MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 129 



FIFTEENTH WEEK. 



~&quot;TT is said that absence conquers all 

 r*- things, love included ; but it has 

 a contrary effect on a garden. I was 

 absent for two or three weeks. I left 

 my garden a paradise, as paradises 

 go in this protoplastic world ; and, when 

 I returned, the trail of the serpent was 

 over it all, so to speak. (This is in 

 addition to the actual snakes in it, which 

 are large enough to strangle children of 

 average size.) I asked Polly if she had 

 seen to the garden while I was away, 

 and she said she had. I found that all 

 the melons had been seen to, and the 

 early grapes and pears. The green 

 worm had also seen to about half the 

 celery ; and a large flock of apparently 



