2 MY GROWING GARDEN 



next the park; and again when oiu" two friends had 

 declined to settle with us away from immediate 

 gas and electricity, from the city mail deUvery 

 and the water main. 



Then came the sight of the little place, not at 

 all the garden-place of our dreams, but a "prac- 

 ticable" lot of sixty-five feet front in a pleasant 

 neighborhood, on which we might at least have a 

 little room outside the home walls. Inquiry of a 

 friendly real-estate man as to values followed, and 

 also, glory be ! his suggestion that we "look at the 

 old H place." 



Look we did, and we found, that dull Novem- 

 ber day, a tangle of tall grass and taller weeds, 

 drifted leaves, dead pear trees and a dingy-looking 

 old "mansion-house." But also there were pines 

 and hemlocks about, splendid maples and horse- 

 chestnuts, and a glorious old giant of a sycamore. 

 A long arborvitse hedge — several hedges, in fact — 

 rambled across the place, near the slope on which 

 had fallen from their trellises old, old grape-vines, 

 rehcs of a famous vineyard. 



Somber was the look of things outdoors that 

 day, and worse indoors — but this is not a house 

 story. I had "the surprise of my life" when the 

 two ladies of the family, smelling the sweet odors of 

 the autumn foliage, feeUng the touch of wet hem- 



