48 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



September, 1915 



"only another lad afther horticultural instruction 

 like the wan you had wid you — and come to the 

 fountain head. But ye should have seen Mr. 

 Worthington! He was grand! Bullet-headed was 

 this lad, and more round than long, and close- 

 cropped as to hair as a convict. He came out on the 

 eliven train and drove out fr'm th' station in a car- 

 riage, did he. 



' 'Is this Roseb'ry Gardens,' says he, lookin' in- 

 telligently at the sign over the office door wid the 

 letters as big as his head. 



" 'It is,' says I. 



" 'I wish to see Mr. Worthington,' says he, 'Mr. 

 Horace Worthington!' 



" 'Show him in, Michael,' says Mr. Worthington, 

 who was standing in the door av his private office. 



]l 'I'm not sure I have time to get out,' says the 

 bullet-headed wan, but he looked at his watch. 

 'Oh, yes, twinty minutes,' says he, and he climbed 

 out afther all, but he didn't go in to the old gentle- 

 man's private office. 



" 'I was told that you know about trees,' says he 

 to Mr. Worthington. 



" ' Something, perhaps,' says the old gentleman. 



" 'Well,' says the bullet-headed wan, 'I'm to have 

 the app'intment av Inspector av trees f'r th' Port av 

 New York,' says he, 'to protect our agriculture an' 

 horticulture, fr'm insidjous disease, for th' ignorant 

 foreigners might sind to us trees that ar-re not 

 hilthy,' says he, 'and I want ye sh'uld tell me which 

 tree is which,' says he, 'an' how ye can tell if a 

 bunch av trees is not all right.' 



"The old gentleman just stared at him like he 

 couldn't believe his ears. 



" 'Well,' says me bullet-head, inquiring. 



" 'Young man,' says Mr. Worthington, ponderous 

 as a steam-roller, ' what you need is an ed-u-ca-tion! ' 

 and he turned to go into his office. 



"The bullet head's jaw dropped. 'But I've got 

 twinty minutes,' says he. 



" 'An ed-u-ca-tion,' says the old gentleman, 'is 

 not to be obtained in twinty minutes!' and wid that 

 he goes into his private office. The interview was 

 ended. 



"And the bullet-head stands around aimless-like 

 for a while, then he gets into his carriage f'r to go 

 back to his job av enlightening the nation." 



Roberta laughed. "Didn't any one take pity on 

 him." 



Michael nodded. "I gave him a catalogue," he 

 said, "Ic'u'd let no wan that had hands to hold it or a 

 pocket f'r to put it in, lave the place widout that." 



"But how is it that Mr. Herford is not out here 

 yet, and 'tis the tenth day of September?" 



"How should I know, Michael?" said the girl, 

 "he's your client. Very likely he bought all the trees 

 he needed in the spring." 



Michael shook his head. 



" ' 'Tis not so. F'r ten years, before the first 

 week in Septimber was over, Mr. Maurice J. Herford 

 has been out at Roseb'ry Gardens and buyin' trees. 

 'Buying trees,' says Mr. Worthington, 'is a noble 

 passion.' Some poor souls has it f'r buyin' books, 

 senseless and unresponsive as they ar-re. Once an 

 intelligent tree buyer, always a tree buyer. A man 

 gets the habit, an' 'tis a foine habit. 'Tis that way 

 wid Mr. Herford. Always there's new things, and 

 always me foine little man must have thim on his 

 place. 



"Depind upon it, Miss Davenant, whiniver ye 

 see a man buyin' trees well and intilligently and 

 stidily, season afther season, year afther year, ye can 

 put it down that he has a foine mind. Who was it 

 had the foinest collection av evergreens on Long Is- 

 land? 'Twas Mr. Richard Henry Dana at Dosoris. 

 Hinery Ward Beecher was another intelligent man 

 that knew trees well, though he was not so well up 

 in rare evergreens, pomology was his specialty. 

 There was Mr. Bancroft, who, they tell me, wrote 

 foine hist'ries. I don't know about his hist'ries, but 

 he knew enough about roses to have had a job at 

 Roseb'ry Gardens. Francis Parkman was another 

 foine rosarian, but I believe he had bad hilth, poor 

 man. 'Twould sure have been worse if he'd known 

 nothing about roses. 



"An' I hear that Joseph Chamberlain, the Premier 

 av England knows orchids. 'Tis the best thing I've 

 heard av him an' it may save his sowl fr'm what it 

 deserves f'r his cru'lty an' indifference to the suffer- 

 in's av Ireland — though that's not sayin' but he's a 

 foine head-piece if he'd use it right. 



" 'Tis the same in everything. But these lads that 

 come around, not to buy, but to take up workin' 

 people's time widout doin' anything but troublin' 

 people that ar-re wor-rkin' wid questions — they're a 

 sad lot." 



In truth Michael O'Connor did not take kindly to 

 horticultural aspirants and from him, Paul Fielding 

 had but little assistance. Trommel would answer 

 questions in a bluff, gruff fashion, but clearly and 

 definitely; Mr. Worthington, with elaborate old- 

 fashioned courtesy and detail; but it was little aid 

 that O'Connor would give the "long lad" in his 

 newly awakened interest in camellias. He did not 

 take kindly to his visiting the big cool greenhouse 

 where were the half-hardy plants. The old work- 

 men were cordial enough, but could give scant in- 

 formation. 



The second morning that Paul went to the camel- 

 lia house, he found old Timothy Cullen, one of the 

 most aged of the Garden's retainers, scrubbing the 

 pots with careful, trembling fingers. 



"Good morning, Mr. Fielding," he said in a high, 

 quaving voice, "God bless you! The saints bless 

 you! God bless you body and soul! May all the 

 saints have care of yez." 



"Thank you, thank you," said Paul Fielding, 

 hastily. He watched in silence a moment, and then, 

 " Why are you scrubbing the pots?" 



Old Timothy looked at the pot in his hand. • ' ' The 

 boss towld me to. 'Tis somethin' about the pores 

 an' the cirkilation. They sicken if they aren't 

 clane. That's all I know! Ask the boss." 



Just then Michael O'Connor entered, his blue 

 gardener's apron secured with a string about his 

 waistcoat, a bunch of raffia stuck in the string. 



"Oh, 'tis you!" he said, "good mornin'! I was 

 wonderin' for who it was that Timmy was calling 

 down the saints! And what is it this mornin'?" 



"I wanted to see the camellias." 



"They're there," said-Michael curtly. He picked 

 up one. "That's Abby Wilder." He set it down 

 and took up another. "That's President Grant. 

 Ye c'n see them." 



"Do you grow them here?" 



"Hundreds of them. Mr. Trommel, he grafts 

 them. If you're round here thin, ye can see him." 



"What stock does he use?" 



"What stock sh'ld he? 'Tis Camellia japonica." 



"The single red?" asked Fielding, eagerly. 



"The same," responded Michael. 



Paul Fielding pulled out his note-book. Then 

 felt for his pencil. "Must have lost it!" he ex- 

 claimed. "I'll be back in a moment. I daresay I 

 can find one in the office." 



"Belike," responded Michael. Then to Timothy 

 as the door closed, 



"Quick, Timmy, the tobacco!" 



"Eh, what?" the old man quavered. 



"We must smoke out. 'Tis very necessary." 



" Smoke out? The old man got up slowly. " 'Tis 

 not a week yet, Mister O'Connor; ye're for- 

 gettin'." 



"Quick wid you, Timmy! 'Tis not forgettin' I 

 am! It's rememberin'. 'Tis a saint's day! Saint 

 Maurice of Herford, the patron saint av gardens; 

 ye will have bad luck with camellias the whole year 

 if ye don't smoke thim out to exorcise the imps av 

 darkness and dhrive them away." 



The tobacco, placed in little piles along the green- 

 house paths, was already burning when Paul Field- 

 ing returned. 



"Stay as long as ye like," urged Michael, hospit- 

 ably. "I'm sorry I can't stay wid you, but I've to 

 see to unpacking these boxes in the shed." 



In a few minutes the greenhouse door opened and 

 the young man emerged coughing and sputtering. 



"What!" said Michael indignantly, "have the 

 b'ys begun to smoke the house? 'Tis a shame!" 



"Ugh! what rotten tobacco!" said Paul Fielding. 



"'Tis The Hod Carrier's Revenge /" explained Mi- 

 chael O'Connor. 



Chapter XTX 



Now that the stock-taking was finished, and 

 Henry Stirling, faithful and industrious and color- 

 less, was back in the office, Roberta returned to her 

 old habit of spending the early mornings in the 

 gardens, sometimes with old Trommel, oftener alone. 

 She had learned from Trommel something of the hor- 

 ticulturist's interest in variety, in the slight and im- 



portant differences that make the variation in 

 species, and from Horace Worthington a keen in- 

 terest in habit and character and form. 



"People do not understand habit," the old gentle- 

 man would say impatiently. "Their only interest 

 in plants is in their brief seasons of blooming — im- 

 portant, of course, but in grouping, in combining, 

 it is habit, character that should be considered. But 

 our landscape men do not understand this; they do 

 not know horticulture! Their knowledge of plants 

 is limited, painfully limited! Yet they should know 

 them as an artist knows his palette." 



The old gentleman was fond of expounding his 

 theories to Roberta and found her a far more sym- 

 pathetic listener than either Trommel, who would 

 calmly say "that iss not so," or Michael O'Connor, 

 who would assent to everything with a "yis, yis," 

 and then shift the subject. He would walk through 

 the specimen grounds with her of a late afternoon 

 and explain his ideas of landscape art. 



The gardens were very lovely now, but it was a 

 quiet loveliness. There was a softness and haziness 

 in the color, and a touch of the stillness that comes 

 with the end of summer — a peaceful beauty, very 

 different from the dazzling, passionate, radiance of 

 the springtime. "Ceres," as Mr. Worthington 

 would say, "is a far more placid deity than young 

 Flora." The broad squares of azaleas which had 

 been a riot of splendor and brilliance, were merely 

 squat, sturdy little greenclad Hollanders, with no 

 hint of the gorgeousness that had been theirs and 

 would be theirs again. They had "gone back to 

 the Silence" as completely as Fire and Bread and 

 Water in the Maeterlinck play. 



Here and there an eager, hasting plant came out 

 bravely in its autumn finery before its fellows — such 

 as the winged euonymus which was flushed a deep 

 rose color from the base to the topmost stem, and 

 andromeda, with copper colored leaves and a seed- 

 ing head that looked like the plumes of blossoming 

 corn. There were regiments of little Japanese ever- 

 greens gay in their green and gold livery which had 

 been unnoticed in the summer's magnificence and 

 now came into their own; rows of white pine, holding 

 up tiny candles and playing at being Christmas 

 trees. 



Most interesting of all were the berries on the 

 fruiting shrubs, some of them showing a secondary 

 effect which rivalled many a spring beauty, such as 

 the euonymus known as Sieboldianus, with clusters 

 of heavy coral pink pendants almost as charming 

 as Japanese plum blossoms, each one splitting, bit- 

 tersweet fashion, to disclose scarlet fruit. 



"Madame Nature is putting on her jewels for the 

 evening," said Roberta to herself as she walked 

 along the broad grassed paths. And the clusters 

 of jet on the privet were indeed jewel-like. There 

 was garnet colored fruit on the callicarpa, scar- 

 let and crimson berries on barberry and viburnum 

 and on the white-fruited dogwood small ivory 

 berries set off by coral stems. The blues were ex- 

 quisite — peacock blue clustered berries on the silky 

 dogwood, symplocus berries of a wonderful tur- 

 quoise blue set off admirably by the smooth, shining 

 bronze-green foliage; blues from the soft, dull "old 

 blue" of the blue spirea to the deep and exquisite 

 color of the few fringed gentians that made their 

 home deep in the grass where the lower plantation 

 neared the marshes. 



"Blue," Mr. Worthington would say to Roberta 

 with an eloquent wave of his hand toward symplocus 

 berries or the soft, dull spirea blossoms, "is a mar- 

 velous color. Nature is so prodigal of it in the sea 

 and sky and the distant landscape, so chary of it in 

 vegetation and then most careful and accurate in 

 its use, hiding it in depths of green, as in the gen- 

 tians; spreading it through the grass as in the Hous- 

 tonia and the purple crocus until, from a distance, 

 it gives the effect of water stealing through the grass 

 and reflecting the sky. Always it is in close and 

 beautiful combination with green. That is what 

 Keats means when he speaks of blue as 



" Married to green in all the sweetest flowers." 



" Shakespeare's 'violets dim' does not mean that 

 there is anything indefinite about the color; he re- 

 fers to the charming way in which the violet, being 

 half hidden in green, is but dimly seen — now seen 

 and now missed. We perfect its cultivation and 

 carefully destroy this lovely effect." 

 (To be continued) 



