The Garden Grows 25 



Never has praise from any lips so rejoiced my heart as this 

 unexpected tribute. 



The third moment came two years later when a very skilful 

 amateur gardener made me an afternoon visit. We talked 

 intelligibly without the need of an interpreter. She knew 

 candytuft and Dianthus without being told; also spoke under- 

 standingly of the deeper mysteries of Physostegia, Stokesia, 

 Boltonia, Euphorbia corrolata, things representing the higher 

 education in a garden. 



By and by she slipped away from my side, and while I was 

 prattling on with an ordinary denizen of this lower world, she 

 threaded her way through the paths from terrace to terrace. 



"How delightful your garden is," said she on her return. 

 "You can really walk in it, and how many charming, unex- 

 pected nooks and corners you have!" 



Sweet is the praise of a friend. Had I not cherished in my 

 heart for years this privilege of walking in my garden ? not 

 merely stepping down into it and out again, and seeing the 

 whole at a glance as I did the first year, but take a leisurely 

 stroll from bed to bed, from one elevation to another, and 

 choose which way one should go. Her words touched the 

 tenderest depth of my aspiration. 



I was much impressed that first summer with the total lack 

 of dignified reserve that exists in the floral world. The riot- 

 ous way that self-respecting flowers, with centuries of culti- 

 vated ancestry behind them, hobnobbed dver the rustic fence, 

 was a scandal. The raspberry bushes, still left in the un- 

 claimed territory, leaned over the wall and dallied with the 

 cosmos. The climbing nasturtiums, which were supposed to 

 make a decorous barrier between the sheep and goats, lost 

 their reserve and got into many disgraceful entanglements 

 with the tramps outside. The bindweed and wild buckwheat 

 vines found ready admission to the select society of African 



