An Incipient Garden 13 
brids;” the C’s were characterized by “richness of color and 
profusion of flowers”—and so on with undiminished eloquence 
to Z—Zinnia, where my intoxicated eyes caught “one of the 
finest plants . . . commence to bloom in June and continue 
throughout the season... require little care... any 
common garden soil... prize strain . . . unsurpassed.” 
Ah! here was a fulfilment of a life-long desire; here were quan- 
tities of lilies that toiled not, and nobody had to toil; no more 
fifty buckets of water at night; no more digging and manuring 
beds two feet deep; “any common soil” would do. Had I not 
the grower’s word for it? and we had a hundred acres of just 
such soil needing zinnias to hide the poverty-stricken grass 
that grew in segregated clumps over our barren hill-top. What 
cared I for snow-drifts, for howling winds, and 20° below zero 
weather? Airily I spent my days on the lawn (in my mind) 
gently plucking flowers that never grew less than two feet 
high and eight inches across. The sun shed only a soft genial 
warmth; the sky was always blue, except when it showered 
agreeably. I was in the gardener’s Paradise, and had a glori- 
ously happy time; and my lists grew. 
One day, when looking out of the window, it occurred to me 
that, with so many prospective treasures, I ought to have a 
garden to plant them in. Surely a garden—not patches on 
the lawn; a garden where some day perhaps I could walk, and 
I resolved if that day ever came, I shouldn’t go trailing long 
drabbly white garments about damp walks in the dreamy ab- 
stracted fashion of damsels such as artists have loved to paint; 
for my garden was going to be damp, perpetually damp, 
walks and all; it would have to be if it bore those eight-inch 
flowers. And thus did I go on planning the garden that Eve 
should make. Why not take the very spot before my eyes? 
Was it not sheltered on the north by a high stone wall and 
apple trees, that, at the proper moment, should form a pic- 
