184 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



April, 1913 



I stared vacantly, first at her, then at the 

 cup of bouillon, then up into the branches 

 overhead, wondering how they came to be 

 united in the same dream. 



"Have we done it?" I asked, "or am I 

 asleep? " 



"We've done it," she answered, "but it's 

 time for your nourishment." 



I stared a moment blankly, then I com- 

 prehended. 



There's an inexorable regulartiy of orbit 

 in a trained nurse that nothing can dislo- 

 cate. It's like those dollar watches that 

 go on ticking if you drop one from a roof or 

 the brink of a precipice. 



Chapter VII 



For two weeks I did nothing but lie out 

 of doors, sometimes my cot was set near 

 the lilac bush where Clarky had put me 

 that first day; sometimes she dragged it 

 out to the old, grassed over road, where I 

 had the apple trees for company. 



Meanwhile she did things to the house. 

 I didn't much notice what, I only know it 

 kept getting more and more comfortable. 

 I would catch the sound of her hammer in 

 the house; then the big woodpecker on the 

 apple tree would begin hammering too, 

 as if he were making fun of her. 



Clarky loved a hammer and nails. I 

 think she had as fine a time with her ham- 

 mer as I had with the catalogues. But 

 regularly as a cuckoo pops out of his clock 

 at the stroke, out she would come at the 

 tick of the hour. At ten with a glass of 

 water; at eleven with nourishment; at 

 twelve forty-five with tonic. 



At one we would have a picnic. She 

 would bring to the side of my cot a little 

 table she had made of a packing-box top, 

 and we would have lunch together. 



When the afternoon grew cool I was 

 brought indoors and deposited on the living- 

 room window-seat. For Clarky put two 

 cots together, end to end, under the living- 

 room windows; these, covered with Navajo 

 blankets made our windowseat. She made 

 a wainscoting of burlap and tacked it over 

 the tattered paper, covering the worst. 

 She stuck hemlock branches in the top of 

 it, and in the dusk and the firelight — 

 the only time I was in the room, I found 

 it charming. Our only other furniture 

 was a square table and some roomy chairs. 



Only people who have lived in furniture- 

 choked, bric-a-brac cluttered houses appre- 

 ciate the utter rest of a state of furniture- 

 lessness. It's like Eden before the Snake 

 suggested the necessity of being like other 

 people. Nude the room might have been, 

 but it was not naked in our eyes. I 

 thought it perfect when the whole adorn- 

 ment was our wainscoting of hemlock 

 branches and a great branch of budding 

 maple in an old stone crock. 



I hold Clarky's packing-box table which 

 was light enough and narrow enough to be 

 lifted through the doorway and carried 

 with dinner on top, wherever we would, 

 on the landscape, the acme of achievement 

 in modern furniture-making. 



Mrs. Tarbox didn't regard it in that light. 

 She was really sorry for us! she hoped we 

 could at least have lace curtains. I am sure 

 she thoughtlwas unsound mentallyand that 

 Clarky, in her actions, was humoring delus- 

 ions that might be dangerous if opposed. 



My room had funny, old-fashioned wall- 

 paper on it and a fat little round iron stove 

 — "chunk stove" — Mrs. Tarbox called 

 it. It had short, wide apart legs, and al- 

 ways reminded me of a stubby, enormously 

 fat bull dog, the little round draft at the 

 front was his muzzle; the stove-pipe, his 

 tail: it was a cheerful, roaring, little thing 

 and excellent company. Clarky used to 

 make a fire in it, at night and in the morn- 

 ing, when I was undressing and dressing. 



During these days that I could only lie 

 still, it was great fun watching Clarky. I 

 had expected that the country would have 

 a reviving effect upon me, but that it would 

 transform her so speedily and completely, 

 I never dreamed. She shed the brass- 

 bound stiffness of the professional nurse as 

 quickly as a man kicks off shoes and throws 

 off coat and vest when about to jump over- 

 board for a rescue. She forgot her cap, 

 she put her thick dark hair in a knot; 

 sometimes in a heavy braid: she produced 

 a pair of tortoise shell full moons of spec- 

 tacles, and wore them instead of the eye 

 glasses. She quit her uniform and sub- 

 stituted a short dark skirt and a man's can- 

 vas shooting coat with pockets capacious 

 enough to hold her beloved hammer and 

 tacks and nails, and anything else she was 

 minded to put in them. She made Alonzo 

 bring her a saw from Enderby Center and 

 sundry other tools. She made a rough 

 ladder herself, climbed it and stuck a few 

 shingles in the roof, for it leaked a bit, as we 

 found one night when we had a heavy rain. 



"I swan!" said Alonzo, when he saw her 

 on the ladder, which expressed my feelings 

 perfectly. 



But all this time no garden! Try as we 

 would, telephone as we would, not a soul 

 could we get to dig it. Masculine Enderby 

 Hollow had farming concerns of its own. 

 Even Alonzo balked. He was working for 

 Hiram Johnson, he told us and couldn't 

 get a single day off. 



I didn't mind much. Clarky had stowed 

 my pansies in a box with some soil she 

 bought up in a pail from the ravine, so 

 they were safe, and I was as well content 

 to have no gardening done while I was 

 limply alternating between the outdoor 

 cot and the bed inside. I was going a- 

 gardening myself. It might wait until I 

 was "up and 'round," as Mrs. Tarbox said. 



I was beginning to think of reviving, of 

 climbing out of my hole like the wood- 

 chunks I used to watch. For at the top 

 of each fold of the hill lived a woodchuck, 

 and every afternoon, I used to see them, 

 each one sitting by the opening of his hole, 

 like a shop-keeper sitting at his door of a 

 leisure afternoon. 



One morning I tried it. It was lovely 

 sunshine. The woodpecker was hammer- 

 ing on the apple tree outside, Clarky was 



hammering inside. The nearest woodchuck, 

 not content with sitting beside his hole had 

 come to a ledge of the old barn and was sit- 

 ting there washing his face with his paw like 

 a cat. I measured the distance, with my 

 eye, from the cot to the long, narrow flower- 

 bed next the house. It looked easy. 



Carefully, laboriously I extracted myself 

 from the tucked in rugs. (Clarky had 

 dressed me for warmth, rather than action.) 

 Woolen stockings I had on, woolen socks 

 and mocassins and a thick dark blanket 

 dressing-gown that trailed confoundedly. 

 I tucked it up as well as I could, took a sofa 

 pillow under one arm and walked unsteadily 

 toward the house. At the edge of the flower 

 bed I dropped my pillow and sat down on 

 it. I looked about me with the sense of 

 pleased achievement that a toddler might 

 feel who has escaped from his nurse. Then 

 I scrutinized the ancient flower-bed. 



Unpromising-looking it was. It had 

 been defined originally by a border of 

 bricks that now straggled unevenly or lost 

 themselves in the grass. The ground 

 looked as hard-baked as that of an alley 

 way and there was a hollow filled with small 

 pebbles, for the leader that should have 

 been below the eaves was gone and the drip- 

 ping from the roof had worn away the soil. 



I looked about for an implement; then I 

 sat and thought. As a result, I drew a thick 

 shell hair-pin from my hair and with it I 

 began to poke in the bed. In a second one 

 prong broke off, then the other. After that 

 I could work with it more conveniently. 



Slowly, carefully, I pried up little chunks 

 of soil, advancing the line of my excava- 

 tions steadily, symmetrically, working 

 with the systematic thoroughness of an 

 archeologist digging among promising 

 ruins. For a long time there was no re- 

 ward, then, near the brick edge, about an 

 inch below the surface, I found yellowish 

 points like sprouting onions: the excava- 

 tions grew intensely interesting; I found 

 another and another of the hard young 

 shoots. I covered them up and said noth- 

 ing of my discovery, but when Clarky came 

 out with our dinner, I made her put her 

 light-action table near the doorstep. She 

 set her chair opposite and I sat on the door- 

 step leaning against the frame, from which 

 position I could admire my gardening 



Since then I've given less passionate 

 admiration to more worthy examples of 

 garden art. One is apt to give dispropor- 

 tionate value to his first efforts in an un- 

 known art, just as a baby wins exorbitant 

 praise from his adoring parents for taking 

 a few steps, a feat which later they are 

 able to view with complete unconcern. 



"I can't go a-gardening with a fool thing 

 like that flapping around my feet!" I pro- 

 tested . Clarky was helping me dress, and we 

 had come to the blanket dressing-gown I had 

 been wearing. "Haven't I some Christian 

 clothes — heathen ones would be more to the 

 purpose, I daresay — but isn't there a short 

 skirt somewhere — and a sweater? " 



Clarky grinned and went to find them for 

 me. {To be continued) 



