THE GARDEN M A G A Z I N E 
May, 1915 
222 
“Why didn’t you?” 
“Never saw her until Boh Davenant brought her 
here — and he was an old fossil. Sort of semi-ani- 
mate Blackstone — all law-books and cases. And I 
dare say there were plenty of good-looking young 
fellows down there who'd have taken Davenant’s 
place. Lord! but she was sweet; loved gardens, too, 
but not like Roberta — suppose she has note-books 
and that sort of thing — more like a humming-bird. 
You’d see her every morning out there. I used to 
send her over roses at breakfast time, till Bob Dave- 
nant woke up and planted lots in their own garden. 
She galvanized him into more life those three years 
than all the Davenants had had for fifty — got him 
quite human. Roberta’s got her mother’s coloring, 
but you can't judge her always by her coloring; 
there’s a streak of Davenant in her you’ve got to 
reckon with — poor child! I don’t suppose she can 
help it.” 
“What do you mean, Cousin Jim?” 
“ Conscience. Old Adelaide’s got enough to stock 
an institution. Dare say Roberta would have hon- 
estly liked to have gone riding this morning instead 
of What did vou say she’s doing?” 
“Taking account of stock. Do you really think 
so?” said Paul, brightening. 
“Very likely,” responded the Major, serenely, 
“and Herford is clever enough to know it. Bet you a 
new riding-whip — and you’ll need one if you keep on 
spoiling that — that he keeps on a straight business 
basis. Bet he doesn’t say, ‘Come, my dear young 
lady, and walk in the gardens with me this after- 
noon.’ Not he! More likely it’s, ‘Could you show 
me those evergreens? I could find them myself, but 
I’ve forgotten where the Picea section is.’ Roberta 
sees it as a duty, and Herford has a pleasant walk. 
“You’re all South Carolina and I’m part, and it 
takes us time to get the way of those New England- 
ers. They instinctively refuse a pleasure, but 
hitch it up with a duty, and it goes every time. Has 
to be hitched tandem, too. Duty for the leader. 
Wheel-horse may be the whole thing — never mind — 
fix it as if the Duty was ahead, and you’re all right. 
I know what I’d do if I were you!” 
“What?” 
“I’d play Paradise Park for all it’s worth! It’s a 
gorgeous old place; she’d feel the charm of it in a 
minute. I’d get her down there, take her coon- 
hunting, riding, she’d forget about the fossils and the 
gardens and you could omit Herford — his handsome, 
price-tagged place isn’t a patch on that. It’d be 
your innings.” 
“ She wouldn’t come,” said Paul. 
“ Lord! ” exclaimed the Major testily. “The lack 
of intelligence of this generation! No wonder your 
father asked me to look out for you! Make it a 
duty, man! Horticultural, social, filial! Talk to 
old Worthington about the old gardens. Tell him 
how important it is for Roberta to get in touch 
with the older horticulture. Make friends with old 
Adelaide; make love to her. She’s actually got a 
restless fit and when an old person gets it they’re 
ripe for any suggestion. Invite her down for Christ- 
mas, not Roberta; tell her about the old time ele- 
gance of the gardens at Paradise Park. She ’ll go. 
And Roberta will go with her as accessory. She ’ll 
ask old Worthington to let her off, and Worthing- 
ton ’ll see the horticultural chance and consent. 
Just you try it! Fine scheme. No charge!” 
“It’s a good idea,” said Paul, reflectively. 
“Of course it’s good!” said Major Pomerane, com- 
placently. “Ever go fishing, Paul?” 
“Of course I have!” 
“Real fishing, trout fishing — kind that takes in- 
telligence.” 
Paul Fielding nodded. 
“Wouldn’t have thought it!” said the Major, 
“but if ever you caught a real beauty you cast with 
a fly that you thought would interest. If it didn’t 
you tried another, and you kept yourself in the 
shadow. Strikes me you’ve been standing along 
enough in the broad sunshine slapping the water 
with a hook and worm. Time to try something else. 
Chapter XV 
Whether or not it was due to his cousin’s advice, 
next morning saw Paul Fielding out early at Rose- 
berry Gardens. Miss Davenant was not in the 
office. The young man considered a moment, then 
he took the narrow, shaded road that led to the new 
plantation. It was cool and damp in the morning 
freshness. The sun had only flecked it as yet, and 
the dew lingered heavily. On one side, honeysuckle 
that had escaped from the garden climbed and hung 
in tangled masses on some young oaks, veiling the 
woods; on the other side, across the hedge, were the 
well kept nursery rows, dull maroon berries on the 
sturdy, thick-set, fruiting honeysuckles; over the 
hedge now and then came a long trailing spray of 
eleagnus drooping with the weight of heavy scarlet 
berries. A startled brown rabbit that had been sit- 
ting in the road, alert and watchful, whisked into 
the hedge. 
“You needn’t have been in such a hurry, Br’er 
Rabbit,” said Paul to the vanishing rabbit. “Why 
couldn’t you stay and wish me luck.” 
It was still at Roseberry Garden, so still you could 
hear the notes of a meadow lark down the hill at the 
foot of the plantation. Suddenly Fielding stopped; 
he heard voices. 
“How many did you say, McCune? Five hun- 
dred? And the group down below? Fifty? Five 
hundred and fifty,” she said slowly, as if writing 
down. 
Fielding went quickly to the opening in the hedge 
that marked the quarter acre, and saw her, notebook 
in hand, soft felt hat pushed back, head bent over 
the notes she was making. McCune, in his Gari- 
baldi shirt, had just limped off down another row. 
There was a sudden, quick flush of greeting. 
“Would you like a job?” she said. “I want to 
send McCune back to Michael.” 
“ Surely,” he answered eagerly. 
“I think we can get to the Prunus section before 
I have to go back; poor old Patrick is as slow as a 
barge. There are two hundred in each row, Mr. 
Fielding. Just see how many spinosissima there 
are in that broken row — about a hundred and fifty, 
I think. Would you? And will you take tills stick,” 
— handing him a walking stick notched at foot 
and half foot intervals — “and get the average 
height?” 
Paul did her bidding with alacrity, and the two 
worked rapidly and in silence. Paul was very 
happy, and he kept humming to himself the Major’s 
negro tune, which the day before had been a vexa- 
tion. 
“We must go back,” said Miss Davenant sud- 
denly, looking at her watch. “The mail will be in. 
Thank you so very much! ” 
“It was a pleasure,” said Paul, truthfully. 
“It is interesting, isn’t it?” said she, “I’d shift 
with the men any time, and take the field work in- 
stead of the office. Aren't they splendid little 
plants!” 
“Miss Davenant,” said Paul, “there’s only one 
plant in Roseberry Gardens that really interests me, 
and that I seem unable to get.” 
Roberta flushed. “It’s a young evergreen, Mr. 
Fielding, very prickly, and objects to transplanting 
as seriously as an Ilex opaca.” 
“Ass!” said Paul to himself. “Why couldn’t 
you leave well enough alone?” But Roberta was 
unconcerned. 
“Would you like to see something?” she said. 
“But mind you don’t tell.” 
She led the way through a gap in the hedge, 
pushed aside the lowest branch of a thick, prickly 
barberry and showed a little hollow. “Aren’t they 
darling?” 
Paul peered in to see six tiny baby rabbits. “Lit- 
tle cottontails!” he exclaimed delightedly. 
“ Better not pick one up,” cautioned Roberta, “he 
might tell his mother, and she’d move the whole 
family.” 
She let the branches slip back carefully, and then 
led the way back to the road with her quick, silent 
woodsman’s step, Paul Fielding following. But at 
the office door she stopped. “I have work to do,” 
she said, “lots of it.” 
“Anyway,” Paul meditated happily as he walked 
homeward, “I bet she wouldn’t have shown the 
little bunnies to old Herford.” 
On a certain noon-tide in late August one would 
have found Miss Davenant seated on a hummock of 
grass at the end of one plantation like Miss Muffett, 
upon her tuffett, only instead of curds and whey, she 
was munching a sandwich, and beside her, likewise 
employed, was Mr. Fielding of South Carolina. 
The day was sultry. Major Pomerane, even on 
his shaded piazza thought it uncomfortable, but 
young Mr. Fielding was well content. 
He had followed his cousin’s advice scrupulously 
and assiduously. And it worked beautifully. He 
kept strictly to business, and this devotion to the 
hard facts of life had brought him spacious, undis- 
turbed mornings with the coppery haired secretary 
with only the bobolinks and old Patrick McCune for 
occasional intruders. 
Duty was substituted for Pleasure in the early 
mornings, which as the wise old Major predicted 
would make it possible to link Pleasure with it much 
of the time. 
“You see I want to learn the plants,” he had said, 
“and helping with the stocktaking will be a very 
simple way of gaining familiarity. I know I can 
get about on my feet a bit more briskly than your 
friend Pat McCune; I’m sure I can read a label 
quicker. Why won’t you try me? I think the 
work would go quicker, and you told me the other 
morning that it ought to be done before Mr. Worth- 
ington’s return.” 
Whereupon Roberta had assented readily, and for 
several mornings they had worked together, Paul 
Fielding measuring and counting, Roberta verify- 
ing and taking the notes. 
Now the noon gong had sounded; McCune, dinner 
pail in hand, was disappearing between the rows of 
young trees; and the two sat under the big linden for 
their workingman’s midday rest. 
Chapter XVI 
It was cooler by the big linden; it stood at the 
intersection of the grass paths that divided the plan- 
tations into half acres. From beneath it one could 
look down the long slope of the plantations and 
across the wide marshes through which the Meadow- 
port creek trailed a lazy, uncertain serpentine as if it 
hadn’t the faintest idea where it was going and 
didn’t care in the least. The marshes were begin- 
ning to color and flush with the coming autumn; at 
intervals came the note of a solitary meadowlark. 
The two beneath the tree munched their sand- 
wiches in silence and content. Roberta pulled off 
the old soft hat, pushed back her hair, and settled 
herself comfortably against the big linden. She 
scanned the young plantation that lay beyond them 
approvingly, noting the trench watering that had 
evidently been done the day before, and how little 
the drought had affected the newly transplanted * 
stock. At last she turned to her companion. 
“There’s not been one of those little hedge plants 
injured,” she said, “the trench watering has kept 
them safe, and Uncle Rudolph moved them when an 
amateur would have expected for them murder and 
sudden death.” 
But Fielding was looking beyond the plantation 
to the marshes and, in truth, beyond the marshes to 
those Carolina marshes beside the Cooper through 
which the river wound its indolent way. 
“Trench watering,” he echoed blankly. “What’s 
that, Miss Davenant?” 
“Didn’t you see it?” she asked. “The men 
plough a furrow, then fill it with water, by letting the 
hose run until it has been filled several times. Next 
morning they run the cultivator over and cover up to 
prevent evaporation. Trench watering is a regular 
drought insurance.” 
Then she looked at him keenly and said abruptly, 
“You don’t really care about gardening, Mr. Field- 
ing. What is it you really care about?” 
“You,” was on the tip of the young man’s tongue, 
but he looked at the unconscious profile of the girl 
beside him, thought of his cousin, the Major, and 
the wisdom of the ancients, and clasped his long 
brown hands closely about his knees. 
“I’m not passionately interested in gardening,” 
he admitted, “except in what I can take back with 
me and use down at Paradise Park. That’s the 
truth. These rows and rows of little things that 
fascinate you and old Trommel so much, seem to 
me too painfully new to be interesting. I honestly 
see very little beauty in nice little plants in rows. 
You ought to see the azaleas we have at home. 
Higher than your head and you can cut armfuls!” 
Roberta laughed. “Mr. Worthington would say 
you had no ‘vision’,” she said. “These little plants 
are like children in school. To those who aren’t ac- 
quainted, it’s merely a row of little heads, all more or 
less alike. Those who know them see heaps of pos- 
sibilities, and to the devoted parents, like Uncle Ru- 
dolph and Mr. Worthington, there are wonderful 
possibilities — whole worlds that some of them are 
expected to conquer! 
{To he continued) 
