TARRYTOWN LETTERS— XIII. 



3Y A. B. TARRYER. 



T MUST have been some time 

 last August that Mrs. Tarryer 

 decided that there were no grass 

 gardens conducted on legitimate 

 principles, and resolved to make 

 a show of hers. She took full 

 counsel with Lady Schnipticket, 

 Parson Camperdown, and M'Tavish came into the 

 scheme when the trouble with the Parson's lawn 

 blew over. 



Lady Schnipticket pushed the affair with her 

 whole soul and bank account. She staid at home 

 from no end of summer resorts, opened all the cool 

 springs she could hear of for miles around, and pro- 

 vided big jars and stands of cut-glass tumblers for 

 them. 



As usual with such local affairs, invitations were 

 sent to the Empress of India, all the crowned 

 heads of Europe, the President of the United 

 States, heads of departments, farm colleges, state 

 boards of Agriculture, education and health, direc- 

 tors of experiment stations, editors of newspapers, 

 governors of states, ft cetera. 



This was right in the stickiest time for postage 

 stamps with bogus gum on them, when a cat, after 

 a nap among the official papers in our Managing 

 Committee Room, had to be steamed to detach the 

 stamps from her fur. 



"None of these great people will come," Lady 

 Schnipticket said, "but this is the easiest way to 

 wake up and ring in our neighbors, who will pres- 

 ently be cordially invited. For our own safety — 

 let alone comfort — we need to put a stop to fooling 

 with grass in this vicinity by a better knowledge 

 of it." 



Betwixt the heads of this concern a select list of 

 under-botanists, gardeners, alert clericals, mechan- 

 ics and a few newspaper men (all hard-worked fel- 

 lows) was made out, who Lady Schnipticket said 

 " come, if free passes, expenses and cash for 

 substitutes would fetch them." She knew every- 

 body, and remembered to good purpose her hus- 

 band's way of fixing legislative committees. 



Our house was jammed full of the happiest busy 

 people I ever saw together. Some of Mrs. Tar- 

 ryer's graduates were called back for the occasion. 

 A number of efficient spinster and widow ladies 

 ("what the Colonel would have called 'our re- 



serves,'" Lady Schnipticket said, and what M'Ta- 

 vish did call "forty old-maid power") were en- 

 listed. The repressed energy spent upon this en- 

 terprise was immense, and multiplied enormously 

 by its exercise. 



The "grass" part of Mrs. Tarryer's garden 

 covers something more than an acre, but the adja- 

 cent tillage and "campus" lands, for her always 

 large family, are much more extensive, so that the 

 prospective scene of operations could scarcely be 

 over-crowded by any number of well behaved 

 people. The population of the whole earth might 

 be buried in one of our smallest states, they say, 

 without making the soil any too rich for skillful 

 gardening purposes. 



Two guests came to this show who were not in- 

 vited, except in spirit. These were " Uncle Sam " 

 and "Brother Jonathan." To make room for 

 them I had to vacate my favorite quarters, a 

 shaded ell of the house, formerly a large kitchen 

 when our family was larger, with a big fire-place, 

 an outside chimney and an upstairs room or two 

 communicating with the capacious garret of the 

 whole house. In effect, here was a museum of our 

 left-over arts and sciences — books, implements, 

 tools and utensils of our former lives and indus- 

 tries, and what is most rare in these days of muse- 

 ums, the ancient things were not a mouldy or 

 rusty old lot, but in good order — bright, usable, 

 handy and home-like. You would wish to be bast- 

 ing a joint or a fowl on that polished spit ; the 

 poker looked fit to temper a mug of flip, and the 

 toaster invited slices of bread. The old gentlemen 

 came early in these proceedings, and staid a good 

 while, but to tell how they spent their time and en- 

 joyed themselves nights and Sundays would be too 

 much for this letter. During this preliminary busi- 

 ness I never thought of anything strange, but now I 

 am convinced that not everybody saw these old char- 

 acters as plain I did. While the boys and girls were 

 weeding, trimming and giving everything in the gar- 

 den its best looks for the great day. Brother Jona- 

 than in his tights and Uncle Sam in his seersucker 

 trowsers were constantly mixing in with what was 

 going on, and I supposed everybody saw them. As 

 for Mrs. Tarryer and Lady Schnipticket — but who 

 knows what women see or don't see ? 



Those old fellows did a great deal of writing and 



