152 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



November, 1913 



"Look at my view," he said, breaking 

 off. He made me stand on the bench 

 and look out of his wide high window. 

 Below was sheer cliff — his fortress was a 

 Gibraltar from that side. Far, very far 

 below I could see my little house with the 

 wide green slope — much greener than 

 the surrounding pasture — and the line 

 of trees at its back, the elm beside it — 

 all looking like a German toy, the trees 

 like unreal trees. 



"Do you see your place? " asked Stephen. 



I nodded. 



"What is it you are going to do to it," 

 he said, jealously. "It's a dear little 

 place; this is the only spot from which you 

 can see it. You're not going to make an 

 Italian garden, surely." 



"I'm not planning anything very dread- 

 ful," I said. "I only want to bring down 

 some columbines. I'd rather have the 

 wild ones than the others. And then I 

 don't like the looks of the bean poles 

 against the divine blue that the mountain 

 is now; I want two junipers for just inside. 

 I'm going to mark the corners of the flower 

 beds with chubby little pines, so that I won't 

 lose them — I mean lose track of just where 

 they are during the winter. There's noth- 

 ing very iconoclastic in that, is there?" 



Stephen laughed. "No," he said, "I 

 like a garden. But where the country's 

 so beautiful we have less need; don't tie 

 yourself up with your garden. The woods 

 are never so lovely as they are in May. 

 Don't make a garden that isn't able to take 

 care of itself a bit. That's the kind I have." 



"What do you mean?" 



"Oh, bulbs. They can shift for them- 

 selves beautifully, and like to. I put 

 mine a foot deep so that annuals on top 

 won't trouble them. They don't mind 

 the extra climb. Just have things that 

 are strong and sturdy, and if you want 

 roses, have the wild kinds. Save the early 

 spring for the scarlet maples and make all 

 your garden now." 



"Reckon I must get those plants now," 

 I said. 



Stephen locked the little place and we 

 walked a bit down the road for he said 

 there were columbines just below. 



"But can you spare them?" I asked. 



He laughed. "There are oceans of 

 them here," he said. 



He dug them carefully and showed me 

 how to wrap the roots; then we went down 

 the hill after the junipers. Fat little 

 pines we got, too, and violet plants for 

 Clarky's garden. Stephen told me how 

 I could make a house plant of a hemlock by 

 keeping it very wet for a few days and 

 then in the shade. 



The road came out by another old 

 orchard and Stephen showed me the line 

 of where the house had stood and the 

 terrace; for otherwise there was no sign 

 except for the tansy growing riotously 

 in a square patch. It had usurped all 

 the old herb bed. 



"Some one here has liked the junipers 

 for decoration," said he, and he showed me 



four huge clumps of the spreading juniper 

 set at regular intervals below the terrace line. 



"Where have the people gone, and who 

 were they?" I asked. 



"Don't know," he answered. "Our 

 country is full of places like this. Some- 

 times there's a wreck of a house left, your 

 place would have been that in another 

 dozen years. It's only the hills and the 

 little bluets that are really permanent." 



Chapter XXI 



T HAD a beautiful time over my garden 

 -1 making. Gardening in late September 

 was a very different thing from the plant- 

 ing I had done in May, in frantic haste, 

 when Mother Nature herself seemed in 

 a very frenzy of industry, like a New Eng- 

 land housewife bent on spring cleaning. 

 Even the days were longer then, as if the 

 sun had been especially requested to give 

 a little more time for work. 



Now, everything went in leisurely fash- 

 ion. The days were quiet and golden; 

 as quiet as at the creation when the 

 "evening and the morning" made the 

 day, each suddenly overtaken by dark- 

 ness that dropped like a quick curtain. 

 The thrushes were silent; the fox sparrows 

 and the humming birds flitted about 

 quietly, with nothing of the desperate 

 haste that had been theirs earlier; the 

 bluebirds in the apple tree were thinking 

 of their winter flight and resting for their 

 great adventure. What tiny things to 

 have such high hearted courage! What 

 brave explorers and what passionate home- 

 makers! How they must despise us as 

 incompetents who are so craven about 

 getting away from our accustomed haunts 

 and away from the base of supplies! 



My woodpecker has no intention of 

 leaving; he taps, taps, as assiduously as 

 ever — to have the tree ready for the 

 next tenants, I suppose. Sometimes he 

 taps at my window in the mornings; he 

 just happens by and does it from force 

 of habit! 



I worked peacefully and slowly in my 

 garden, planting carefully and watering 

 properly and I followed my handsome 

 plan. I had a broad, central path, long 

 beds each side, the plants in rows for con- 

 venient weeding. Farthest back, I set 

 the hollyhocks — the young plants from 

 my frames — for they could look over the 

 heads of the others without difficulty. In 

 front of them came Canterbury bells, 

 and I made an edge of little English 

 daisies. And wherever there was space 

 (and wherever there wasn't) I sowed 

 Shirley poppies, to my mind the most ex- 

 quisite of all the flowers that ever grew. 

 Why is it that even the poets have black- 

 ened its character? "The poppy's red 

 effrontery," I believe that was Robert 

 Browning; and some one else speaks of its 

 color as "flaunting." Flaunting! When 

 no flower has more of the spirit and less 

 of the earth. How can they misunder- 

 stand its marvelous delicacy and light- 

 ness of poise; so sure, and so wonderfully 



slender of stem that it seems like color 

 incarnate rather than a product of growth 

 of leaf and stalk and stem! Then its 

 bursting from the sheath like an imprisoned 

 sprite and letting its crumpled petals 

 smooth in the sun as a new-born butterfly 

 dries its wings. No flower is so instinct 

 with life. And all this life and color and 

 beauty content to spring from the poorest 

 soil and the hardest conditions. It's a 

 poet and artist by nature. And the 

 roses, belauded and petted for centuries 

 as types of maiden innocence and loveli- 

 ness, must have heavy feeding and con- 

 stant attention or they will do nothing at all I 

 It's an odd world and an ungrateful one. 



So I scratched the soil where the grass 

 grew thin, and planted poppies there that 

 they might grow up in the grass. I set 

 the tall, straight junipers where they 

 "looked right" at the end of the path with 

 the mountain behind them, and the fat 

 little pines marked the corners of my beds 

 quite as well as if they had been box plants. 

 I brought Virginia creeper from the 

 woods and set it against the house, 

 and I planted the columbines and violets 

 we had brought from the hill among 

 the maiden-hair ferns in the bed with the 

 retaining wall that Clarky had made. 



I worked slowly and happily, and in no 

 frantic fashion. I suppose the quiet and 

 patience of the hills sinks into one and gets 

 under the skin. Then, when I stopped 

 work, there was the mountain to look at 

 that was quietness itself serenely magnifi- 

 cent in its royal purple. Indeed, all gold 

 and purple the landscape seemed. Golden- 

 rod held the sunshine in the pasture; mari- 

 golds were blooming happily in the gar- 

 den; and up the hill, out from among the 

 dark pines, flashed here and there the 

 early crimson of a scarlet maple. 



Then I watched the cattle, which, if 

 there is anything in "suggestion," are 

 enough to make the most febrile person 

 take life quietly. Those cows could stand 

 and gaze at me for twenty minutes straight 

 — until I felt oddly embarrassed; gaze 

 with a godlike impassivity and chew with- 

 out even having to stop and bite as the 

 horses did. Nothing interrupted the calm 

 stare and the steady motion of the jaws. 



Richard Protheroe said he believed the 

 general rural prevalence of the tobacco 

 chewing habit was chiefly due to "sugges- 

 tion" from the cows. But Richard is 

 rather frivolous for a clergyman. 



Clarky says it would be charming to 

 see the cows coming down the hill at eve- 

 ning into our barn. 



"It's far better that they come down 

 into some one's else barn, Clarky," I said, 

 "Cows would mean milking; and milking, 

 a hired man; and with; a hired man would 

 go our solitude. A cow on the landscape 

 suggests contemplation and repose; in the 

 barn, it suggests chores. It's far better 

 to have the effect of the cattle on the 

 landscape and get our milk from the 

 Thistledown Farm." 



(To be concluded) 



