Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
“ hurroo’d ” them on to victory from the window above. 
Baby Cottontail looked wildly round. Wire enclosed the 
Paradise on all sides, except one. Here was a drop down 
amongst laurels to unknown depths, but better this than 
to be caught. He leaped wildly into the laurels and 
escaped ! At least, never was his little body found. 
How attentive, too, are the birds to my softly greening 
flower-beds, where pinks and iris and tulips are to look 
beautiful some day in the midst of the square grass lawn ! 
A bold blackbird continued his grubbing under my very 
nose, flirting the freshly turned earth calmly over the 
grass* 
Was he eating seeds, I wonder, or worms ? 
Worms let us hope. The mice are said in this garden 
to be hard upon crocuses. I have heard this is so, most 
particularly in Berwickshire and East Lothian. I have 
not dared to plant any in the open, but I have several 
pretty window-boxes gay with them and earthen vases 
standing in the rose-garden, large white crocuses with 
golden pistils, purple, and tiny purple and white striped ; 
these are cuplike; then I have also quaint little brown 
star-shaped ones lined with yellow ; “ cloth of gold,” I think, 
is their name. But, on the whole, I think I like the old- 
fashioned golden cups best. I saw a tuft of these last in 
flower a few days ago in an empty vegetable-bed in the 
kitchen-garden, and on inquiry of Gardener how it was 
they came there, he said : “ They rats had nae doot ta’ed 
the bulb awa’ ! ” I should have liked to have seen Herr 
Rat carrying his bulb home. How disgusted he must have 
been on reaching his abode to find he had dropped his 
loot by the way ! It is curious, considering how pretty the 
crocus is, how little celebrated it seems to be in poetry. 
Hannah F. Gould, the American, however, has a pretty 
little poem about the crocus, too little known I think. I 
wish I knew what to think about moles. The other day, 
when walking with Boy in the tiny railed-in crescent of 
grass I call the lily garden (because of a bed of these 
dear things in the centre), we saw several molehills. The 
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