18 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
L IKE the proverbial work of 
woman, the work of the gar¬ 
dener is never done. Scarcely 
does the leaf sear and the fruit golden on the branch than the time 
comes for fall planting. Even now, in this season of harvest, must 
work be started for the harvests of next year. 
The earth is hungry. It is also bountiful; and if one would reap 
to-morrow he must sow to-day—sow and cultivate, bear patiently 
drought and torrential rains, fight tirelessly against devastating 
pest. With what net results? A few months of green, growing 
things, a few weeks of blossom, and a little harvest laid away. 
That is one harvest, and that is about the only harvest most 
people gather. There is another, a greater garnering of crops. 
And in these smoky, dreamy days of Indian summer we can garner 
it—more than ever grew on tree or bush. We can gather the 
wisdom of the garden, such as only simple minds can understand. 
The gardener may oftentimes be a fool, but he will be a divine 
fool. “Eyes and ears,” said Heracleitus, “are bad witnesses to 
those who have barbarian souls.” Most people judge by them and 
by them alone. The gardener is otherwise, for his is not a barbar¬ 
ian soul. Rather is it a faint reflection of a divine paradox. His 
plough scars the soil that he may, in turn, heal the wound with flow¬ 
ers. He is ripe in a wisdom not to be read in books nor learned of 
men. Sitting at the feet of Nature he listens to words that are past 
understanding save one speak in her own tongue. 
It is said of mystics that they all speak the same language be¬ 
cause they all come from the same country. This also is true of 
gardeners. A clanny lot wherever you find them, their endeavors, 
ideals and compensations are quite different from what we ordin¬ 
arily visualize these things to be; but among themselves all is un¬ 
derstood. They hear flowers that sound and see notes that shine. 
Enraptured they listen to the great fugue of succeeding blossoms. 
Their harvest of wisdom is not merely a harvest of material ex¬ 
pediencies—of methods in propagating crops, of abolishing pests, 
of marketing goods and such. It is as intangible as the blue sky 
above and as far removed from the rush and competition of com¬ 
merce. It is an opening of the eyes which others cannot under¬ 
stand. “The tree which moves some to tears of joy,” says Blake, 
“is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.” 
LOOKING TO HARVEST 
T HE county fair is peculiarly 
an American institution. In 
other countries fairs are occasion 
of barter and sale, a survival of 
nomadic life when caravans 
brought in their cargoes of wares 
to be exchanged or sold. The 
great trading centers of the 
world almost invariably began 
as a cross-road place for a fair. 
Here in America the fair is a 
fete, a yearly opportunity to 
show how great a gardener or a 
farmer one can be. Sale is quite 
a secondary matter. The owner 
of the prize hog who bends 
proudly over the pen is not so 
anxious to sell him as he is for 
others to see him. The farmer’s 
wife who exhibits the gigantic 
dahlias is not putting them on the 
market. No Sir! She just wants 
the rest of folk to know that, 
when it comes to raising flowers, 
she is some pumpkin ! 
Besides that, there is a lot to 
see at the county fair—horse 
races and the circus and acro¬ 
bats and exhibits from the state 
fisheries and the clothes the 
town folks are wearing, and 
one's distant relatives who never 
show up except at a fair or a 
funeral, and the more intimate 
things such as certain staid and 
otherwise respectable members 
of the community who once a 
year concede the devil a few 
points and enjoy themselves at 
the scandalous side shows and 
the abounding cocoanut shies. 
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HOUSES 
When you shall die and to the sky 
Serenely, delicately go, 
Saint Peter, when he sees you’re 
there, 
Will clash his keys and say: 
“Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! 
And hurry ! Michaelangelo ! 
She wants to play at building, 
And you’ve got to help her play!” 
Every architect will help erect 
A palace on a lawn of cloud, 
With rainbow beams and a sunset roof, 
And a level star-tiled floor; 
And at your will you may use the skill 
Of this gay angelic crowd, 
When a house is made you will throw it down, 
And they’ll build you twenty more. 
For Christopher Wren and these other men 
Who used to build on earth 
Will love to go to work again, 
If they may work for you. 
“This porch,” you'll say, “should go this way!” 
And they’ll work for all they’re worth, 
And they’ll come to your palace every morning, 
And ask you what to do. 
And when night comes down on Heaven-town, 
(For there must be night up there) 
You will choose the house you like the best 
Of all that you can see: 
And its walls will glow as you drowsily go 
To your bed up the golden stair, 
And I hope you’ll be gentle enough to keep 
A room in your house for me. 
Joyce Kilmer. 
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The country lives for that 
week and lives on its memory. 
And this is well. In the dull days 
of winter memories of those few, precious, frivolous hours come 
back with great refreshment—memories of kindled pride and awe, 
of touch with the big, moving world, of feeling the pulse of things. 
To these folk of simple trudging lives the week comes as a plentiful 
harvest of respite and relief and fun, the fruit of a year’s labor. 
How it all started is easy to see. Communal pride is as old as 
the hills, and the county fair is nothing more than a grand exhibit 
of that pride. To be sure, other things have lent their aid to make 
it an established institution, the circus among them. For what 
would a fair be without a circus? In that respect the human 
curios and the bareback riders and the elephants and the kangaroos 
must share with the fields the gratitude of the countryside. Doubt¬ 
less the rustics of a thousand farms in this broad land, when they 
come to thank Providence for bountiful crops, rarely fail to pray 
for blessings on the head of Barnum. And if they do, one hopes 
that God has a sense of humor! 
The local flower show is another worthy exhibition of com¬ 
munity pride and competition which has come to pass since the 
country grew to suburbs and the garden club took up the work 
which the grange once accomplished. It is a yearly movement that 
should be fostered with great care and tended with genuine enthus¬ 
iasm. No town is too small but it can have some sort of flower 
show, just as no town is too small but it can have a garden club. 
Begin with a nucleus of sincere gardeners who take pride in their 
flowers, and the town will soon see striking results. As in business, 
so in town beautifying, competition will work marvels of individual 
endeavor. And what the county fair does for countryside folk, 
the flower show will do for dwellers in the suburbs. 
77T Puis Bonsoir! 
a j So calls Columbine to Pierrot when the darkness of un¬ 
ending separation settles down upon their love. 
Et Puis Bonsoir! 
So call the Columbines of the garden to the Pierrot of kindlier 
days when the chill winter settles down upon the land. 
And that is all it is—Good night!—For the spring will come again 
with a good morrow. Meanwhile 
the garden must rest, must sleep. 
Leave it so. 
But why must it be so drab, 
this garden in its winter bed of 
leaf mulch and withered stalks? 
We have become slaves to the 
idea that a garden dies in winter, 
as we treat it as such. But why 
should the gardener leave her 
plots as though abandoning 
them forever? If it is but Good 
Night, then why not trick out her 
slumber place with those things 
Nature has provided for that 
very purpose? For Nature, the 
old dear, is as vain as any other 
woman. You never catch her in 
curl papers! Some day garden¬ 
ers will learn this secret of con¬ 
stant beauty. Some day they 
will come to appreciate the rare 
cheer of red and gold berries that 
cling to the berberis, euonymus 
and the climbing bitter-sweet all 
winter through; they will learn 
to enjoy the persistent greens of 
spruce and pine. 
These stand in a cheerly line, 
sentinels that watch over the 
garden while it sleeps, warding 
off the too impetuous wind and 
bracing their shoulders against 
sleet and snow. Like the apos¬ 
tles that old folks used to hang 
about their beds to keep watch 
and ward in the night hours, so 
do the evergreens and berried 
shrubs keep cheery vigil the win¬ 
ter through, symbols of that 
Power whose labors never cease 
an earnest of the spring. 
