IV. — REAL GARDENING BEGINS 

 Continued from page 184, April number 



[Editors' Note: The author of these "confessions" is now well-known as an amateur gardener, and 

 Who she is we do not say at this time, but the future may reveal it.] 



of the "cure' 



Chapter VIII 



IATER, when I was resting from the 

 labor of dressing Clarky brought 

 J me a bright new weeding-fork with 

 a claw like a hen's foot — tense for 

 scratching. 



"You'll find that better than the hairpin, 

 she said. "I've laid rugs all along on the 

 grass in front of that bed where you were 

 scratching. Dig all you like, Miss Caroline, 

 but lie down and rest the secondyou're tired. 

 If you only dig alternate five minutes, you 

 will put in thirty minutes work in an hour! " 



So I sallied forth, weeding-fork in hand, 

 with a half embarrassed feeling that 

 Clarky regarded me as a child sent happily 

 •out to play in the sand with a bright new 

 pail and shovel. 



After I got to work I forgot the embar- 

 rassment of the pail-and-shovel idea — the 

 feeling of the archaeologist renewed itself; 

 I worked steadily. Of course I could do 

 but little at a time, but I. kept at it day 

 after day, until I had gone over every inch 

 ■ of the bed in front — under the living-room 

 "windows — and the one at the side. I 

 "straightened the wavering fine of bricks 

 that flopped hither and thither in a drunken 

 fashion — a lovely green they were and 

 moss-covered. And I found lots of things ! 

 Mint there was, running everywhere; there 

 were daffodils — some inside the line of 

 bricks, some outside, evidently there had 

 been a row; there were soft, mushy, whitish 

 roots that Clarky said were hollyhocks; 

 mats of clove pinks and some other roots 

 that she didn't know. 



Which pleased me. I get tired of hav- 

 ing the part of Rollo fall invariably to me. 



I put little circles of sticks around the 

 roots I had found so that in digging we 

 should not disturb them. 



This was in the mornings. 



In the afternoons I lay on the cot out of 

 doors, rested and watched the friendly 

 w T oodchucks, wondering what labors they 

 had completed that thus they sat at ease 

 .-at the house door. (My little house had 

 been empty so long, that the wild creatures 

 were singularly unafraid. There was a 

 darling little rabbit I used to see every 

 morning under the windows: I don't 

 know what he came for; he was brown and 

 sleek and looked exactly like the toy rab- 

 bits you get for Easter and too small to be 

 >©ut in the world by himself. I hoped he 

 hadn't lost his parents. Once, when I was 



dressing, a phoebe bird flew in the open 

 window and instead of being in a panic at 

 finding herself enclosed, sat on the closet 

 door that was ajar, chirped contentedly a 

 minute, flew about inquiringly, then out of 

 the window by which she had entered. 

 And when I was sitting still for a moment's 

 contemplation by my garden bed a young 

 woodpecker flew suddenly from the lilac- 

 bush and lighted on my shoulder. For a 

 half second he and I stared at each other in 

 astonishment: then he was gone to the apple 

 tree and contemplated me from there.) 



By this time Clarky, having got the 

 house mbre to her mind, began to concern 

 herself with the gardening. 



Oh, and lovely it was out of doors those 

 days! The air was clear and sweet with 

 the tang of the fresh earth in it and the snow 

 that lingered still in the hollows; far up the 

 hill we could pick out the trees as one and 

 another woke to life — here a rose-flushed 

 maple, there a giant oak with the yellow 

 of the spring sunshine caught in its hair; 

 the young birches, a-tremble with life, 

 stood out clear and delicate and lovely 

 against the dark pines they chose for com- 

 pany; groups of slender little poplars that 

 had slipped in from the woodland and were 

 advancing toward the house were a charm- 

 ing yellow — paler than the oaks. And I 

 saw the black birch — just as Clarky said 

 it would be — amethyst — but in two days 

 the color was gone and' I couldn't again 

 find the tree among its darker fellows. 



Clarky's first work when she set about 

 gardening, was drastic. She took pruning 

 shears and cut every sucker out of the 

 lilac-bush, until the branches and the shape 

 of the bush stood distinct. Then she got 

 her ladder, laid it against the bush and 

 snipped off all that she could reach of the 

 last-year's blossoms. 



"Now it feels better," she said. 



Next she considered the other flower- 

 bed — the one which ran from the door- 

 step to the lilac-bush, under my -windows. 

 The ground sloped, at the lilac bush end of 

 the house, and the old flower bed was so 

 badly washed that not only figuratively, 

 but literally, it was running down hill. 

 Some two feet of the foundation showed 

 while on "my side," none at all. 



Clarky looked at it. Said the best thing 

 for that flower bed would be a retaining 

 wall. She would make one. 



By this time I was getting used to her 



2.54 



t'rites with suck genuine humor as proves the efficacy 



large enterprises. Had she not just made 

 a dining table with handsome legs of black 

 birch, taking the saw to the woods, sawing 

 there the legs, and bringing them home one 

 by one? And with the aid of an iron rake 

 wriggled the boards for the top of it down 

 from high, impossibly high, cross-beams in 

 the barn? 



So when she said she would make a re- 

 taining wall for my garden bed, I simply 

 said that would be nice; and watched 

 proceedings. 



When the cart from the Center store 

 came out on its bi-weekly visit with provi- 

 sions, trailing behind it was a child's ex- 

 press wagon. The red cheeked boy who 

 drove the cart, grinned as he unfastened it 

 and led it up to Clarky. I grinned, too. 

 But she didn't mind. "Precisely what I 

 wanted, thank you!" she said to him. 

 It would be far more convenient than a 

 wheelbarrow, she explained. It would be 

 useful if my legs crumpled under me when 

 at some distance from the house — I could 

 be loaded on it and drawn home. We were 

 not on Fifth Avenue nor Beacon Street. 



I bribed the red cheeked boy to dig my 

 flower bed, but he would only do part of it 



— just the front strip. Still, that was some- 

 thing. I smoothed it with my scratcher 

 and sowed things in it. Sweet alyssum 

 on the edge; patches of poppies and corn 

 flowers and mignonette, and morning 

 glory next the house. I know perfectly 

 well I ought to have had it fertilized and 

 enriched and all that sort of thing, but who 

 could wait? 



I helped a little with the "retaining wall" 



— a "dry wall" Clarky called it She 

 said it must harmonize architecturally with 

 the retaining wall below the house against 

 which the roses grew. She brought down 

 load after load of flat stones in the express 

 wagon, getting them from near the barn: I 

 helped to place the stones and we made a 

 wall about a foot thick. It was two feet 

 high at the lilac bush, diminishing until at 

 the doorstep it was only a line of stones 

 marking the bed. When Clarky's bed was 

 filled with soil it would be on the same level 

 as mine. 



Gradually, as the wall rose, we filled it 

 up with earth. This "we" is editorial. 

 Clarky did the work, fetching pail after 

 pail of muck from the ravine. Other things 

 too, she brought back from the ravine — 

 Jack-in-the-pulpit, root and all, we set him 



