THE DECISION 
i 
& 
of some particular type. I remembered that one 
or two authors recommended Japanese gardens, 
that others preferred the old-fashioned kind, while 
one of ambitious talents described gardening on 
miniature mountains. The more I read, the more 
I looked askance at our triangular patch, and twice 
I dreamed of it covered with cabbages; when one 
day Joseph wisely remarked that we would plant 
the prettiest flowers, grasses and ferns, and trust 
to luck to get vegetables to eat. Above all, we 
should try to make the places where we set out the 
flowers look like their native homes. 
Then a little trouble arose. Whenever, at gath- 
erings in the neighbourhood, our friends discussed 
the prices of bulbs, seeds and young plants, Joseph’s 
eyes sought mine, and it seemed as if a mist had 
passed over our imagined garden. We had, in 
truth, but little money to spend for flowers. But 
again Joseph wisely said that we could at least 
go to the woods and fields and get pretty plants, 
even if we could not afford to buy them of the 
nurserymen. 
One day, still early in March, an old man came 
to the Six Spruces to sell some bird-houses which he 
had made when storm-bound during the winter. 
They were short pieces of the hollowed-out stems of 
trees, covered with pointed roofs, and given firm 
floors and open doorways. A bird might well be- 
lieve that Nature herself had made them. Joseph’s 
delight in these houses so pleased the old man that 
