THE FUN OF MAKING GARDEN 61 
been a piece of persiflage, a work of supereroga- 
tion; for does not everybody know what a woman 
does when her spouse is making garden? She 
stands by and bosses. There is pathos in this 
suggestion, but truth cannot be denied because 
it is pathetic. So, for reasons of its antique 
and therefore classic character as well as for its 
suggestion of industry and a slight suggestion 
of vegetables, making garden should be set down 
as an occupation to be set store by. 
Have a garden. If you cannot have one on 
the ground, have a roof garden. They do not 
so well claim the fidelity of effort as those on the 
ground, but have a garden anywhere. Putter 
around; look important. Think on that worthy 
vender of truisms who remarked on the market 
value of the man who made a couple of blades 
of grass grow so that there would be two green 
things, the man and the grass. What a flood 
of sage sayings sweat out of a man when he is 
making garden! How genius seems necessary 
to his dust! 
If the man have gardened before, then he has 
all that hilarious excitement which necessarily 
comes to a man looking for the rake and the 
hoe and the spade. They are where he put 
them not last year. His wife will revile him and 
resuscitate the unpardonable incident of Job’s 
wife who talked back to her husband. She will 
say with a smile which has no sunlight in it, 
‘Dearie, you will presumably find the garden 
