MY AMBITION GROWS 
ONG before the first summer was over I felt the 
“| need of more room. The twenty-five-foot area 
was but a narrow chrysalis shell, and I determined 
| to spread my wings another season. Then, too, 
I did not like the things that went on in that impenetrable 
jungle outside the walls. Almost any hour of the day one 
could hear strange noises within its depths, rustling sounds, 
fugitive glimpses of snakes, chipmunks and red squirrels. In 
October I cleared a new piece about twenty-five feet by forty 
of rocks and bushes, and looked upon the daily exercise as an 
outdoor game rather than work. I had learned to use my 
tools more intelligently; the shovel more often replaced my 
threadbare hands in removing earth; occasionally I remem- 
bered to put on gloves. 
It has been my privilege recently to read how a lady con- 
ducts herself in a garden, and I now see how I have defied 
every convention in the matter of garden etiquette. The book 
must have been written at a time when damsels were addicted 
to tight lacing and swoons, for the author apologizes grace- 
fully for the lady who wants to garden, and her advice is ob- 
viously to give courage to a feeble sisterhood. 
“Tt must be confessed,” writes my English authority, “that 
digging appears, at first sight, a very laborious employment, 
and one peculiarly unfitted to small and delicately formed 
hands and feet;” and then, after a careful explanation of the 
wey mere man performs the operation, she continues; “A 
lady with a small light spade, may, by repeatedly digging over 
37 
