An Incipient Garden 15 



ranged the magical names upon diagrams until frequent era- 

 sures compelled fresh ones and all the time I was learning 

 a little about flowers. 



Impatiently did I wait for the tardy coming of spring, and 

 the subsidence of the snow was marked by Mount Ararat ap- 

 pearing in its usual place on a slope about fifty feet from the 

 house. As the snow melted, I made a painful discovery. It 

 was true that the spot I selected and diagramed at least 

 twenty times had a protecting stone wall, also, apple-trees 

 overhanging, also a grape-vine also it was not the smooth 

 inviting hollow my fancy had pictured, but a dump heap for 

 boulders and rocks, big and little, that had been unloaded 

 there for years with a view to filling up the swale that lay be- 

 tween the two slopes, one of which fell away from the house, 

 the other rising across this natural runway; also countless 

 wild blackberry and red raspberry bushes, hardback and 

 other tough shrubby growths that had become deep rooted 

 among the rocks. This crescendo of difficulties lacked noth- 

 ing to complete my discomfiture. When the snow lay five feet 

 deep it was a smooth undulating stretch. How had I hap- 

 pened to forget these insuperable conditions ? I grew lower 

 in mind, but said nothing. One bright Sunday morning when 

 the sun shone as all suns should shine on prospective gardens, 

 I bade Adam go forth with me. I sat him down on the bank 

 still soggy with the winter storms, and said, as collectedly 

 as I could: "Well, what do you think of it?" 



"Think, " he repeated slowly, a way he has when he wants 

 to gain time and is about to say something that he knows will 

 be disagreeable to me. 



"Yes," said I a trifle impatiently, recognizing how gently 

 he was about to slay my pet plan, and anxious to have it over. 

 "This is the spot I have chosen for the garden. What do you 

 think of it?" 



