THE FEAST OF FLOWERS 89 



All through the evening meal we gazed at those 

 strawberries. They were entirely too good to 

 eat, and no sheaf of American Beauty roses could 

 have meant so much. The next morning they 

 were partaken of by all the family in a sort of 

 reverent pledge, as a very definite good omen, as 

 a promise for the future of good — spiritual as well 

 as material — ^from the garden, and of good will 

 from our neighbor. 



That second day gave the rose high-point. In 

 my goings-about on the place previous to actual 

 living there, I had always to be concerned with 

 the doings of mechanics. Lines for grading, and 

 the general scheme for the garden, had been 

 worked out on the place, yet mostly a mass of 

 debris, weeds, brush, decrepit grape-vines, and 

 dead pear trees. I thought I knew all about the 

 growth, however; wherefore my surprise may be 

 imagined when, on this second June day, the 

 daughter of the house came in, saying, "Did you 

 see the rose-garden?" 



No, I had not seen the rose-garden; and was 

 not she joking? She waved in my direction a 

 great, fuU flower, assuredly not a joke, and led 

 me to it — the rose-garden ! In a corner east of the 

 great sycamore, quite concealed from the house, 

 and seemingly so shaded as to be all wrong for 



