48 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 



over every inch of ground on to the bitter end. "Now you 

 may begin here," I say, setting his metes and bounds as if he 

 were the ocean, " and work carefully down this way, keeping 

 clear of every border at least a foot; they are full of things I 

 can't spare; but don't touch this," suddenly spying some 

 perennial advanced to the third pair of seed leaves, "nor 

 this oh, you must shy away from that," and I make magic 

 rings of cleared ground with my own hoe about the endan- 

 gered seedlings. 



Adam has learned the fatal power of concentration, and 

 hoes steadily on. His are not the sins of omission; he has a 

 good heart and an imperturbable temper, yet he has the red 

 hand of the slayer. Vainly do I make vast deserts of sand 

 about little green oases I want spared. If I look up in the sky 

 one minute, or wander ten feet from his side to escape the 

 death-cry of his victims the deed is done. Destruction, apol- 

 ogies and clean walks are synonyms for Adam's hoeing. 



Of late years I undertake this delicate commission alone. 

 My hoe has intermittent habits, I always have from four to 

 six very hot irons in the fire, and the worse the walks look, the 

 less I want to see them. But affairs work up to a climax, and I 

 stand in not a little awe of Adam's salutary criticism. I prize 

 his approbation and I am growing to like a clean, trim walk for 

 its own sake, so I have learned to harden my heart and reap 

 great harvests of flowering things that I would fain let stand. 

 But when the painful task is over I feel the guilty contrition of 

 a young girl I once knew, who used to beguile her lonely hours 

 with rifle shooting, and, being a good shot, she would daily 

 bring down a chipmunk or red squirrel, which she proceeded to 

 bury with many tears in her own small garden plot. Her grief 

 took a prudent form, for she planted each limp little body at 

 the root of a shrub to serve as a fertilizer, and in consequence 

 I always spoke of Margaret's garden as her animal orchard. 



