14 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



whirl of life and its myriad colors and loves even 

 March in his garden. 



There lies a happy medium between soulless conven- 

 tions and riotous disorder. Crocuses that smile from the 

 first grass blades on the lawn, the wee, modest, crimson- 

 tipped daisies that wash their faces in morning dews all 

 summer long, give character to the proper expanse before 

 the door. Every passing neighbor gets a message of 

 cheer, and, is his horizon dark, you have given him a 

 smile. If no altruistic sentiment of this order stirs you, 

 imagine how artistic purple and yellow crocuses look in 

 April, daisies in June, and scarlet salvia in autumn in a 

 sea of green. 



Now the storm clouds have vanished, and March, 

 lamblike, lends a charm to all pastoral scenes. The wind 

 blows from the south, the weather vane tilts uncertainly, 

 and the windows are thrown open to admit the spring; 

 the fancy presents the most hopeful undertakings that we 

 have thought of in many a day. A troop of nesting spar- 

 rows is scouring the gardens for straws and foraging for 

 seeds at the very spot where the spade will turn over the 

 earth when the pools have dried away. 



At this stage of action the summer border is of that 

 unsubstantial fabric that dreams are made of. Do not 

 scoff at it, unbeliever who never scratched the earth or 

 tasted the joys of creation by planting a seed. Consider 

 but a little, and discover that more than half the joys of 



