The Garden Doctor 



CHAPTER XX 



C LARKY says a first garden is like 

 a first baby. The parents get ter- 

 ribly excited over the least indis- 

 position and think it's in immi- 

 nent peril at the slightest woe, but when 

 it's the second, or third, or fourth infant, 

 they take a wail of distress more calmly. 

 They know the variety of the wail, and 

 precisely what to do! 



So now, when I sat on the bench below 

 the lilac bush, I began to consider the 

 garden critically and to think largely of 

 color and form and other things far nobler 

 and pleasanter to contemplate than rose 

 bugs or swarming aphides. 



I sat and gazed down the bean walk now 

 garlanded in real pergola fashion and 

 thought it needed a better finish than the 

 poles against the distant mountains: some- 

 thing tall and straight and green, like Italian 

 cypresses, one at each side just inside the 

 line of posts. 



I confided this idea to Clarky. 



"Shucks!" she said (Clarky has picked 

 up some expressions from Mrs. Tarbox). 

 " Shucks," said she, " this isn't Italy. Isn't 

 it enough to have your garden grow and 

 the plants healthy and — normal?" 



Then I tried Stephen. He was more 

 hopeful. 



"Something tall and straight and green," 

 he said musingly. "There are young 

 junipers in the pasture that would be that. 

 We could get them where they would be 

 spared easy. And for the corners of the 

 beds, young pines would be all right for 

 a few years. It's too cold here for box. 

 Want to come?" 



"Where?" 



"Up the hill to find them." 



"Of course." 



Next morning he brought the horses. 



It so happened, that, although I had 

 been four months at the little house, never 

 yet had I gone up the hill. I suppose the 

 reason was that my heart was still a bit 

 queer; nothing serious, only it liked to sit 

 down, which made hill climbing a nuisance. 

 So my walks had chiefly been along the 

 level, grassed road and across the brook 

 to the wonderful pasture; and Stephen 

 McLeod, for all his promise, had never 

 yet taken me up his hill. 



He came that morning with the same 

 wagon he had that first May day. Only 

 he had blankets in it and a seat back 

 rigged of rope laced across the rough 



Continued from page 106, October number 



stakes to make me comfortable: and he 

 had burlap for the comfort of the plants 

 and a spade to dig them with. Slowly 

 we went up the long, open slope, crashing 

 through the tall golden-rod; then we 

 passed through the red gate and entered 

 the pine road. Here Stephen got out and 

 walked. 



Up and up went the road, straight up 

 through the pines — tall, straight, branch- 

 less trunks, the dark tops touching and 

 forming a canopy high overhead, like the 

 pines in a Southern forest; and high over- 

 head the tops swayed and murmured to 

 each other although the slender seeding 

 dandelion the wagon grazed, never stirred. 



Underfoot the red-brown pine needles, 

 undisturbed these fifty years, lay thick 

 and soft like a deep piled carpet; through 

 it little hard ferns thrust their sharp fronds ; 

 here and there a late Canada violet bloomed 

 alone, or a solitary dandelion grown oddly 

 tall and slender; a bit of herb Robert 

 fringed the edge by the heavy rail fence 

 with a wood aster swaying above it as 

 lightly as a columbine. Right under the 

 horses' feet grew the stiff little heal-all, 

 more slender than in the open and almost 

 a gentian blue. 



The horses stopped to rest, for the road 

 was very steep. 



"Your New Englanders would think it 

 morally wrong, I suppose," I said, "to 

 leave the old property line where the road 

 has always been and take the hill at a zig- 

 zag to get a better grade for the horses. 

 It might be an evasion of hardship! Yet 

 one would get to the top all the same and 

 about as quickly." 



"You don't understand the New Eng- 

 landers," said Stephen. "They are rather 

 like their hills — bleak and uncompro- 

 mising and forbidding most of the time. 

 But there are wonderful moments. 

 There's a sudden beauty and poetry, an 

 exquisite moment — and then it goes. 

 But you remember it. The people are 

 like that. There is a rareness and a fine- 

 ness. Once in a long while you see it; but 

 having seen it you never forget it and al- 

 ways you know it is there." 



"Look back," he said. 



I turned. One could have fancied 

 oneself looking through a forest of masts 

 to the blue sea, for through the straight, 

 close-assembled trunks showed the blue 

 of the distant mountains and nothing in 

 between. 



"It's curious," he said, "that people 



151 



are content to shut themselves in houses 

 and tie up their lives with things and 

 never go to the woods except to murder 

 them or the wild life in them, or else with 

 a crowd on a picnic." He laughed whim- 

 sically. "The trees know better than to 

 say anything then; they talk to you if 

 you go to them alone." 



"What is it you do up here, Stephen 

 McLeod?" I said "It's never stock- 

 raising you do on these hills. Is it poetry? 

 Or mustn't I ask?" 



He looked at me — the quick, startled 

 look — then scrutinized me a moment, 

 intently, penetratingly; hesitated a bit, 

 then — 



"I'll show you," he said. "I've half 

 intended to show you for a long time. 

 We're near there now." 



He turned from the pine road into an 

 open, trackless pasture. I saw no vestige 

 of a road, but presently we entered woods 

 again and were on a road, straight and 

 level, but so overgrown that the crowding 

 hemlocks brushed the wagon wheels and 

 bent over and touched our faces; and far 

 ahead the opening showed the blue tip 

 of the mountain. Stephen stopped the 

 horses, helped me down, pushed aside the 

 branches and I saw a crazy little shack, 

 the key of which he carried in his canvas 

 pocket. 



It was a small, bare room that I entered. 

 There was a tiny chunk stove; at one side 

 a rough bench under a wide narrow win- 

 dow high up on one side; in one corner 

 was an old easel; standing crowded 

 against the wall was canvas after canvas. 

 He picked one up, looked at it a second, 

 flushed a bit, then he set it on the easel 

 and moved it so that the light was right; 

 then he took it away and put on another 

 and another. He had painted the moun- 

 tain again and again, each time with a 

 varying aspect. Now, as he told me of 

 it, first with the slender columbine against 

 the sea of mist that almost hid it; then in 

 the deep blue of October and the wonder- 

 ful mauves and purples of the October 

 twilight. The work had a vigor and fresh- 

 ness and subtlety, too. 



"If you take a beautiful thing and iso- 

 late it, sometimes you can make people 

 see it," he said, "see that it is beautiful, 

 just as one takes a stone and puts it in 

 a setting. To me that is the whole point 

 of art — if one sees that the thing is beau- 

 tiful one must make it evident to people 

 who would not see otherwise." 



