Mary- 

 land 



The Spirit of the Garden — By Ida M. h. Starr 



Chapter II — Personalities of the Evergreens and Grace o* God 



A story in three chapters which shows us something of the intangible yet very real side of the love of a garden and which is guile apart from the excitement of large 

 yields or strange combinations. It is indeed the reflection of the subtle enjoyment of the outdoors. The first chapter appeared in the September issue. 



WHILE you enjoy your cigar we'll sit 

 here on Uncle Isaac's bench. This 

 is our little nursery, the school where our 

 trees learn their first lessons. You see we 

 had such a mortality among the young 

 trees we brought from outside and tried 

 to grow here that we decided to start a few 

 thousand seedlings, so young that they had 

 learned no bad tricks. Now they do not 

 even remember that they came from Colo- 

 rado, or Norway, or Wisconsin, as babies. 

 They are just children, yes, really children 

 in their ways. Doesn't that row of Irish 

 junipers remind you of a lot of boys in a 

 military academy, strutting around in the 

 first pride of their brass buttons? " 



"Fine little fellows, though; were they 

 hard to bring up?" 



"Not in here apparently, though we had 

 great trouble with older ones. 



"But these came to us so young they 

 were not conscious of the real mother loss 

 of their native soil and they have been 

 perfectly happy here." 



"The hard work for you now will be to 

 break up the family and start them in their 

 new homes. From their size I'd say they 

 surely ought to go out alone into their big 

 world this year." 



"Indeed they must go. Those Spanish 

 chestnuts over by the flock of turkeys have 

 stood out here like little heroes in all the 

 gales and the ice storms. They do just 

 what we tell them to do, sturdy little chaps! 



Something warm rises up in my heart when 

 I come down here. You know it's the way 

 you feel when you see a troop of children 

 marching up the street waving flags. You 

 know how that is." 



"In a way I do, now that you speak of 

 it, but one doesn't have that feeling often, 

 for city children, like city trees, don't think 

 much about waving anything." 



Then we walked down under the droop- 

 ing branches of the old Osage oranges, 

 which had long since rebelled at remaining 

 a hedge and had pushed up into great 

 trees, to where the four-year-old honey 

 locusts were stretching out their thorny 

 arms, as much as three times the height of 

 this wondering World-Man. 



"Now see how these honey locusts are 

 learning their lesson. They are bristling 

 with pride over the fact that they're ahead, 

 even though they were set out at the same 

 time as the elms and the maples, the horse 

 chestnuts and the Spanish chestnuts. And 

 now — why, they're trees with blossoms!" 



"Yes, trees, of course, they were trees 

 from the beginning." 



"I know, but I mean now they're wide 

 enough and high enough to make a shade. 

 Now they're real trees, not babies. See 

 those fine Norway spruces? " 



"They look all bone and muscle, with the 

 dignity of the Norseland, like Norwegian 

 lads I used to know up north." 



"They are for all the world like Norwe- 



Get small seedling evergreens and give them decent care and in a lew years you will have quite sizable 



trees to plant out 



152 



gians. They never give up. They keep on 

 day after day quietly doing what they have 

 to do next, and are ready for summer or 

 winter, calm or wind." 



"Quiet? That is a rather strangely ani- 

 mate word to use with trees, which are 

 merely big insensate vegetables after all." 



"Not, World-Man, if you live with the 

 trees as I do with these. Some seem noisy 

 and chattering and restless and bothersome, 

 and speak in high, sharp, vibrant tones 

 that rasp your ears; others have deep restful 

 beautiful voices. They're all different; 

 they're individuals. Why, there's as much 

 for those who hear in the,voice of a tree as 

 there is in the voice of a woman; quite as 

 much. Now listen, I see a wind coming 

 across the bay." 



"Well, I am quite willing to believe you, 

 my dear Chatelaine, but when you say you 

 see the wind " 



"Oh, it's not the actual wind I see, it's 

 everything it does. Don't you see the 

 ruffling of the water out there and the 

 quivering, uplifting and change of color? 

 Now look, the Lombardy poplars on the 

 Mount quiver, bend, sway. Watch the 

 tulip tree, the tip-top branches move, wait 



— just a breath more and it will be right 

 over here. Yes, here it comes. Put your 

 ear close to this sapling, don't be afraid to 

 kneel down. Now, don't you hear? The 

 wind blusters 'Here I am. Out of my way 



— move, move, I say, bend over! ' And the 

 sturdy little spruce braces itself with all its 

 roots and says ' I've been put here to grow — 

 to grow and to live! That's what I'm 

 doing, growing, growing, and I'm going to 

 stay. I'm growing into a big tree!' 



"Down by the edge of the Point Field 

 there's a colony of these spruces, in a class 

 just ahead of this one, only six or seven 

 years old, who never give up, no matter 

 what the gale. Often in the winter I can 

 hear them, out there on the water's edge, 

 hissing back defiance at the north wind — 

 'Hit me if you dare! Try it, try it! See 

 what you'll get ! ' It's like boys in a snow- 

 ball fight." 



"Those long-leafed, heavy clumps near 

 the junipers are splendid. Some kind of a 

 pine, I presume." 



"Yes, Austrian pine, with Scotch pine 

 beyond, but most beautiful of all, our own 

 white pine. I really would like some help 

 on these trees myself. I never know which 

 is which. People come down here and they 

 expect me to know all about trees; of 

 course I don't at all. I never say tree 

 when the Master of Hope is within hearing. 

 Well, people come chattering along down 

 here and say — ' What's this? And that. 

 Why they're the same things — no they're 

 not, what are they?' I mostly guess, for 



