GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 91 



one of our moulding forces will have pushed the 

 mimic garden into other hands before it is even ripe. 

 But any one may have an American garden, and it 

 is such as these alone that from their simplicity and 

 the love born of their making may be kept from gen- 

 eration to generation. 



However simple this garden of mine is to be, I 

 must see its shaping before I begin even to plant my 

 bulbs, or confusion will be my portion. A little mis- 

 take now may mean a year's delay. 



O my Garden of Dreams ! do not vanish when I 

 am ready to embody you. This morning father 

 gave me mother's garden journal from the little 

 trunk under the eaves. To-night is Hallow-e'en ! 

 Who knows but if I sit here and look out over the 

 leafless garden that was, that a vision of the new 

 will come from between the morocco covers ? 



This quiet rain is very soothing to my impatience, 

 and the little splashes that drop from the eaves to 

 the piazza, roof below with first a single and then a 

 double drip, as the gutter is more or less full, seem to 

 say, Wait, wait, wait, Patience, patience, patience, in 

 a coaxing way. 



A fair amount of damp and rain is rather good for 



