136 THE GARDEN OF A 



stile. Ferns there are already in plenty, and we 

 can bring fresh roots home from every back-country 

 trip we take. The wild things will never mope and 

 starve in these surroundings; so we need not cul- 

 tivate, but merely adjust ourselves to the land." 



"Yes, and the spring hole with the mossy cask 

 around it, where the cows used to drink down by 

 the bars, we might use for a lily pool and have Japan 

 iris and native water plants in the surrounding 

 muddy ground. Oh, Evan, you angel, for a long 

 time I've suspected you of having nice, strong, prac- 

 tical, magic wings folded away under your coat. 

 .This thought opens possibilities not even shadowed 

 in my Garden of Dreams." 



" It is for this and the wherewithal to make your 

 dreams come true that I am here instead of in that 

 older garden overseas. No, don't look distressed, 

 sweetheart ; for after all, a man's wife is his home 

 and kindred." 



Then father came up, wondering what we were 

 discovering either in each other or in what, to 

 unilluminated eyes, seemed only a ragged wood lot, 

 brown with November's smoke tints. 



When we had explained that the Garden of 

 Dreams was to begin at the " Mother Tree " and 

 end quite out of sight in a maze of wilderness, his 



