24 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 
stooped over the stock. “No, it is not that,” and he smelt of 
the wallflower. “No, what is it? It recalls to me the delight- 
ful memories of childhood.” 
_ Now there is no more delicate compliment that a man can 
pay a woman than to tell her that something she has or does 
restores that happy time. I fairly bristled with pride. 
He hovered an instant over the mignonette, sweet peas, 
white petunias and pansies, no—it was none of these, nor boy 
love nor sweet alyssum. Then he picked up a rosy-cheeked 
apple, one of the many that clutter up my walks each sum- 
mer—a phase not included in my inventory of charms when 
deciding on the site of the garden. “Ah, this is a part of it,” 
he exclaimed softly. Then he stood up and turning slowly 
around he tried to concentrate all his senses in his nose. The 
fragrance was penetrating and sweet. “It is the garden!” 
said he at last, and he was so pleased with the solution that I 
almost expected that he would tell me that I reminded him of 
his mother. 
The next climax of satisfaction came during the second 
year of my campaign. I was making an extension, which 
meant that a slope rising both ways had to be dug out, and the 
earth redistributed. That is the most that men ever do: they 
never actually make anything. They dig out a bit here, and 
fill up there; they cart matter from one place to another, but 
they neither add to nor substract a jot from the original sub- 
stance of creation. 
I was in the act of redistributing, and I did not know that 
Adam had been watching the manful way I clove the bank 
with my pickaxe, and then tossed brimming shovelfuls of 
earth into the wheelbarrow, thoroughly enjoying the exercise 
of my strength. 
“Haven’t you an Irish ancestor somewhere in your family ? 
You dig like a Paddy.” 
