TROUBLE 257 



create a sixth division gardeners but, being my own 

 head gardener and constituting a large portion of my 

 working force, this form of trouble has not yet come to 

 me. My assistant is a young man possessed of that 

 rarest and most golden of virtues among gardeners, that 

 of sticking to the letter of his instructions without 

 casting about in his mind for variations on the spirit, 

 and who, after six years' association with the garden 

 people, calls almost every plant a Lily, yet has a percep- 

 tion so delicately tuned to the difference between weeds 

 and licensed dwellers, an eye and hand so savage for 

 offending sucker and ruinous insects, and a nature so 

 genuinely kind to man and beast and the very least 

 seedling, that he counts along with such of the garden's 

 blessings as the gentle showers and the mild south wind. 

 Jonas, for so we shall call him, has other good quali- 

 ties. He does not insist upon cleaning up the garden 

 paths too thoroughly. He takes out what he is told, 

 but the colony of self-sown Pansies at the foot of the 

 garden steps is quite safe, and the green embroidery 

 which outlines the joints of a flight of steps and will one 

 day burst into a lavender glory called Candytuft is not 

 treated to the startling language and summary methods 

 Jonas keeps for weeds. Many a pleasant accident is 

 saved for our delight by his unconscious discernment. 

 Mulleins, for a long time, he could not understand or 

 endure, and whether they were our native sort or those 

 raised with care from imported seed they all came out 



