had developed the two schemes according to the two motifs 
which Uncle Elijah gave them in the titles. 
Not a plant was named, you see, on these sketches, but enticing 
bits of description carried a world of suggestion. “The tree of 
Xerxes,” for example, in the Poet’s Garden—how alluring! And 
how distracted with curiosity they both were to know what it was; 
and with disgust that they had 
grown so rusty in the classics. 
All at once Harriet’s memory be¬ 
gan to stir, by association — she 
was looking at the piano as she 
tried to think — and she rushed to 
it and began pawing over the 
music that lay on it. “There,” 
she cried at last, dragging out 
Handel's Largo, triumphantly, 
‘The Plane Tree,’ from ‘Xerxes’ 
— it must be a plane tree.” 
“I can’t see that it follows”— 
Harrison was in a captious mood 
— “though it may. But, what the 
mischief is a plane tree?” 
The dictionary told them; but 
it dropped the subject without 
noting the legend of the great Per¬ 
sian king who had halted his 
armies and gone into camp that 
he might enjoy the splendor of 
one of these mighty specimens. 
“Have we got to choose be¬ 
tween these, do you suppose ?” 
asked Harriet, looking up from a 
long study of the Poet’s Garden. 
“If that’s his idea—really to 
give us a garden — it seems as if 
we would have to.” 
“Well, I never can! That’s all 
there is to that.” 
“Then we can toss up.” 
“I hate tossing up.” 
“Well — then we can leave it to 
Uncle Elijah.” 
“He’d give us the Practical 
one.’ 
“Ah ! — then you’ve decided on 
the Poet's Garden.” 
“N—no; but, look at it.” 
He looked at it; and they dis¬ 
covered together all its charms, 
and were drawing pretty vivid 
pictures, before long, of what it 
would seem like to sit “here,” and 
look out “thereor to sit “there” 
and look over “here.” 
“Really,” said Harrison, with 
considerable enthusiasm at last, 
"it wouldn’t be half bad to have a 
place like this — would it?” 
"It would be heavenly, with just a bank of climbing roses, as I 
can see them perfectly, all over that wall that shuts off the service 
yard, and those exquisite columns opposite, with more hanging 
from them. Why, the place would be a sight to behold — there’d 
be thousands and thousands of them—just sheets of bloom.” 
“These wall fruit trees sound good to me.” He clung to the 
Practical Garden, as she to the Poet's. “Prettv good scheme, I 
should think, if you get any fruit off of them.” 
“And they would he lovely in blossom, too.” 
“Why not lovely in fruit? An apple tree with a load of red 
apples is a color picture worthy anybody’s approval; it has always 
struck me.” 
So they argued and talked; and it was a full hour past the bed¬ 
time that had seemed so far away, when Harrison finally switched 
off the light with the last word. 
“Really, I don’t know why we 
never thought of it. I’ve always 
known the place needed some¬ 
thing.” 
They left it to Uncle Elijah, as 
his nephew had suggested, at last. 
"We know nothing about such 
things,” he wrote to him, after 
thinking it over a fortnight or 
more, “and the more we try to de¬ 
cide, the farther we are from do¬ 
ing so. It's up to you; whatever 
your decision-,' it will suit us, right 
down to the ground.” 
Uncle Elijah had a hard time 
deciding, himself. One day he 
would think it would be one gar¬ 
den ; the next day he veered over 
to the other. A thousand times 
he burst forth at the limitations of 
their superb suburban plot; but 
that was not progressing. So he 
set himself to figure it out on the 
basis of his nephew's income; 
which ought they to have, from 
the purely practical and efficient 
side ? 
This meant a pretty general re¬ 
view of the whole situation; of 
the Chalmers’ failings, as well as 
of their pocketbook. Harrison 
Chalmers was never to be de¬ 
pended upon to work in his gar¬ 
den—at least as yet he was not. 
And perhaps he never would be to 
v be depended upon for work of 
this sort; you never can tell. 
Which garden, therefore, would 
cost the least in upkeep ? That 
was question number one that he 
set himself to figuring out with 
paper and pencil and wage figures 
right before him. 
It was simple, after all. He 
hardly needed the pencil, save as 
a spur to thought. The Practical 
Garden would demand three days 
of any man's time per week, if it 
were to be kept in first-class 
shape. Frequent spraying of the 
small fruit trees, he knew, was the 
one thing to insure their good health — for annids simply dote on 
the young tips of certain varieties of these. Then the garden 
would be constant in its demands of tillage, and to go over it all, 
as well as to keep the turf cut where there was turf, began to look 
like too much of a task to be accomplished, even in three full days. 
Intensive treatment, too, requires constant attention — prompt up¬ 
rooting of the finished crop and equally prompt preparation of 
(Continued on page 387) 
Something like this was the treatment of the rose columns suggested by the 
Poet’s Garden plan 
Unless they raised all their vegetables and had a gardener all the time, the 
Practical Garden would be of little avail 
363 
