The Happy Garden 



Border I., that nearest the house, is divided 

 by a low wall, made of loose stone, in which grow 

 iris, double arabis, primulas, and all the spring 

 flowers. Rosemary and lavender and the Scotch 

 brier-rose group themselves at intervals, and it 

 ends fantastically with a clipped cock, who, with 

 a peacock, guards the entrance to the little sun- 

 dial courtyard. 



Beneath the wall is a narrow bed, where, in the 

 spring, grow tulips and purple violas, which, if the 

 dying blooms are picked, last far into the summer. 

 When the tulips die and the annuals are clamour- 

 ing to show themselves, being then but silly little 

 spikes and tendrils protruding from their native 

 earth, then the aforesaid hurrying and scurrying 

 and digging takes place. Weeds grow apace and 

 monopolise the boy's attention : Mr. Gardener is 

 engrossed with his lawns and vegetables ; all the 

 tall-growing plants cry aloud for their crutches : 

 and somewhere, somewhen, the annuals have to 

 be looked to, and there is nobody to do it. Every- 

 body accuses everybody else, tempers are lost, 

 blight descends on the roses, cuckoo pint is every- 

 where, copper beetles descend from nowhere and 

 devour the buds of the brier roses, the sky repents 

 of its deluges in the early spring, and rains no more 

 — and somehow the annuals have to be planted, 



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