COMMUTER'S WIFE 127 



family under one roof, so to speak, keeping them in 

 such order that I may not only enjoy them freely, 

 but minister easily to their needs quite out of the 

 range of highway criticism. Not that I object to 

 being seen weeding, watering, tying, and insectiding 

 in a perspiring and collarless condition, but I do not 

 wish to be pounced upon by every patient that calls 

 and be expected to take them into my sanctuary, 

 there to prowl and despoil me of garden privacy or 

 flowers after the custom of the idly curious. It is 

 something of a responsibility of course to be one's 

 own gardener, but an infinite satisfaction withal to 

 feel that the making and even the marring is within 

 one's own grasp. That is, as far as things agricultu- 

 ral are ever within the power of a mere human. For 

 as a humbling and God-fearing occupation, none can 

 exceed the gardener's. Mother Earth has ways of 

 trying and proving the temper or lack of it that can- 

 not be surpassed for variety. 



As I look back over the years that I have watched 

 garden processes, and sown and gathered my little 

 crop of flowers, it seems that I should now know 

 enough to keep clear of cultural sins both of omis- 

 sion and commission. Yet when I realize all the 

 things that are uncontrollable, I turn pagan and am 

 inclined to make a series of shrubby grottos to har- 



