HOUSE AND GARDEN I 
April, 
— 
1912 
The path stops at the trellis and beyond are just trees and grass and 
flowers, growing in disarray, unhedged by borders 
do it instead. Those are peony bushes and bleeding heart — the 
peonies are all gone now like most of the roses and the lilies-of- 
the-valley by the fence — and here is the trellis that makes a 
bridge over the path for the grapes to grow over. You can sit 
here on the benches under the trellis if you want to. I often 
do when the grapes are ripe. 
“You never saw so many old-fashioned flowers?” Do you 
like new-fashioned best? What kind are they?—“You don’t”— 
Oh! I am glad, for Grandmother and Mother and I all like this 
kind and there is such a lot of them. Now, the big path stops 
this side of the trellis and it gets little with just trees and grass 
on each side of it. Your skirts are long. I am so sorry—it 
takes the dew such a long time to dry. Mine don’t touch the 
grass, you see. 
Now this is where the fairies come. See the cobwebs on the 
grass? That’s what people call them, but they are really the 
table covers of the fairies when they have supper out here in the 
garden at night. The trees grow closer and closer here. When 
little girls are alone they always run down this bit of the path. 
“Why?” 
I don’t know exactly, but — I think I’ll take your hand, please— 
to show you the way. 
No, go slow again. The sun sifters through the trees just 
like the flour does through the sifter when Grandmother makes 
sponge cake. See how long and soft the grass is here, and the 
path stops being a path and is just an open space—now it’s a 
path again and where it turns — guess? 
“You cannot?” 
A big tree and a seat made of twisted wood. Isn’t that the 
loveliest place to play house ? Here is where Grandmother and 
Grandfather used to sit. Grandmother told me so. 
Hark ! Do you hear singing ? It's the brook right down at the 
bottom of this little hill. Grandmother said that the brook sang 
all their words to music as if it was a song when she and Grand¬ 
father were lovers. 
Do you know what a lover is ? It’s Grandfathers and Grand¬ 
mothers and Fathers and Mothers before there is any you. 
But lovers don’t fade like the roses. Grandmother says. They 
keep on gathering all the sweetness of love into all the years just 
like the bees do honey — Oh! I can’t explain. You ask Grand¬ 
mother—little girls never can explain, but they know, because 
they feel it all inside. 
“Some day, dear child, you will understand these things and 
life,” Grandmother says. “Oh, Grandmother, I know,” I say. 
"That is, I know the outside of it all. It is just like the breath of 
the garden, that is all of it; even if little girls don’t know the 
name of each flower, they can understand the sweetness is all of 
them. Isn’t that like life?” 
“Yes, philosopher,” Grandmother says. “It is like a garden 
with the roses and the thorns, the sun and the shadows the 
springtime and the dead, dead leaves, the lilacs and the bitter¬ 
sweet ; but a child knows not of thorns and shadows, and bitter¬ 
sweet climbs too high over your head.” 
Grandmother likes riddles. Most generally I can’t guess them. 
When we go back I’ll jiick you some flowers and we’ll get some 
blackberries to eat. I know how to make a basket out of grape 
leaves and little sticks, and trumpet creeper trumps hold quite a 
number if you put the little berries in them. Here — Here — 
we are! Don’t you love it? Don’t Yon? You must say you 
do. Isn’t that the dearest, runaway brook? Doesn’t it sound 
Beneath the tall hollyhocks with their various hues, are the hiding places 
of the fairies 
