40 THE FLORIST. 



A PACKET OF SEEDS SAVED BY AN OLD GARDENER. 



[Continued from p. 20.] 



These boys were a terrible plague to the only friend I seemed to 

 have in the world that wore a petticoat : they were always torment- 

 ing her and calling her a witch ; and they had nearly persuaded me 

 too that she was one, when she first took me up. She'd lost her 

 husband not long before I came, and having nobody else to scold, 

 she seemed glad of me to keep her tongue in tune ; and yet in a 

 little while I found it was only a habit of hers, and a cover to a deal 

 of real kindness. One while she'd scold me for not being clean, 

 another time because my clothes were dirty or ragged, and then 

 she'd scrub my head or neck, or wash my linen, or put a patch 

 here and a darn there ; and take so little of my money for doing 

 it, that she was another mother to me for these matters. 



This poor woman's work was weeding in the garden and shrub- 

 bery walks, or sometimes round the plantation hedges ; and what 

 with sun and wind and old age, she was like a shrivelled apple with 

 a little red colour left in its cheeks. The only place she could go 

 to for dinner was the shed where I slept ; and there, over the stoke- 

 hole, we used to sit and eat together; and many's the tale of trouble 

 that poor creature's told me, especially in winter, when we were 

 both of us the worst off. If it hadn't been for her, I'm sure I should 

 have gone off to sea, or for a drummer-boy, spite of the horrid tales 

 I'd heard my father's old comrades tell about the wars, when they 

 used to be drinking together after they'd drawn their pension- money. 

 And talking of that, I've never read of any bloody murders to match 

 things I've heard some of them boast of doing, and glory in too. 

 Not my father, he was the wrong sort of man ; and often, after I'd 

 been listening, he would say, "Bad work, boy, bad work; and who's 

 to account for it by and by I don't know ; but I hope not me, though 

 I've had so much to do with it." 



And I must say, that, to this day, I can't quite see how that 

 which is so dreadfully wicked for a man to do to serve his own ends 

 can be any thing else but wicked when it's done for some trumpery 

 little quarrel between one country and another, such as I have read 

 about in histories. But I must not forget this poor old woman. I've 

 said the stable-boys called her a witch ; and to prove it, they said 

 the cats would always get about her if they could, and she could 

 handle snakes without their hurting her ; and one boy said he once 

 caught her with a great ugly toad feeding out of her hand. At last 

 the kettle got too hot to hold the water, and blew the lid off, for all 

 the horses were taken bad together ; and the coachman complained 

 to the squire that it was all because he had offended the old woman, 

 and she had bewitched them. 



The squire, for fun, I suppose, called old Mary to book ; but she 

 soon shewed him that it was because she gave the cats mice and 

 little birds that they purred about her ; and if she handled snakes, 

 it was only the harmless sorts, and not vipers. About the toad she 



