees were bursting, the lilacs had a shimmer of
+green. The larches had colour almost too dim to be called green, they
+streaked the woods that still looked brown without looking bare; little
+catkins hung and danced, the blackthorn looked like forgotten snow, the
+grass was greener, and here and there a sweet primrose bud peeped up,
+whispering, "We are coming."
+
+Down under the row of limes bordering the sloping field I found many
+pretty crumpled primrose leaves, and they gave me the idea to plant
+more and more, and to have my wild garden here, with snowdrops and
+cowslips, unseen things in our woods and fields. Ferns, too, of the
+common kind must be collected, and foxgloves, the seeds of which
+must be bought and sown. For the present there were the little wild
+things that grow on their own account, and are so sparklingly green and
+spring-like that one hardly likes to rebuke them with the name of weed.
+
+Hope was in the air. Everything is young again once a year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I felt obliged to begin the second division of my year in a hopeful
+voice, so I opened with my daffodils; but if March be taken as the
+first month of spring, then indeed I should not have written of that
+chime of golden bells. March holds February very tightly by the hand,
+and cannot make up her mind to hurry on with her work of opening the
+buds and encouraging the flowers. She blows cold winds in their faces,
+nips them with frosty nights, occasionally wraps them up in snow, then
+suddenly, repenting her of the evil, she opens up a blue sky and pours
+a hot sun down on them. A most untrustworthy month.
+
+There is plenty of work to do, particularly if February has not been an
+open month, and for gardening purposes I really think it ought never
+to be so considered, and still more particularly if much has been
+neglected in the foregoing November. If you are an Ignoramus, and have
+a Griggs as gardener, the chances are much will have been neglected.
+
+My attention was called to the subject of roses by the arrival of a
+rose-grower's catalogue.
+
+Roses! I could only touch the very outer fringe of this magnificent
+garment, but I felt I must, positively must, have one or two of the
+cheaper sort of these dazzling beauties; and though they are better
+moved in the autumn, in early spring it is not impossible. A crimson
+rambler, the modest price one shilling and sixpence, tempted me to
+indulge in three. The deep yellow William Allen Richardson, delightful
+for buttonholes, which Jim assured me no garden should be without;
+the thought of a red Gloire de Dijon or Reine Marie Hortense was also
+quite overcoming. Our old yellow Gloire de Dijon was the only rose in
+my neglected garden that did herself proud, and she flourished up the
+front of the house and festooned one of the Others' windows, from which
+Griggs and his shears had been summarily banished. "Cut where you like,
+but never dare to come here," had been uttered in a voice that made
+even Griggs "heed." If her red sister only equalled this "glory" that
+half-crown would be well expended. Then two standards needed replacing,
+for one could not have dead sticks down so conspicuous a row; though
+standards were not my idea of roses, still there they were and I must
+make the best of them. So off went my modest order. I had indicated the
+whereabouts of each rose to Griggs, but was unfortunately not present
+on their arrival. I think even an Ignoramus might have helped Griggs on
+that occasion--but more of that anon.
+
+The Others could see but little improvement in the garden, this they
+let me know; they were full of ideas, and I found them as trying as
+some Greek heroine must have found an unsympathetic chorus. "The
+verandah was so bare! Was it really any use putting in that silly
+little twig? Would it ever come to anything?" This of my new and very
+bare-looking crimson rambler. And then, "Why had we no violets? Surely
+_violets_ were not an impossibility? They grew of themselves. Just look
+at the baskets full in the London streets. Such a bunch for a penny!
+But it would be nice not to have to go to London for one's bunch of
+violets!"
+
+I took up the cudgels. They should see how that crimson rambler ramped,
+yes, I prophesied, positively ramped up the archway. They should
+be buried in a fragrant bower of ruby-coloured clusters, and they
+might cut and come again. As to violets, I was giving them my best
+consideration; the bed down the garden produced but a few--certainly
+not a pennyworth--of inferior quality, because neither violets nor
+anything else, save weeds, grew and flourished by the light of Nature
+alone. The violet roots were choked with weeds, and I must have new
+suckers and begin all over again; and that was not possible until the
+violet season was over; then I intended to beg, borrow or steal some
+good suckers, and buy others if I had any money.
+
+"Mary, you speak like a book with pictures; but I hope there will be
+_some_ result, and that the violets will be ready before they are
+needed for our funeral wreaths."
+
+I entreated them to find the patience I had thoroughly lost, and
+hurried out to rage over the thickly weed-wedged violet plants, with
+here and there a feeble bloom, and to imagine myself in years to
+come bending over this same bed, picking one long strong stalk after
+another, and scarcely lessening the store by the big bunch I should
+carry away. Oh! a lifetime was not enough for all I should or could do
+in a garden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a row of standard roses skirting the lawn on one side, and
+also a round bed of rose bushes. I had not much idea if they were any
+good, for roses had been to a great extent spoilt the last two years
+by very wet weather, still I had noticed the shoots they were sending
+forth with great pleasure. Anyhow _they_ were growing right enough.
+One day, the middle of March, I found Griggs busy down the row with a
+large knife. What was he doing? Horror! All the long shoots were being
+ruthlessly sacrificed.
+
+"Griggs, what _are_ you doing?" I gasped, and afterwards I felt very
+glad I said nothing stronger.
+
+Griggs paid no attention to my tone; he took the words as showing a
+desire for enlightenment.
+
+"You 'as to cut 'em a bit in spring-time, you know; or p'haps you don't
+know, missy."
+
+This mode of address was one of Griggs's most unpardonable sins, but I
+never had the strength of character to tell him not to do it.
+
+"But do you cut off _all_ the new growth?" I said, with an inner
+conviction that if Griggs were doing it it needs must be wrong.
+
+"Well, you trims 'em round a bit, starts 'em growin' more ways than
+one, d'ye see."
+
+"But those aren't suckers?" I said, still feebly fighting with my
+ignorance and incredulity.
+
+Then Griggs laughed. He did not like me, and I suppose I ought not to
+wonder, but he enjoyed laughing at me when he got the chance.
+
+"No-a, they ain't suckers; suckers come from the root, leastways, they
+start down there, and, bless yer! they be the ol' stock trying to have
+a look in as you may say. I cuts them off soon as I sees 'em, as they
+wastes the tree; but you _can_ see suckers as 'as got the upper 'and.
+That rose front of the 'ouse is all sucker now. 'Twas a beautiful pink
+rose I mind in old Rector Wood's time."
+
+"That is very instructive," I remarked, feeling no gratitude to Griggs
+for his information, as he felt no shame for the metamorphosis of the
+once beautiful pink rose, which was now a wild one. We had wondered how
+it came to be growing up with the clematis.
+
+"And can't one cut back the suckers and let the pink rose grow again?"
+I added.
+
+"'Tain't likely," was all I could get out of Griggs.
+
+I bicycled over that very day to the Master's garden, a hot and tiring
+way of getting information, but a sure one, I knew, and one to which
+I often had recourse in desperate moments. The Master was out, but his
+garden was there, and all his rose trees were clipped. So I breathed
+again.
+
+I had a little good luck with violets a few weeks later.
+
+A friend who had heard of my gardening efforts sent me several dozen
+runners of the "Czar," and the Master spared me some others from his
+frame. I was full of joy, and choosing a shady spot, saw it dug, raked,
+helped out with a mixture of manure and leaf-mould, planted the violets
+at six inches apart and liberally watered them. Shade, of course, for
+the modest violet, I thought, carefully selecting for their home the
+shelter of an overhanging chestnut. Well, well! one lives to learn, or
+for some such purpose, I suppose.
+
+The thick branches of that shadowing tree kept out sun as well as rain;
+and, doubt it not, brother Ignoramus, violets, be they ever so modest,
+like the sunshine and will only pine without it. So in the autumn
+another move took place, and again I waited, whilst the Others bought
+penny bunches and talked of funeral wreaths in the far future.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long herbaceous border grew more and more interesting. A
+broad-leafed plant had been sending up tall stems, now it opened out
+and a big daisy-like blossom of yellow shone in the sun. "Leopard's
+bane," said old Griggs with decision, and "doronicum," said the
+Master, both being right, but I know not why it was considered a bane
+or healing, for the banes among the flowers are surely blessings. But
+there it was, and very grateful and comforting at this early time of
+year. As though conscious that a friendly eye had begun to watch over
+them, the scattered old plants of polyanthus, wallflower, a group or so
+of tulips and some clumps of London pride brushed up this spring and
+cheered the eye.
+
+I was studying the shooting green clumps, lilies here and there, golden
+rod, autumn daisy, maybe a stray phlox, many, very much too many,
+evening primroses, seedlings of self-sown foxgloves, and wondering
+how to rearrange them and make room for the better company I intended
+introducing, when his Reverence's Young Man came down the path laden
+with a big brown hamper. He looked quite excited.
+
+"Oh, Mistress Mary, do come and examine the contents. I hope you may
+find welcome strangers here. I told my mother you needed anything and
+everything except geraniums. Was that right? So she has sent this
+hamper with instructions to get them in at once."
+
+The Young Man was cutting away at string and fastenings, and rapidly
+strewing the path with big clumps of roots in which a careful hand had
+stuck a label.
+
+I was divided between joy and reproof.
+
+"How kind of her! But you should not have bothered her. How nice to
+have such big, ready-grown plants! But why did you do it?"
+
+"Mayn't I help the garden to grow? My mother promises more in the
+autumn; it appears flowers like to move just before winter."
+
+"It is kind of you. This border is such a weight on my mind. It needs
+so much, I think. And what a lot the hamper holds!"
+
+"Let me do the dirty work," cried the Young Man, as I hauled out a big
+root. "You shall tell me where to plant them."
+
+"The earth isn't dirty, it is beautifully, healthily clean; and don't
+you love its 'most excellent cordial smell'? Shall I get Griggs and a
+spade?"
+
+"Oh, why bother Griggs? Won't I do as well? I know nearly as much and
+am twice as willing."
+
+"Yes, but think of--"
+
+"Don't say parish. There is only old Mrs Gunnet and she will keep.
+These plants demand immediate attention. My mother was most emphatic
+about that."
+
+It is very difficult to have a conscience as well as a garden and to
+keep both in good working order. I could not think Mrs Gunnet and her
+rheumatism as important as my garden; moreover, I felt I was carrying
+out the teaching of Tolstoy in bringing man and his Mother Earth into
+direct contact.
+
+"Griggs could not come anyhow, he is digging a grave," I said
+conclusively. "Let us do it."
+
+So the Young Man fetched a selection of gardening implements and we
+both set to work, he to dig and I to instruct.
+
+"This is delphinium," I cried joyfully, handing him a big clump, "dark
+blue, I want it badly." And in answer to an inquiring look, for the
+Young Man knew less, much less, than I did, "That is larkspur and it is
+a perennial, and this jolly big root means plenty of spikes."
+
+"Spikes!" he echoed, patting the roots vigorously.
+
+"Those tall spikes of flowers, you know, very blue. One looks so lonely
+all by itself."
+
+"Ah! that is a way we all have, we poor solitary ones."
+
+"These are penstemons. They are, well, I forget, but I know I want
+them. Suppose we put them further forward; they don't look like growing
+so tall. Gaillardias, ah! I know, they are brilliant and effective. I
+bought some seeds to suit the others. These will save time. Now, a big
+hole; this is Tritoma. What on earth is that? I have heard. Grandis
+means big but Tritoma?"
+
+We both studied the label.
+
+"Must it have another name? Is that the rule? I told my mother the
+gardener was an Ignoramus. She might have written in the vulgar tongue."
+
+"Did you mean me or Griggs?"
+
+"Griggs, of course."
+
+"Then you were wrong. But I remember now, I was studying its picture
+this morning in the catalogue. Tritoma stands for red-hot poker. It
+will look fine at the back."
+
+"Well, you are getting on," said the Young Man, in tones of admiration.
+"But why won't they say 'poker' and have done with it?"
+
+"I wish they would. It is very trying of them. See what a lot you are
+learning. This is much more improving for a son of Adam than visiting
+old women and babies."
+
+"_Much!_ And I like it much better, which shows it is good for me."
+
+"Ah, I don't know about that. Still, it does strike me as absurd to
+send a young man fresh from college to visit old women and babies. I
+can't think what you say to them."
+
+"I say 'Did ums was ums' to the babies. But I am not quite fresh from
+college, you know. I talk some kind of sense to the mothers; at least,
+I hope so."
+
+He was making a big hole and I was holding out a big root to fill it.
+
+"This is galega. It is rather tall and so must go at the back. I don't
+mean you never talk sense, though I consider it insulting to address
+a baby like that. They look so preternaturally grave that Greek would
+suit them better. But I mean it isn't a man's work, it is a woman's."
+
+"Galega! that means pok--no, larkspur! You see I am getting quite
+learned. There, it fits in beautifully."
+
+"Press the roots firmly or they don't take hold," I observed.
+
+"So. I always find your conversation very improving. My mother says the
+same things to me, I mean about old women."
+
+I had walked down the path for another root. He went on when I came
+back,
+
+"But you know the old women, and young ones too, like a visit from
+their clergy. The clergyman and doctor are great boons in their lives."
+
+"Poor souls, I know they are very hard up. Even I am considered a boon,
+especially when I go round with puddings and things."
+
+"Or without!" and he looked up quickly, "_I_ should think so
+if--but"--and his voice changed--"I do understand what you mean. _This_
+is Adam's work, eh? Only the other is the vineyard too, and we, I--I
+mean, need the experience it gives me. They live at the root of things,
+touch life so nearly. It is something like coming in touch, actual
+touch, with the brown earth. Do you see what I am trying to say?"
+
+I looked up at him from my plants, at this tall young man in a
+bicycling suit of semi-clerical cut, with his keen face and earnest
+eyes, whom we had fallen into the way of treating in almost brotherly
+fashion since his Reverence had adopted him as his Young Man as well
+as curate. He had broken down in some Midland town from overwork and
+come to Fairleigh to recruit and study and fill in a convalescent time.
+As a rule we did not like the curates.
+
+"I think you are right," I said, "but somehow I feel I am right too
+in a way. One can't be saving souls all the time--one's own or other
+people's--and here, as you say, is Adam's work, the brown earth."
+
+He laughed. "And here is Eve naming the flowers! I am sure Eve kept
+Adam to the digging while she picked the fruit."
+
+"How men do love that old allegory! Personally I don't think they come
+out of it so well that they need quote it so often. However, as it
+gives them all the backbone, I feel quite absolved when I ask them to
+use it!"
+
+The Young Man rose up. "Ah! if Eve had had the spirit of her daughters!"
+
+"Here is a very large phlox, please dig that hole bigger," I
+interrupted, and as we carefully placed it in position, down the path
+came his Reverence and the Master.
+
+"Oh!" I shouted, "come and see all my new arrivals; I am going to cut
+you out!"
+
+The Master examined our work over his spectacles, and looked up and
+down the border critically, ending his survey with an unpromising
+"Humph."
+
+Something was very wrong, evidently. My hopeful spirits sank.
+
+"Have we been doing anything very ignorant? Don't you put plants
+straight into the earth? Will they all die?"
+
+The Master laughed.
+
+"Let us hope things are not as desperate as all that. I was looking at
+your border. Oh, what pauper fare! and what a lot of rubbish in it.
+Licence has reigned here for many a long year."
+
+"For over twenty," I exclaimed savagely. "Griggs has been here quite
+that time."
+
+"It used to look very well in Mr Wood's time, but that is many years
+ago, and he devoted himself chiefly to his roses. It is a pity you did
+not do it in the autumn."
+
+"Oh, don't, Master!" I cried dolefully. "Nothing is more trying to my
+temper than to be told of all the things that ought to have been done
+months and years ago. I can't go back and do them!"
+
+"No more you can. There is a great deal of sound sense in that remark,
+only--"
+
+"And don't tell me to wait until the autumn again. I can't always be
+waiting for the other end of the year to do the things I want done now."
+
+"Oh! then let us go forward at once," said the Master.
+
+"What shall I do?" asked the Young Man, with as much energy as though
+the afternoon were just beginning. "Shall I take out the roots we have
+put in to begin with?"
+
+The Master again looked up and down, and I could see he was again
+regretting the autumn.
+
+"If you won't wait it must be done," he said at last. "Have this border
+thoroughly well turned over, two feet deep at the least, and work in
+some of that savoury heap I saw in your little yard. You will find a
+good deal of root to cut away from those trees; they take the food from
+this border, but that can't be helped now. Then clear out the weeds and
+those terrible marigolds I see springing up everywhere, and those poppy
+seedlings. I think your new friends will have a better chance when that
+is done."
+
+"And the plants that are to stay, may they be touched?"
+
+"You _must_ touch them, but do a piece at a time, and lift them in and
+out with a good ball of earth round the roots so as to disturb them as
+little as possible. Press them well in afterwards and water."
+
+"Should Griggs put some of the savoury heap just round their roots?"
+
+"No, no, let the whole border have a dressing. Later on any special
+plant may be mulched if it is needed."
+
+"Mulched!" said the Young Man, turning to me. "Do you know what that
+is?"
+
+I shook an ignorant head.
+
+"Something to do with manure, I believe, but I don't know what."
+
+"Griggs will show you," laughed the Master.
+
+"No, he has his own vocabulary. I try the garden book words on him
+occasionally and he looks quite blank."
+
+"It is giving the plants a little extra food from the surface. So
+it sinks gradually in or the rain carries it down with it. A gentle
+process and the roots are not disturbed. The other process may produce
+indigestion, you see."
+
+Adam and Eve carefully replaced the unplanted roots in the hamper and
+gave a sigh.
+
+"Oh, dear! All our work. You might as well have gone to see Mrs Gunnet."
+
+"Oh, no," said Adam, "because I have learnt a great deal and can help
+you another time."
+
+It was a good thing for me and the border that the Master had looked so
+grave over it, for his Reverence was duly impressed with the necessity
+of the case, and Griggs and a helpful stranger were hard at work next
+day and the next, and by the end of that week the border lay smooth
+and brown and neat with hopeful green patches at intervals. Jim and
+I and the Young Man had been very busy arranging those patches, and I
+hoped the front plants would not grow taller than the back, but a good
+deal had been left to luck. The evening primroses and marigolds and
+weeds had disappeared, I hoped for good. Time proved that this was too
+hopeful a view to take of weeds.
+
+And I will never forget the Master's parting injunction.
+
+"Mind," with raised finger, "you ought never to take a spade near
+your herbaceous border, only turn it over with a little fork, for the
+well-established roots should not be disturbed. And good soil and
+sufficient water ought to be enough as a rule. To-day we have been
+dealing with an exceptional case, remember that!"
+
+Oh! Master, yes. Mine is an exceptional case; but I guess there are
+many would-be gardeners as ignorant, and, maybe, many gardens as
+exceptional.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But to return to my hopefully-growing seeds. I fear they were being
+left anyway rather longer than was judicious, for one day about the
+beginning of April it struck me my wooden boxes were very full and the
+plantlets growing very leggy.
+
+"Why is that?" I asked Griggs. I hated asking Griggs, but there was
+no one else to ask. After all it seemed _impossible_ but that Griggs,
+during the forty odd years he had pretended to be a gardener, should
+not have gathered together some scraps of information concerning plants
+and their ways.
+
+"They wants pricking out, that's why they're so spindle-shankey.
+'Tain't no good asking me for more boxes, I ain't got no more; and you
+can't put 'em out in the open neither--leastways, they'll die if you
+do."
+
+"Of course not," I said with all the knowledge I possessed in my tone.
+"But we must have boxes. They can be knocked up, can't they?"
+
+"Not without wood, they can't. And just look at all them seeds wot
+you've sowed. Why, they wants a sight o' boxes now."
+
+It was a dilemma, but Jim revived my faint spirits.
+
+There were boxes--old winecases--in the cellar, he said. Jim knew
+every nook and cranny of the house; he would just ferret them out; no
+one would miss them. Jim never asked leave, for experience had taught
+him that a demand occasions a curious rise in the value of an article
+absolutely unknown to the possessor before it was required by someone
+else. And Griggs knocked them together, for Jim explained we had to let
+the fellow try his hand occasionally.
+
+We filled the new boxes with a little heavier diet than the baby seeds
+had enjoyed, good mould from under some shrubbery, and then carefully
+separated each stem; and carrying out Nature's law of the survival of
+the fittest, I placed the most promising in the new environment.
+
+I had done one whole box, it looked so neat, the little upright shoots
+all about three inches apart, when Jim and the Young Man came round.
+
+He had been away for a few days and was quite anxious to know how my
+garden grew.
+
+He had altered the old rhyme with which, of course, his Reverence and
+the Others were always pestering me; but I don't think his version was
+very original either--
+
+    "How does the garden so contrairy
+    Get on with its new Mistress Mary?"
+
+I was seated on the corner of the one frame and the boxes were
+precariously placed on the edge.
+
+The Young Man's face beamed. "I have been learning to prick out; now,
+let me see."
+
+And to my horror he began to pull up my neat little plants.
+
+"There, that's wrong, and that and that. No, that stands; but see, all
+these are wrong."
+
+I gasped, "What are you doing? Do you call that pricking out? I don't."
+
+"By Jove! you'll catch it now, my dear fellow," said Jim.
+
+"Oh! don't you see it's all right to do that, because it shows you you
+have done them all wrong."
+
+"I think you have misunderstood the idea of 'pricking out,'" I said
+coldly.
+
+The Young Man was so full of information he paid no attention to my
+offended dignity or Jim's mirth.
+
+"I learnt it on purpose to show you. I planted a box full at home and
+the gardener came round and did that to my plants. I nearly whacked him
+on the head."
+
+"You're a parson," interrupted Jim, "you've got to think of that."
+
+"I know, Jim. I managed to bottle my feelings nearly as well as
+Mistress Mary did just now. I know what she is feeling."
+
+But I was still dignified.
+
+"Now will you tell me," I began.
+
+"Oh, it's a first-rate dodge! You see, if they are firmly put in they
+will stand that little pull, and if not it shows you ought to have
+wedged them in better."
+
+"Why," said Jim, "I bet I could tug out any you could wedge in."
+
+"That's the art; you must wedge right and tug just enough."
+
+"And why," I asked again, "why this tugging and this wedging?"
+
+"Oh, because otherwise they don't catch hold properly and make
+themselves at home. I didn't mean to spoil your neat box," he continued
+penitently. "May I help you?"
+
+"Why, of course you must," I said, brightening up. "Look at all that
+has to be done. Jim, dear, fill those boxes nicely with mould, a
+judicious mixture of looseness and compression."
+
+"I've other fish to fry this afternoon. If his Reverence's Young Man
+will do some beastly algebra for me I will stay and mess about with
+you; if not, he has got to do the messing."
+
+And so Jim deserted us, and we planted and pulled at each other's
+boxes, and I certainly tried to get some of his out. And then the fresh
+difficulty faced us where to put all these new boxes, for they had to
+be protected from the still frosty nights, and also from any too heavy
+rains which might, perchance, drown them. I wanted much more room than
+the one frame afforded, even could I turn out all the scraggy geraniums.
+
+"They must be protected somehow," I said despondingly, "and we can't
+carry them in and out of doors, and oh! how heavy even these little
+boxes are. There's the verandah, but the Others will never let me crowd
+them out with these boxes. It is just getting sunny out there. What can
+we do?"
+
+The Young Man looked round and thought, and thought, and then it came,
+an idea worth patenting.
+
+"You don't want heat for them?"
+
+"Oh, no, they ought to be hardened, you see."
+
+"And it's only at night, or against heavy rains, that they want
+protecting?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+"Well, then, I have it!" And he had it, the germ of the brilliant idea
+that, with Jim's assistance and mine, and Griggs's for actual manual
+labour, gradually evolved into an impromptu frame and saved us even
+the making of new boxes.
+
+This was the plan of action.
+
+We cleared a space in the little yard where the frame lived, and the
+manure heap in one corner, and one sunny border which held lettuce and
+I intended should hold my plantlets later on. We made first a bed of
+cinders (this for drainage), then a layer of manure (this for heat),
+then good mould, and all were enclosed with four strong planks, and in
+this protected spot we pricked out our nurslings. At night they were
+covered with a plank or two and some sacking, and this also protected
+them during any very heavy rains, until they grew strong enough to
+weather them. The boxes already pricked out we protected in like
+manner, only making no special bed for them.
+
+It became truly a delight to see how day by day those tiny sprigs of
+green grew and prospered, and to watch the development of the various
+leaves. The pretty crinkly little round leaves of the polyanthus, the
+neat spiky twig of the marigold and tagetes, the sturdy, even-growing
+antirrhinum with pale green stalks for white, and yellow and rich
+brown for the red variety, and the trim, three-cornered leaves of the
+nasturtium, each after its kind, very wonderful when we realise all
+that potentiality enclosed in a pin's point of a seed, and needing no
+difference of treatment to produce either zinnia or lobelia.
+
+I made all the Others, and everyone else too, walk round my nursery and
+dilated on the promising appearance of my children.
+
+"Wonderfully neat! but how tiny they all are. Do you mean to say you
+expect those little things to flower this year? Why, it is like asking
+a baby of six months old to ride a bicycle!" said one of the Others.
+
+"But they are annuals! In comparison they are now twenty years old! Of
+course they will flower this year, and be old and done for by October."
+
+"Well, you are _very_ hopeful, but _I_ don't expect much result _this_
+year."
+
+"You will see!"
+
+"Well, we have not seen much yet, have we?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The packets containing my biennial seeds, which, of course, means such
+seeds as sown one year furnish plants for the next year's flowering and
+then go the way of all "grass," instructed me to sow in the open from
+March or April to June.
+
+From what I have so far learned I would certainly advise sowing as
+early as possible and not taking June into consideration at all. The
+little plants get forward before the really hot weather begins, and
+usually the clouds supply sufficient water at that time; but if not, on
+no account must they go thirsty. I found watering a great necessity,
+for my ground is as porous as a sieve; a substratum of nice cool
+tenacious clay must be a great boon to those who happily have it. I
+suppose it may have some drawbacks, but my imagination is not lively
+enough to suggest any. Being light and poor, I usually doctored the
+soil before sowing the seeds. I believe it ought not to be really
+necessary; but a little manure mixed with leaf mould and some earth
+from a convenient shrubbery or background place, and all dug well in,
+was approved of by the plantlets. If by any chance you can lay aside,
+from hedgerows, corners of field or other prigable parts, some rolls
+of turf and let it stand aside until it rots, it makes most helpful
+dressing, particularly for rose roots.
+
+After the ground is ready make little straight trenches about one inch
+deep, and thinly, because they are certain anyway to be too close,
+scatter in your seeds. There for the present your work ends, and Mother
+Earth commences her never-ending miracle of death and resurrection.
+"Thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain, it may
+chance of wheat or some other grain," and "that which thou sowest is
+not quickened except it die," when, "God giveth it a body, to every
+seed his own body."
+
+Those little brown pin points, of which you hold hundreds in a pinch on
+your palm, each one has its "celestial" body ready to spring into life
+through the dark gateway of death. Surely St Paul must have had his
+garden as a little boy, and sown his seeds, and marvelled, even as Jim
+and I did, with eyes opening to the wonder of it all. A wonder that is
+passed over in the matter-of-course way of the daily round, but that
+startles one, almost as a revelation, when one's own hand holds the
+seed, sows it, and then watches for the result.
+
+To say it is just "life" or the "force of nature" or "the energy
+that is behind all things," these are but words, the marvel remains.
+Irresistibly the thought arises, "With what body shall _we_ come?" Not
+with the old earth body for sure, if my seeds are to teach me anything.
+
+So I sowed first the forget-me-nots, as this year they must come from
+seed. Another year I will take the little shoots that are round the old
+plant and, separating them, will prick them out in a nursery spot, and
+so shall my plants for the following year be more mature, stronger,
+and therefore better flowering; a first year's forget-me-nots are apt
+to be straggling. Then the sweet-Williams, the wallflowers, red and
+gold, Canterbury bells, silene, the little bright pink edging that
+with forget-me-nots makes a border so gay in spring time, these were
+my first year's venture in biennials; for though some of them may
+be considered perennials, the best results may be hoped for from a
+continuously fresh store.
+
+The big sunflower seeds I placed just where I wanted them to come up,
+sometimes a single one, so that the plant should have all its own way,
+and wear as big a head as it knew how, and others in groups of four or
+five.
+
+Nasturtiums also I placed as a border to a lonely shrubbery. Some of
+the seeds had been got forward in the impromptu frame, but those were
+for my tree stumps and for creeping up the verandah. Canariensis the
+same; the convolvulus also were planted freely to cover up deficiencies
+wherever a creeping thing could grow.
+
+It is wise to sow your perennial seeds early; they get settled in life
+before they are called upon to face their first winter. So in another
+spot, judiciously cribbed from cabbage-room--crib I had to for my
+nursery ground--I sowed in like fashion the perennials, those which
+had not already begun their career in wooden boxes and frame. There
+were the big Oriental poppies, red and orange, for my impatience had so
+far succumbed to the gardening spirit that I could bear to contemplate
+sowing seeds with the hope of no immediate return, Brompton stocks,
+penstemons, foxgloves and gaillardias; campanulas, too, short and tall,
+white and blue; and those already started in boxes, the polyanthus
+and columbines, nice sturdy little plants by now, were moved to this
+division a little later, when frosty nights were a thing of the past.
+
+These for my first batch of perennials; others would surely follow with
+succeeding years. The thought of their permanence delighted me. Dear,
+nice things! they would not need sowing year by year, but would yearly
+grow more and more "in favour with God and man." So I hoped, even as a
+mother hopes it for her children.
+
+That long herbaceous border should one day be full of good stuff, one
+day blooming with a succession of flowers; but face the fact, one day
+is not to-morrow. The plants must grow; so, patience, patience, though
+mine was threadbare.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My other nursery of annuals sown in early March were growing apace and
+the sweet peas needed sticking. It certainly spoils their appearance
+for a time but is very necessary. I noticed all my seedlings growing in
+bits of kitchen garden filched from his Reverence's province grew with
+greater vigour than those down my own borders.
+
+I suspected that amongst much neglect the vegetable ground had suffered
+least, and so, in spite of his Reverence's outcry that I was robbing
+him of at least a sack of potatoes, I continued to make little inroads
+on his property. And thus I was brought in contact with the fruit-trees
+bordering the pathways. They had been renewed, many of them, when first
+his Reverence came to Fairleigh. They looked healthy enough, but very
+few blossoms and no fruit ever accounted for their existence. I pointed
+this out to his Reverence, and, full of newly-acquired knowledge, asked
+him if he had heard of tap-roots. "Griggs planted them, so you may
+depend that is what is the matter with them, and in the autumn we will
+have them up."
+
+"You are poaching," said his Reverence.
+
+"You ought to be full of gratitude, but I can't take them in hand
+myself, I only give you some of my overflowing knowledge. And we should
+all like to eat our own apples and pears!"
+
+Jim was much interested in tap-roots; he promised himself quite a good
+time hacking away at them in the autumn. He wondered if the barren
+fig-tree had a tap-root, but I could not enlighten him.
+
+Everything was growing, we had had some good rain. I can feel for
+the farmers now; I know what it is to _want_ rain. One of the Others
+said she wished we would keep quiet, all we gardeners and farmers who
+hankered after rain. She thought perhaps if we ceased the weather
+might get a little settled and the sun shine week in week out. To her
+mind that was far better than fields of corn or beds of even luxuriant
+flowers. There were sure to be _some_ corn and _some_ flowers anyhow,
+"so do let other people enjoy the sunshine in peace." Certainly if
+the English climate is the result of conflicting desires, it would
+be a good thing to have a national creed on the subject and make it
+obligatory.
+
+After the rain, however, in that particular month of April, came the
+sun, and things grew apace.
+
+Though not only my seeds and flowers. The enemy, who for many a long
+year had sown, or allowed to be sown, weeds in my garden, had his crop
+likewise.
+
+"They're overmastering us agin," said Griggs, who had his friendly
+moments; and sometimes, if we were working hard, quite enjoyed
+standing near and pretending to help us.
+
+"It's your fault that, you know," said Jim, who minced matters with
+nobody. He was doubled up over the border surrounded with all kinds
+of implements, for Jim liked everything handy. There was a big clasp
+knife and a spade and rake, a trowel and little fork, and then he
+generally used his hands. He was now "tracking home," as he said, that
+evil-minded weed called, I believe, the ground-elder, and pointed out
+with some heat, quite excusable under the circumstances, that Griggs,
+who had just calmly and coolly cut off the head of the plant, had done
+not a "blooming bit of good."
+
+If you should ever want a really good back-aching job, take a trowel
+or a little hand fork and begin a fight with those innocent-looking,
+many-fingered leaves growing in and out in so friendly a fashion with
+your flowers. You turn up the root, but its hold is still on the earth;
+you pull a bit and find it belongs to that other cluster of leaves
+some little distance off. You attack that, very careful not to lose
+your underground connection, it also has sent long stringy branches in
+all directions. Then you pull and tear and say "Oh, bother!" and "What
+a brute of a weed!" Jim and I are careful not to say anything stronger,
+though he has been known to indulge in "hang," but I feel sure Griggs
+gives us the character of using "most horful languidge you never
+heard." Still it goes on, and quite a heap of potato-like roots will be
+out and yet its hold is not slackened. Finally it lands you in an iris
+or lily root; it is not particular, but I find it prefers a solid root,
+and there you get sadly mixed as to what is root and what is weed. But
+if the job is to be done finally, these roots must be all taken up
+and carefully disentangled, for all are twined together. This radical
+measure is best, or rather least injurious to lilies and irises, when
+their flowering time is over--July and August--and moving or dividing
+does not disturb them.
+
+Never in all old Griggs's reign of twenty years had he tracked a
+ground-elder weed home; but I now know the look of those potato-like
+roots better than any other in my garden.
+
+I cannot say I like doing it. Boys are more invertebrate and do not
+get so red in the face; and this I pointed out to Jim, suggesting a
+division of labour.
+
+"You do get jolly red," said Jim, "but really, you know, I expect it's
+your stays."
+
+"Jim!"
+
+"Well, you needn't get up the steam. I only know when I was dressed up
+for those theatricals as a beastly, I mean, as a girl, the fellows got
+hold of some stays, I suppose they bagged their sister's, a precious
+tight pair, too! and I just tell you, in confidence, they made me
+absolutely sick. I had to retire looking like an unripe lemon. My!
+never again!"
+
+"You squeezed too much, Jim."
+
+"That girl must have squeezed more; and you all do, that's my private
+opinion."
+
+In consideration, therefore, of the infirmities to which a rigorous
+convention condemns my sex, Jim said he would do the thinning out for
+me.
+
+My promising annuals, designed for grand duty in the cutting line,
+godetias and larkspurs and chrysanthemums and Shirley poppies, were all
+most flourishing, but coming much too thick. They ought to have been
+thinned out sooner, of course, but we had been too busy, so Jim devoted
+his early morning hours to them, before the five minutes' rush on his
+bicycle which took him to the station for Gatley, where he and some
+other fellows were being crammed to pass the examination for the Royal
+Navy.
+
+Jim's days were always filled. He never neglected cricket, nor, in its
+good time, football and hockey; but he was going to see me through with
+my garden for the first year, he said, and his help and ideas were
+never-failing.
+
+On the thinning-out mornings Jim got up early; very early it seemed to
+me when he bounced into my room and sent a flood of light full on my
+face, or placed a damp sponge there.
+
+"Now I am going to thin, and I can't do it with any satisfaction if you
+are asleep. What you have to do is to think out any blooming thoughts
+for this blooming essay on courage. Why the blooming idiot gives us
+such rotten subjects I can't think. But you must jot down some headings
+and be ready with them when I come back."
+
+"Jim, what a worn-out old subject. I shall go to sleep over it."
+
+"This won't do," and Jim strode to the washing stand and plunged the
+sponge in water.
+
+"Oh, don't, Jim, I am awake! There was 'the boy who stood on the
+burning deck,'" I shouted hurriedly.
+
+Jim came back and stood over me.
+
+"Open your eyes then wide, so. You see you are wasting precious time
+with your sluggishness."
+
+I thought of those thickly-sown seedlings growing up so leggy, and I
+roused myself.
+
+"Well, 'the boy' will do, then; he is a good old stager."
+
+"Yes, so he mustn't be left out. All the other fellows will have him in
+for sure, and if I don't, 'old Joe' will think I don't know about him.
+They don't want any originality, these chaps; they want you just to
+stick on and learn what they learnt, then you see you can't put them in
+a corner. So just rout out good old standing dishes."
+
+Jim turned to go.
+
+"All right; but, Jim, remember to leave the strongest plant."
+
+"'Survival of the fittest,' yes, I've heard that before."
+
+"And don't forget about eight inches apart."
+
+"I prefer six; you turn your thoughts to courage."
+
+"Primitive instinct, difference between man and woman, one has more of
+the physical variety and the other of the moral," I shouted after him.
+
+"No twaddle," said Jim, striding back. "Think of what _I_ should be
+likely to say. Of course we all may pick up ideas outside as we have
+to write the blooming thing in form, but it must sound like me, not
+you."
+
+"It will, Jim, after it has been through your mill, never fear. And I
+think eight inches produces strongest plants."
+
+And then Jim slid down the bannisters and I heard him whistling in the
+garden; but that soon ceased, for you can't whistle when you are bent
+double.
+
+I must say the row looked very nice when I reviewed it after breakfast.
+Jim had selected with great care! but the heaps of rejected plantlets
+lying on the gravel path caused my motherly heart a pang. What a
+shocking waste! Every tiny seed had come up and ten were growing where
+but one could find sufficient support for full development, so out must
+come the nine. Nature is wasteful, and so is human nature, but we can't
+weed out the overcrowded families; and do the fittest there always
+survive? Truly it would need courage to tackle that problem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later, in May, I found an employment in which I tried to
+interest the Others, but it was no good. The only one I brought up to
+the scratch, or rather the rose tree, fled with horror when I showed
+her what was needed, and vowed she would rather never smell a rose
+again than do such disgusting work. But his Reverence took quite kindly
+to the job, I am glad to say, and it was a good sight in my eyes when
+I saw his wideawake carefully bent over the standard roses, and then
+a certain look of victory rose over his spectacles as he spotted the
+enemy. This new enemy is a very vile-looking little green grub; one
+variety is brown and fat, and then indeed I have felt inclined to flee
+myself. I suppose his mamma lands him in an invisible stage on the
+tender young rose leaves and he curls them round him for a cradle. Then
+in some mysterious way, which I heartily wish Dame Nature had never
+taught him, he rocks his cradle to the side of a juicy young bud, glues
+himself to it and enjoys it. Not much bud is left. So his Reverence
+unfolds the green cradle and carefully ejects the baby. I simply cannot
+do that, I pick off the leaf; but in either case the end is rapid and
+final.
+
+And how prolific is that abominable butterfly! You may, in fact, you
+_must_, visit your rose trees daily if you would hope to see a goodly
+show.
+
+At least, so it is in my garden. I can but speak from a limited
+experience. I have often thought others may be more blessed than I am,
+but you may not be one of them, friend Ignoramus.
+
+Then there is the green fly, thickly swarming all over banksia or
+cluster roses, at least, more especially favouring them. Jim would
+have little to say to the green grub, though occasionally even he and
+the Young Man had their steps gently led in that direction; and seeing
+his Reverence's absorption, they too began and then somehow went on.
+A kind of fatal fascination, I suppose, "Just one more!" The Others
+would never give the spell a chance, but Jim grew to take the greatest
+interest in green fly.
+
+The Young Man suggested smoke for their destruction, but his cigarettes
+did not seem to effect much, though he blew round a bush for quite a
+long time while I picked the cradle leaves off another, and of course
+my work was the most effectual. Jim was very keen on trying this remedy
+too. I said the effect would be worse than his experience with the
+stays, at which he asked me with dignity if I supposed he was as green
+as all that! However, Griggs came out with an old syringe, and Jim said
+that was the work for him. Soapy water and a good shove, and the Young
+Man was simply deluged.
+
+All Jim said was, "What a mercy it was only you. Think if it had been
+his Reverence! Winkie! what a shine there would have been."
+
+I thought the young man behaved beautifully, for a man, though he did
+catch Jim and hold him upside down until he was gurgling.
+
+But when the green fly got the douche very strongly given they too
+objected, and vacated their position.
+
+Afterwards I obtained a recipe for a douche which had even more
+effectual results.
+
+Take two ounces of quassia chips (you get them from a chemist for a
+very small sum) and one ounce of soft soap, and pour on them about a
+pint of boiling water. Leave it till cold and then add water to the
+amount of two gallons. With this concoction syringe your green fly, and
+its extreme bitterness will make them lose all fancy for your rosebuds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lilacs were out, and the white guelder rose and the ash tree;
+may and syringa and laburnum were soon to follow. Truly even a poor
+neglected little garden has its happy moments!
+
+I would rest some days looking around and enjoying the green so new
+and fresh everywhere, and trying to shut the reformer's eye. But it
+was growing too strong for me; the only way to shut it was to reform.
+The shrubberies were terrible. Laurel was rampant everywhere. A nasty
+greedy thing, it cannot live and let live, for it takes the nourishment
+needed by its better brethren. I would have no laurel in my garden,
+none, but that is a dream for the future. The elder tree too has no
+manners, it shares this failing with its namesake weed; it shoves and
+pushes all more gentle growth to the wall. It must be cut back hard.
+And the syringas also, they need the judicious knife to prune out the
+old wood and so give strength to the young shoots. And so does the
+yellow Japanese rose, more learnedly called Kerria Japonica, which
+in late March and April had given but a poor little show of bloom. I
+guessed that its treatment had been that of the yellow jasmine. It had
+been clipped in the autumn on the hedging and ditching principle, and
+the young shoots with the promise of buds had disappeared beneath
+Griggs's shears. Better for the plant to have razed it to the ground
+after flowering, said the Master, for the vigorous young shoots would
+soon have appeared; so following his instruction I this spring cut the
+old stems right away, leaving only the new green ones springing from
+the ground. I am hoping here, too, for next year.
+
+It seems a gardener must always be living in the future, "possessing
+their souls in patience," and "hoping all things." Truly it is a
+liberal education, and I hope may prove very valuable to Jim and the
+Young Man--and other persons.
+
+It has done no good to Griggs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Spring slipped into summer. The sun shone longer and melted the iciness
+in the wind's breath; the tender green of the trees gave place to
+"leafy June" and the shade was grateful.
+
+Jim found a waistcoat superfluous, and the head gardener donned a shady
+hat and tried to wear gloves.
+
+Yes, the spring was gone, and even with summer's glories to come one
+turns a regretful glance back to the months when "Behold, He maketh all
+things new."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SUMMER]
+
+
+
+
+SEASON III
+
+Summer
+
+    "Knee-deep in June."
+
+
+And knee-deep in work, too, for June will not give you anything for
+nothing if you are running a garden. I had my hands full, not only with
+the legitimate work of June, which is great, but May is sure to have
+left you in the lurch; this "getting forward" process so much preached
+by the Master is not seconded by May with at all a whole heart.
+
+    "March ain't never nothin' new!
+    Apriles altogether too
+    Brash fer me, and May--I jes'
+    'Bominate its promises.
+    Little hints o' sunshine and
+    Green around the timber-land,
+    A few blossoms and a few
+    Chip birds, and a sprout or two--
+    Drap asleep, and it turns in
+    'Fore daylight and snows agen!"[1]
+
+[1] James Whitcomb Riley.
+
+My poet is an American, but the complaint may be raised also in the old
+country; only I do not "'bominate" promises. I love them, and as I am
+perforce a gardener it is a good thing, for I often get nothing else.
+
+But be the garden forward or not, how lovely a garden can be, even a
+neglected garden, these last weeks of May and first of June.
+
+The chestnuts are scarcely over, the laburnum is raining gold, the may
+trees are like snow, a delicious reminder when the sun is doing its
+duty brilliantly; the roses are just breaking from the bud, and now we
+can congratulate ourselves on the wholesale slaughter of green grub and
+green fly, without, however, giving up the pursuit.
+
+But what was the matter with those newly-planted rose trees? The
+crimson rambler, for one, that was to ramp up the verandah, had not
+ramped an inch; it had only put forth some miserable, half-starved
+leaves and not one bud. The Others derided it freely. William Allen
+Richardson looked unhappy too; the new standards seemed more contented,
+and the Reine Marie Hortense, who also was destined to cover the
+verandah as rapidly as might be with pink Gloire de Dijon roses, had
+really begun her work with a will. Why then had my much-vaunted crimson
+rambler failed me? I had been told they disliked a wall, but not a
+verandah. "A worm i' the root," suggested One; but I held to certain
+laws of the Medes and Persians, and one was to leave the roots alone
+until the right time; so if my rambler wished to flourish elsewhere it
+must bide until the autumn; though in the front, over an old stump, and
+down in the kitchen garden it was the same tale, the ramblers refused
+to ramble.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the business of the month must not be kept waiting a day, in fact,
+we began the last week in May, and that was promoting the nurslings
+from their shelter to the open borders.
+
+The two large round beds that were generally devoted to Griggs's
+semi-red geraniums and scraggy calceolarias, and which were the only
+regular planting-out beds the garden possessed, were now a subject of
+much disquieting thought to me.
+
+They were so terribly important. By them I felt my reputation must
+stand or fall. They were plainly visible from everywhere. They needed
+to be a brilliant mass of colour from June to October; no easy problem
+for one lot of flowers to solve. I had set my face against Griggs's
+geraniums bordered with calceolarias and lobelias, the refuge of the
+destitute; any other refuge was to be mine, I resolved. And since it
+had been no silent resolve, it had perforce to be kept.
+
+At present those beds were an eyesore, but one for which I did not feel
+responsible. Before I took in hand the reins of garden government,
+Griggs had buried there a mixture of tulips and edged them with
+alternate polyanthuses--the poorest of specimens--and forget-me--nots
+that had weathered the winter in what Griggs termed a "spotty" way. It
+was certainly a suggestive phrase for those particular plants. But I
+had been able to join the Others in their chorus of condemnation. Now
+the time had arrived for a change, and the responsibility appalled me.
+
+I had had visions of those two beds with many various inhabitants.
+At first the dream had been of violas, pale mauve deepening into the
+dark purple, but to complete that idea some tall things with a strong
+colour--red salvias or good red geraniums--were needed; these, planted
+some eighteen inches apart, would bring out the delicate background.
+But the dream vanished perforce. Apart from the lack of good red
+anything, my violas had failed me, and some few dozen little plants
+were all I could reckon upon. Why, I do not know; it was just this, the
+seeds had not come up.
+
+So then I dreamed of all my straight little antirrhinums; they would
+surely make a fine glaring effect. I had red, yellow, white and a good
+quantity. Jim liked the idea; red was to be the centre, and yellow and
+white alternate, a broad border.
+
+Griggs took his arrangement away. The dilapidated tulips were saved, of
+course, and kept in a dry place stored for the autumn planting out.
+
+On the polyanthus roots too I laid rescuing hands. They were not very
+good colours, but needing so much I dared not waste. The best of the
+lot I had noted, and now placed them down the shaded lime walk. They
+could grow where the primroses grew, and in spring I should welcome
+even their uncertain shades down amongst the bright green of the wild
+things. The beds were turned over well, and a little fresh soil and
+manure dug in; then, when neat, smooth and ready, I brought up the
+first detachment of small antirrhinums from the nursery for their
+adornment. These had grown to the height of from five to six inches,
+but had still a slender air. I think it would have helped their more
+rapid development had they been moved sooner from their first box. With
+seedlings, friend Ignoramus, you cannot be _too_ particular. Never let
+them have the slightest check; keep them watered, cared for, and as
+they need it give them room. They will then reward you.
+
+All one cool afternoon Jim and I planted out. We began in the centre
+and made rings round with an impromptu compass formed by a stick and
+string. In the rounds thus made the plantlets were steadily and firmly
+placed, eight inches apart, though eight inches seemed a great deal of
+spare room.
+
+"They will grow," I persisted; "they are small for their age, but will
+soon need elbow room."
+
+"I feel I am playing with little tin soldiers, don't you?" suggested
+Jim; "but they are strong little beggars and will grow bigger, won't
+they?"
+
+"Oh, rather! over a foot, though they are the dwarf kind, you know; but
+they branch out like the wicked bay tree."
+
+"Well, there's room for it," said Jim, and then we worked on steadily
+until tea-time.
+
+"What are you sprinkling that bed with those tiny green twigs for?"
+asked one of the Others. "We want something a trifle cheering there,
+you must remember, Mary. We have to look at it all the summer."
+
+"We don't _want_ to have to regret Griggs's semi-red 'janiums," said
+another of the Others.
+
+"They will be a blazing mass of colour," I answered confidently as I
+hurried over my tea. "Come, Jim, they must be got in."
+
+"Remember it is for _this_ summer," shouted the Other.
+
+"And not to adorn our graves, my dear," came after us.
+
+What had happened in my short absence? I saw with new eyes, the eyes
+not of the fond mother but of the critic.
+
+"Jim!" and my whisper was awful.
+
+"What's up? Have we done anything wrong?"
+
+"Look at them!"
+
+They looked absurd. They looked impossible. The bed so big and they
+so small, so like tiny tin soldiers, that my faith failed me. The
+Others would be confronted by little green twigs all the summer and
+regret Griggs's _régime_. It was hopeless! they could never rise to the
+occasion.
+
+"They must come up, Jim."
+
+"Oh, rot! Let's put 'em a bit thicker; they will flower all right, you
+said so half-an-hour ago."
+
+"I don't know what I said half-an-hour ago; I feel sure now that they
+will take months to do anything! And what shall I do meanwhile? It's
+the pricking out; we were behind with that, you see. They must come
+up and go somewhere, where it won't matter so awfully. These beds
+_must_ be a success, even if I spend every farthing I possess on buying
+ready-made plants."
+
+We took them up. Jim was impressed with my sorrow. We planted those we
+had disturbed in the border in front as an edging.
+
+"It won't matter so much here, they don't strike the eye, because other
+things are coming here in clumps, but for those two beds!"
+
+I had nightmares of tiny tin soldiers dressed in green who marched
+round and round and disappeared, and then two bare brown beds loomed
+up like giant's eyes, and the Others all shouted,
+
+"Isn't it hideous? What did you do it for? Oh, Mary, what a mess you
+have made of it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next afternoon Jim and I, his Reverence and the Young Man--who also
+joined the Council--calculated exactly how many plants would be
+required to really fill those beds with a desirable effect. I could
+hardly believe it, the calculation ended in two hundred for each bed.
+I sat down on the grass and looked and looked as though looking would
+make the necessary quantity appear.
+
+"It can't be done," I moaned in the bluest despair. "I don't possess
+four hundred of anything; so there!"
+
+"You might make a kind of pattern," began the Young Man.
+
+"I hate a kaleidoscopic effect," I growled.
+
+"You've jolly well got to have one," said Jim.
+
+"There might be a border," suggested his Reverence.
+
+"Really, you _may_ mix some flowers," ventured the Young Man, rather
+fearful of having his head snapped off again.
+
+"I have seen uncommonly pretty beds done that way. Why, in the Park
+this year I noticed a background of small close blue flowers, and out
+of them rose tall pink geraniums. The effect was excellent," said his
+Reverence.
+
+"'You may see as good sights many times in tarts,'" I remarked, and
+they none of them knew, not even Jim, that I was quoting the learned
+Bacon, but thought my temper was affecting my reason.
+
+"Get up off the damp grass," said Jim, offering violent assistance,
+"and come and contemplate the nursery. Great Scott! after all your
+bragging to collapse like this. Aren't the babies there still?"
+
+"I have hundreds of nothing, and they are all such tiny things it would
+take _thousands_ of them to fill these _hideous_ big beds."
+
+So rather a downcast procession wended their way round the shrubbery
+to the little yard with its frame and manure heap and enclosures of
+plantlets.
+
+His Reverence drew out pencil and paper, and after making several very
+shaky rounds to represent the two beds, he began to fill in with names
+as suggested to him by Jim and the Young Man.
+
+"Let us start with the biggest geraniums in the centre, a group of
+six we will say, as they are not very big any of them. Now then, a
+row next of those yellow daisies, that will fill up a good bit and
+look bright, too. Then we might have those stocks, all colours are
+they? Do famously. And then the little snapdragons, what do you call
+them?--anti--anti--what? snapdragon will do for me. You say they are
+too small! Oh, but they will grow. Red, then yellow, then white.
+Why, see, Mary, the round is nearly full. Then a row of the smallest
+geraniums, don't you think, and end up with an edging of blue lobelia.
+That would be fine, eh?"
+
+Jim saw my face and burst into laughter. I was in no laughing mood.
+
+"Good heavens, sir! Imagine such a higgledy-piggledy assembly as
+that--all sizes--all colours--all blooming anyhow!"
+
+"Not at all, not at all. Now, Young Man, what do you say? Look here--"
+And with the warmth of an inventor his Reverence read over his list and
+grew more in love with his colour scheme than ever.
+
+"Yes," said the Young Man, at intervals, "yes, that fills in grandly;"
+and then he caught my eye, a flash of indignation, so he began to
+hesitate and hedge. "Only, you see, your Reverence, that for flowers,
+that is, for bedding out, it seems you need--you have to think--" and
+he looked at me but got no assistance. "Perhaps there might be too many
+colours, mightn't there?" he wound up feebly.
+
+"Too many colours! Why, my dear fellow, it isn't for a funeral! Do you
+want all the flowers to wear black coats like you and me?"
+
+"No, no, sir, only, you see in one bed--"
+
+"Bless the man, of course they are in one bed! Why, where is the harm
+in variety? Just look here--" and we went through the scheme again.
+"Now, come; if you don't like this, what can you suggest better, eh?"
+
+The Young Man looked so nonplussed and uncomfortable, and his Reverence
+was falling deeper and deeper in love with his arrangement, I saw that
+I must at once take the matter in hand or it would be too late.
+
+"I know," I said suddenly. I did not know, at least, not what I would
+do, only what I would not, which is sometimes a great help in the other
+direction.
+
+"Well, let us hear your idea," said his Reverence, with enforced
+patience, looking fondly at his scheme.
+
+"The antirrhinums are too small and the violas too few," I began.
+
+"Well, that is not much of an idea!"
+
+"No, but I am thinking--" and so I was, for a thought had come.
+
+Then his Reverence laughed. "Ah, well, you _think_. In the meantime
+I will leave you my list and go and see after old Griggs." He linked
+his arm in the Young Man's and walked him off. He, looking penitently
+back, found no forgiveness; I had no use for the penitence of cowards.
+
+Then I began to expound to Jim the idea that had come like a flash!
+like a revelation! until Jim said, "Get on, let's have the idea. I
+don't personally think his Reverence's scheme at all bad, you know. I
+just laid low because I saw what a stew you were in, but _personally_ I
+like a bit of colour."
+
+Then I explained to Jim what a delirium those beds would be, and Jim
+would have left me too had I not said he should do all the measurements
+for the beds as I wanted somebody with an eye! How queer men are, even
+in embryo. They always hang together, and it is only flattery that can
+overcome their prejudices.
+
+Jim grew interested. The idea was to be all yellow. I had those
+marguerites of Griggs's cuttings developed now into fair-sized plants
+in spite of their neglected childhood, for I had seen to them since.
+They should grow in the centre; then should come my marigolds, which
+were very thriving, two kinds of them, the big, rather clumsy African,
+but with handsome colouring, and the smaller, neater, darker French
+variety, and we would finish with a good border of tagetes.
+
+They were all bushy plants, all hardy, and would bloom steadily through
+the summer and autumn.
+
+A basket of scabious--lady's pincushions--arriving from the Master
+while I was planting out were also worked into my scheme, and worked
+in well. The dark round balls of reds, browns, blues, with tiny white
+pin-points, did not disturb the yellow harmony. Eventually I was proud
+of those beds.
+
+When first planted they did look slightly new and stalky, but they
+filled out daily. His Reverence only remarked, "Well, well, have it
+your own way; I suppose it is æsthetic! But my idea was more cheerful."
+
+Griggs frankly said "yeller" was never his fancy. "Now, them 'janiums,
+that gives a bit o' colour."
+
+And I quite forgave the Young Man his past for his present admiration
+was unbounded. He had been quite unable to think, he explained.
+
+So that great difficulty was settled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Griggs's geraniums turned out one or two good dark reds among the
+magenta hues, and these were put in the two old stumps that hitherto
+had been given over to mere ramping nasturtiums, and my superior
+seedlings of those useful flowers were encouraged to fall over the edge
+and ramp downwards.
+
+An old oil cask, cut in two, burnt out and painted green--Jim and
+I and the Young Man enjoyed that artistic work very much--formed
+two capacious tubs and were filled with more geraniums, the best
+and pinkest, and they brightened up the shrubbery corner where the
+daffodils had shone.
+
+Stocks and other geraniums--even the mauvy-tinted ones looked quite
+well away from all touch of red--with a border of lobelia, were
+placed under the study window in a narrow bed running along the front
+of the house, thus helping his Reverence to realise _his_ ideal.
+Then by degrees we arranged all the contents of my nursery, some in
+clumps, some in rows, down the herbaceous border, and others in the
+front border, the border which had looked so dismal and unpromising
+on that November day when I first took my garden in hand. There
+had been a brushing up of old inhabitants--Michaelmas daisies and
+chrysanthemums--but much was still left to be desired.
+
+You cannot do everything in the first year. It is no use thinking you
+can.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day, at the very beginning of June, I visited the potting-shed,
+our one and only shed, which held a collection such as may be imagined
+after the reign of Griggs for twenty years. In a dark corner I came
+across some queer-looking roots sprouting away in a most astoundingly
+lively fashion.
+
+"Griggs, what on earth are these?" I called to that worthy.
+
+"Them? Oh! them's daylers. Just stuck 'em there to keep dry for the
+winter. They oughter be out by now, they oughter."
+
+"Oh! I should think so," and then I marvelled on the nature of dahlias.
+
+"Is this a good place for them during the winter? Don't they want
+anything to eat or drink?"
+
+"Bless yer! no, they takes their fill in the summer, but they oughter
+be out by now; some'ow I've come to overlook them."
+
+That these dahlias forgave the overlooking has always been a wonder to
+me; perhaps they did not do so entirely. I believe more firmly than
+ever in the thoroughness of the edict which rules "that what a man
+soweth that shall he reap."
+
+A child or a flower starved in infancy does not recover for some time,
+if ever, and though my dahlias kindly bloomed and did their best, once
+started in as good a bed as we could give them, they ought to have
+been "potted up" in the beginning of May and kept from frosty nights;
+then at the end of May or beginning of June they should have been
+placed in their flowering position. So soon as frost touches them they
+droop, as we all well know, in their own peculiar, utterly dejected
+and forlorn manner. Then cut them down, dig them up, let them dry, and
+place them for the winter in a dry and protected cellar or outhouse,
+there to sleep until the spring calls them to fresh life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I watched the long herbaceous border with an anxious eye. The
+poppies--those dazzling papaver--opened their large green pods and
+shook out blazing red and rather crinkly leaves in the sunshine. They
+made one hot, but happy, to look at them. For that first year in my
+garden I think they did their duty well, but bigger clumps will look
+better. Some little spiky leaves that I had not recognised--how
+should I when no label accompanied them?--turned out to be the Iceland
+variety. They had one or two dainty blooms made of yellow butterflies'
+wings, but oh, dear! one or two! I needed a mass. The delphiniums
+looked healthy and promised a spiky bloom or two; the lupins were
+already in flower, nice, quite nice, when one has not much else, but
+the blue is too near purple. I must get some other varieties; the
+white would be prettier. The big thick leaves of the hollyhocks grew
+well at first, and then some beast of sorts began to fancy them and
+they developed a moth-eaten appearance. All Griggs could say was, "You
+never could do nothing with 'olly'ocks in this gardin, you couldn't."
+My other wiseacre, old Lovell, said, "They liked a bit o' wind through
+'em." His own seemed to flourish, so mine must be moved from the
+sheltering hedge where I had thought they would show up.
+
+Everywhere still grew and flourished the ever-present weeds. They
+needed no watering, nothing to promote their vitality, they grew apace;
+and I could mention other varieties beside that champion grower, the
+ground-elder. There is a sticky, burry kind of rapid, straggling growth
+with tenacious hot-feeling leaves. Its hold on the earth is not strong,
+but it is brittle, and eludes its death-warrant that way; also a kind
+of elongated dandelion, that looks straight at you as though it had a
+right to be there. Then the common poppy, last year's nasturtium seeds,
+and the offspring of last year's sunflowers are as bad as weeds, and
+indeed the latter gave me as much trouble. The strong tuberous roots
+required a vigorous pull, and were growing everywhere, through the
+centre of every flower; I took at least a dozen out of one clump of
+golden rod, and vowed I would have every sunflower up before it had
+a chance of seeding. Of course all such things must come up or they
+exhaust the feeding capacity of the border.
+
+It is all very fine to say "_must_," but I believe a poor soil is
+composed of weed seeds.
+
+I walked down the garden with one of the Others, one who loved flowers,
+only in her own way. She arranged them beautifully when everything
+was put ready to her hand; she loved picking one here and there and
+sticking it in her waist-band, or playing with its soft petals against
+her cheek, then, its brief duty done, it was forgotten.
+
+I have seen people--even mothers--love children in the same way; but
+flowers and children need a broader love than that.
+
+We walked down armed with scissors and with an empty basket; I had said
+that there _were_ flowers.
+
+"My dear girl, what on earth _have_ you? when all is said and done.
+You show me a green bush thing and give it a name"--I had mentioned
+delphinium--"and it does sound aggressively knowledgeable, of course!
+And then another isolated and flowerless specimen and give _it_ a name.
+But wherewithal am I to do the dinner-table to-night? Will you tell me
+that?"
+
+"You have a most lovely bunch of poppies in the drawing-room, and I
+cut the copper-beech, which was wicked of me. Very soon you shall have
+roses and sweet-peas and all these seedlings; and next year you shall
+have sweet-Williams and cup and saucer Canterbury bells and foxgloves
+and--"
+
+"_Next_ year! my dear. I am wanting some flowers for _to-night_."
+
+"To-night! Oh, dear, let me think. Why won't the things make haste? You
+must have _something_, of course."
+
+What was there? A good many things in bud, but had they been out I
+could not have cut them. Just the one first specimen! To cut from
+a plant you need such a big show, and all the tall perennials were
+no good anyway for the table decoration. The blue cornflowers were
+coming; the godetias held promising buds of pinkiness; the Shirley
+poppies, too, and the sweet-peas; but for to-night! Everything was for
+to-morrow. Down the garden we walked, hope always deferred, and beyond
+the garden shone a field of brilliantly deep red. I caught my breath.
+"Isn't it lovely? It is old Mason's saint-foin; let us take some. And
+see, there are white daisies in the hay there, mine aren't out yet. And
+with grasses, those lovely, wavy grasses! don't you think that will
+do?"
+
+The table did look lovely, but small thanks to my garden, I felt;
+though the Other One cared not for that, and comforted me by saying
+that gardening had certainly developed my resources if not the flowers.
+
+Nature's garden is at its best in June.
+
+The wild rose and honeysuckle scent the hedges, the tall white daisies
+shine in the grass, the ruddy chickweed, with the setting sun behind,
+glows like the evening clouds; and the tall, dainty, white meadow-sweet
+offers itself to one's hand. Were it a garden flower we should prize it
+almost as we do gypsophila. But Nature does not mean her favourites to
+be promoted to the drawing-room. Their rustic beauty fades at once, and
+it seems truly unkind to cut so short their joyous sunny day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dinner-table that had caused me so much anxiety was specially
+needed for an American friend of one of the Others. She greeted the
+pretty effect with, "My! how cunning! Do all these pretty things grow
+in your garden, Mistress Mary?"
+
+"In mine and Nature's," I added.
+
+"You have a little rhyme about Mary and her garden, haven't you? And
+her lamb, too. Have you a lamb?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said one of the Others, "she has a lamb, the new version of
+that rhyme, too, 'with coat as black as soot.'"
+
+But what she meant, or why I grew hot, it passes my wisdom to say.
+
+"Say now, do you grow nightingales in your garden, Mistress Mary?
+I assure you, sir," turning to his Reverence, "I have never yet
+compassed an introduction to that much-vaunted British institooshon,
+the nightingale. I am just crazy till I hear those liquid tones, the
+jug jug and jar jar: such vurry ugly equivalents they sound to me for
+thrilling notes, but the best, I conclude, our poor speech can do in
+imitation of that divine melody."
+
+When our friend had quite finished--I noticed she landed herself
+without fear in the longest of sentences, and brought them always with
+much aplomb to the neatest of conclusions, an accomplishment in which
+she must find the majority of her English cousins sadly deficient--his
+Reverence promised her the wished-for concert; and he further dilated
+on the beauties represented by jug jug and jar jar, until she assured
+him that with him for her guide she would face that dark and lonely
+walk of Mistress Mary's--she meant my lime trees--where doubtless she
+would find a blue or white lady flitting past, with a sigh, wasn't it?
+for some recalcitrant lover.
+
+However, I noticed she walked off later with the Young Man, who dropped
+in after dinner, and she asked him all about the jug jug and jar jar
+with ever-increasing animation.
+
+It certainly was very cool that night, as it can be in June even
+after a hot day. We looked round to send Jim for shawls, but Jim had
+vanished, to his work, no doubt. We strolled down the lime walk to see
+if the nightingales would oblige us, which I doubted, as nightingales
+are as careful of their throats in a cool wind as are prima donnas.
+
+"You really mustn't talk," I heard the Young Man say.
+
+"Land's sake! but do they want it all their own way? Though who could
+talk when the whole night is throbbing with beauty? Just look at that
+intense blue vault above us, and the calm stars shimmering down on us.
+Say! doesn't it make you feel just too awfully small for anything? You
+don't feel inclined to get up and preach now, do you? Just shut your
+eyes and listen; that's about all one can do."
+
+The figures wandered up and down under the overhanging lime boughs, two
+and two, and presently the black and white ones ahead of us stopped.
+When we wandered off again somehow we had changed partners, and Mamie
+was arm-in-arm with her special Other One and the Young Man was walking
+with me.
+
+"I had such a lot I wanted to talk to you about," he began. This
+sounded interesting, but he seemed unable to get further.
+
+"About the Sunday school?" I asked gently, for we were still listening
+for the nightingale.
+
+It was almost a cross "No" that he muttered as we passed Mamie and her
+friend.
+
+"Oh, I know," I suggested; "it is about the garden. You haven't been
+helping me in my garden for weeks and weeks. What can one talk of
+better than a garden? I think it is the most interesting subject, and
+you must want to know how the nurslings are turning out, now they are
+started in real life."
+
+I suppose Mamie had caught the word garden, for she began to sing in a
+very high thread-of-silver voice,
+
+    "If love's gardener sweet were I,
+    I would cull the stars for thy pleasure."
+
+"Say, tall and reverend sir, can you reach a star? Look how they
+twinkle!"
+
+The Young Man is so very English I half feared he would not understand
+how to take her, but Mamie's freedom was infectious.
+
+"All the stars are not up there," he said, "fortunately for my arms.
+They are twinkling under these trees to-night."
+
+"Why, you _are_ poetical! But these lively stars of white and blue
+are not the kind to cull, are they, Mistress Mary? Land's sake! but
+they might prove as big an undertaking as one of those fiery worlds
+twinkling up there. 'How I wonder what you are!' Why, _we_ don't
+wonder, we _know_. I learnt all about them at school. But who knows
+what _I_ am composed of?"
+
+"'Ribbons and laces and sweet pretty faces!' is what they taught me at
+_my_ school," said the Young Man, calmly.
+
+"Really, the nightingale _can't_ sing if we all talk so much. Do let us
+try and be quiet for two minutes," I said.
+
+But Mamie was walking away laughing, and saying the nightingale would
+soon get used to her dulcet tones, and the Young Man stayed listening
+with me.
+
+"And yet it's true," he said, "what she says; how is one ever to know
+about another person, particularly when that other person always turns
+the conversation when one begins to talk about--"
+
+"You are getting mixed," I interrupted. "Don't you like talking about
+my garden?"
+
+"Not always."
+
+"Well, then, there's the parish."
+
+"You only do that to annoy."
+
+"I don't! But to please you I will talk of your last sermon."
+
+The Young Man was very hard to please; he said he preferred to know the
+exact ingredients of the stars, so I stopped Mamie to ask her, but she
+said we were becoming prosaic; the stars were really little holes in
+heaven's floor that the angels made to peep through. "That's what they
+taught at your school, didn't they, Reverend Young Man?"
+
+"They did. My education has greatly helped me to retain my fond
+delusions and pet prejudices."
+
+"Why, what an ideal education for a clergyman!"
+
+"Since young ladies are taught to weigh the stars and won't listen for
+nightingales, it does seem good to me."
+
+"Now, don't you get rattled. Mistress Mary, you have been rubbing him
+up the wrong way, and, mercy me! however can a poor Yank hear your
+nightingale? That is a delusion I must part with unless he condescends
+to commence soon."
+
+"Well, wait, do wait quietly for one minute."
+
+So for a brief pause there was silence; and the stir of the leaves
+and little rustle of unseen creeping things could be heard, and then,
+yes, there it was! We all raised a warning finger, but the throbbing
+note broke through the stillness; a little gurgle, a break, and then a
+longer effort.
+
+"Oh, my! Is that it? It makes me creep all over. Oh, don't let us talk.
+Will it go on?"
+
+Yes, it went on. After some tentative "jugs" and "jars" it broke into
+a full-throated throb, and even our fair visitor's exclamation did not
+scare it.
+
+"It _is_ singing to-night," said One; "really, it must be in honour of
+you, Mamie. It seldom sings with such vigour!"
+
+In the centre of the sloping field grew a fine clump of trees, birch,
+chestnut and one or two straight pines; the nightingale had chosen this
+for his stage, and now again quite distinctly rose the gurgling note,
+and continued, too, right through Miss Mamie's piercing whisper.
+
+"Why! it's purfectly lovely! I guess I must take one or two back to
+Amurica. This grove of trees, the dense blue sky, the silence of all
+you dear people, and just that one divine voice throbbing with love! It
+makes me feel like melting. If anyone proposed to me now I should just
+have no strength to refuse. Don't feel nervous, most Reverend Young
+Man. I am really thinking of that fascinating Mr Jim. Say! has he gone
+to bed?"
+
+Jim! Where was he? I saw the Young Man give a start, and a quick glance
+showed me we had both solved the mystery of that persistently gurgling
+bird. "He ought to be doing his preparation," I said in firm tones.
+
+"Don't, Mary! how you shouted. Now he has stopped. Oh, what a pity!"
+
+The Young Man whistled softly, and after a pause a little answering
+whistle came from another spot.
+
+"What is that?" asked Mamie.
+
+"Night-jar," suggested the Young Man.
+
+We listened in vain for more warblings from the nightingale. He had
+flown for good, and they all said it was my fault.
+
+"Did you have a good concert?" asked his Reverence, as we returned to
+the drawing-room.
+
+And at the chorus of approval he laughed, and assured us the
+nightingale had given him a dress rehearsal, and that was why we waited
+so long.
+
+Mamie declared his Reverence was the biggest dear she had met "this
+side," for you never could believe a word he said. He and the Young Man
+had both been to the same school, she reckoned.
+
+Next morning she had a tale to tell of her own special nightingale
+throbbing with love just below her window, and again in the early
+morning hours at her door. When she laid great stress on the "throbbing
+with love," Jim got bashfully red. Then she maintained she heard him
+flutter downstairs just as she was going to pipe her love tale too, and
+that always, always, she will love her English nightingale the best of
+all British institooshons.
+
+"You don't think she really knows," whispered Jim to me, "because if
+she does, she is going rather far, isn't she?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How lovely a garden can be by moonlight, even a poor little garden.
+The moon is merciful, she touches all things, even the weeds, with a
+soft mystery; hallows the lily and every white bloom; in her light
+the red and blue flowers are not faded or extinguished, but softened;
+distances, shadows are intenser, more suggestive than in the garish
+glory of the sun; soft voices, soft footsteps are needed for the
+moonlit garden, and one may not think of work or gardeners. The flowers
+are asleep, wake them not; all but those of strong sweet scent and
+small blossom, like the jessamine and nicotina, which fittingly star
+the night garden, and these are sweeter now than ever, and thus woo to
+them the little moths, those flitting, dusky, silent lovers.
+
+The lime-tree avenue became a favourite night walk. The path that was
+once gravel, and by long neglect had become green in patches, was
+encouraged in its overgrowth, and Griggs and a scythe will turn it in
+time to quite a respectable grass walk, I hope. In the subdued light
+the feathery tall weeds gave it quite a fairy glade appearance.
+
+I can dream in my garden by moonlight, and perhaps not always of my
+garden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little perennial and biennial seeds sown in the open in April were,
+at the end of June, ready for thinning. They had each developed the
+"body" prepared for them, and nice, sturdy little "bodies" they were,
+but growing too close together and needing more elbow room. I do not
+think one ever sows seeds thinly enough, and this is not so much to
+be regretted for economy's sake as for the sake of the tiny plants'
+nourishment. Here again was a great waste of plant life, though, had
+all been wanted, all could have been used, for they are none the worse
+for this shifting. Still, half a row instead of two would have been
+sufficient for my needs.
+
+I selected the sturdiest, left some growing where they were, at about
+six inches apart, and moved the others to a new bed, also allowing
+them six inches; the rest were wasted, except a few, which found their
+way to a corner of some cottage gardens. But this is not the time when
+people are grateful for them; they like the well-grown plants in the
+autumn, which can then be placed in their spring bed.
+
+If the weather has been very dry it is a good plan to water the plants
+well before beginning to divide them, which, of course, is done by
+loosening the ground with a little fork and carefully selecting the
+young root you want from the many. Water well, too, when your work is
+finished, and continue to watch over them unless the rain comes to
+bless them.
+
+For these plantlets I chose a nursery that was not exposed all day to
+the sun. One has to think for them; they repay it with quicker and
+sturdier growth, which means better flowering capacity in the spring.
+
+So all my wallflowers, forget-me-nots, Canterbury-bells,
+sweet-Williams, silene, were thus attended to, and, added to my nursery
+division of perennial seeds, which I now divided up in like fashion,
+made a grand show, or promise rather.
+
+His Reverence was brought to admire, but he looked at the patch I had
+chosen and said,
+
+"Do you know I had cauliflowers in here last year, and it is just the
+very spot that suits them."
+
+"I know," I said. "I hope it will suit my children too."
+
+But his Reverence took quite another view of the matter, and talked of
+"landmarks," so I fled, for I did not want to be told I must move them
+all again. That was impossible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now, as the sun shone day by day both lustily and long, the great
+difficulty of watering arose.
+
+This was the time in the ideal gardens told of in my precious books
+when the busy garden boy rolls his clanking watering-tank, unfurls the
+sinuous hose, and from morning to night supplies the thirsting flowers.
+
+In the Master's garden there was no lack, and his long tubes were even
+emptying themselves, reckless extravagance! on the velvety lawn.
+
+But for me, oh, lack-a-day! The ground felt like hot dust, the
+seedlings drooped, and the Others told me not to pray for rain as they
+were doing the opposite, lawn tennis being in full swing.
+
+We had a rain-water tank, and in the stables water was laid on, but it
+was a far cry from the stables to the garden, especially the kitchen
+garden, and old Griggs was a slow mover. The watering-tank groaned its
+way, but only the two most important beds got their daily draught. They
+were beginning to turn yellow in an encouraging fashion, but it takes
+some time for the eight inches apart to fill up and become the mass of
+colour dreamt of.
+
+Then I disorganised the domestic economy by insisting on the contents
+of the household baths finding their way down to my rose bushes. At
+first the housemaids liked the little jaunt, but soon there were
+complaints of "'indering me getting on with my work, miss," and I began
+to inspect possibilities of converging drain-pipes and establishing
+receptive barrels; also I gave his Reverence small peace in those days
+in my desire for a further laying on of water to the kitchen garden and
+some yards of hose, but he said that these were big undertakings, he
+must think, etc., and for that hot, dry summer we got no further than
+thoughts.
+
+Griggs hated me worse than ever, an unavoidable evil. We had one
+pitched battle, and though it did some little good, the spirit of a
+defeated foe is not one easy to work with.
+
+In the dark winter evenings Griggs seeks his fireside as the light
+fails, or even before if it suits him. Against this I have nothing to
+say, but when the long days come with their need for more gardening
+care, I object to the early tea-time departure.
+
+I found my precious seedlings drooping and Griggs ready to depart for
+his tea.
+
+I love my own tea, so a fellow-feeling made me kind.
+
+"But come back, Griggs, for some watering must be done."
+
+"I can't come no more to-night, oi 'ave to see to things a bit up at
+'ome."
+
+"Griggs "--and my voice held dignified rebuke--"you are gardener
+_here_, and these flowers are your first duty."
+
+"There ain't no gettin' round with all them little plants wot you've
+started. I did give 'em a watering two days ago!"
+
+"Two days ago! Don't _you_ want your tea every day?"
+
+"Maybe it'll rain soon, and that'll pull 'em round. They ain't human
+critturs. Don't you fuss over them, miss. Oi knows their ways. Bless
+you, I've been a gardener these forty years."
+
+At this I rose.
+
+And what had been the result? Would he care to have his gardening
+capacity judged by the dearth that reigned at the Rectory? Did the
+heavy weed crops speak well for his industry? Did the underground
+interlacement of that pernicious ground-elder do him credit? Did the
+roses, the jasmine, etc., etc. My pent-up indignation overflowed and
+Griggs had the full benefit.
+
+The only impression I conveyed was that "Miss Mary was takin' on in a
+terrible unchristian spirit." Clerk Griggs never had a doubt of his own
+uttermost fulfilment of the law. In his opinion, "young ladies should
+play the pianny and leave gardening to them as knows." Griggs meant to
+go home. I felt this was a decisive moment.
+
+"You will come back and do the necessary watering," I said, "and I
+shall be here to see it is done; you quite understand?"
+
+With this I walked away, and Griggs came back. I got his Reverence to
+support me, and we decided to give an extra hour's rest in the middle
+of the day and insist on the watering, without which all previous
+efforts are rendered, null and void.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A useful little book, procured for the modest sum of ninepence, gave me
+a more intimate knowledge of the dwellers in my garden. It is a plain
+little book, though it reads like a fairy tale, with its stories of
+marriage-customs and the wind and bees and flying insects as lovers.
+Straightforward and interesting reading, and to those who begin to
+desire more knowledge of their plant life, highly to be recommended
+is this _Story of the Plants_, by Grant Allen. For surely if you love
+your flowers it will not be from your own more or less selfish point of
+view that you will regard them. Their aims and objects will interest
+you; their growth and evolution be of importance; and, to come round
+again to one's own advantage, what is best for them must also be best
+for the garden, since flowers in their full beauty is the gardener's
+object, and the plants' too.
+
+But the plants go further; they wish to end in seed. All their fine
+show, their sweetness and light, is with this object in view; and
+here I for one must come in, in heartless fashion, and thwart them.
+My scissors in those summer days were as much employed in cutting
+off dying bloom as in selecting fresh ones. Not a sweet-pea, not an
+antirrhinum, not a rose must hang fading on its stem. For I must lure
+my plants on to further flowering and prevent the feeling of "duty
+done" and a fine set of seeds with which they would fain wind up their
+summer's career. And it is a business, this chopping off of old heads.
+"No strength to go that way, if you please," I said to my flowers;
+"keep it all for blossoms and growing purposes, and I promise that
+your seed shall not cease from the earth, in spite of your particular
+thwarted efforts." When I happen to want a seed pod preserved, I mean
+to label it with brilliant worsted, but my garden must have grown
+indeed before that good time comes.
+
+The seedlings which, sown in the open, were now rewarding Jim's
+matutinal thinnings-out, were a comfort and encouragement. The
+intensely blue cornflowers furnished many a dinner-table, and though
+they did not face the wind with all the backbone desirable, I had
+not staked them, they formed a very good background to the less tall
+pinky-white godetias, and these, too, in July were a boon to those
+Others. They last very well in water, and, if diligently cut and not
+allowed to seed, they continue a fine show of bloom into the early
+autumn.
+
+The Shirley poppies were pure joy. Sunlight or moonlight they were a
+feast for the eyes; but, _N.B._, only those which had been properly
+thinned out and cared for. Some had escaped this process, and the
+result was invariably miserable little starved plantlets, who would
+have been cut as poor relations could they have been seen by their
+fine, stately, well-developed, gorgeously-attired sisters in a patch of
+ground that they beautified with every shade of pink, and salmon, and
+white, and rose. So dainty, too, were the bright petals, like crumpled
+satin, delicately gauffered at the edges; and what matter that their
+day was brief, as befits such delicate beauties. There were more and
+more to follow; green bud on bud hanging their small heads among the
+sage-green leaves, until the time came for them too to "come out" and
+reign as beauties for a space as long as a butterfly's life.
+
+There was a chorus of praise from the Others.
+
+"Now, why don't you grow more of those?"
+
+"Why did you not fill the two round beds with these? They make a much
+finer show!"
+
+"Are they very difficult to grow, or very expensive? Why not more?"
+
+"Don't they last? Won't they come again? Oh, but I would make them!"
+
+"You shall do the thinning out and watering," said Jim, grimly, while
+I tried, but quite in vain, to explain that permanence was the chief
+thing needed by the two round beds, and that my yellow design would go
+on.
+
+"They aren't half so effective," the Others murmured, "but of course
+you will have it your own way!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mignonette failed me; a few straggling plants and no bloom was all
+that packet did for me. I thought it grew as a weed everywhere, and
+my soil suits weeds! But I cannot master the mystery of what happens
+to some things below ground. The anemones never gave a sign of life.
+"They've rotted, that's what they've done," said Griggs, sagaciously,
+as he dug the spot where they had been buried and found no trace of
+anything. I intend to try again. Someone said damp had that effect on
+their roots, so next time for a more open, more sunny spot; but maybe
+that will prove too dry.
+
+Those hot days of July and August! Alas and alas! how I and my flowers
+suffered from the "too-dry." With the exception of my blazing yellow
+beds and my nurslings for next year, which, after my interview with
+Griggs, did receive a daily draught, my other flowers lifted withered
+faces to a piteously sunny sky and dwindled away into little dried-up
+sticks, all for the lack of water. A drop now and then is worse than
+useless; it only brings their eager roots hastily to the watered
+surface, and there the strong sun catches them and they are withered up
+for good and all.
+
+The sweet-pea hedge that had been a source of delight and use, and that
+I had kept most diligently picked, during three days' absence converted
+its blossoms into seed-pods and then gave up the ghost.
+
+I tried to pick it back to life with the destruction of pods and a good
+watering, but it was no good, and I had to turn my attention to the
+other less advanced sweet-peas and try and keep them going; the heat
+seemed to scorch the bloom and hurry on the pod.
+
+The established perennials may survive the drought; later rains may
+revive them, but to the poor little annuals it is good-bye for ever;
+and many a zinnia, stock, lobelia, and even marigold, though it is more
+hardy, had but a poor little starved life, and passed away with a tiny
+drooping head.
+
+It was heart-breaking. Another year I must not have so large a family
+of these tender children. The hardy annuals which can be given
+straight away to Mother Earth's care fare better, and coming quicker
+to the flowering time are not so wasted. But those grown in boxes and
+transplanted claim more attention, and they could not have it; though
+to all water is a necessity, and they fade the sooner for its lack. The
+poor salpiglosis needs other soil; heavier, damper, I suppose, and some
+shade. I fear I must admire them in other people's gardens.
+
+Griggs and the clanging tank on wheels was a poor substitute for the
+"blessed rain from heaven" that falls on all alike, while his unwilling
+steps could scarcely be induced to water those that lay nearest to
+his hand; and I could not expect him--even I could not--to water
+everywhere every day.
+
+If I had water laid on! if I had a hose! how I would use it!
+
+"Yes, and think of my bill," said his Reverence. I suppose this is the
+way they talk of the revenue in India when the poor people are starving.
+
+Well, well, poor folk should not have more children than they can
+feed, so I must give my attention more especially to the deeper-rooted
+perennials, though even they hang limp-leaved and will reward me in the
+future only according to my treatment of them. It is the Law of the
+Universe.
+
+Some patches of seedlings in a neighbouring garden made all my resolves
+to curtail expenditure in that direction fly in an instant.
+
+These were Mother Earth's hardy babies; no boxes or transplanting
+were needed. It was a mass of the bright-coloured heads of the annual
+phlox which excited my admiration. They are more brilliant, though
+smaller, than their perennial sisters, and for cutting they are quite
+invaluable. They last, too, through three or four months. My garden
+must have them.
+
+Another yellow patch caught my fancy. (I have a theory yellow flowers
+are hardiest; it is the primitive colour.) This was eschscholtzia,
+Californian poppy in other words. These seem to me indispensable; their
+grey-green leaves make the prettiest decoration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Master's garden peace and plenty reigned. The hose played all
+day long; the grass was a joy, green as perennial youth; the flowers
+nodded at him in full satisfaction, and he sat and smiled at them,
+"feeling good," as the Americans say.
+
+I went home and noted the brown lawn, in which even the plantains
+were beginning to turn colour, and thought of my border, and "felt
+bad." Even the brilliant yellow of my two round beds, staring like
+sunflowers, full among the starving, failed to comfort me.
+
+It is always the one lamb crying in the wilderness that pulls the true
+shepherd's heart away from the ninety and nine trim little sheep safe
+in the fold.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jim was very busy those days and more or less deserted me. One of the
+Others, a mankind from Sandhurst, divided his allegiance, and holidays
+and cricket absorbed him.
+
+"One has to slack off a bit," he said, "and old Griggs can water.
+I'll come on again in the autumn; there will be some work with those
+tap-roots, you know."
+
+But when a question arose of how much to the good my reign had proved,
+then Jim was with me at once. Even "Sandhurst" and the grand ideas that
+are a necessity of that period of development, were not allowed to be
+too snubbing.
+
+"You look at those two yellow beds," said Jim. "That's one year's work,
+good. Next year we will have a bit more, up to that style. You try and
+get up some weeds yourself and then you can talk."
+
+And indeed those two yellow beds were a satisfaction; they grew and
+grew until not a spare inch was left between root and root, and they
+flared away gorgeously in the face of the hottest sun. I kept all dead
+heads cut down, for they were to go on right to the end of October.
+
+The antirrhinums came on bravely, too; my little straight soldiers, now
+no longer so thin and leggy, but beginning to branch out, and carrying
+their stiff red, white or yellow spear of flowers bolt upright in the
+centre. But they were still small, and I was glad that I had secured a
+quicker effect with my yellow design. They performed a gay march past
+in that forlorn old border in the front, but more toward the end of the
+summer, owing really to the delay in pricking them out. His Reverence
+said they consoled him for the disaster of the crocuses in spring.
+
+I bought some little plants of creeping jenny, six at threepence each,
+and put them in round one of the stumps holding a group of rather
+mauvy-coloured creeping geraniums. They took kindly to the position,
+and yellow and mauve go excellently well together. Also I added three
+plants of gypsophila to my long border. I felt the Others would
+appreciate them.
+
+I often wanted to buy ready-made flowers, and a flower shop or nursery
+garden became a real danger to me; but there was the five pounds to be
+thought of, or rather the few shillings which remained, and oh! the
+many things that were really necessities of the first order.
+
+In August Griggs and I, friends for the moment, took cuttings of those
+geraniums whose colours, for some reason Griggs failed to fathom,
+pleased me. Of course those that I least liked offered the better
+cuttings, but I was inexorable and told Griggs I had other uses for
+that solitary frame. We "struck" the cuttings in some big pots, six
+in each. They grew easily, and for next year I shall only have the
+colours I like. Then, rather in astonishment at myself for patronising
+geraniums, I bought a hundred cuttings of Henry Jacoby, a good dark
+red, for six shillings. I can't help coming round to the opinion that
+geraniums are an excellent stand-by. A dozen pink climbing geraniums
+were given me. My eye of faith already sees them growing up the
+verandah and causing even the Others to say pretty things to me. During
+the autumn and winter, as little cuttings they will pass their time
+making root in my frame. Yellow daisies and white, in wooden boxes,
+were to join them there; and, in order to be really forward with some
+things, a good supply of antirrhinum and lobelia cuttings. Naturally
+they will be more forward and stronger than the seedlings of February,
+but I have to face the question of room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There comes a time of lull in the life of a garden when, if only the
+watering be seen to, it is possible for even the head gardener to take
+a holiday. In August what has been done is done and cannot be altered;
+and what left undone must remain so. It is too late now, and the hope
+of "next year" is turned to eagerly, for "next year" is the only remedy
+left.
+
+I had been driven to "next year" quite early in the day, for all my
+plants would be more established, and therefore I trusted more lavish
+with bloom in their second year with me. They had done their best, I
+doubted not, and to my eye the promise of growth at the roots began to
+give as much satisfaction as the few blooms sent, almost tentatively,
+up into their new surroundings. Ah! for the time when the blue
+delphinium should be a massive background for the white lilies, and
+these shine against a thick clump of red valerian; and then the eye
+should catch the brilliant yellow of the tiger-lily and feel cool in
+the clear purple of the Indian-pea. And then this scheme should repeat
+itself, diversified with the stately hollyhock and flaring sunflower,
+or the feathers of the spiræa, which should rival it in height. More
+forward in the border should glow the warm-scented sweet-Williams
+and the bright-headed phlox; the pure white campanula should nod its
+bells, and the quaint Turk's head hold its own stiffly. Gaillardias and
+gladiolas, ixias and montbresias should strike a strong-coloured note,
+and clumps of Canterbury-bells, stocks, zinnias, penstemons, marigolds
+and scabious should each in turn--and some take a good long turn--bring
+their share of brightness; and the flowers of the past, the irises, the
+bleeding heart, the columbines, the bright scarlet geum, the yellow
+doronicum, should be marked by a patch of green that by diligent
+growing gave hope of more beauty for the future. In this bright future
+I was apt to wander and to lose sight of the rather meagre present. But
+that needs must be one of the consolations of a garden.
+
+And so, hoping all things for my garden, I went to pay visits to other
+people's gardens.
+
+One grand garden filled me with anything but envy. It was so terribly
+trim, such rows of variegated geraniums, big calceolarias, featherfew
+and lobelia. I determined never to treat any bed or border to edgings;
+to mass even lobelia together and only break it with taller plants,
+such as geraniums, of the pure good colours quite possible I found, or
+salvias or fuchsias. Here was line after line, pattern after pattern;
+surely they were the "goodly sights" Bacon had seen in tarts!
+
+Grand beds of coleus and begonias there were, but these were beyond me,
+savouring too much of the greenhouse, and all the flowers in the rooms
+spoke of gardeners and hot-houses.
+
+"I don't think my gardener cares much for herbaceous things," said my
+hostess. "What flowers _do_ live out of doors? in this climate, I mean."
+
+And I found out that a greenhouse gardener very seldom does care for
+herbaceous things.
+
+But another smaller garden made me envious. How the plants grew in that
+blessed soil, with a little river meandering through. No difficulty
+about water, and that was half the difficulty of flower cultivation
+overcome.
+
+I knew at once that all I wanted for perfect contentment was one small
+stream and one small conservatory, then things should march; but I
+suppose even that highly-blessed woman had a "but" in her lot.
+
+Gardeners are so good to one another. I long for the day when I too
+shall say, "Oh, I will send you some of that, wait until the autumn,"
+and "You care for this? I can spare some." They must feel they are
+really doing so much good in the world.
+
+It was a proud moment when one said, "If you have Canterbury-bells to
+spare, send me some; mine have failed me, they are wretched specimens,
+and will never do any good."
+
+And mine were sturdy; I knew that.
+
+Old Lovell was another of my customers. He was to have some
+sweet-Williams and some foxgloves, and I was to have two clumps of
+Turk's head in exchange, and some of the many young plants surrounding
+his big clump of that June joy, rosy red valerian. From my other
+friends I had promises of many good things; the small perennial
+sunflower, soleil d'or, some nice Michaelmas daisies, the useful pink
+and white Japanese anemone, a yellow lupin and some of the white
+variety. More delphiniums, too, I accepted with thankfulness, and I
+felt my garden growing and growing as the kind promises flowed in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So back to my own garden with eyes terribly open to its deficiencies,
+"a poor thing, but mine own," at least, "mine own" for a time, and
+certainly "mine own" to improve; therefore the deficiencies were not
+to appal me, though they were still the most striking feature of my
+garden. The yellow beds still flared, the antirrhinums still marched,
+and, perhaps most consoling of all, the little plants for next year,
+and those for always, were well and thriving. The summer had not passed
+in vain as far as they were concerned. No, nor passed in vain even
+where it only chronicled failures, for Ignoramuses must take their
+share of these too, as a necessary part of their education; and how the
+spring and summer had opened my eyes!
+
+The red ash berries strewed the ground; the birds saw to that, finding
+pleasure in breaking them off with a knowing jerk of the head and not
+a bit from hunger; the convolvulus, nasturtium and canariensis were
+flinging themselves in wild confusion; there was a kind of riot even
+among the flowers and weeds in the long border. A few roses, especially
+the good old "Gloire," were giving a little after-show, but a touch of
+finality had come to my garden, and when a hush passed over it, broken
+only by an early falling leaf, I knew autumn had come, and I scarcely
+paused to say good-bye to my first summer's gardening, so eager was I
+for all that autumn meant in the way of work for the future.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTUMN]
+
+
+
+
+SEASON IV
+
+Autumn
+
+    "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."
+
+
+"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I
+would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
+
+So said George Eliot, and with all due reverence for her opinion, my
+soul would fly in the opposite direction, seeking the spring. If the
+autumn led straight on to spring I could love it more, but through its
+stillness I hear the winter blast; its gorgeous colouring scarce hides
+the baring boughs; day by day death lays a withering hand on flower
+and tree; day by day the sun runs quicker to its golden resting-place.
+Have you ever noticed how great a difference there is between the sun's
+summer and winter march across the heavens? Note the tree behind which
+he sinks in June and then again in November. A whole third of the
+heavens separates the two; and what does that not mean to us of lack in
+light and warmth? "Ah! would that the year were always May." And yet
+there are days, such days of perfect beauty that the year could never
+spare them. They come in early autumn, and it is as though a recording
+angel passed, so sweet, so solemn is the hush, the pause, with which
+Nature holds her breath and listens as she lays open her store of
+harvest to the "Well done" of the voiceless blessing.
+
+And then, the blessed rest-day over, she turns about. "To work!"
+seems to be the order. "Away with these old flowers! No more need
+for pod-making; wither up the annuals, cut down the perennials, stop
+those busy youngsters and their growing process for a bit, shake off
+the leaves, they will come in useful later on, but pile them up now
+and let the children scuttle through them with happy feet, and have
+a good clear-out before you go to sleep and wake up again in the
+springtime--'the merry, merry springtime.' Away, you birds, and look
+out for yourselves those of you who stay; get your nests ready and your
+stores safely housed, my small friends of fur and feather, for my work
+is now to purge and to winnow, to try and to test, and woe betide the
+weaklings!" So the wind, Dame Nature's mighty broom-maiden, prepares
+her best besom, and there is soon a thorough good house-cleaning, to
+the great discomfort of the inhabitants.
+
+Well, we have to put up with it; and the best plan is to do a little
+of the same work on one's own account, that so, being in harmony with
+Nature, one's temper is less sorely tried.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is enough to be done.
+
+I hardly consider September an autumn month, but the calendar does, so
+I will mention first one bit of work well worth doing. Sow a good long
+row of sweet-peas. Make a shallow trench and prepare it as was done
+in the spring, and before Nature stops all growth above ground you
+will have a lusty row of little plants five to six inches high. These
+I should stake before the winter, as a means of protection from frost
+and snow; and next year, a month earlier than most of your friends, you
+will have sweet-peas of a height, a size and profusion to make them all
+envious. And that is, of course, a consummation most devoutly to be
+wished.
+
+Some people's autumn borders are things of great joy and beauty.
+Looking on the Master's profusion, I felt like the Queen of Sheba, for
+I expect she thought her own house and grounds a very poor show when
+she got back to Sheba. But I did not, like that celebrated queen, turn
+and bless him unreservedly. I felt more like--much more like--abusing
+Griggs.
+
+Let me tell you what an autumn border can be like; not in my own poor
+words, but as a master-hand painted a Master's garden, and, though not
+_my_ Master's garden, the description fits.
+
+"Against the deep green of the laurels, the rhododendron and box are
+sunflowers six feet high, lit up each of them with a score of blooms,
+and hollyhocks, taller still, are rosetted with deep claret flowers and
+mulberry and strange old pink. Between them bushes of cactus dahlias
+literally ablaze with scarlet. In front are standard roses, only
+crimson and damask, and now in October bright with their second bloom.
+Hiding their barren stems, compact and solid, an exquisite combination
+of green and purple, are perennial asters--a single spike of them, with
+its hundreds of little stars, makes a noble decoration in a room--and
+humbler, if more vivid, companies of tritonia. Here and again are old
+clumps of phlox, of fervent carmine or white starred with pink, and, to
+my mind, of singular beauty, the rudbeckias in brilliant clusters of
+chrome yellow.
+
+"Three times in the long border Japanese anemones, mixed white
+and terra cotta, mark noble periods in the great curve of colour;
+and at corresponding intervals, as you walk round, your eye
+catches the beautiful response, set further forward, of clumps of
+chrysanthemums, lemon yellow and Indian red, tiny flowers, no doubt,
+'for chrysanthemums', but sweetly pretty in their profusion and
+artless growth. Is that enough? Well, then, for more. There are the
+snapdragons in every shade of snapdragon colour, and geums now making
+second displays of flower, and penstemons; and salvias shaded in
+butterfly-blue, and Iceland poppies, and the round lavender balls--like
+the spiked horrors which genial Crusaders wore at the end of chains
+for the thumping of Saracens and similar heathens--which the Blessed
+Thistle bears.
+
+"Can you see this October garden at all?"[2]
+
+[2] _In Garden, Orchard and Spinney,_ by Phil Robinson.
+
+Indeed, that must look something like a garden border; and after all,
+friend Ignoramus, it is not totally out of your reach. Even with my
+disadvantages some of those glories can be mine.
+
+The sunflowers, of course, I had, and though rather roughly staked
+by my old enemy, yet their golden heads were there, and by diligent
+decapitation they continued until I "did up" the border. The dahlias
+did fairly, and some of the poor little water-starved annuals picked
+up a little and gave patches of colour, notably the marigolds. The
+Michaelmas daisy--which is here called "perennial aster"--gave but
+little bloom; all my bushy perennial plants will be better next
+year. The golden rod, that old inhabitant, was fine and useful even
+this first September. It kept the big jar in the drawing-room going
+with dahlias and sunflowers, but the day came all too soon when even
+these gave out, and then I fell back on Dame Nature and plundered her
+hedgerows. Such leaves, such yellows and reds, and berries, black,
+red and green, never was a bunch more beautiful than that provided
+by the country lanes; and if only a garden would go wild in such a
+fashion I should leave it to itself. But that is the trouble. When once
+civilisation has laid her hand on flower or savage there is no going
+back; one must progress, the primitive conditions are lost for ever.
+Unless the new ideal be lived up to, the latter state is worse than the
+first.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I had been collecting ideas as well as had experience during the summer
+months, and some of the ideas were greatly augmented by a Visitor who
+came into the garden during the month of October. He had had varied
+experiences during the years, not so many either, of his pilgrimage,
+and after having claimed America, Australia, India as his fields of
+action, and ranching, mining, pearl-fishing, architecture and the stock
+exchange as some of his employments, I was not surprised to find he
+had also made a thorough study of the art of Gardening; in fact, had
+thought of landscape gardening as a profession.
+
+His Reverence had said, "Get him to give you some advice; he knows all
+about it."
+
+So I sought this fount of knowledge.
+
+My garden looked indeed a poor thing seen through his eyes.
+
+He stood taking in the general effect.
+
+"Hump!--ha!--yes!--you ought to have all that cleared away," waving
+a hand towards a shrubbery which indeed looked as though it needed
+judicious pruning; "it is in the wrong place, and it would add
+considerably to the size of the lawn if it were done away with. And
+that path, you notice the fatal curve. Why in the name of Reason make a
+curve when a straight line leads quicker between two places? Curves and
+circles are an abomination in a garden. Don't you see it?"
+
+"Oh, quite, but I didn't make that path."
+
+"No, but why tolerate it? I can assure you I could not live with that
+silly crooked line waving itself aside like a fanciful damsel. Pah!
+Get that altered for one thing, and then, _don't_ have it gravelled.
+Between grass, what can look so staring and hideous as that patch
+of yellow? Not that yours is very yellow, been down some time, eh?
+Buy some old slabs of slate, quite easy to get. Go round to the old
+churches; you are sure to find some Philistine parson removing the
+old slate leading through the churchyard and putting down hideous,
+gritty gravel! You can benefit by his crass stupidity. And then--ah,
+yes--don't have wire fencing between the garden and that field.
+Prettily-laid-out field that is, too. I congratulate you on that clump
+of trees. Very nice! yes, very nice But that aggressive railing paling
+thing! Away with it! and have a sunk fence if you need anything."
+
+"Sheep are sometimes put in that field," I said timidly, for I felt, in
+spite of that clump of trees, that I was responsible for a great deal
+of fearful ignorance.
+
+"Oh, well, a sunk fence will keep them out. Now let us walk on a
+bit. Dear, dear, how those two round beds hurt one! Remind one of
+bulls'-eyes, don't they? You must not have round beds, have them in
+squares; two oblongs would fit in better there. But let me see, ah,
+yes, that would be better. Now look here. Take away that hedge"--he
+pointed to the holly hedge dividing the lawn from the kitchen
+garden--"right away; make there a good border, that will give you the
+colour, and you can do away with those beds."
+
+"But the kitchen garden!"
+
+"Don't you like the look of a kitchen garden? Nothing more beautiful.
+Border everything with flowers, and think what a vista you have from
+your window."
+
+"Oh, I know. I want an opening somewhere."
+
+"An opening! You want it _open_, not boxed in like this. The intention
+of hedges was to shut out the roads or one's prying neighbours. You
+have neither. For goodness' sake give yourself room. What is there so
+attractive in that prickly hedge? But if you want a division, if you
+must keep the vulgar vegetables in their place, why, put up a pergola!"
+
+"Oh!" I exclaimed. Pergola somehow suggested fairy-land, or Italian
+lakes at the least.
+
+"Yes, pergola. Now just see it. Beautiful green lawn. By the way, you
+must have this re-turfed, it is quite hopeless; good grass leading
+straight down to that hedge, no pathway between," and he shuddered. "Do
+away with the prickly hedge, have a border of bright flowers taking its
+place; behind that a pergola of roses, through which you get vistas
+of all the good sprouting green things, and clumps of flowers, hedges
+of sweet-peas, banks of poppies, and everything bright and beautiful,
+with suggestions of gooseberry bushes and strawberry beds, and feathery
+carrots and waving asparagus. Now, how does that sound?"
+
+"Delightful," I replied, sinking on a garden seat with a most doleful
+sigh, and looking from that picture to the one that lay before me.
+
+"Ah, yes," following my eye, "and don't forget that path; straight,
+mind you, and slates. There is something about a wet slate bordered
+with grass that gives you sensations of coolness and repose that really
+consoles you for the rain. You try it! Now, I daresay I could suggest a
+good many more things that need doing, but I suppose you won't manage
+more this autumn."
+
+"It is very kind of you," I began.
+
+"Oh, not at all, not at all. I assure you it is a great pleasure to
+suggest improvements. Now here you have a little garden, nothing much
+about it, you may say, but at once I see what can be made of it. My
+mind is full of the higher vision, until really sometimes it is a shock
+to me to come back to real earth, as it were, and find how far it is
+from the ideal."
+
+"Yes, I should think so," I murmured.
+
+"Of course that is what is needed for landscape gardening, to which I
+gave special attention at one time. Flowers I have not yet taken up;
+but shrubs! ah, well, I think I won't begin on shrubs, for I have to
+catch that train."
+
+Then we walked back to the house, and I wished I too had a train to
+catch that I might never, never look at my garden again.
+
+The Others said I was very depressed for some days, but at last I
+resolutely faced my garden.
+
+"You are all wrong," I said, "made wrong from the beginning, and I
+can't alter you, but as you are the only one we have I must just make
+the best of you. One thing I can do, and that is to have down the old
+holly hedge and make a pergola."
+
+So I approached the Others.
+
+They agreed at once that we wanted vistas, and jumped at the pergola,
+but Jim shook his head.
+
+"No go," said he, and said no more.
+
+"But I am not sure about a vista of cabbages and onions," remarked a
+cautious One. "I don't like them in any form."
+
+"But I should have borders of flowers everywhere," and the Visitor's
+picture rose in my mind. "You don't mind asparagus."
+
+"No, if you can keep your vistas to that."
+
+"But a pergola! Mary, that sounds a large order."
+
+"Yes. But this is a thing that affects us all, so we must all make an
+effort."
+
+"Does your effort mean £ s. d.?"
+
+"Something very like it."
+
+And there was a chorus of "Oh's" and "That's all very fine! _but_--"
+
+"Well, you are all _for_ it, anyhow?" I said.
+
+"Oh, yes, we are all _for_ it."
+
+"Then I am going to tackle his Reverence."
+
+"There he is, then, at the bottom of the lawn, with a slaughtered bunny
+in his hand, so the moment should be auspicious."
+
+But it wasn't.
+
+I approached my subject delicately, mindful of the overwhelming sense
+of impossibility with which the Visitor's suggestions had filled my
+soul; but when it dawned on his Reverence that I wanted not only to
+erect a pergola but to cut down the holly hedge, it then transpired
+that the holly hedge was the joy of his heart and the pride of his
+eyes; when other things failed, and snails ate the onions, _that_ hedge
+was always there, always green, always solid, and always a consolation.
+
+I explained my views and he explained his, and then we both explained
+them together; he said I was very obstinate, and I said he was not
+allowing me a free hand. He said he did, and I said, "Then may I do
+it?" He said, "Certainly not," and I said, "Very good, then, I resign
+the garden." I heard his laugh--a hearty one--as I marched with
+dignity back to the drawing-room.
+
+"Well!" the Others cried, "you look as though you had had a lively
+time."
+
+"I could have told you exactly what his Reverence would say and saved
+you the trouble of a row."
+
+I tried to squash Jim with a look, but nothing under many
+hundredweights could do that. So I said coldly,
+
+"We had no row; and little boys don't always know what their elders
+will say."
+
+"Bet you I know what _he_ said to you. And on the whole I agree with
+him. It's no use taking a bigger bite than you can chew."
+
+"It isn't a bigger bite than--Jim, you are very vulgar! But I don't
+care now, I have given up the garden."
+
+"Resigned your stewardship!" said Jim, tragically. "Anything over of
+the five pounds? I wouldn't retire yet, you can't have saved enough."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Mary. At least, it doesn't matter _what_ you
+talk, you can't do it," said one of the Others.
+
+"Can't I? we shall see," hardening my heart.
+
+"What did his Reverence say to your resignation?"
+
+"He--he didn't say anything."
+
+"He laughed! I heard him," said Jim, "and he is splitting his sides
+telling the Young Man all about it."
+
+"He isn't! Jim, go quick, interrupt them. I won't let them talk of
+m--my garden."
+
+Jim is really a nice boy; he swaggered off with his hands in his
+pockets, whistling, and joined the two men. I knew he would give the
+conversation the turn I wished.
+
+I began to cool down. It was easy to say I would "resign" the garden,
+but could I? Putting pride aside, was not my interest in all those
+young promising plants for the spring too deep for me now to desert
+them? Had I not rooted, amongst other things, too much of myself in my
+garden for me now lightly to withdraw?
+
+While I pondered I strolled down the garden, and coming up the other
+side ran into the group of three viewing the holly hedge from the back.
+
+"It is one of the best holly hedges I have ever seen," his Reverence
+was saying. "Cut it down! Why, it would be sheer madness."
+
+Then the Young Man, without noticing me, began,
+
+"All the same, you do want an opening somewhere. It is quite true that
+fine hedge shuts you in very much."
+
+"I like being shut in," said his Reverence; "but I might consider your
+idea of an opening here, an archway in the middle, particularly as the
+hedge is already rather thin in one place, only 'Mary, Mary, quite
+contrairy.'"
+
+"You had better not abuse me, because I am listening," I put in.
+
+"Oh, here you are. I was going to say you had resigned."
+
+"If you had heard all _your_ Visitor suggested you would have thrown up
+the living."
+
+"Bumptious fellow! I should not have listened to him."
+
+"But you told me to."
+
+"Because I had had enough of him."
+
+"But what he said was true. It is absolutely immoral to have that
+curveting path, that hideous paling, and this bisecting hedge."
+
+"Well, Mary, I did give you credit for _some_ common sense."
+
+"It's un-common sense I am blessed with, and I am trying to educate you
+up to higher ideals for the garden."
+
+But I had taken his arm.
+
+"Then do it by degrees. The Young Man suggests a peep-hole through the
+hedge. Will that satisfy you?"
+
+"Well, may I have this gravel path up and make a border here?"
+
+"What! more borders? However will you and Griggs manage those you have
+already?"
+
+"Perhaps if I have this I won't poach any more on the kitchen garden."
+
+His Reverence looked at the gravel path critically. "I don't see that
+we need this path very much, but it means a lot of work to take away
+this gravel and bring in good mould. It is no use having a bad border
+while you are about it. Who is to do it?"
+
+"Griggs and--and help," I answered boldly, "and you shall direct."
+
+"And you won't resign?"
+
+"I will think better of my decision."
+
+"And I may keep my holly hedge?"
+
+"For the present, until I have educated you up to the pergola."
+
+"Oh! thank you."
+
+Then I explained fully to the Young Man the glories and delights of a
+pergola and vistas; and he is quite ready to help fix the iron arches,
+fasten overhead the wire netting, train the clambering roses, vines and
+clematis, and--cut down the holly hedge.
+
+His Reverence's education will take a little time, I expect. In the
+meanwhile the archway made in the broad gap cut in his holly hedge will
+help to train his eye to the beauty of vistas.
+
+But how the Visitor would despise my compromising soul!
+
+It was judicious of me to give his Reverence the direction of the new
+border. I heard nothing of expense, and, once started, he went ahead
+in thorough fashion.
+
+The gravel was carted away, and some feet of stony earth. Then we came
+to a layer of good though light soil. The backs of shrubberies, a small
+wood at the bottom of a field, a bank in the kitchen garden were all
+taxed for their share of the best soil we could get, and this, finally
+mixed in with some old turf and manure, made a border that looked
+promising. There was no need to begin with a layer of broken china and
+sardine tins, for the drainage in my soil was more than sufficient, and
+this disappointed Jim, who said he was ready with a fine collection,
+had that substratum been necessary.
+
+And then, my new border ready, I launched out.
+
+It was to be partly herbaceous, partly for bulbs and annuals.
+
+The promised plants, which began to come in, supplied me with some
+delphiniums and small perennial sunflowers. I moved there some of my
+young plants of oriental poppies, planting them near together until
+they should have expanded. Then I selected my lilies. The auratum and
+other delightful varieties I had to leave out, but the white Madonna
+lily would thrive, and croceum, an orange-coloured bloom, and the
+soft apricot shade of an elegans promised to be hardy. These were
+placed in front of the delphiniums and room left for big sunflowers
+in the spring. Half forward the Canterbury bells, sweet-Williams and
+tall campanulas were placed in clumps, and in front of them, well
+buried, were groups of the Spanish and English irises, meant, as they
+succeed each other, to keep bright patches of yellow, purple and white
+flowering there for some time. They are not very dear--five shillings a
+hundred--and I now began to reckon on a new five pounds. Montbresias,
+too, I launched into, and left spaces for groups of gladiolas to join
+them in the spring. Then for early flowering I introduced my thriving
+young wallflowers, always in groups, not rows, and some of the dear
+narcissi and gorgeous tulips would, I thought, be admired before other
+things had a chance. To end up with, and be gay to the verge of gaudy,
+I had forget-me-nots and pink silene.
+
+Even the thought of the Visitor could not disturb my satisfaction over
+my new border. He had not given me his views on flowers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The archway where the holly hedge was sacrificed for my vista was
+formed of two iron staves bent into arches and joined with wire netting
+of eighteen inches wide. The village blacksmith supplied the staves;
+they measured some fourteen feet when they arrived, but were cut and
+buried until the archway was at its highest point seven feet; and the
+wire netting was fastened on by my usual assistants. The Young Man was
+very neat-handed. Then we consulted as to its covering, and, had all
+suggestions been taken, it would have had to bear a vine on account of
+its foliage; a virginian creeper for the red leaves in autumn; a Gloire
+de Dijon since it seemed to prosper in my soil; clematis, both montana
+and flamulata, and any number of the coloured varieties; a wisteria,
+as we had none; a pink and a white banksia; a W. A. Richardson and a
+crimson rambler. My arch having but two sides I was obliged to offend
+a good many voters, and, despite jeers as to my former failures, I
+decided on giving the crimson rambler another try. I chose also a white
+banksia and a clematis montana, with free promises of introducing other
+clematis and annual creepers later on, and carrying out all ideas when
+once I had my pergola.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even after this supreme effort my autumn's work was only just
+beginning. There was the verandah with its failures to tackle. The
+beginning of November I unearthed the ramblers that even still refused
+to ramble, and soon the cause of their stunted condition was laid bare.
+
+"Pot bound! Whoi," said Griggs, "so they are! Curious! I don't moind
+'avin' see'd 'em look like that. Maybe I was drefful 'urried at the
+toime and never paid no 'eed."
+
+As he spoke he tore at the poor roots, confined with a web-like
+substance just the shape of the pot they had come in.
+
+Anyone, absolutely _any_ Ignoramus, must have seen the hopelessness
+of planting a rose-tree with its roots cramped like that. It was
+impossible for the poor plant to strike out, make itself at home, and
+get enough nourishment to grow on. How it had managed to live was the
+marvel. And they were all the same, W. A. Richardson and the other
+ramblers yellow and red; the standards had not come in pots, so their
+fate had been better.
+
+It was soon done, and I felt that prisoners had been released. We gave
+them turf mould and manure mixture to strengthen them.
+
+But it was not only the roses; all the creepers, excepting one
+clematis, had made but poor growth. At last the mystery was solved.
+
+A spreading beech threw its grateful shade over half the house and grew
+within three yards of one end of the verandah. How far-reaching were
+its roots I now discovered, and their greedy feelers taking every bit
+of nourishment, both deep and near the surface, my creepers fought an
+unequal fight for their daily bread. The condition of the roots of a
+poor honeysuckle reminded one of prisoners of the Bastille.
+
+But how to circumvent the tree? how to teach it manners? For there it
+must stay, and so must the creepers and plants. We could cut the roots,
+but they would come again.
+
+Griggs scratched his head. "It's Natur', that's wot it is, an' that ere
+tree 'ave been 'ere longer than any of us. So you can't do nothink."
+
+"We must do something. Young Man, are you thinking?"
+
+"Hard," was the answer.
+
+"Let's build an underground wall," suggested Jim. But we all shook our
+heads and thought again.
+
+"Let's sink something," said the Young Man.
+
+"Oh! a tub, an oil tub!" I almost shouted.
+
+"Why, yes," said the Young Man. "I was thinking of zinc, but that
+sounds so airtight and stuffy."
+
+"Wouldn't a wooden tub rot away, though? A coffin goes to pieces pretty
+quick," said Jim.
+
+"Well, it will give them a better chance, and perhaps the roots will
+get accustomed to going round. Anyway they can be renewed," said the
+Young Man, cheerfully. "If no other idea is forthcoming, let us go and
+find some tubs."
+
+Now, how long wooden tubs will last under ground I cannot say, but we
+did then and there sink four tubs beneath the gravel, and filled them
+with good mixture, making holes and placing stones at the bottom for
+drainage, and there the roots of the poor starvelings had, at least
+for a time, a good meal, and when growing time comes I expect the
+honeysuckle, the roses and the clematis to do justice to their fare.
+
+The further end of the verandah was almost out of reach of the greedy
+roots, as the long white streamers of the flamulata proved.
+
+It is a satisfaction when things grow and flower and flourish as books
+and catalogues have led you to expect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two of my green tubs were now emptied of the still rampant leaves of
+the nasturtium and the strong-growing geraniums. It seemed a pity to
+cut short any vigorous life at the dying season of the year, but Jack
+Frost would feel no compunction, and I might as well try and live up
+to the Master's maxim of "getting forward"; so after refilling my tubs
+with as wholesome a mixture as I could, I planted in each four good
+roots of my old friend hellebore, and had them placed just under the
+verandah.
+
+The Others at first looked askance. "Will they flower?" I bade them
+examine the already formed buds. For I bought my hellebore in promising
+condition at one shilling and sixpence each, and by moving them with
+a good solid lump of earth round the roots I hoped not to check their
+development. I bought the common kind of white Christmas rose,
+niger, and also a pinky-purple kind, with tall graceful heads called
+atrorubens.
+
+And when the robins, the snow, the sunshine and my Christmas roses
+all came together, my verandah realised a very pretty Christmas-card
+effect, and the Others said, "That is not at all bad." Then the jasmine
+growing under the verandah burst also into golden stars, its growth
+of one year having been carefully left alone, and I received as much
+praise as though I had done something wonderful, which is often the way
+of the world.
+
+    "Luck was with glory wed."
+
+This, however, is very previous, and I must go back to the end of
+October.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I determined the Others should not complain next spring of lack of
+colour. The sturdy little forget-me-not plants were placed all round
+the narrow verandah border, and bright red tulips, I allowed myself
+fifty for that purpose, were buried between their roots a foot apart.
+That effect ought to be gay.
+
+In the small inner border between the windows that open on to the
+verandah I placed the violets from their too shady bed. By taking
+them up with good balls of earth I hoped not to check any flowering
+aspirations they might have, and as this was done in October they did
+recover, and in November and December they kept the verandah sweet, and
+ought to do even better in March.
+
+Under the study windows I planted a good mass of my red and yellow
+wallflowers, not only to delight the eye but to send up the fragrance
+that fills one with the joy of life and spring, and that his Reverence
+might open his windows in April and say, "Well, the garden _is_
+growing;" I also gave him a touching border of forget-me-nots.
+
+Then, too, the desolate front border needed attention. It was always
+a trial, for it was the poorest of my poor soil, and much robbed by
+laurels, laburnum and may in the background. I knew I ought to re-make
+the whole border, and treat it as I had treated the new one; but
+prudence bade me lie low and leave it for another year. I removed
+the old things, the clumps of seedlings, marigolds, zinnias and the
+gallant little antirrhinums, who had now marched their last march, also
+geraniums and dahlias; the latter being carefully dried and stored in
+an open wooden box in the potting-shed.
+
+Griggs kindly gave it "a bit of a dig," and removed the stones that
+struck even him as being rather heavy for a border. I wish the worms
+could be taught to carry their useful work a little further and not
+only dig up the stones but place them in piles by the wayside.
+
+We supplemented the poverty of the border with a little of our manure
+heap diet, and here I may remark that our savoury heap was composed of
+all kinds of material besides that derived from the stable. The grass
+mowings, border trimmings, leaf sweepings, also all refuse of roots and
+vegetables, after having formed a bonfire, were carefully added to this
+store. The bonfire reduces the bulk but makes valuable diet without the
+danger of sowing unwelcome seeds. Though to the owners of big gardens
+worth writing about, and limitless gardeners and purse, my one poor
+means of improving the soil may seem very inadequate, still it was much
+better than nothing at all, and about suited to my other equipment of
+Griggs and ignorance and five pounds.
+
+Griggs, who regarded me more and more as an interloper, gave grudgingly
+of this store. "And wot 'ull I do for _my_ wegetables?" It was always
+"_my_ wegetables" and "_your_ flowers." "The Rector 'ull be at me if
+I let you finish hoff that 'ere 'eap. 'E thinks a lot more of 'es
+wegetables than you do. An 'e's right. You can _eat_ wegetables. So I
+ain't a-going to let you have no more."
+
+I felt reference to his Reverence just then might be injudicious, so
+I soothed Griggs and put up, or the border did, with pauper fare. The
+hardiest things were placed here. Foxgloves in clumps, and white and
+purple Canterbury-bells. Further forward I tried sweet-Williams and
+lupins. I bought some of these, both white and so-called blue, at five
+shillings a dozen, rather small plants, but though my friends fulfilled
+their promises and sent me hampers, I had so much room, and all the
+long border to think of. Some of my tulip bulbs from last year came in
+handy, and I edged off with pink silene.
+
+To get a border bright in May and June did not seem an impossibility
+to me now, but to continue the array through the summer was
+brain-splitting. But though looking forward and calculating is the very
+essence of gardening, one must also remember that one cannot get two
+seasons' work into one, and I tried resolutely to put the summer from
+my mind and reckon only with the spring, leaving February and March to
+tackle the further future.
+
+I turned then to my two round beds. They had been a consolation even
+after our Visitor had insulted them. "_Si on n'a pas ce qu'on aime, il
+faut aimer ce qu'on a."_ Theoretically I hate compromises, practically
+I live by them. And so I prepared two beautiful Persian carpets,
+nothing to do with carpet bedding, for March, April and May. My
+polyanthuses just filled in those two round beds, and Jim and I took up
+the yellow harmony with feelings of regret.
+
+"It was a jolly good idea," said Jim, "and you and I concocted it
+together, you know, Mary. But, would you believe it, his Reverence was
+talking the other day as though _he_ had evolved the whole blooming
+show. I said, 'You had better let Mary hear you.'"
+
+"Why, that is the biggest compliment the beds could have had, Jim. He
+would not have claimed them unless they had been a success. I hope my
+Persian carpets will come off as well; I am only going to give the
+plants six inches to expand in. They are very neat and trim, and some
+are forming buds already, which is foolish of them. Nip them off.
+But things don't grow rampantly in this soil, it is no use deceiving
+oneself."
+
+"I never did," said Jim; "'excepting weeds' you should add."
+
+Those beds had to be refreshed, and as Griggs was busy down the kitchen
+garden, Jim enlisted the Young Man as he left the study and made him
+help to wheel a barrowful of the "heap" on to the scene of action.
+
+"I tell him it's a healthy smell," said Jim; "fancy, he didn't want to
+come."
+
+"Didn't he? Then, Jim, it is very forward of you to make him. His
+Reverence's Young Man ought not to be worried. He has _much_ more
+important things to do than plant polyanthuses."
+
+"Oh, I dare say! but I wasn't going to lug all this smelly stuff about
+alone, and you know _you_ won't do it, and Griggs wouldn't let you have
+it if I had told him to do it, so who was there?"
+
+"I am very pleased to be of any service to you, Mistress Mary, but I
+didn't want to intrude," said the Young Man, and there was an east wind
+in his voice.
+
+"When a fellow was caught by the press-gang he didn't apologise for
+intruding," said Jim, scornfully.
+
+So the Young Man chased Jim round, and after the latter had screamed
+_"Peccavi!_" they both came back heated and consequently thawed, and I
+wondered over the boyishness of men.
+
+I don't think I am a very good hand at digging; I let Jim feel the
+superiority of his sex to the full when it comes to hard manual labour,
+and I have to retract a great deal that I have said in less guarded
+moments about the masculine hands and feminine head. Jim tried to lure
+the Young Man into the discussion, but when the opponent lies down flat
+there is nothing to be done. Jim said it was sneaky, and the Young Man
+said, "No, feminine diplomacy," with a look that meant "that will cause
+a rise"; but I was giving all the little brain I had to the work in
+hand, and my only answer was,
+
+"Oh, do dig that in quickly; if Griggs comes he will cart it all away
+for those rapacious cabbages of his."
+
+Jim is sometimes the Young Man's mouthpiece.
+
+"Ha, ha! you funk having it out with him."
+
+"Perhaps Mistress Mary is merciful because she is strong," said the
+Young Man.
+
+"You don't know her as I do, that's all. She is 'Mary, Mary, quite
+contrairy.'"
+
+I ignored Jim and turned to the Young Man.
+
+"And why did you need the press-gang to make you come and help this
+nice hard-working kind of an afternoon?"
+
+Then the reason for the east wind became clear.
+
+"I could hardly flatter myself you really wanted me. I have not seen
+you, not been in the garden, I mean, for five days."
+
+"Oh! but whose fault is that?" I asked mildly, for the heinousness of
+the omission did not startle me.
+
+The Young Man straightened up all his six foot and looked tragic.
+
+"I offered to come last Thursday, you may remember, and I was told,
+most politely, that I need not trouble myself."
+
+"Now really that is scarcely fair! I only said, I know I said how kind
+you were, but that you ought not to work too hard, and that, I remember
+I said quite a number of nice and considerate things."
+
+"I heard through all only the 'No,'" said the Young Man, giving a free
+translation of a favourite German quotation.
+
+"You know I value your help. The garden is much indebted to you, but of
+course I don't like to bother people."
+
+"That is quite a new idea," interrupted Jim, scraping his muddy little
+hands and then plunging them in among the roots again. "I can't say I
+have seen much result from it myself!"
+
+"Don't you know it is no bother to me," continued the Young Man with
+fresh earnestness. "Don't you know--"
+
+"Oh, no, really I don't. I have been working so hard these last
+few days, and I seem able to think of nothing but roots and bulbs
+and--practical things like that."
+
+"I am sure I wish to be practical. I wish for nothing better," he
+exclaimed energetically.
+
+"Then do finish that row of polyanthuses," I said, looking up with a
+forgiving smile.
+
+"The first sensible word either of you have spoken for the last five
+minutes," remarked Jim, with decision. "The way you two palaver while
+_I_ go steady ahead!"
+
+But the Young Man interpreted my smile in his own way and went on
+cheerfully, "That's all right, then. Now, Jim, look to your laurels;
+these plantlets are going in with a rush!"
+
+Weeks after, when contemplating the neat, regular little roots, my
+thoughts went back, as thoughts will, to the conversation attached to
+them, and I wondered what he meant by its being "all right." I had
+never felt anything was wrong. Words are such clumsy mediums, and
+sometimes even thoughts are too definite. There is a kind of inner
+consciousness, vague and mystical, full of colour and sensation, but
+without form or sound, and I think women develop it more strongly than
+men.
+
+The Young Man has a very definite character. His energy next took the
+form of a large hamper of plants from his mother's garden, a godsend
+for that half-empty, long border.
+
+And my conscience, growing with my garden, I suppose, found a
+safety-valve in ornamenting the window boxes of the Young Man's
+sitting-room, lately filled with Mrs Jones's screen of geraniums,
+with some spare bulbs. I do think they will look rather nice, but his
+gratitude was quite absurd, for really Jim did most of the work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am aware that to form a proper herbaceous border you should have a
+colour scheme, or rather several colour schemes, in your mind's eye
+from the very beginning. This is a counsel of perfection to which I
+humbly hope I may some day attain. I confess to being still at the
+stage where all flowers, all colours, and plenty of everything holds
+great attraction for me. But, Ignoramus as I am, I do not want disorder
+to reign; one must at least grasp the height and the flowering time
+of each plant, and strive after a succession of bloom fairly well
+represented over all the border and all the months. I thought therefore
+of my background, the tall varieties; my middle distance of less
+exalted growth, and my foreground of humble height. And then I took a
+large sheet of paper and drew on it a long border with three divisions,
+and proceeded to fill in these divisions with what flowers I already
+had planted, and others yet to come.
+
+Then I tried to imagine the plants in bloom, and what colours would
+look well next each other, and how to repeat them as the eye follows
+the length of the border.
+
+In early spring, as in late autumn, yellow is the most prevalent
+colour; but in spring the yellow mixed with all the budding green has a
+most bright and young appearance. It is the sunrise, the promise of the
+day that is to be; whereas in autumn, with the rich tints of departing
+glory surrounding it, the suggestion is of "mellow fruitfulness."
+
+The yellow doronicum in the middle distance will probably be the
+first to break the greenness of the herbaceous border, unless there
+are clumps of daffodils hidden, but I think the border may be full
+enough without them, and they can be massed in so many places unfit
+for border plants. Patches of polyanthus and even snowy London pride
+are useful at that early season, and can be placed near the edge. I
+saw one lovely effect, but cannot myself undertake to repeat it; it
+would answer better in a more favoured garden. Instead of the usual
+box edging the whole length of the border was given to violets, and a
+delightful purple line as well as delicious scent was the result. It
+needs more care than the trim box, but the close green leaves form a
+very effective edging after the flowers have departed. The "bleeding
+heart" should follow the doronicum very quickly, it also belongs to the
+middle division; but the colour scheme is still mostly green, with just
+these occasional breaks.
+
+Then the paper border was quickly filled with a bright procession for
+June and July. At the back delphiniums in numerous successive clumps
+and all degrees of blue; valerian, several of the strong little roots
+placed together to form a good show of delightful rosy red blossoms.
+Foxgloves should rear their effective spotted heads between, and later
+on lilies--Madonna's white and tiger's yellow--would take their place.
+Lupins were also in this division, but a little more forward, each
+division naturally sub-dividing itself into tall and taller. Galega,
+both white and mauve, were to grow here, but hollyhocks well at the
+back. The sunflower also, soleil d'or, with the thought of the annual
+variety to follow in spring, and therefore a space to be left. The
+smaller kind I kept for the middle division; it is a useful, neat
+little bush, rigidus by name, and cost me sixpence a plant. Spiræa,
+a strong, herbaceous variety, should come as a kind of break to the
+regularity; it should grow so bushy and tall that it must be given two
+divisions in which to expand. The phlox must be placed at the back,
+also the hardy white daisy, several old plants of which had weathered
+Griggs's reign; also the bright and useful golden rod, and some welcome
+clumps of Japanese anemones. My friends dealt in larger clumps than the
+mercenary florist, I found. We left a good space here and there for the
+dahlias, and thus my background seemed fairly full.
+
+I considered the iris roots for some time, and then determined to give
+the German variety a place all to themselves. Strained political
+relations had nothing to do with my decision, but when not on show the
+knife-like leaves and twisting roots are not particularly pleasing;
+so, before his Reverence could forbid, I had my iris row down a side
+border. The kitchen garden is cut by a most convenient number of paths,
+and Griggs has no objection to my taking from his space.
+
+Then for the middle division I had some of my nurslings ready. More
+oriental poppies, in groups of three for the present; campanulas, also
+in threes, but with room for each one to expand; penstemons, but these
+were cuttings that had been given me, and though promised a place here
+they were kept for their first winter in the frame and only figured on
+my paper border. Gaillardias, most promising plants, which even in this
+their first year had given me one or two of their "effective" blooms,
+were placed singly; my small and not very satisfactory chrysanthemums
+were moved forward from the background, where they had been hidden.
+Michaelmas daisies also were in this division, and my Canterbury-bells
+and sweet-Williams, though they were not to be permanent plants, and
+might come out year by year when their duty was done. The doronicums
+were there and the bleeding heart, and old Lovell's two Turks' heads
+in sturdy independence, and I added a few clumps of crown imperials.
+Coreopsis, at five shillings a dozen, joined the show, and montbresias,
+those that were over from my new border, and in time gladiolas also I
+hoped, but I had to remember my limitations.
+
+In front came groups of columbines and Iceland poppy, the small
+roots of campanula, the geum already there; and I collected from its
+scattered hiding-places all the Solomon's seal I could find, and
+grouped it behind the geums, for I noticed how well those two bore
+each other company. A few patches of Japanese irises I allowed myself,
+and again I tried the anemones. Neat labels marked the burying-places
+of those things that prefer to pass the winter with their heads
+underground.
+
+I think that border, in spite of its many disadvantages, ought to make
+something of a show, not only on paper.
+
+There are other things I hope to have in time for this my old-fashioned
+border. There is honesty, almost nicer in sound than in reality; and
+lavender must come here, or where will be the old fashion? Also the
+"Saracen-head thumping balls" of the purple thistle, and the blue-green
+sea-holly. Tritoma, called in the vulgar tongue "red poker," ought to
+have a place in the background. Then rocket, purple and white, is a
+neat, spikey little plant that should be represented, and I have no
+doubt that I shall be introduced to many more. If I love them at all,
+and if they can become at all reconciled to my soil, they shall find a
+home here.
+
+Of course, with so many alterations to be made, and so many new-comers
+to be welcomed, I had again to break all rules and regulations
+belonging to a herbaceous border. Griggs and a spade, fatal things both
+of them, had to be tolerated, and roots disturbed, for in the spring my
+arrangements had been very happy-go-lucky. Now, armed with a certain
+amount of information, I hoped to settle things more permanently.
+
+But when the length and depth of that border had been worked I felt
+that my life's task was finished, and I never went near it for three
+whole days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My one and only frame presented a more cheering appearance than it had
+done the year before. It was a capacious frame, and possessed means for
+heating. This was often Griggs's one duty in the winter, and a grand
+excuse for not chopping wood. In the summer and autumn time an ignorant
+gardener can always account for himself with unnecessary lawn-mowing
+and diligent sweeping up of leaves that are instantly replaced by
+others; in the winter, unless snow provides a little gentle exercise,
+he is sore put to it to fill up his hours with a show of use. Thus the
+frame with its stoke-hole was a boon to Griggs, and I felt that I too
+should be much interested in its welfare this winter. For in their
+winter quarters were my hundred deep red "Henry Jacobys" and sundry
+other geranium cuttings far removed from Griggs's former favourites.
+Square wooden boxes held my young penstemons, a nice lot of tiny sprigs
+from the bluest of the lobelias, and three varieties of antirrhinum,
+also cuttings of yellow daisies and white. I was trying if cuttings
+from the not-successful violas would make better plants than those
+grown from seed, so there was one box devoted to these. A few pots
+held hyacinth bulbs and tulips, some choice arrangements that were to
+astonish the Others, coming in a time of dire scarcity.
+
+Griggs looked in with something like pride gleaming in his old eyes.
+He always talked of "moi frame" and what he would allow me to put
+there. But we had no ructions, and I must only guard against his pride
+overflowing in too much water.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day I took his Reverence's arm and led him round the garden. I
+steered him past the plantains, for he loves prodding at their stubborn
+roots, and I wanted his whole attention. I pointed out the present, I
+referred gracefully to the past, and I dilated on the future. "Now,
+sir, the year is nearly up, say, 'how has the garden grown?'"
+
+"Grown! Why, you wicked girl! I believe you have prigged yet another
+border!"
+
+"Oh! for those irises! Yes. I wasn't talking about that little path and
+that little border: they will look very nice there by-and-by. I was
+talking of the flowers."
+
+And I led him away from that unlucky path and fixed him opposite my
+legitimate and much-developed border.
+
+"It looks much neater, certainly. I wonder, now, have you let Griggs
+have any time for the vegetables lately?"
+
+"Do you know, sir, the uninitiated might mistake you for a most
+cold-hearted and callous parent. If you lived up to the ideal, you
+would be saying beautiful things about my industry, and the conversion
+of wilderness into rose, and Griggs's, well, not _his_ conversion, but
+he has done more work this last year than for the twenty before. And
+you would be saying that the five pounds--"
+
+"Ah! I thought we were coming to that. It's quite gone, I suppose?"
+
+"Gone! Goodness me! and so has a good deal of its successor. But it is
+all right. I practically went the year round with that first fiver.
+All I am doing now is for next year, you see. I have drawn you up a
+statement of accounts and you will see that I even kept a little money
+for summer bulbs, though they can only come on next year. Which was
+generous of the first year to the second, you will perceive. But I
+wanted so many things that it was too late to buy last autumn or I did
+not know of them. And I have begged and borrowed as well as bought.
+Don't you think the garden has grown?"
+
+"Yes, Mary, I really do; and I conclude from your having entered upon
+the second five pounds that you want it, and are not going to resign
+the situation."
+
+"I don't think you can do without me."
+
+And his Reverence said, after a moment,
+
+"I don't want to try."
+
+The little statement of accounts that I formally laid upon the study
+table was as follows:
+
+ Bulbs              £2  0  0
+
+ Seeds              £1 10  0
+
+ Odd Plants          0  3  6
+
+ Roses               0 13  6
+
+ Geranium Cuttings   0  6  0
+
+ Summer Bulbs        0  7  0
+
+                    £5  0  0
+
+
+His Reverence eyed it critically.
+
+"How neatly it fits in. You have not been driven to arrange matters
+with the usual feminine etcetera."
+
+"Because I have paid those etceteras myself."
+
+"Really, but what were the etceteras? I thought they were always
+unknown quantities in ladies' accounts."
+
+"That is one of the delusions of menkind. My etceteras were all the
+pennies paid for hampers coming and going, for labels, for scissors,
+three shillings those, without whose aid I could never have cut my way
+through the summer; they hold the flowers as you cut and save much
+backache. Then for sulphur, for quassia chips, for bast, for--"
+
+"Hold! I will never ask what a woman's etcetera means again. I see
+it is much the most important part of the whole account. I wish they
+always paid it themselves. But why did you?"
+
+"Oh, because, because five pounds is _so_ little, you can have no idea
+how little, to buy everything with."
+
+"Yes, but you started away with the idea it was a great deal."
+
+"I said I could put _some_ flowers in the garden with it anyway, and so
+I have. Even the Others allow that."
+
+"Well, shall we say six pounds for this next year?"
+
+"Will you really, sir? Oh, that is good! Now I shall go at once
+and order a pound's worth of peonies. There was such an enticing
+advertisement in this morning's _Standard_, and I have been resisting
+temptation, because I really had to buy herbaceous plants and a good
+many bulbs. They have made such a hole. But in time, you see, in time
+the garden will get quite full."
+
+Yes, peonies with the delicious description of "blush rose," "deep
+carmine," "snowy queen" had held my thoughts for some time. That front
+border ought to be devoted to all varieties of flowering shrubs, and
+in time it should be. There was plenty of room for my peonies; so
+they were quickly ordered and the border made as good for them as I
+could manage. They like being well-treated. But when I thought of the
+watering next year my heart failed me. Something must be done.
+
+That advertisement and the extra pound lured me on to further bulbs.
+Two hundred narcissi, mixed, and so cheap! only five shillings, were
+buried in the grass down the shrubbery side of the lawn. How cheering
+they would be in spring! A sweep of sweet nodding white and yellow.
+
+"There is one thing you have utterly forgotten, Mary, and really no
+garden should be without them," said one of the Others.
+
+"I know you are going to suggest some greenhouse nursling. Remember
+the frame is not a conservatory." And I hoped my bulbs were still a
+surprise.
+
+"Oh, you old Solomon! And since when do lilies of the valley refuse to
+grow out of doors?"
+
+"Lilies of the valley! Now, why didn't you speak sooner?"
+
+"Is it too late? Why? You are still grubbing in things, aren't you?"
+
+"I have shut the purse for the autumn. Honestly, I must keep the rest
+for the spring."
+
+"Well, look here, don't be alarmed, we won't do it often, but I looked
+at your catalogue and saw they were six shillings a hundred, so 'we'
+give them on the condition we may pick them."
+
+"I like you! Where don't you pick? All right, I will gratefully take
+the six shillings."
+
+"A shady spot," I should have said a year ago, but no, not a bit of it,
+after my experiences with the violets. A narrow border near a little
+wall, but on which the sun did not flare continuously, and there we
+prepared the ground, though it seemed pretty good on its own account
+for a wonder; and the hundred fibrous roots were carefully spread out
+and covered over. I thought of young "Sandhurst." If I give him lilies
+of the valley for a button-hole he will think the garden is indeed
+growing. Though if the lilies should fail! But why should they? Griggs
+did not touch them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jim said,
+
+"You are a fraud, Mary, that's what you are."
+
+My thoughts flew to suggestions given for an essay on "The Heroic
+Qualities" which Jim and I had discussed with much energy. But it was
+not that.
+
+"No, it was pretty footling, that essay, anyway; but the other fellows
+did just as badly. You promised me a go at tap-roots, and even old
+Griggs says we can't tackle them now. He says he thinks there are
+probably jolly long ones, and I do think you might have thought of it
+in time."
+
+"I have been so busy, Jim, and it isn't my department proper. Let us
+bike over and ask the Master if it is too late. Griggs doesn't really
+know; he generally repeats what I tell him."
+
+"He knows enough not to do things, does Griggs. I have found that out.
+He is a champion skulker."
+
+Jim was very despondent, but a good spin along the hard road, with the
+bright sun that late autumn sometimes sees, raised his spirits.
+
+The Master was in his garden, and oh! how neat and brushed up and
+ready for its sleeping-time looked his garden. Not empty or dead,
+but intentionally tucked up and ready for the snowy counterpane, and
+protected from the biting blast.
+
+It was late, he said, but the weather still held up; we might try
+taking up one at a time and replacing it so that it should not take
+cold.
+
+Jim took the directions with great attention.
+
+"I am going to boss this, Mary; you said it wasn't your department."
+
+The way he worked and ordered about Griggs and the coachman, summoned
+to give his unwilling help, promised well for his future as an admiral.
+The whole roots of the young pear tree were dug up with the greatest
+care; the tap-root, there it was sure enough, and all the vitality of
+the tree going gaily to swell its dimensions, was cut away, and then
+it was raised into a well-doctored hole, with a broad slab-like stone
+under it to cut short any further aspirations after such a root again,
+and all other branch roots carefully spread out to encourage growth and
+general productiveness.
+
+Jim worked himself and his men, and also the Young Man, hard; I was
+an admiring onlooker until the operation was finished and the tree
+standing up quite firm again. Then, as Jim was bent on yet another,
+and refused to think it too late, I wandered down my lime-tree walk,
+where snowdrops were now hidden. I had collected ferns there and more
+primroses, and clumps of foxgloves on the sunniest side, just where
+they would catch the eye from the garden.
+
+A feeling of peace was in the air; one bird dropped a note and another
+caught it up; not a ringing challenge of song, but a pleasant exchange
+of compliments. "Going strong?" "Oh, rather!" "Berries look well."
+"Prime!" "Good old world!" A squirrel frisked past up a tree with a
+look down at me, saying, "Ah! don't you wish you could do it!" and then
+off he went, terribly busy with his nut store. He and Griggs had had
+a race over the small walnuts which adorned one tree, and I think the
+squirrel could account for the better part. It was all right, all in
+order, this going to sleep time, this baring of boughs, decaying of
+vegetation, this "season of mists." A little while, only a little while
+and the change would begin; after sleep would come the great awakening.
+I picked a brown bud from the chestnut tree and cut it in half with
+my knife. There was the promise, the great life spirit already at
+work. Cushioned in the centre the embryo of the spiral-shaped bloom
+for May was to be plainly seen. The spring was preparing right through
+the winter. I heard Jim's voice, cheery and ringing, "Now then, you
+fellows, heave away! Oh, I say, Young Man, don't scoot just yet."
+
+Steps rustled behind me, and as he joined me we walked on under the
+lime trees and I tried to talk of my garden, but he did not appear
+responsive; and finally, when I could walk no further, for I was wedged
+in the swing gate that opened on to the field he blocked the opening
+and said,
+
+"I don't the least want to talk of the garden."
+
+"Well, talk of this," I said, and gave him the chestnut twig I had
+broken off; "it is full of meaning."
+
+"It is very bare and dead-looking."
+
+"No. It is really full of life and hope. See its wonderful centre.
+There, I will open one to give you a parable from Nature. We need hope
+at this time of the year."
+
+"I have been hoping so long," he would not be put off, "perhaps I am
+tired of mere hoping. I want to progress."
+
+"Try faith then," I suggested.
+
+His eyes held mine.
+
+"There is one thing better than faith, you know." I suppose the wind
+was cold. I gave a little shiver and he placed his hand over mine.
+
+Then I said, "I think faith ought to have its turn."
+
+"What is faith in this instance?"
+
+"Waiting, I should think," I answered slowly.
+
+"But waiting with a knowledge of--"
+
+"Ah! I must teach you another parable, I see. When the seed is sown in
+the ground we have to wait for it to spring up; it has to grow, to
+grow underground quite a long while before it comes to the light. It is
+not good to uncover it before it naturally springs up."
+
+"Can I be sure the seed is there?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Some seeds take longer than others too, don't they?" I answered
+evasively. "The annuals come up quite quickly, but perennials are much
+slower. I prefer perennials, don't you?"
+
+"I will wait."
+
+"The winter is such a good time for waiting," I remarked cheerfully.
+
+"If faith be added to hope is the next step sure?" he questioned.
+
+"Don't you know we cannot hurry the seasons. It is no good. If you are
+in winter, in the faith time, why, be content."
+
+"Yes, spring will come, I will wait," he said again, and I too knew
+that spring would come.
+
+I loosened my hand gently and we walked back under the bared boughs of
+the lime trees, a tangle of grass, weeds and ferns, and a rustling of
+brown fallen leaves at our feet. A hush as of going to sleep was in
+the air, and a robin from a full throat seemed to assure us that each
+season in its turn is good, and that spring never quite leaves the
+earth.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+ACONITE, Winter, 29
+
+Anemones, 10, 173, 235;
+--Japanese, 186, 195, 233
+
+Annuals, 54, 66, 113
+
+Antirrhinums, 54, 57, 101, 131, 132, 179, 181, 238
+
+Asters, perennial, 195, 197
+
+
+BEGONIAS, 184
+
+Biennials, 102
+
+Bleeding Heart, 183, 232, 235
+
+
+CALCEOLARIAS, 4, 183
+
+Campanulas, 53, 106, 183, 212, 234
+
+Canariensis, 55, 105, 187
+
+Canterbury-Bells, 53, 56, 105, 164, 183, 185, 212, 222, 235
+
+Christmas Roses, 47, 218, 219
+
+Chrysanthemums, annual, 55, 113;
+--perennial, 7, 144, 196, 234
+
+Clematis, 35;
+--Flamulata, 37, 217;
+--Montana, 214
+
+Coleus, 184
+
+Columbines, 57, 106, 183, 235
+
+Convolvulus, 55, 105, 187
+
+Coreopsis, 235
+
+Cornflowers, 66, 150, 171
+
+Creeping Jenny, 179
+
+Crocuses, 19, 62
+
+Crown Imperials, 235
+
+
+DAFFODILS, 20, 28, 52, 71
+
+Dahlias, 7, 145, 233;
+--Cactus, 195, 221
+
+Daisies, autumn, 81, 233;
+--white, 55, 150, 181;
+--yellow, 181
+
+Delphiniums, 54, 84, 147, 182, 211, 232
+
+Doronicum, 81, 183, 231, 235
+
+Dressing for rose roots, 103
+
+
+ESCHSCHOLTZIA, 57, 177
+
+Elder-tree, 121
+
+
+FEATHERFEW, 184
+
+Ferns, 72, 248
+
+Forget-me-nots, 104, 130, 164, 213, 219, 220
+
+Foxgloves, 72, 106, 222, 232
+
+Fruit-trees, 108, 247
+
+Fuchsias, 184
+
+
+GAILLARDIAS, 53, 84, 106, 183, 234
+
+Galega, 86, 182, 233
+
+Geraniums, 4, 143, 180, 221;
+--Henry Jacoby, 181, 238
+
+Geums, 183, 196, 235
+
+Gladiolas, 54, 183, 212, 235
+
+Godetias, 66, 113, 150, 171
+
+Golden Rod, 81, 197, 233
+
+Green fly, 118, 120
+
+Ground-elder, 110, 148
+
+Gypsophila, 57, 180
+
+
+HARDY ANNUALS, 175
+
+Hellebore, 38, 47, 218
+
+Hollyhocks, 54, 147, 182, 195, 233
+
+Honeysuckle, 151, 216
+
+Hyacinths, 18, 238
+
+
+INDIAN-PEA, _see_ Galega
+
+Irises; English, 212;
+--German, 111, 183, 233;
+--Spanish, 212, 235
+
+Ixias, 183
+
+
+JAPANESE ROSE, 121
+
+Jasmine, white, 35;
+--yellow, 32, 34, 37, 219
+
+
+_KERRIA JAPONICA_, 121
+
+
+LARKSPUR, 54, 84
+
+Laurel, 120
+
+Lavender, 236
+
+Leopard's Bane, 81
+
+Lilies, 81, 111, 182;
+--Auratum, 212;
+--Croceum,212;
+--Madonna, 212, 232;
+--Tiger, 182, 232
+
+Lily-of-the-Valley, 244
+
+Lobelia, 57, 101, 181, 238
+
+London Pride, 81, 231
+
+Lupins, 147, 186, 222, 232
+
+
+MARGUERITES, 55, 59, 141, 181, 238
+
+Marigolds, 55, 101, 141, 183, 197
+
+Mignonette, 55, 56, 173
+
+Montbresias, 54, 183, 212, 235
+
+
+NARCISSI, 72, 212, 243
+
+Nasturtium, 55, 56, 101, 105, 187
+
+Nicotina, 161
+
+
+'OLD MAN'S BEARD,' 37
+
+
+PANSIES, 53
+
+Papaver, _see_ Poppy
+
+Penstemons, 57, 84, 106, 183, 196, 234, 238
+
+Peonies, 243
+
+Perennials, 106
+
+Pergola, 204, 210
+
+Phlox, 54, 82, 88, 183, 195, 233;
+--annual, 176
+
+Plantains, 22, 239
+
+Polyanthus, 53, 57, 100, 106, 132, 224, 231
+
+Poppies, Californian, 57, 177;
+--Iceland, 57, 147, 196, 235;
+--Oriental, 106, 211, 234;
+--Shirley, 57, 66, 113, 150, 171
+
+Primroses, 72, 248
+
+
+ROCKET, 236
+
+Roses, 74;
+--Crimson Rambler, 74, 128, 214;
+--Gloire de Dijon, 74, 129, 187, 213;
+--Reine Marie Hortense, 74, 128;
+--William Allen Richardson, 74, 128, 214;
+--cutting, 77;
+--Suckers, 79
+
+Rudbeckias, 195
+
+
+SAINT-FOIN, 151
+
+Salpiglosis, 57, 175
+
+Salvias, 184
+
+Scabious, 57, 142, 183
+
+Scillas, 28, 40, 51
+
+Sea-holly, 236
+
+Silene, 105, 164, 213
+
+Snapdragons, _see_ Antirrhinums
+
+Snowdrops, 28, 40, 51
+
+Solomon's Seal, 235
+
+Spiræa, 82, 233
+
+Stocks, 53, 57, 106, 143, 183
+
+Sunflowers, 56, 105, 182, 194, 196, 211, 233;
+--Rigidus, 233;
+--Soleil d'Or, 233
+
+Sweet Peas, 56, 65, 107, 150, 174, 193
+
+Sweet-William, 53, 56, 105, 164, 183, 185, 212, 222, 235
+
+Syringa, 121
+
+
+TAGETES, 55, 57, 101, 142
+
+Thinning plants, 113, 163
+
+Thistle, purple, 196, 236
+
+Tritoma, 85, 236
+
+Tritonia, 165
+
+Tropoeolum, 55
+
+Tulips, 81, 130, 132, 212, 220, 238
+
+Turk's Head, 183, 185, 235
+
+
+VALERIAN, 182, 185, 232
+
+Verbena, 57
+
+Viola, 53, 57, 60, 131, 238
+
+Violets, 76, 80, 220
+
+Virginian Creeper, 213
+
+
+WALL-FLOWER, 53, 105, 164, 212, 220
+
+Wisteria, 214
+
+
+ZINNIA, 56, 57, 183, 221
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How the Garden Grew, by Maud Maryon
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56526 ***