34 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



tion, three feet, to find what it wanted? 

 This is intellect. The weeds, on the other 

 hand, have hateful moral qualities. To cut 

 down a weed is, therefore, to do a moral 

 action. I feel as if I were destroying sin. 

 My hoe becomes an instrument of retribu- 

 tive justice. I am an apostle of Nature. 

 This view of the matter lends a dignity to 

 the art of hoeing which nothing else does, 

 and lifts it into the region of ethics. Hoe- 

 ing becomes, not a pastime, but a duty.' 

 And you get to regard it so, as the days and 

 the weeds lengthen. 



Observation. Nevertheless, what a man 

 needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with 

 a hinge in it. The hoe is an ingenious in- 

 strument, calculated to call out a great deal 

 of strength at a great disadvantage. 



The striped bug has come, the saddest of 

 the year. He is a moral double-ender, iron- 

 clad at that. He is unpleasant in two ways. 

 He burrows in the ground so that you can- 

 not find him, and he flies away so that you 

 cannot catch him. He is rather handsome, 



