88 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



and proceeded to grow steadily for two months. 

 When they were pinched in on top, they simply 

 expanded sidewise ; ordinary and inconspicuous stak- 

 ing failed to restrain them, and they even pulled 

 away at different angles from poles of silver birch with 

 stout rope between, like a festive company of bacchantes 

 eluding the embraces of the police. A heavy wind 

 storm in late September snapped and twisted their 

 hollow trunks and branches. Were they discouraged? 

 Not a particle; they simply rested comfortably upon 

 whatever they had chanced to fall and grew again from 

 this new basis. Meanwhile the plants in front of them 

 and on the opposite side of the way began to feel dis- 

 couraged, and a fine lot of asters, now within the shadow, 

 were attacked by facial paralysis and developed their 

 blossoms only on one side. 



The middle of October, the week before the coming 

 of Black Frost, the garden executioner, the cosmos, 

 now heavy with buds, settled down to bloom. Two 

 large jars were filled with them, after much difficulty 

 in the gathering, and then the axe fell. Sometimes, of 

 course, they behave quite differently, and those who can 

 spare ground for a great hedge backed by wall or fence 

 and supported in front by pea brush deftly insinuated 

 betwixt and between ground and plants, so that it 



