84 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEtf. 



lightly esteeming a vegetable diet, quite ignored the 

 science of horticulture. Somehow the Curate got 

 hold of Tom, by finding him some work to do ("just 

 like them Jesseites," Mrs. V. remarked), when he 

 was nearly starving, and as lean as the pig which he 

 had been compelled to sell, and then talked him into 

 his "sober senses." And now no labourer about the 

 place has a cleaner, neater bit of ground than Tom. 

 Dock and groundsel, thistle and twitch, which once 

 grew as closely together as the bristles of 

 his neglected beard, have been displaced for lap- 

 stone kidneys and cottager's kale, for gooseberry- 

 trees and currant-trees, for the paBony, the sweet- 

 William, and the rose. It does one good to see Tom, 

 when the daylight lengthens, digging and hoeing, 

 sowing and setting ; while Tom, junior, proudly 

 holding a brown-paper packet of seeds, scowls at 

 small Jacky for running between fayther's legs ; and 

 mother, with her bab} T at the cottage door, looks on 

 with a thankful heart. And you would have been 

 pleased, I am sure, if, at our last horticultural ex- 

 hibition, you had seen, as I saw, the Curate, with his 

 hand on Tom's shoulder, congratulating him on the 

 prizes he had won. 



Indeed, I think that there are few institutions more 

 healthful, and few sights more pleasant to the eye 

 and heart, than that of a village flower-show. It 

 induces, first of all, that communion of classes which 

 teaches men, more forcibly than schools or sermons 

 can, to recognize their place and duty ; and does this 

 with a cheerful ease and freedom very sparse (please 

 to observe the fashionable adjective " sparse," a new 



