310 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



June, 1913 



the stems off — jus' like that. Then you 

 get out your pizen bait an' what-not an' 

 mos' wear yourself out fixin' it so's the 

 worms'll get it an' the chickens wont, an' 

 by the time you get it fixed, the evenin' 

 an' the mornin's the second day or the third 

 day — cutworms has had another bite — 

 seedlings is all gone. If you're a swearin' 

 man, you cuss; if you're, a member of the 

 Church an' a Christian woman, you set, 

 jus' like you're settin' now — an' think." 



"Isn't there any way of getting ahead of 

 them?" I asked blankly. 



"They's ways enough," she said dis- 

 passionately, " but you ain't ahead. You're 

 behind 'em, Caroline." 



"Is there nothing I can do?" 



"Wa-al," she said, judicially, "next 

 year, when you're planting seeds jes' before 

 they come up ■ — then's the time to out 

 with your pizen-bait an' whatnot. Then 

 the cut-worms is there — a-lyin' there, 

 jes' under the surface, with their mouths 

 waterin', eyin' them young things an' 

 waitin' for them to be big enough to eat. 

 Then they'll take the pizen bait like 'twas 

 Manna-in-the Wilderness. 



"That's all I know 'bout cut-worms, 

 Caroline. Course, if you want, you can 

 set up all night with a lantern, waitin' till 

 they come out, an' when you see one, 

 lamm him. You can make traps — poke 

 holes you know ■ — hopin' they'll drop into 

 them an' let you kill 'em in the mornin'. 

 Maybe they will an' maybe they wont. 

 I've noticed they was pretty deft at step- 

 pin' round them. 



"But if I was you, an' didn't know no 

 more about plantin' than you seem to 

 know, I'd jes' sow some fresh seed over 

 to that new patch that Steve dug (tain't 

 likely they's worms there) an' when those 

 get grown big enough, why I'd move 'em 

 into the front bed. Cause by that time 

 the cut-worms'll have got through an' 

 they'll let the things alone. 



"Course, if you was more intelligent, 

 more responsible-like, I'd give you dif- 

 ferent advice. But bein' as you are, I 

 think that's the best you can do." 



Whereat she left me and went into the 

 house. 



For a long time I sat there, looking 

 blankly at the poor little cornflowers. 

 Slowly, insistingly, it was borne in upon me 

 that Mrs. Tarbox was right. Another 

 person might do differently, I couldn't; 

 I had neither courage, nor energy, nor in- 

 telligence to fight those horrible worms. 



Moreover Reason — the Reason that 

 loomed large in Doctor Johnson's ideas, 

 the Reason that poor Mary Wollstonecraft 

 urged women to cultivate instead of Feeling 

 — rose up and backed Mrs. Tarbox. It 

 told me I hadn't prepared that garden 

 bed properly; that the grocer's boy had 

 forked it, as it were with a dessert fork; 

 that it lacked depth, like the female intel- 

 lect; that the only way to have a really 

 good garden bed in that place was to take 

 out all the worthless soil, cutworms and 

 all, and put in better. 



Suddenly, all that in garden books I 

 had passed over hastily to reach the more 

 interesting parts, flashed accusingly before 

 my mind like the handwriting on the wall 

 before Belshazzar. Phrase after phrase 

 I recalled — "dig to the depth of two feet," 

 "remove, and replace with good garden- 

 soil," "should have deep, rich soil," "light, 

 rich, sandy loam" — they became charged 

 with meaning, freighted with significance. 

 I felt like a young mother who, in a careless 

 girlhood, has passed over as irrelevant 

 information on infants' diet, and for whom, 

 her child sick and no doctor at hand, the 

 aspect changes suddenly; that which was 

 uninteresting and irrelevant has become 

 vital, imperative, something she ought to 

 have known! 



But these poor little things were done 

 for! I make no defense of my conduct in 

 thus abandoning the luckless seedlings to 

 their fate; I simply admit that I did it. 

 Napoleon abandoned his wounded in the 

 Egyptian campaign; but I didn't feel like 

 Napoleon. Sadly, tenderly, I dug up the 

 little survivors. I looked carefully at 

 each root, then I set them in a pan of soapy 

 water and carried them to the new garden 

 planted them there as skilfully as I knew 

 how. And I humbly took Mrs. Tarbox's 

 further advice, went into the house, got 

 some fresh seed-packets and sowed in the 

 new garden two rows of seed. 



This done, I went indoors, curled up on 

 the window seat and read what I might 

 have done about cutworms, very much as 

 Red Riding-Hood's mother might have 

 taken a natural history and read about the 

 predatory habits of the wolf after he had 

 swallowed her little daughter. 



For the sad part was, I might have in- 

 formed myself. Richard Protheroe, who 

 had sent the Trimardeau pansies, had 

 sagely followed his gift with one after 

 another of his garden books — they had 

 come at the rate of one a week. I suppose 

 he hoped thereby to insure the safety of 

 his beloved plants. But I had read none 

 of them. The out-of-doors and the get- 

 ting well had been too wildly interesting, 

 the planting too exciting. Of course I 

 had poked in them a bit — one can't help 

 poking in any new book — but that was 

 all. 



You see, garden books are of two kinds. 

 There are the rhapsodic ones which are 

 excellent company when you're shut up in 

 your room; then it's pleasant enough to 

 see with the eyes of another. But when 

 all the spring loveliness is yours just for 

 opening your eyes and ears and taking in 

 the breath of life in your nostrils, you 

 aren't interested in the least in other 

 people's rhapsodies, however impassioned 

 — you can do it yourself; besides, there 

 are the thrushes who express it very per- 

 fectly. It's like being made to read a 

 translation of a poem when you can have 

 the original. 



As for the other sort — the hard-headed 

 practical books — they had seemed to me 

 horribly prosaic ; weariful, colorless school- 



book prose, a mantle of Gradgrind fact 

 thrown over the bright colored poetry that 

 your imagination lent to the planting of 

 seed and flower, which for me had been full 

 of charm and wild excitement. 



It was the catalogues that had been my 

 joy. The catalogues where, soberly ranged 

 in alphabetical lists, stood all my plants, 

 glowingly described, not as they ap- 

 peared when arranged by Jane or Elizabeth 

 or Mary Ann in their admirable gardens 

 but an account of the radiant beauty 

 that was to spring from the very seed that 

 I had dropped in the ground and which 

 would arise — the wonderful creature — 

 in all its loveliness right outside my living 

 room window. That was the hope; and 

 the hope had been devoured by cut- 

 worms. 



Gardening is much like marriage. The 

 catalogues are its Romantic Novelists; 

 they tell you little about the hazards and 

 vicissitudes of the adventure, but dwell only 

 on the "happy forever after" idea; the 

 joy in the possession of the adored object. 

 You don't think about cutworms when you 

 plan a garden any more than people about 

 to be married think of children with 

 measles, and rent, and fleeting cooks — 

 it's afterward. 



Chapter XI 



The new garden was more hopeful. 

 Stephen McLeod, for all his shiftlessness 

 had done the work well. Even Mrs. Tar- 

 box said that. 



First he plowed it, as I said. He made 

 the long furrows curl over evenly until the 

 "green-tressed goddess" became brown- 

 tressed, and looked as if she had been 

 Marcelled; then he took the harrow, de- 

 stroyed the Marcel effect and gave our 

 worthy Mother a more decorous coiffure 



— smooth and only slightly crimpy. 

 Moreover, he brought manure and har- 

 rowed it in (which doesn't fit in the 

 simile unless you consider it hairdressing). 



"He ain't so foolish about doin' the 

 work," conceded Mrs. Tarbox, as she 

 stood inspecting the smooth brown square 

 of the new garden, one evening just after 

 Stephen had gone, "It's his way of goin' 

 at it that's so crazy. Look how he's doin' 

 here. 'Stead of givin' you two or three or 

 four whole days' work, like any sensible 

 man 'd have done, here he is, stoppin' in 

 an' working' an hour or two in the evenin' 

 when he'd oughter be settin' down to 

 home with his work all done. I ain't 

 sayin' it's hard on the horses — Steve's 

 really foolish about horses an' they don't 

 hev' far to go up the hill, but it — it ain't 

 right!" she ended severely. 



I liked Stephen's shameless way of doing 

 things; it suited me. exactly. We had our 

 early supper (for Clarky and I kept child- 

 ren's hours), then she would spread a rug 

 for me on the grass, as near as was safe to 

 the scene of action — below the stone wall, 

 where the roses lost themselves in the grass 



— and from there I watched the work. 



(To be continued) 



