| GAREN^
l\a COMMUTER'S

" J22t WIFE cSOu

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i

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

r

t

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

PEOPLE OF THE WHIRLPOOL.
THE WOMAN ERRANT.

THE GARDEN
OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

THE GARDEN

)F A COMMUTER'S WIFE

RDED BY

THE GARDENER

Tfrfn fork
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1911

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THE GARDEN

OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

RECORDED BY

THE GARDENER

Nefo gorft
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
I9II

All rigbtt reurvtd

COPYRIGHT, 1901,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped October, 1901. Reprinted November, 1901 ;
March, May, October, igoa; July, Octobei, 1903; March, 1904; March
June, 1906 ; June, September, 1908. ; February, 1910 ; January, 1911.

Special edition, in paper covers, May, June, twice, 1903.

Nortooob $KB«

. 8. Gushing & Co. — Berwick A Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PS
33

V

196

Book belongs* to t^e Commuter

CONTENTS
I

PAGE

THE RETURN i

II

CONCERNING GARDENERS. IN GENERAL . . 26

III
CONCERNING GARDENERS. IN PARTICULAR ... 38

IV
THE AMERICANIZING OF PETER SCHMIDT ... 53

V
A RAINY DAY. MORNING 74

VI

A RAINY DAY. AFTERNOON ...... 90

VII

A BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST ..,„.,. 105

VIII

SETTING THE SUNDIAL 123

vii

viii CONTENTS

IX

PACK

CHIEFLY DOMESTIC 141

X

WINTER. THE GARDEN OF BOOKS . 166

XI

THE TERRIBLE TEMPTATION 192

XII
PLANTING 221

XIII
JUNE. OLD ROSES WORTH GROWING .... 244

XIV
JULY. THE BED OF SWEET ODOURS .... 268

XV
AUGUST. A PLEA FOR A WILD LAWN . . . .291

XVI
SEPTEMBER. THE COLOURS OF FLOWERS . . .312

XVII
THE APOTHEOSIS OF MARTHA CORKLB ... 334

XVIII
OCTOBER. THE YEAR'S MIND 347

The
Garden of a Commuter's Wife

i

THE RETURN

October 23 (Battle of Leipsic, 1642, according to
the Farmers' Almanac. I never could understand
the relationship between the astronomy, history, and
literature in this volume). To-day I began the plant-
ing of my garden. The combination of date and deed
may seem strange to those who do not know ; but as
gardening is the most exacting as well as the most
exciting of outdoor sports, one cannot begin too early
in the season, and it is really better to begin the sea-
son before. Neither a garden nor a gardener can
be made in one year, nor in one generation even. It
takes a fine sort of heredity of air and soil and envi-
ronment for either; also gardening is the most cheer-
ful and satisfactory pursuit for women who love
outdoors. Field and forest often hold one at bay.

2 THE GARDEN OF A

We may admire, worship, love, but neither advise nor
argue with them nor add one cubit to their stature.
In a garden one's personality can come forth, stick a
finger into Nature's pie, and lend a hand in the mak-
ing of it, besides furnishing many of the ingredients.

I have been planting crocuses in the grass borders
all the morning, stabbing the turf with a pointed
spade handle, yclept dibble, and pushing the sturdy
little bulbs deep into the wounds. In April there
will be a cluster of starry flowers to cover each scar.
Fortunately my backbone is largely composed of
New England granite, or it would ache. As it is, I
am very glad to sit on a great heap of dry leaves
under the south wall and write in my garden book
while the cart has gone over to the pit by the river
to bring back a load of sand for my tulips and
hyacinths.

A " Boke of the Garden " is a necessity ; otherwise,
so kind is memory about disagreeables, one forgets
one's mistakes. I am sure that I should have for-
gotten a very bad one of mine and have planted my
bulbs in the long strip in front of the honeysuckle
trellis, but for the finding last night, in an old desk,
of one of my schoolgirl journals in which garden
items and the sentiments of eighteen were impartially
mixed. Under April 20, it said : " Never plant bulbs

COMMUTER'S WIFE 3

at the foot of the garden ; the water settles and the
mice come out of the wall and eat them or they rot.
I've only three hyacinths and four tulips left, but
then I didn't plant very many. When I marry I'm
going to push all the vegetables over the fence into
the field and have nothing but flowers here, and I'm
going to buy bulbs and roses by the hundred instead
of by sixes. . . . Pocket money doesn't go far for
plants when I have to buy gloves out of it to wear to
that stupid dancing class and have such very warm
hands. Aunt Lot promised that I should join, and I
couldn't go back on one of the family. But of
course when I'm married I shall be too old for that
sort of thing, which will be a great economy besides
letting me grub in peace. . . . Aunt Lot says that
I shall have changed my mind by then."

That was seven years ago, and lo and behold, here
I am by the same garden wall, married, but my mind
otherwise unchanged, and with bulbs by the hundred,
lying in their stout manila bags under the apple tree,
waiting to be planted. It seems a lifetime ago, the
coming about of it all, yet scarcely longer than the
week since our return, so many things have been
crowded into it.

To begin with, Bluff knew me ! At first I was not
sure if the recognition was genuine, for the astute

4 THE GARDEN OF A

old setter had won his name in early puppyhood
from his self-possession and the calm assurance, un-
backed by circumstances, with which he emerged
unscathed from fights and other embarrassing situa-
tions. The rapid barks that greeted me as I opened
the door might have been merely the joy of promised
companionship for the October evening ; for though
the logs on the study hearth were blazing finely
and the lamps were lit, the house seemed strangely
silent.

I stretched my hands toward the fire instinctively
and looked about the familiar room, where the long
lines of shelves were never able to hold the flock of
books that ran riot over table and mantel-shelf,
crowded the inkstand on the desk, and followed their
owner to his lounging chair, where they perched on
both arms, sometimes forgetting their dignity so far
as to fall sprawling to the floor. I looked over my
shoulder, expecting every moment to hear footsteps.
I was still under the spell of old-world tradition.
Bluff drew nearer, trembling with excitement, but the
long, ardent sniffs and tail waggings that gradually
broke from the usual side-to-side motion into circular
sweeps might be merely inquisitive enthusiasm.

Finally I heard a step in the hall and went to
meet it. A 'maid, wholly strange, handed me my

COMMUTER'S WIFE 5

own telegram unopened, saying, " The doctor wasn't
looking for you, ma'am, until the eight o'clock train,
and he drove over to the hospital a few minutes
before this came, saying he'd, be back well before
seven."

A weight fell upon the buoyant spirits that had
hurried me helter skelter from steamer to train, that
not a moment might be lost in getting to home and
father — perhaps I should say father and home ; but I
think that in the far back transmigratory time I must
have once been a carrier pigeon, so strong is the
homing instinct in me.

Evan said that we should be arrested for escaped
lunatics, even if we avoided a similar penalty for
reckless driving. At the same time he promised the
driver an extra dollar if he made the desired train,
this being a combination of his inborn English cus-
tom of tipping, that makes travel so easy, and a
prudent way that Evan has of explaining certain dis-
advantages in what one wishes to do at the same
time that he is smoothing the way for the doing
thereof. All the way from Sandy Hook to the pier,
I had thumbed the old yellow time-table, never realiz-
ing the changes that two years might have made in
it, fastening upon one train after another as petty
delays caused each in turn to be impossible. People

6 THE GARDEN OF A

crowded about, chattering incessantly of the beauty
of the bay and the approach to New York, the
returning tourist pausing every few minutes to ask
some foreigner how he liked America, then drowning
the polite incoherence of the answer by a whirlpool
of statistics about the length, breadth, thickness, and
cost of the Brooklyn Bridge. I had quite forgotten
how very loud we talk hi public and how self-con-
scious we are. Very probably, however, I was irri-
table; for my heart was leaping on and on to a
strip of wild land on a hillside, where pines and
forest trees stretch their branches to the sky ; scatter-
ing flower beds weave in and out among the shrubs
in the southern corner cut into the hillside beneath
a bank wall, and half a dozen dogs lie dozing in the
sun upon the steps and porch of a rambling low
house, where lives my father, the country doctor
who carries comfort across the hills to the hard-
worked farming people, even as freely as the sun and
rain give strength to their crops.

Could anything be amiss ? Not for the first time,
however, had feet travelled faster than a telegram.
No sedate gray horses at the station, no dear gray
head hi sight ; so taking the first proffer of a trap, I
had fled, leaving Evan to wrestle with the luggage
and the local teamster.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 7

Presently Bluff ceased his gyrations, and stood
watching me, paw raised, tail rigid, quite at a point,
while the maid was speaking ; then as I turned to go
down the hall, he gave one indescribable cry, so full
was it of human expression, made a bound, touched
the tip of my nose lightly with his tongue, then ran
to a hook beside the tall clock, across whose face the
full moon had sailed rhythmically for a hundred years,
without ever waning, seized a dusty riding whip that
hung there, — my old whip, — dragged it down, and
laid it at my feet, while he backed toward the door,
his eyes fixed on mine in a very delirium of joy.

Yes, Bluff knew me ! It was two years since he
had brought me the whip as the regular prelude to a
walk, two years since he had heard my voice : many
humans forget in that time. Bluff knew me, and
was welcoming me home not as a stranger, but as
one of his familiar world. Something tightened in
my throat. I stooped to hug the old faithful, but he
whirled about, and scampered toward the door. I
picked up the whip and followed. Outside a mild
gray twilight, mingled with the light of the quarter
moon, pictured everything with soft outlines. As
Bluff leaped down the steps, a pair of j uncos flew
from their perch in the honeysuckles, but soon set-
tled to rest again.

8 THE GARDEN OF A

Where was the dog going? Down between the
weigelias and lilacs through the stiff little arbour to
the garden, to the great bough apple tree whose
trunk was encircled by a seat.

Surely Bluff had not forgotten. Then as he saw
that I hesitated, he ran to a corner where stepping
stones led up the bank to the open fields, gave a
short bark and waited for me.

" Not to-night, old fellow ; to-morrow we will go
there," I said, seating myself by the apple tree.
Instantly he thrust his nose into my hand, then
curled himself up at my feet.

Before me was the garden where I had played all
my childhood, until playing had turned into dream-
ing. It was unkempt, but it seemed to have more
dignity and meaning than the garden of my memory ;
the unpruned rosebushes reached out long bare arms,
or formed briery tangles according to their kind, the
shrubs were massive and well grown, and had the
soothing influence of permanence. In a sheltered
corner a cluster of chrysanthemums, unharmed by
frost, showed their silvery disks, and a single crum-
pled pansy looked up from the path where it had
found footing. What was that perfume ? Stooping,
I separated the cold, damp leaves of a mat of Russian
violets that grew from under the seat. Yes, there

COMMUTER'S WIFE 9

were a dozen of the flowers themselves, anticipating
spring after their hopeful habit.

Violets were my mother's flowers, and this was her
seat. She went away when I was five years old, but
I have not forgotten, and I always called this great
apple with its ample branches that furnished nooks
alike to me and to the robins and bluebirds, — the
Mother Tree. I used to make bouquets and
wreaths of my best flowers, and stick them hi the
knot-holes or hang them on the branches the particu-
lar day in June when father always shut himself into
his study, and would not speak even to me.

Aunt Lot had said that I was a pagan to make an
idol out of a tree and hang flowers on it, and scolded
until I cried bitterly. Father, hearing my distress,
came out to find the cause, and sat with me under
the tree all the afternoon. From that day we under-
stood each other, and the study door was never
closed between us. Here, too, it was that he told
me of his plans for the hospital that now stands
over yonder by the town, where he meant to help all
women for mother's sake. I only understood his
moods gropingly in those days; for the subtle language
of the human heart cannot be imagined, but may only
be read by those who love and are loved in return, and
the other love also came to me through loving father.

io THE GARDEN OF A

Beside the gift of healing and sympathy with
everything living, father had the book madness.
Not the disagreeable stuffy kind of mania that
Nodier's Theodore died of, simply the hunger for
the friendships that books offered him and the desire
to keep such boon companions in the best of health
and raiment. Woe was upon me even in my baby-
hood if I ever ate cookies over the lap of the mean-
est volume or cut the leaves of a magazine with
anything less smooth than a paper knife ! So it
came about that when we took our winter holidays
in Boston and New York, we mingled music, theatre,
and pictures with many eager hours in a dingy auc-
tion room where books were sold, that stood at the
meeting of three crossways. It is impossible to
word the keen joy we both found within those smoky
walls, father in the chase and bringing down the
prey, I in retrieving, so to speak. This sport con-
sisted in rushing the precious volumes safely past
Aunt Lot's custom-house inspection and mixing
them with the older residents in the book shelves
until their identity was lost.

The risk of retrieving varied greatly with the size
of the book itself. The "New English Canaan"
and Josselyn's " Rarities " were easily pocketed, and
they modestly kept the secret of their own value,

COMMUTER'S WIFE n

but to smuggle in the clumsy bulk of Gerarde's
" Herball " in its snuffy sheep cover was an impos-
sibility, and father had to suffer from weak muddy
coffee for a fortnight. Good coffee was one of his
few luxuries, and Aunt Lot knew well how to make
her mild wrath felt. Exactly why she grudged
father his precious old books I never could discover,
possibly because she could not imagine any other
point of view than her own, which narrowness she
called economy. I very early found, however, that
we were not the only buyers obliged to retrieve.
Men came to that auction room whose word was law
to hundreds of their fellows, and packed away their
winnings in mysterious pockets like so many crimes,
and I once helped an old thumb-fingered gentleman,
who owned a railroad, to stow away a glorious mis-
sal illuminated on vellum in a pasteboard box marked
" one ream legal cap ! "

Since then as a married woman I have mingled
with others of my class, and I find that this stupid
book grudge among us is a more fatal disease than
the book madness of men, and I only hope that some
one will discover the bacillus that causes it. I also
often wondered why father cared about Aunt Lot's
protestations ; such money as he had was his own to
spend, but it was doubtless owing to his medical rule

12 THE GARDEN OF A

of never reasoning with the unreasonable, and Aunt
Lot surely belonged to the latter class, even allowing
for her little kindnesses that were set edgewise like
thin streaks of lean in overwhelmingly fat bacon.

In fact, her very name came from her habit of
looking backward instead of forward at all the turn-
ing-points of her life and thus missing her best
chances, until father had so often quoted " Re-
member Lot's wife " to her, that unconsciously she
became Aunt Lot to us, though outsiders to this day
think her name Charlotte.

My book-shelves also shared in the spoils, and
each winter saw me more keen for the hunting. In
summer I almost forgot books. What need was
there for them when I had all outdoors around and
above and below me, everything belonging to me
through the sight, and telling its own story without
the chilly intervention of print? All outdoors and
father to take me everywhere!

Said the Marquis of Carrabas to Puss in Boots,
upon one of the rare occasions when he offered any
advice : " We have but little money, but as long as
we use our eyes faithfully, everything that they see
under the sky is ours." In this way Puss grew up

COMMUTER'S WIFE 13

with the idea that all outdoors belonged to her. By
the way, did you ever know that the Marquis was
really a country doctor, and that Puss was a female
child?

It was from father's shoulder that I peered into
my first woodpecker's hole, receiving a sharp reproof
in the nose from the bill of the irate owner. Who
could compare printed thoughts to those long drives
through the woods to the charcoal-burner's camp, the
horseback rides single file along the river path to the
sawmill, where a lumberman seemed always to be ill
of ague from the dankness of the mill pond? Or
the jolting trips in a buckboard over the corduroy
road across the marshes to the bar, where the light-
house boat waited for us, or yet the tramps in pursuit
of plover and woodcock through the bottom lands ?
Do not be shocked, kind ladies of the Audubon
Society ; we obeyed the game laws, the birds always
went to the sick, and I knew no better ; also father
was quite proud of me when I shot an old crow on
the wing. If you try it, you will understand why !

Then again I would stay for days in my garden,
grubbing in the few ragged borders that the vegeta-
ble greed of the man of all work and Aunt Lot's

14 THE GARDEN OF A

love for spinky foliage beds left me, planning what I
should do in the " some day " that always seemed a
matter of course to me. The very first thing that I
should do in that happy time would be to send away
the gardener, and then I would have an iron pot
painted red, with red geraniums in it and conch
shells to edge the beds, like those in the garden of
the grocer's wife, for my taste was then in the Indian
war-paint stage.

When autumn came and outdoors put on her iron
mask to shield herself from cold, I crept back to the
study and made friends again with books, and read
each new catalogue, lying flat on my face upon an
old hair-cloth lounge, with Timperley's "Dictionary
of Printing" (which, being lumpy, heavy, and weak
in the back, was constantly falling off its shelf) for a
reading-desk. Ah ! web of Fate ! it was well that I
did not see you weaving the pattern of my life among
those pages ; being young, I might have resented you
and spoiled the fabric.

One day father discovered in a catalogue among
some curious medical books a copy of Dodoens's
" Herball." This he had long wanted for its absurdly
quaint descriptions of the medical properties of plants.
It was the English translation made by Henry Lite
and printed in London in 1586. It bore the auto-

COMMUTER'S WIFE 15

graph and notes of "J. Oldham, chirurgien," and a
verse from his pen : —

« Reader ! (where Lite is in the Right)
Peruse in grateful strain,
And where Dodoneus is Erroneus
Correct him clear and plain. J. O. 1799."

Evidently Oldham had differed so much from the
author that his corrections were both clear, plain, and
plentiful. Though valuable from father's stand-
point, it was a volume safely within the limits of his
purse, and the day of its selling he settled back in
his chair determined to hold the book against the
field.

It was a stormy February day, and there were only
two or three bidders of the class that buy on general
principles, who dropped out after a little, leaving my
father's terse bid to be echoed by one other in a dis-
tant corner. The price began straightway to climb
hand over hand. What would Aunt Lot say ?

Finally the hammer fell, and father flushed with
victory gave his name as the purchaser ; the voice in
the corner did likewise. The seller paused, saying
that there was a mistake somewhere, and proceeded
to put up the book again.

I could see that father was going to be stubborn,

16 THE GARDEN OF A

and I trembled for the other person. I saw him
clearly as he stepped forward, a man of thirty,
slightly built and muscular, with a strong face and a
pair of steel-gray eyes that could see through a wall.

The two men looked each other in the face, the
younger gave a quizzical little smile, at me it seemed,
waived his claim, and the clatter of selling recom-
menced.

Afterward as we picked our way downstairs in the
dusk, father hugging his Dodoens, Gray Eyes was
close in front of us, and during a moment's pause
father held out his hand and thanked him for his
courtesy. In short, the book of contention became
the book of introduction, for they instantly found
that they had mutual friends. Before a year was
out they discovered in truth that they had almost all
tastes in common ; they liked the same breed of books,
cigars of the same shape and moisture, country life
better than that of the city, and finally they agreed
that they both loved me; but in this rivalry it was
father who stepped aside and Evan was retriever.

Evan was English born, and like many a younger
son of that vigorous race preferred free flight to sit-
ting underneath in an overcrowded nest, with no more
interesting view before him than that of his elder
brother's legs. So, after circling the globe, he settled

COMMUTER'S WIFE 17

in America to ply his craft of landscape architect, for
which the time was ripe, and furnish the newly gen-
teel with manor houses, Italian gardens, and pleached
alleys all made to measure like a suit of clothes.

When we were married, alack ! family matters
called Evan to England, so for two years we lived
away. One year was spent in travel, the other in a
quiet English country home, these two years being
divided by an illness of the kind where through sheer
weakness one loses gravity, and seems to float through
space seeking a footing either in heaven or earth and
finding neither.

The English life was mildly pleasant ; the country
with its myriad touchstones, glorious. The rambling
stone house, garden, and pleasance in Somerset that
fell to Evan's portion, overflowed with such flowers
as would gather pilgrims for miles around any New
England village. Jasmine halfway to the eaves,
Marechal Neil roses and Gloire de Dijons firm as
cabbages, bushes of picotee pinks, begonias, Fuchsias
grown to trees, sweet violets carpeting the orchard,
and ivy making dignified haste to conceal everything
unsightly. Herbaceous beds rioting in colour, and all
to be had for the picking and the limited care of an
erratic old fellow who had been under-gardener once
on a great estate, but was climbing down in the world,

i8 THE GARDEN OF A

led by rheumatism, the English agriculturist's latter-
day companion.

In the middle of this garden, opposite my morning
seat, was an old stone sundial that had a strange influ-
ence upon me. I could watch the shadow creep
across its face for hours without tiring ; the half-oblit-
erated letters of the legend carved upon it read — "I
only mark the sunlit hours."

It was a good moral and a pleasant influence to
grow strong and readjust oneself under. Domestic
life flowed easily with Martha Corkle, Evan's old
nurse, for majordomo, and a couple of the well-
trained maids that cost so little there.

For a few months Evan was boyishly happy. He
tramped the country-side over in visiting his old
haunts, and the smell of the may and cowslips made
his breath come short and the veins in his forehead
grow tense with suppressed emotion. Did you know
that the men of this race have a passion for flowers
and are knit thew and bone with the homing, soil-
loving instinct which they call loyalty ? The morning
of our wedding day, Evan laid a bunch of bride roses
in the branches of the Mother Tree in the garden,
so there are three now that understand.

The old days cast their spell upon him, days from
which time had removed the sting and left only the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 19

fragrance. Together we rowed on the deep, narrow
river, and in the shadowy cathedral listened to the
music that seemed to come from the organ without
human intervention; in fact, we discovered each
other anew.

The newly mated should always go away for a
space, among strangers if possible. Readjustment
cannot take place in the old nest ; but, after that, all
is safe. Then, too, not to go away is not to know
the joy of return.

After a time Evan grew restless ; his scrap of the
family raiment was too small, he must weave his
own and mine, and for the worker the looms of
England are as crowded as the nests.

One September morning we sat by the sundial
trying to unravel our " weird " and see clearly what
was best. Evan held in his hand the offer from a
prosperous manufacturer to lease the place for ten
years, and while he brooded on the matter I held my
peace. I could not trust myself to speak, though
the words were crowding thick and fast to my
lips.

Two letters were brought out, — one for Evan,
and one for me. Two American letters. Evan's was
lengthy, the bulk being typewritten, with an en«
closed note in a well-known hand.

20 THE GARDEN OF A

Mine was in father's odd stenographic characters.
Instinctively we drew apart to the ends of the bench
to read.

Five minutes passed ; I looked at Evan. He was
gazing at the sundial and gnawing his mustache,
then he looked at me, squared his shoulders, and
said, " McVicker writes me to come back, that
there is a splendid opening for the work that I like
best." Then he waited for me to answer, but in a
flash I could see the wish to be and do was in his
eyes, that he had no desire to sit still and crumble
like a respectable ruin.

" My letter is from father," I said, as soon as I
could steady my voice. " He begs us to come home"
(he who had come in my illness to draw me back
to life, left again, and never written or spoken a
lonely word before). "Aunt Lot is to marry the
Methodist minister next month and devote herself
to his eight children ! ' Come back,' he says; 'I am
hungry for you. This home is yours from now on,
in deed and truth, all the place I need being for
myself and books.' "

Instantly we were side by side again in the middle
of the bench, our hands joined, and both laughing.

"Poor Aunt Lot!" said Evan. "What a fate!
But she will be no longer bothered by books,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 21

oecause he will never have the money to buy any-
thing but an almanac, and that species of dissenter
moves about too much to carry a library if he had
one. But, Barbara, I very much dislike taking or
living in another man's house, even if he is your
father. Besides, the pity of leaving all this," and
he glanced around the garden.

"If we only take the part that isn't filled with
father and books, we shan't be taking very much,"
I ventured.

Evan laughed, as the recollection of father's
pervasion of every nook and corner came back to
him.

Then I squeezed my hands between his, because
Evan is always best content when he is protecting
something, and fairly begged him to take me home.
"As for a garden," I argued, "we will have a
charming one, and we will begin it with your god-
mother's fifty pounds that she gave us to buy some-
thing ' useful and instructive ' for a wedding present.
What could be better ? The use will be beauty and
the learning pleasure. I will be the only gardener,
and you shall have a buttonhole flower for every
week-day and two for Sundays."

" And go in and out of town and be a commuter,
like the men of that hungry-looking crowd that I

22 THE GARDEN OF A

used to see hurrying down the station steps of a
morning, with unblacked boots and crumby clothes ? "
said Evan, sighing.

"If living in the country and working in town is
being a commuter, yes," I said boldly; "but there
are several kinds of them : those who do it because
they think it is cheaper to live in the country (which
usually means that they are where their friends do
not see what they go without), and those who love
the country for its own sake ; and our home will
be in the real country, not in a tailor-made suburb.
You shall have your breakfast in time, no bundles
to carry, no crumbs on your chin, or egg on your
mustache, and I will never talk about servants.
Oh, Evan! if you only knew" — then the nervous-
ness left of my illness mastered me, I broke down,
and it was all settled then and there.

Presently Evan startled me with, "How about
Martha Corkle ! I can't lease her with the place,
a widow and all that, don't you know ; a good sort,
too, only overset and respectful. Couldn't we take
her over, now ? Save you a lot of bother, and
she could overlook things — a regular old reliable."

I was about to say No emphatically, for I thought
that Martha, conventional and rigid, would not be
able to overlook in another sense many things in

COMMUTER'S WIFE 23

a thoroughly New England home, but Evan asked
so little and I so much. Then as I looked up, an
idea seized me ; I would carry a talisman from the
Old world to the New, and I said, " You may trans-
plant Martha Corkle (strictly at your own risk, be
it said) if you will also take the sundial." So we
four are here!

Bluff sprang up sniffing and growled, but only for
a minute. Evan was coming down the path peering
among the bushes to find me. For a moment we
stood silently arm in arm under the Mother Tree,
then we heard the rapid trotting of a horse coming
down the hill and in at the gate. Before I could
shake off the spell of the past two years and realize
that I was myself, father came swiftly across the
orchard, calling, " Barbara ! my child, where are
you ? " and gathered me up in his arms.

He had not shed a tear when I went away, but
now they rained upon my face, mingled with the
late falling leaves of the Mother Tree, while all
the pent-up love of those two years was in that one
word, Barbara!

Mother love is invariably held sacred, as it should
be, but why has father love never had its due ? It

24 THE GARDEN OF A

may be rarer, though no less deep or unselfish. In
fact, as I grow older and see other people's mothers,
I think there is less self-consciousness in the father
love. Who should know this love so well as I whose
mother went away when I was five years old? In
those years "Our Father Who art in Heaven " meant
my father beside my bed, who soothed me until
darkness bore no terrors. To one who has had
such a father, unbelief in God is impossible.

Bluff could not keep in the background for long,
and capered about in such evident comprehension of
the whole situation that we were soon laughing, and
I told father that though this was the garden of
Eden, we were going to reverse the old order.
Adam and Eve, instead of being driven out soon
after their marriage, had come back from their wed-
ding trip to feast upon apples, especially those of
the tree of knowledge, and that we were going to
turn out the serpent and make it into the most
fascinating topsy-turvy garden possible, even the
Garden of a Commuter's Wife ! Also that we had
imported Martha Corkle, the sundial, and a beauti-
ful tall copy of the Pickering Walton's "Angler " ;
that we bought the last thing in a little book-shop in
Southampton for him. I shall remember that shop
a long time, for a smutty-nosed cat fresh from the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 25

ash bin insisted upon perching on the shoulder of
my smart new coat and rubbing against my face.

As we entered the door, all talking at once, there
stood Martha Corkle herself, the stains of travel
removed, clean, respectful, severe. I knew that
she had a headache. Oh! why had she not gone
comfortably to bed just that one night?

Father ejaculated, " Bless me ! " then shook her
cordially by the hand, never noticing that she was
shocked ; but in the evening meal and long fireside
confidences I again quite forgot her.

This will never do ! While I have been day-
dreaming they have brought the sand and dumped it
in the wrong place !

II

CONCERNING GARDENERS
(IN GENERAL)

October 27. In my childhood's garden of dreams
there was no room for a gardener. To me that
name meant a being who was the interferer, not the
mediator between oneself and mother earth, a man
who tyrannized and sulked by turns ; in spring was
blatant and self-confident ; in autumn, owing to
divers mistakes, usually indignant with the quality
of the soil, the slope of the land, the amount of rain,
and the date of the coming of frost ; in short, made
us feel as if we had combined with nature to bring
about his martyrdom, which he bore with something
akin to triumph, enveloping himself with a halo of
failures.

A gardener is of course a necessity to the very
rich, — those unfortunates whose possessions have
expanded alike beyond their personal control and
out of the range of the affections, — to the overbusy,
the ignorant, and the irresponsible. These four
26

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 27

classes may have a distinct yearning to grow flowers,
fruits, and vegetables, and yet from the causes
named are unable to assume the joyful responsi-
bility of so doing.

On the other hand, it is not needful personally to
wield the spade that turns the soil, or trundle the bar-
row that carries the manure. Well-directed brute
force does this far more admirably, and digging and
dragging make one's pen hand, or thimble finger
(according to sex and employment) wretchedly stiff,
besides causing a wicked extravagance in the matter
of shoes and laundry work. But if one fails to per-
vade the planting and training with individuality,
then is that garden like the proverbial egg without
salt ; and of such overdone, underdone, tasteless
embryos there are plenty, and it is not people's
fault if there are not more. It is merely because it
is difficult to force nature into ungraceful attitudes
or inharmonious colourings.

" I haven't seen anything like this for years. I've
told Tomkins to plant fragrant things, but he says
lemon verbena isn't used now, and mignonette makes
the border lines uneven, but it doesn't do to thwart
one's gardener, you know," was the plaint of Mrs.
Jenks-Smith, one of the summer colony on the bluff,
when, upon her going into my garden after a profes-

28 THE GARDEN OF A

sional visit to father, I hesitatingly offered her a
great bunch of rose, apple, and nutmeg geranium,
annual wall flower, lemon verbena, mignonette, and
lavender sprigs.

When mother was here, we never had a real gar-
dener. She came from a tranquil, old-time home
of simpler days, the last child of all ; and though
her miniature makes her very lovely, a flower her-
self, father insists that to paint her expression would
have been impossible. She brought with her the
will and skill of garden craft as well as many plants
that modern gardeners ignore, though through their
beauty, combined with their persistent permanence,
their names are appearing once more in the seed
catalogues.

The garden helper in her brief time was a cheer-
ful man of all work who dug and delved as she
guided him, and so much of herself radiated from
her nook under the Mother Tree, with its vista
down the long walk on either side of which the
flowers were planted, and was so wrought into the
soil, that it still remains after a lapse of twenty
years of more or less motiveless experiment, to give
the keynote to the garden of my life.

Though I was very young, I remember perfectly
the eagerness with which she watched for the seed

COMMUTER'S WIFE 29

catalogues, simple, convincing affairs lacking the
gaudy colour horrors from which, happily, we seem
to be again emerging.

When the lists had been duly made and recon-
sidered, — for the seed-lists of enthusiasts always
have to be cut down and reconstructed, — they were
mailed. The second rapture was when the parcels
came. Oh, the delicious smell of the manila paper
bags that held the bulbs, and the damp, bog moss
that wrapped growing roots, in which I remember
once finding a cranberry plant with a berry, and
thus learning that the red fruit did not grow upon
a tree like cherries, as I had thought! These two
odours are among my primary memories, not to be
forgotten any more than I could forget mother's
way of lingering over my name as she pronounced
it, the sky light in her eyes, of the purple blue of
the fringed gentian, or the expression of father's
face when on coming home from a long morning
ride he found mother among her flowers ; she
would bring him a welcome bit of luncheon and
some cooling drink as he rested under the old
apple tree while she listened to his report of vari-
ous happenings, and I absorbed scraps of food
and conversation alike.

I never again saw that look in his eyes after

30 THE GARDEN OF A

mother went away, but one day its counterpart
flashed from Evan's, and then I knew that we
loved each other without a spoken word.

From that time on, father, with his increasing
practice and the hospital to direct, had little time
to give to outdoor details. He saw that the horses
were always in good condition, for this was often
a matter of life or death to some one. He fed
his dogs, and clung to them for their silent friend-
ship, as he sat in his study with his books, or,
with his gun, strode off up through the stubble
fields, of an October morning ; and he always liked
to • have a posy on his mantel-shelf or writing table.

Yes, one thing more : he told Aunt Lot to plan
and plant as she pleased, but to make no change
in the beds that followed the long walk, and spring
and fall he watched the thinning out and resetting
that insures the long lives of hardy plants, and let-
ting only the most perfect blossoms mature their
seed until year by year new colours, fanciful hybrids,
appeared in the borders, now a thickly matted flower
jungle.

Poor Aunt Lot and the man of all work soon
disagreed, however ; he was accustomed to have
his day's toil planned for him by one who under-
stood, and then do it in a methodical manner.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 31

Aunt Lot had never before cultivated anything
more than a city " dooryard," or controlled any
service but that of a broken-spirited maid of the
poor relation variety, consequently she was inco-
herent and unreasonable in her directions, expect-
ing him to sow and reap, so to speak, on the same
day. I became fully impressed with this by the
time I was six years old, and at this time father,
tired of settling differences, engaged a "gardener,"
thinking it would be easier to hold a man respon-
sible than his elder half-sister, who always retreated
behind a sort of concrete breastwork composed of
reminiscences of his boyish shortcomings, relation-
ship, and — tears.

Father and Aunt Lot looked upon the gardener
from different points of view. Aunt Lot used him
alternately as a weapon or a patent of superiority to
be worn at village teas; father apologetically, as a
housewife accustomed to New England thrift would
refer to a housekeeper that she had been forced to
employ, through her own incompetence; while I
hated the gardener with the uncompromising honest
hatred of childhood, because, whether he was called
John, Pat, or Peter, he invariably regarded my efforts
as things of little account, trod on the shells that I
brought from the shore with infinite labour to edge

32 THE GARDEN OF A

my bit of flower patchwork, and in spring always
dug up my bulbs and hardy roots because it was
easier than to dig between them, — a stern fact that
sent me outside garden limits to the wild field be-
yond the strawberry bed, where I coaxed an intimate
friend of mine, an up-country boy named Dan'l, who
brought berries to sell, and did odd errands for
father, to dig up two long strips one on either side of
a grassy cart track that had once led to a hay-field,
now reached by another road. Little I then thought
that I was locating my garden of dreams.

The boy dug sturdily, the soil was black on top
and mellow loam beneath — a happy combination, and
my flowers throve far better than in the half shady,
badly tilled garden bed.

I paid Dan'l with a jew's-harp, two old but well pre-
served valentines, and a purplish red necktie which
Aunt Lot had bought father, but which he had im-
mediately concealed under some papers in the little
room beyond his office where he kept his instru-
ments, and then given me for a doll's sash. The
valentines must have signified more to Dan'l than
they did to me, for he instantly began to lavish tokens
upon me, hickory-nut beads, willow whistles, a home-
made fishing rod, and a wreath of thistle puffs for
my hat. This ornament I wore for several weeks

COMMUTER'S WIFE 33

until one fell day I left the hat hanging in the
Mother Tree, and the yellow birds pulled the puffs
apart to eat the seeds.

But the most treasured gifts were the roots of the
old-fashioned flowers that grew in unkempt wealth
about his grandmother's garden. I had often been
there when father visited the patient old soul, who
was lame, and had admired the syringa, snowball,
and lilac bushes that almost hid the house from the
road, while the cinnamon roses crept out between the
palings, and straggled up and down the lonely cross-
road as if hungering for news, while in August the
white phlox escaping into the grass made a snow-
bank between the gate and the porch.

As I remember those valentines, — which, by the
way, had been given me by our cook, — they were
quite startling, and most unsuitable in their gender.
One was surmounted by two papier-mache" hearts, and
bore the query, " Will you be my wife ? " and the
other had a scrap of looking-glass in the centre
framed with the words, " In this you see the girl I
love."

But such a mere detail did not dash Dan'l's
ardour, for was he not ten years old, both romantic
and chivalrous, and determined to be a soldier ?
While I, being eight at the time, and much interested

34 THE GARDEN OF A

even then in hospital talk, seriously thought of going
to battle with him as a nurse.

Circumstances, however, prevented, the chief among
them being that there was no war at the time ; father,
to whom as a matter of course I confided my plans,
declined to go with us as surgeon, and what was the
use of a soldier to shoot people and a nurse with ban-
dages if there was no one there to cut off legs ? — an
amputation being then my idea of the treatment to
be given all soldiers, while lastly at this juncture
Dan'l left home to work for a grocer at another
village. I saw him yesterday in town, delivering
goods at the hospital from a neat shiny wagon of his
own. Alas for intentions, chivalry, and the daring
soldier life ! The flowers of our childhood's friend-
ship have been more enduring, however. His last
gift was a small rosebush planted in a lard pail to
which he had given ventilation by perforating it with
small holes.

" Granddad brought the bush this came off of from
Boston b'fore I was born and it's just bust itself
growing, and we've given away lots of cuttings ; but
this isn't any cutting, it's a regular year-old plant,"
he said, as he thrust the pail at me.

The plant proved to be a fragrant, clear white rose
with handsome dark foliage, the lovely Madame

COMMUTER'S WIFE 35

Plantier that was brought over in the thirties and
has never been surpassed as a healthy, willing
bloomer. Now, even in its leafless state, it is a giant
shrub in my tangled-up child border and will hold its
place in the garden that is to be as well as mother's
beds of hardy flowers. But of the perfunctory, skin-
deep work combined of Aunt Lot and the four gar-
deners that separates mother's reign from mine, not
a trace remains save a few scars on the grassy slope
beneath the study windows, that mark the location of
some fantastic foliage beds, which as for beauty or
fragrance might as well have been made of gay
carpet or spotted calico.

The ingredients of this class of bed are always the
same, though the beds themselves may vary in shape
and compounding — coleus in vars, red geraniums,
alternanthera, dusty miller, hen and chickens, with
salvias or cannas for centrepieces, — all worthy and
innocent plants individually, but so hot and stiff when
combined, affecting the colour-sensitive like the sight
of a stout, short-necked woman walking in the sun
with a tight gown and high collar.

"You are straying from gardens," murmur the
leaves of my " Garden Boke," through which the
breeze is rustling and conveniently drying the ink
without aid from a blotter.

36 THE GARDEN OF A

Ah, yes, but the subject is so broad, and the
by-paths so many, that straying is inevitable. Be-
sides, I am not exploiting the genuine skilled gar-
dener of the main line, the developer of nature's
resources, to whom all honour is due. The gardener
to whom I take exception should always have his
title enclosed in " marks " and is of the tribe that
seems to launch itself at the ever-busy and guileless
American of moderate means and good taste, who,
desiring a garden and having little knowledge of the
necessary detail and still less time to learn, hires a
" gardener," pays liberally for seed and manure, and
from the combination of the three entertains Great
Expectations. If the man so hired were really what
he pretends to be, all would be well. But the pro-
cession marching under the Sign of the Spade is a
motley crowd indeed, especially in this land, where a
knowledge of country life and its various processes,
its pitfalls as well as its potency for good, though
increasing daily, has not yet become a part of our
national inheritance. As I look out over the hills
and think of the people I have known during the
past ten years who, for various reasons, have tried
this glorious outdoor existence and failed to live it,
and judge the cause, it seems to me that one and all
they approached it wrongly.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 37

The first difficulty is that people often think that
by living in the country they can do without the
comforts and necessities, lacking which city life
would be doubly unbearable. Also they begin with
no sort of preparation, either hereditary or acquired.
Nature simply despises people who come to her as
a last resort and try to squeeze a living from her,
or otherwise harry her. She must be wooed under-
standingly, like any high-spirited woman, not bullied,
for she has a capricious temper, and is at once a
spendthrift and an economist.

Why, then, should any one expect by a mere
" declaration of intention " and a railway journey
to conquer the country and learn the secrets of the
life it offers, in perhaps a single season ? And why
should one expect to lead a satisfactory country life
upon a cheap basis that would not maintain life else-
where ?

"But," again hints my "Boke of the Garden," "what
has this tirade to do with gardeners ? " Everything,
dear, patient, unresisting confidant, — everything. It
is these experimentalists that cause bad service both
hi and out of doors, and by putting up with incom-
petence, encourage it.

Ill

CONCERNING GARDENERS

(IN PARTICULAR)

October 27. To return to the procession of gar-
deners who have crossed my path either directly
or indirectly, by pouring their woes into father's
sympathetic ear, he being a sort of confessor, labour-
bureau, and first aid to the mentally and financially,
as well as to the physically, injured of a fifteen-mile
circuit, comprising open country villages and a fac-
tory town, — my knowledge of them is based upon
stern fact.

The most usual and really least offensive of the
group may be found abundantly in England also.
They are the old men who have drifted through
feebleness to drink, and think that gardening is
merely a gentle disturbing of the soil and a tying
up of vines in the opposite direction to which they
desire to go, like the usual unqualified curate's idea
of the ministry.

Second to these, are the young men with weak
38

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 39

lungs for whom outdoor work has been advised, who
are naturally depressed and must not be expected
to turn over the soil more than half a spade's depth.
These we also pity. But we wholly fail to appreciate
the services of the next grade — the natural fools,
whose relatives steer them into gardening as a fitting
occupation. These three classes may be excused
as unfortunates not wholly responsible for the dis-
appointments they cause.

The most trying type of all, however, is the one
that I found here on my return, — the know-it-all in-
dividual who, after spending a few months in potting
cuttings for a florist, and mowing dooryards, adver-
tises, " Wanted, a position by a graduate gardener,
to take entire charge of a gentleman's place. Can
milk." He doesn't say will milk, mind you ! Oh,
if unsophisticated folk only realized the tragedy con-
centrated in those two words, Can milk !

Once arrived, he assumes the dignity of a profes-
sional, and considers himself as far above the mere
labourer who cheerfully spits on his hands and
wields the spade, as our present housemaid, — a
young Irish-American whom father has with diffi-
culty coaxed from the factory work that was killing
her "to accommodate," and who is betrothed to a
factory youth, whom she marries at Christmas, and

40 THE GARDEN OF A

whose mother owns "rale" estate, — feels above the
usual rank and file of " livin'-out girls."

The caste spirit among the American working
classes ? Most assuredly, quite as absurd and
strictly drawn as among their employers. Neither
are we as a family quite what we should be in this
housemaid's eyes, I gathered from a conversation
that took place between her and Martha Corkle, as
we belong to the working class, for do not both father
and Evan work for a living ?

One learns much in two years of absence from
home and country, much that is not realized until the
return. Theoretically we are free and equal. In
reality we are often bondsmen and not to our real
or fancied superiors, but to our servants. Perhaps,
however, when we are better educated to command,
the fetters will be broken.

One thing we must always lack, now that slave
days are past, and that is one of the great benefits of
ancestry — the hereditary servitor. In the old coun-
tries, especially England, that is the inspiration as
well as the despair of those who have lived in one of
its home gardens and hope ever to equal it here on a
similar financial basis — hereditary outdoor labour is
as honourable as any profession that descends from
father to son. The gardener has probably pottered

COMMUTER'S WIFE 41

about the place from the time he was a chubby
cheeked boy earning his first thri'penny bit by
washing flower-pots, served an apprenticeship of
experience, until in old age his trembling fingers can
hardly hold the sprays of apricots that he strives to
fasten against the wall which alone draws the heat
necessary to ripen them. Unconsciously he knows
the soil, he knows the spots that the sun warms
earliest in spring, he knows the borders that catch
the drip of winter rains, in what corners mildew
flourishes, and which is the chief resort of the perva-
sive earwig, and all the other capabilities and short-
comings of the ground intrusted to him, be it large
or small, as the physician knows the constitution of a
patient that he has tended from birth. But to have
this type of servitor, he must be inherited with the
garden, and this implies the law of entail. What
will you have ? My previous decision about gar-
deners in general, and our present incumbent espe-
cially, was confirmed by the dumping of that great
load of sand in the wrong place at a time when a
day's delay in planting the bulbs might have
brought frost to lock the ground until spring. You
may argue that a few days' delay is a small thing,
but that proves that you were not born to the soil.
I had said to Chris, the gardener, "Go over to the

42 THE GARDEN OF A

river for the sand, and when you return, call me, and
I will show you where to spread it." Instead, the
man, a Swedish youth, a hospital protege of father's,
who was of the class that had once potted endless
cuttings in a mechanical way while he thought of
everything else than his work, drove in by the lower
gate and scattered the sand over two strips that are
to be shrubberies, simply because, as he said, in
grudging explanation, he " thought nice beds of
tulips in stripes would look good dere, and be more
best dan vere you dink to put them." The bugle
call of revolt has sounded, but in a novel and unusual
way ; the commuter's wife arises mentally against the
"gardener," instead of vice versa, and his downfall
will be swift.

It took the rest of the day to sweep up the sand
and get another load. Meanwhile, Chris worked in
a huff, as if a deep affront had been put upon him.

I could see by the hard, caked condition of the
soil in the old flower beds, by the long walk, and in
the vegetable garden generally, that it had not been
deeply and properly stirred all summer. But when I
asked him to fork up the ground thoroughly between
the roots of some of mother's hardy plants, he
replied : —

" It is not best. In my country we do not so.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 43

Stiff ground on top, he keep out both heat and
cold."

A similar request to rake a mass of chickweed off a
bed, instead of digging it in, brought the rejoinder:— •

" It is time wasted. The winter, he will kill it,"
while every one knows that in most places this weed
blooms at intervals in all months but perhaps two,
and flourishes mightily.

In despair, I went to father and asked him who had
given the man directions the eighteen months of his
stay, where he came from, who recommended him,
and whether he understood that I was to be obeyed ?

Father appeared rather embarrassed for a man
with surgical nerve, to retain which, perhaps, he has
always been an avoider of domestic flurries. Then
the end of his nose twitched as it does when he is
cornered and wants to laugh, which he finally did as
he said : —

" Chris was employed by a florist over in town, cut
his hand, got blood poisoning, and turned up at the
hospital. He seemed intelligent and a great reader.
Why, really, Barbara, the first morning he worked
here in spring, he stopped me when he was weeding
radishes, and asked me if I liked Ibsen, saying he did
not, 'because he takes the hope from man.' I'm
sure, Bab, that showed discernment. And then, he

44 THE GARDEN OF A

really prefers well-printed books to cheap affairs with
paper covers, and quite appreciated the green morocco
bindings on my Bacon's works. I haven't told you
that last winter I secured a copy of that 1753 folio
edition, in three volumes, with the Vertue portrait,

that I missed through irresolution at the sale,

though I could not have it bound until after your
Aunt Lot's marriage.

" He is all eagerness, too, about a course of read-
ing I had planned for him this winter, even hoping
for early frost, so that he may begin."

"Early frost is one thing he cannot be allowed
to have, for I want open ground for a month to
come," I said, hardly able to keep my face straight.

Dear old dad was terribly in earnest, and so
easily imposed upon, and this wretch had keenly
scented out his chief foible. It also made my
heart ache to think of father's home loneliness
during those two years, when he had no one to
appreciate his treasures but a gardener. Book
collecting up to a certain point is a secretive occu-
pation, but something in the pleasure is lacking if
there is no chance to display the latest purchase
in a nonchalant way to the gaze of some one who
knows its value.

" He may be discerning," I said, after steadying

COMMUTER'S WIFE 45

myself ; " in fact, too much so for our needs, but not
in gardening. You weren't thinking of employing
him to catalogue your books, I suppose ? " I ventured.

Then father laughed heartily to cover a certain
confusion that told me plainly that he entertained
Quixotic views of Chris's capabilities of education,
and stammered : —

" My dear, he can write like copper plate ! "

" Were the vegetables good last summer ? " I
continued frostily. " There seems to be very little
over in the root cellar."

" No, not very, but — er, you see it was first dry
and then wet — quite wet."

" Why have the grape vines been allowed to tumble
off the arbour and lie on the ground ? "

"Chris said the string I bought was poor."

"Why isn't the celery banked yet?"

"He says the new way is to let it get a touch
of frost firi;t."

"Is he cheap?"

"Barbara, my child, you know I never beat
down the price of labour."

"Of what use is Chris?"

"He has some good points, and — er — we must
have some one, for Tim has all he can do to fol-
low me about and keep horses and stable in trim."

46 THE GARDEN OF A

" Mother was her own gardener, and I want to
follow her as closely as I may and yet be quite
myself," I said gently.

"Then all will be well, indeed," said father, a
load seeming to slip from his shoulders, " for after
all I believe that I must have let Chris go," he
continued, a suspicious twinkle in his eyes, "for he
told me yesterday that you do not appreciate him,
and that sympathy is more to him than wages.
He announced that he can ' go to the big house
on the bluff where folks never interfere with the
gardener.' Though, come to think of it, his
remarks were hardly consistent, for ' letting alone '
is not sympathy, and I believe he mentioned that
they offered wages which were really fabulous.

" Still, I am afraid you'll be disappointed. You
are so eager to block out your garden and plant all
those bulbs before frost, and Evan is too busy in
getting settled at his work to do more than give you
advice. I fear you are undertaking too much, and
you will have no time left for enjoyment."

"Not a bit, and nothing could suit me better.
Now, you dear old father, please pay me every
month the wages that you paid Chris and — you
shall see — well, either something or nothing. You
may not notice the difference at first, but you will

COMMUTER'S WIFE 47

soon. Oh, daddy, daddy, I don't believe, after all
these years even, you know exactly how I love
flowers and all the things that made the old home,
which are increased tenfold in the new. Evan does,
and that is the wonder of it, and the reason why he
is content to take up this life and help to make it
surer for me every day. The thought of what it all
means for the years to come goes singing through
my head even when I'm asleep. I want to do the
things, not have them done for me. You know you
always preach that babies brought up by servants
and led in after dinner are not at all the same things,
nor as lovable, as those cuddled and nursed by their
mothers. And it's the same way with a garden.

" Of course I must have an animated shovel in the
person of a useful man, maybe a boy to do weeding
in the growing season ; and that reminds me that I
must ask Tim if he can't find me a man for to-mor-
row. We'll give Chris the rest of his month's wages
and let him go, won*t we, dear? for he is as im-
possible to gardening as a bump in a shoe to walk-
ing. And you need not have qualms, for he has
really dismissed himself."

" Perhaps there is some one about the hospital I
could get," suggested father.

"Daddy, dear," I begged, putting both arms

48 THE GARDEN OF A

around his neck, and looking him in the eyes until
our noses met, a trick of childhood, to fix his atten-
tion, "I'm the same Barbara as ever, but my eyes
have seen and I've learned a few new things. I will
sew for the hospital, grow flowers and vegetables for
it, visit it, bring the poor convalescents over here to
sit in the sun, grow white flowers for those who
never go home, and give it a great deal more of
your time than I want to spare, but please, please,
let wages be wages, and charity, charity. The two
are harder to mix properly than mayonnaise in hot
weather. Don't you remember, dearest, what times
we have had with the people that you have tried to
serve without putting them under obligation, by let-
ting them think they were aiding you, while it usu-
ally ended, after much discomfort, in our being
considered under obligation ? People that were not
ill enough for the hospital, and yet needed tinkering.
I don't think I was troubled by it at the time, but I
observed, and the facts must have stowed themselves
away somewhere in my brain ; for since I have been
a wife, and the domestic side of me is developing, I
partly realize Aunt Lot's dilemmas, and the whole
fantastic crowd flit in front of me, exhibiting their
infirmities as if in warning.

" There was the man with the rheumatism who

COMMUTER'S WIFE 49

thought he could care for cows because he had
driven a milk wagon. The first thing he did was
to dump a load of windfall apples into the corner
of the pasture, so that when Black Bess, who was
always greedy, came home that night, she did not
lead as usual, and her ears hung down and she
leaned against the gate, she was so intoxicated from
the cider the fermented apples had made in her
sto'mach. Then you had to fuss over her all night,
and her milk dried up.

" Surely you remember the winter that Aunt Lot
struggled with the cook who had a lame knee and
couldn't go down cellar, and the waitress who had
vertigo and couldn't take the dishes down from
the top pantry-shelf without dropping them. Then
the next cook couldn't even wash her dish-towels,
because it hurt her to bend her liver, and when
the washing was^ all put out, expected higher wages
than if she had been able to do it."

"But Tim came to us through the hospital,"
said father, brightening as he caught at this plank
in a whirlpool of disasters, "and surely we could
not do without him."

"No, Tim is the exception to the rule. In the
face of experience even, we should never dream of
parting from him or he from us, I firmly believe."

50 THE GARDEN OF A

Tim, Tim'thy Saunders, or Crumpled Tim, as he
is locally called on account of his curious body,
which, owing to a railway smash-up, without being
absolutely hump-backed, looks as if a giant had
taken him in his hand and literally "crumpled"
him up, is a Scotchman, with a keen, not over-
suave tongue, a sharp eye, and as honest a heart
in his crooked body as ever beat. He has lived
with father ever since I was little enough to call
him my camel and think that being given a ride
on his hunched shoulders was the finest sport in
the world.

Now, happily for me, Evan and Tim had formed
an odd friendship early in our courtship, based on
national loyalty, so that neither could do wrong
in the eyes of the other. This was providential
and promised to make the " commuting " side of
the daily life smooth, for Tim will never grumble
at the extra horse, or if he has upon occasion to
drive Evan to an earlier train than usual; while
Evan seems fully prepared to take the blame upon
himself instead of scolding Tim if they fail to catch
it, which mischance of course may happen. Now,
in addition, Martha Corkle, egged on by reasons of
family and national pride, had served a good break-
fast to the minute of promptness during this, as

COMMUTER'S WIFE 51

we call it, "commencement week," so that the
rocks of which neighbours are already so kindly
warning us, me at home and Evan on the cars,
have not appeared in the road. In fact, I've a
glimmering idea that it is because we commuters
and others hold our servants responsible for bridg-
ing certain inconveniences of living instead of ac-
knowledging them and bearing the responsibility
ourselves, that makes domestic service such a vexed
question in America. Personally I do not know
of but a single family of all my acquaintances with
whom, were I a servant, I would be willing to live,
and I'm not yet sure that I would live with myself ;
but I shall probably decide this when the anni-
versary of my return comes around.

In short, at present I feel at perfect liberty to
give myself to the garden, body and brain. I
think my soul always stays outdoors except at
night, when it watches my sleeping body.

After a few moments' silence, during which each
of us did some thinking, father said, "How would
you like a married man with a family as — well,
to please you I won't call him a gardener, but a
' general useful ' ? You know there are four or five
good living-rooms that were once used, over the
carriage-house. Perhaps a married man would have

52 GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

more ambition, and certainly more experience, and
his wife also might be occasionally useful."

"To a married man I have no possible objec-
tion, but to having his family on the place, no, if
you please. There are doubtless very competent
married men and women, but they are rarely mar-
ried to each other. Oh, father, do you remember
the last time those rooms were occupied? You
surely haven't forgotten Peter Schmidt?"

" No ; for though he insisted on straight lines,
worshipped cabbages, and slighted the flowers, he
was the most faithful worker we ever had or ever
shall have," he replied, very significantly.

" I beg pardon. I should have said, do you
remember, Mrs. Peter Schmidt," I hastened to
add.

At this, father laughed until the tears came to
his eyes, though there was a time when it was not
considered a laughing matter, and fled to his gig,
which Tim was driving around from the stable. I
following to bespeak for the next morning the man
with the shovel, — who, by the way, is an infinitely
superior grade of being to the "man with the
hoe," who merely walks slowly along, shuffling his
inefficient tool.

IV

THE AMERICANIZING OF PETER
SCHMIDT

October 28. Tim promises to furnish an "effee-
cient mon" for me, but holds out no hope that it
will be by to-morrow, asking at the same time if
I prefer a foreigner, an American born, or natural-
ized. I replied that it is immaterial which, if the
man is capable in addition to being honest and
temperate. Chris had the two latter qualifications,
but they seemed rather to sap his vitality than to
be of any special advantage. Peter Schmidt, dear
old fellow, was honest, sober, and capable as
well ; but the methods his wife took to transform
and coerce his plodding, peasant mind and body
into what she considered an American, were the
cause of his downfall.

As to securing the services of a good native for
manual labour, it is quite out of the question in a
part of the country where the social centre is a
combination of factory and market town. There
are men who will " accommodate " for a few days
53

54 THE GARDEN OF A

or a week at ploughing, haying, or raking, but to
take a regular place for regular pay would be to
become the male equivalent of the " livin'-out girl,"
and socially degrading to one owning a makeshift
house and a few acres of land. So, without trade
training, the native "chores" about at painting,
carpentering, raising a few vegetables, or letting
the shingles fall from his roofs and the land run
out until the elder children are old enough to work
in a factory, when they all move " over town," and
some old country peasant, either Celt, Dane, Pole,
or Hun, buys the place of the mortgagee, and begins
to pull it together on a wholly different plane.

It was on the first day of November and my
fourteenth birthday that Peter Schmidt and family
came to live with us. I was sitting on the pasture
fence cracking butternuts, which finger-dyeing occu-
pation so absorbed me that I did not hear approach-
ing footsteps, and was therefore startled by a voice
that asked in slow and inverted sentences, if the
" honoured doctor " lived near by.

Looking up, I saw a strange procession that
halted as the man, its leader, spoke. This man
was perhaps forty, though he might have been
either older or younger. His bent shoulders and
warped legs indicated the former age, while his

COMMUTER'S WIFE 55

fresh complexion and wide-open though expression-
less clear blue eyes, the latter. He was dressed
in typical ill-fitting shabby store clothes, but his
stout square boots and cap with a peaked visor
were evidently of foreign make.

Behind him was a woman a full head taller, thin,
long-armed, and bent about the shoulders. She
had dark hair and eyes, with the complexion and
the flat features which, when they appear in people
of the north countries of Europe, give either the
appearance of sadness or sulkiness. This woman's
expression was compounded of both. She did not
speak, but pulled her shawl together and stooped
to chide a little tow-haired boy of five or six who
was tugging at her hand. Behind the woman in
turn followed two girls of ten and twelve, swarthy
and flat featured as their mother, like whom they
were dressed in a clumsy way that had withal a
certain peasant picturesqueness.

While I was talking to the man, a small one-horse
wagon, of the pattern used by vegetable venders
in the town, rounded the corner ; in it were a few
very plain articles of household furniture, a large
bundle, doubtless containing the family feather bed,
and several small parcels neatly tied.

This was Peter Schmidt, his family, and posses-

56 THE GARDEN OF A

sions, coming by father's directions to be our
"gardener." He lived with us eight years before
his duties as an American citizen led him to seek
the more elevated position offered by a shoeshop.

When father told us Peter Schmidt's history,
Aunt Lot was stirred with practical pity, and,
always eager for any occupation that implied
house-cleaning, giving advice, or regulating other
people's affairs, instantly began to overturn the
attic for old furniture and such garments of ours
as might have escaped the general demand of those
who, coming to the hospital in rags, had even less
to wear on leaving.

In a couple of days the living-rooms over the
stable were resplendent, owing to a combination of
energy on the part of the Schmidt family themselves
in whitewashing, scrubbing, and window-washing, in
which even the small boy joined, the girls giving
deep-drawn " oh's " and " ah's " of admiration.
While the following Christmas the whole family
came into the hall before breakfast to give us the
season's greeting, each laden with a fat wreath made
of ground pine, that they had walked two miles to
the woods to gather, giving them as tokens of thank-
fulness that " we now hass a home," as Mrs. Schmidt
said through tears that told of dark days.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 57

Father was exultant. Here at last was the
gratitude and appreciation that had too seldom
crowned his efforts to better his fellows.

Little by little, Peter told father of his past. It
seemed that since coming to this country sixteen
years before, either ill luck or an unseasonable
desire to better themselves, which really amounts to
the same thing, had kept them on the move. Their
very home-leaving had been ill judged, unpropitious,
and hurried, that Peter might escape army service
which would necessarily delay the early marriage
upon which Karen was set, she then being a fellow-
worker with him on a milk and cheese farm.

Peter? Oh, Peter had at that time evidently
looked stoically upon matrimony as an estate not to
be entered hurriedly ; he would have preferred to go
alone to America, establish himself, and then send
for Karen. He already had the responsibility of
partially providing for his old mother, a widow who
still lived in a couple of rooms by the windmill
where his father had worked. As he said, " she was
homesick away from the sound of the sails going
round," and " I too," he added, " think no sound
can be made so fine as when the sails and the wind
struggle together and there is much wheat to grind."
Peter was a Hollander who loved his country in a

58 THE GARDEN OF A

patient, sluggish way, and would have preferred,
father thought, to have remained there all his days,
army service and all.

There are many ways of loving one's country, it
seems, as in other loves, the mental and the physical,
and his was love of the absolute ground, and had no
mental pride or consciousness. He had not the
faintest conception of the Netherlands' rise and
history ; the Spanish wars were as foreign to him as
the deluge ; his pride was not of the country's power
in commerce or art. He might have heard mention
of the names Rembrandt, van Dyck, Frans Hals,
Plantin, but they meant nothing, though he had
lived within a few hours' walk of Amsterdam and its
wonderful Rix Museum. His plodding mind waded
in the rich black soil that the plough turned over,
never rising above the bearded barley that grew
from it. He found greater beauty in the straight,
sluggish canals than in all the rushing, forest-banked
rivers in the world. He could not think quickly or
hurry, and the soil, was it not always there, at once
tangible and immovable, the one thing in which he
seemed to have full confidence ? In short, he was
peasant to the core, intelligently and contentedly
so. What a pity that he should be dragged away
and awakened, for of such is the strength of the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 59

earth. Surely there is often something sad about
ambition.

What if the earth that grows the wheat, the
bread of the world, should insist that it was a finer
destiny to fill the flower pots that hold the plants in
a conservatory ?

Once in America, the Schmidts had at first worked
here and there until money enough was obtained to
carry them West to take up a farm hold. This
proved a failure, owing to the fact that Peter did
not understand the difference of methods, climate,
etc., and also lacked means to live while the land
was being improved and the first crop gathered.
After ten or twelve years of struggling, privation,
and chance work for others, they drifted slowly east-
ward, eight children having been born to them, of
whom, owing to hardship and the fevers of new
countries, only four were living. Karen had then
worked out by the day in the factory town, taking
her baby with her and putting it to sleep in a clothes-
basket or any convenient nook, while she washed
and scrubbed. At last it also died, and then she
broke down completely and went to the hospital,
where father found her, and when her weary body
was rested and repaired he sent the family out
here.

60 THE GARDEN OF A

As Peter's work was chiefly with the soil, he was
content, the fruit and vegetables throve, the flowers
languished. As Aunt Lot kept but one maid,
Karen often helped us in emergencies, for a woman
likes to have a little pin money. In those days she
was always begging to do some little task in return
for the many ways in which we aided her, and Aunt
Lot took great pains in showing her how to cut and
fashion over my clothes for the girls, as I was at
least two sizes taller than either. How glad I am
that I am fairly tall and quite slender ; it is so con-
venient to be able to have a long reach in tying up
vines, and then there is so much stooping to be done
in gardening, and if one is stout, the flesh must
always interfere like an impediment in a door-
hinge.

During four years, agriculturally speaking, we had
a time of peace and prosperity. Peter's ideas as to
beauty were not mine, but he was devoted to his
children, and the boy, his father's counterpart, was
much with him as he worked. The hay was cut
and cured as carefully as if the welfare of the
nation depended on it. The vegetables were rowed
up like soldiers on parade, and the grass edges were
faujtless. It was Peter who suggested tilling an
unused field and growing potatoes and winter vege-

COMMUTER'S WIFE 61

tables to help out the scanty resources of the hospi-
tal. Peter was slow, but oh, so reliable ! True, he
would insist upon shearing the roses and shrubs out
of all identity, like so many cropped heads, and the
most awful foliage beds were developed in his reign.
But I think, as I now look back, Aunt Lot aided and
abetted him. Also two gray drain tiles used as
vases and filled with sad lilac petunias appeared like
sentinels on either side of the walk from the road to
the porch. I protested, but Aunt Lot said that Mrs.
Schmidt suggested them and thought them grand,
and it might hurt her feelings to remove them.

With my new vision I see that was a fatal mis-
take ; where service is concerned, when we hesitate
to protect our own rights, the dynasty will soon
crumble.

Father revelled in the man's wholesome enjoyment
of the earth, and of the mere planting and tilling.
"We need such labourers," he often used to say as
he watched Peter at work, — " labourers for the wide
field and the great crop ; such men have made the
West. Our difficulty is that our Eastern labour is
too small and detailed, and we scorn plodding peasant
toil.

" I must tell Peter the opportunities of his class for
new world citizenship."

62 THE GARDEN OF A

Alas, how citizenship and the way it is regarded
depends on those whose opinions first tinge the vision
of the immigrant, as well as upon the calibre of the
woman he marries. Sometimes when I think how
far wives often unconsciously warp the husband's
point of view, and cramp his worldly attitude, it
makes me shiver with fear of the responsibility.

Father ralked to Peter, good wise talk, and in
course of time he took out his naturalization papers.
Karen also, who was far more alert than her hus-
band, was a perpetual influence goading him to " be
American," but for different reasons.

She had made a friend in the village, a woman who
twenty years before, owing to a pertly pretty face,
had married far above her station. In consequence
her tongue had been since sharpened on the grind-
stone of snubbing until she had become a sort of
village firebrand whom few could touch and escape a
scorching.

This woman was Karen's instructor in the language
of liberty which, according to her reading, was anar-
chy, and it was from her standpoint and with her
precepts that Karen goaded Peter to "be American."

In the fifth year a change was perceptible, not yet
in the man, but in the woman of the household. Per-
haps I should say women, for Marie and Trina (short

COMMUTER'S WIFE 63

for Katrina) were fifteen and seventeen — no longer
children, but domestic factors.

Karen had constantly begged Aunt Lot that when
Trina was old enough, she should be taken into the
household. So as she was now a well-grown girl,
Aunt Lot suggested that the time had come, only to
be surprised by the reply, " Trina has no mind to be
livin'-out girl ; she wish to get ' edication.' "

Aunt Lot was rather nettled at Karen's tone, but
father said education was a worthy desire, that he
would talk over the matter with the Schmidts, and see
what tastes the girls had, and try to advise them as
to the best channel.

He returned from the interview somewhat per-
turbed, finding that Karen's idea of education was
purely superficial, being to learn as little as possible
of something to get into a store or become a type-
writer, anything in short, to escape the stigma of
" livin' out," which she in some unaccountable way
had come to regard as akin to a crime. While, on
talking to the girls, he found that they were of the
hopeless, shiftless order, scarcely knowing on which
finger to place a thimble, about all they had learned
at the local public school being a desire to seem,
rather than the industry to be.

Then a demon entered the family, or perhaps it

64 THE GARDEN OF A

might better be called a microbe, as they came in
fashion about that time. It should have been bottled
and labelled "The social importance of clothes," a
disease as deadly as appendicitis and more prevalent.

Karen had, up to this time, lived much to herself,
dressing neatly but in the old world simplicity of her
class that well suited her ; for those whose gait has
been formed by the swinging of the wooden shoes
and the shoulders shaped by the milk-yoke, had best
beware of high heels and the fantastic fashions
descended from the French through the interpreta-
tion of a factory town. One day Trina appeared in
a new but flimsy coat, the week after one of mine,
nicely cleaned and freshened with new collar and
cuffs, had been given her ; then Aunt Lot, thinking
some accident had befallen the garment, made
inquiry.

Karen's face took a threatening, sullen expression
that quite frightened Aunt Lot, while her black eyes
snapped, as she blurted out, " Trina have it slappit
at her in school dat her coat vas ole clothes and de
cuffs put on to make longer de sleeves. She cry
vith shame, and she shall not bear such."

Father insisted that Aunt Lot could not have
understood and that such nonsense was impossible,
but a little later on he was somewhat taken aback

COMMUTER'S WIFE 65

by Karen's asking him to have a new front door put
to their apartments, because in going in the present
door the kitchen was seen in reaching the parlour.

Aunt Lot always insisted that father was to blame
for yielding the point, but that is neither here nor
there.

Callers began to drop in at the Schmidts' at all
times of day, wash days and all, in direct defiance
of country custom, and we often noticed that Peter,
instead of sitting down to a hot meal, carried his
dinner outside and ate it alone in one of the sheds,
or, in warm weather, under a tree.

Next I discovered that the callers were people for
whom Karen was doing cheap dressmaking in order
to obtain more money to "live like Americans."
Lace curtains appeared in the windows in due course,
and before long a parlour organ was bought and
squeezed in at the new front door, though not one
of the family could as much as whistle a tune.

Peter worked steadily on, growing more silent day
by day, and clinging closer to the companionship of
the little boy, who was merry as ever. Once father
asked Peter the cause of the change in his home life
and if he was content. But he only looked from
right to left like a dumb animal in pain, and did not
answer. One October night, shortly after this, as

66 THE GARDEN OF A

father was fastening his horse in the stable he heard
loud talking in shrill feminine accents. The voice
said in English, the home language now having been
dropped as an undesirable reminder of the past,
" Veil, if you don't tink I keeps tings right and cooks
to suit, den I can do vitout you altogeder. I vill
take the childrens avay and keep bourders, and I can
do many oder tings and have no need of you. Dis
besides, I vill see to it you shall send no more of your
vages to dat old voman who liked not me. Let
oder peoples keep her."

The " old woman " was Peter's mother, to whom he
sent the tiny stipend that kept her from being a
public charge. Karen somehow did manage to
stop the next remittances, and later it was rumoured
about by a fellow-countryman that the mother had
died in the Dutch equivalent of the Poor House.

Then Peter staid outdoors except absolutely at
night, scarcely tasting his cold, unpalatable food, and
the crisis came rapidly.

In a few days, owing to an emergency, Aunt Lot
asked Mrs. Schmidt to do a little washing for pay,
of course, as usual. She was always paid as if she
had been a wholly outside worker. The response
was a curt refusal owing to the fact that she was
making Trina a new dress for "a big dance over

COMMUTER'S WIFE 67

town," but under her breath Aunt Lot averred she
heard her say, " I'm no servant. Peter, he a fool to
vork for the doctor, but I'm not hired, too." Aunt
Lot did not tell father of this, for.it was quite enough
to take up things said aloud, that could not be
passed as unheard.

Mrs. Schmidt, though unconsciously, at last took
the fatal step and threw aside the protection of caste
to assume social responsibility by giving a party far
beyond her means, or rather, the Misses Schmidt gave
it. " Socials " and dances were of frequent occurrence
in the fall and winter months among the foreign
farming element, but none of this class were asked,
being now scorned by Karen as " pisans, vit no
ambishun." Classmates of both sexes from the
public school and the Lutheran Sunday-school were
alone chosen for this function which Karen's evil
genius argued would place the girls on a footing
in the local country society. Marie was now em-
ployed in a flashy millinery store in the town where
her wages, called by her "salary," barely paid for
her shoes and her car fare.

Of course the firebrand who had for the past two
years guided the family affairs was mistress of
ceremonies. People came to and fro, and I found
myself almost avoiding going about the garden, for

68 THE GARDEN OF A

fear of appearing intrusive, so completely we were
enthralled, and so uncomfortable had the condition of
affairs become. That very morning Tim had given
a roundabout warning that if his stable precincts
were daily interfered with by the Schmidt women
there was no use in his trying to do his work.

During the afternoon there was much hammer-
ing at the stable, to which Aunt Lot called father's
attention, but he merely laughed, and said he sup-
posed they were decorating. We wondered ; for
the rooms, though comfortable and ample for dwell-
ing purposes, were hardly suitable for a ball.

But when he returned at midnight, after a long
drive across the hills in a pouring rain that had
set in at dark, and discovered there was no place
where he could get under cover, he was angry
indeed. The vehicles from the carriage house were
standing out under the trees, carelessly covered from
the wet, while a somewhat dreary and spiritless
dance was going on in that building to the music
of harp and fiddle, the participants being chiefly an
undesirable class of factory hands, asked because
others had declined, and a few young people of
the neighbourhood who, evidently having come
from a kindly schoolmate feeling, looked conscious
and out of place. Father rang the stable bell for

COMMUTER'S WIFE 69

Tim with a clang that startled us even in the
house, and when Tim ran out, white and scared,
pointed to the horse and chaise, and strode in with
the rare stern look on his face.

For an hour father and Aunt Lot talked, recall-
ing the various omissions that had finally culmi-
nated into absolute defiance, and decided justly that
whatever influence had changed the once crouch-
ing, humble woman, she certainly now completely
dominated the man. That they could no longer
live on the place was decided then and there, but
father argued that if work and residence were sepa-
rated, all might yet be well. Aunt Lot thought
differently, and yet she too pitied Peter, who,
though helpless to throw off the present condition,
was personally a valuable servant.

Father decided that in the morning he would have
a talk with Peter, and he went to bed dreading the
ordeal more than the severest surgical operation.
His temperament was not to wound except to the
better heal. In this case the result seemed dubious,
and to inflict or allow needless pain was a crime
in his eyes.

We had not finished breakfast before Aunt Lot
was very unnecessarily reminding father of the
duty before him and of everything he must say,

70 THE GARDEN OF A

when a knock sounded at the front door. This
almost immediately opened, and in walked Peter,
followed by his wife.

Father afterward said that he thought at first
they had come to make some explanation, but a
glance told me otherwise.

Peter had evidently been slowly and persistently
worked up to a terrible still-white heat which almost
made him believe himself wronged, and Karen, her
eyes glistening, and her head darting forward from
her bent shoulders like a flat-headed adder, kept
goading him, allowing him no time for thought or
retreat, though his frank wording of the grievance
was not what she would have had it.

"Ve move avay," he gasped without preamble
and looking at no one. " Not much people came to
de barty, and my girls have it slappit at dem dat
dey are no better dan pigs to live in vit a stable.
Yes, ve move avay to-morrow, mein Gott, to-day
even."

Father replied quietly, looking only at Peter, that
it was exactly the thing he was about to propose, and
that Peter might take a few days to rearrange his
affairs before continuing the fall ploughing.

" Ploughing ! Ploughing iss it ? " shrieked Karen,
stung to added fury by being completely ignored, and

COMMUTER'S WIFE 71

by the fact that the failure of her social hopes had
been openly confessed. " He vorks no more and he
ploughs no more for you. No more vill he be a
servant to any man, nor vill I. He is American
citizen already, next month he vote. But for you are
ritsh " (what a hiss she put into the word !) " he can
have as much say in dis place as you !

" Yes, and you tread us down ; you make us to live
in a stable and bring disgrace on my girls, so they be
slappit at, and dat vomans dere " (pointing her finger
at poor trembling Aunt Lot) " she tink I'm a servant
vomans too, and last week even she dare ask me to
do a vash.

" But dere are folks so much ritsher dan you dat
you are nobody. You tink you can keep down de
pcor in stables like dey do in de ole country, but you
canno: — .annot, mein Gott. Peter, he vill vork in a
shop and be no more livin'-out mans, to shame his
girls." Then she shook her bony fist almost under
Aunt Lot's nose as father stepped between. How
they went out none of us knew. My next recol-
lection was seeing father go to his medicine closet,
pour whiskey into a glass with a trembling hand, and
without adding water hold it to Aunt Lot's lips, and
as she took a sip and choked feebly, he swallowed
the rest, went into his office and closed the door,

72 THE GARDEN OF A

while she began to cry softly, saying between
sniffs : —

" So — many — years — furniture — clothes — milk,
vegetables — took — care — of — them — measles —
whooping-cough — that good carpet good as new
— that front door — never will — we never will trust
anybody again ! "

But of course we shall, you know !

Thus Peter Schmidt passed from the open fields to
the shoeshop.

On election day father saw him at the polls. In
the evening when driving in the moonlight past some
land that Peter had ploughed deep and left in great
furrows for the frost to sweeten, father saw a strange
object on the ground. Stopping, he crossed the road
to see if it was some creature or merely a shadow.

It was Peter stretched in a fresh furrow, his head
buried in his arms, his whole body shaken by sobs,
while crouching trembling by the wall was the little
boy.

Report reached us that late the same night Peter,
mingling with his new comrades of the shop, was half
urged, half forced to drink with them to honour his
first vote. The rank liquor was strange to him, he
became deeply drunk, and half led, half dragged, he
was left upon his doorstep.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 73

This is why the living-rooms at the stable have
remained unoccupied and why I prefer that they
shall be so unless, well, unless Crumpled Tim takes a
bride.

Yes, I know, I suppose that I shall yet be disap-
pointed in Tim after all these years, and that his
queer nubby feet will prove to be cloven. But if
Sisyphus was so persistent in rolling a stone up hill,
why shouldn't we be equally patient in keeping our
opinion of human nature on the up grade ?

V

A RAINY DAY

MORNING

October 31 (morning). Three days' delay, but
Chris has gone, and October wearing goloshes is
quietly plodding down the road to the rhythmical
patter of steady rain.

Tim has secured a " general useful " with a round,
cheerful countenance and an excellent personal ref-
erence from the next town. In fact, Bertie the
newcomer, in addition to knowing which end of the
shovel belongs in his hand and which in the ground,
professes to be able to mend tools and tinker about
in a truly encouraging fashion, having in fact
brought a well-equipped tool chest with him. Even
now on the day of his advent, I can hear him pound-
ing away in the little tool house that holds the
garden necessities, after the manner of a thrifty
man who uses rainy days for tool-mending and such-
like work.

It is very necessary that the "general useful"
74

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 75

should be able to use hammer, saw, and glass
cutter, as well as rake and spade, or the commuter
in whose garden he digs will be buried by an autum-
nal leaf fall of small bills, more deeply than were
the babes in the wood by the well-intentioned
robins.

Chris the literary seems to have massacred the
old garden implements and cremated their remains,
for of whole tools there are next to none, while the
usual array of halt and maimed are likewise missing,
so that Evan has ordered a fresh supply, all of which
I must list in the special part of my garden book
that treats of his godmother's wedding gift of fifty
pounds for something " useful and instructive " and
what we did with it, so that we may judge, when the
account is closed, if the conditions have been com-
plied with.

Bertie is now cleaning out a jumble of broken
flower pots, old seeds, and boxes holding odds and
ends of Paris green, hellebore, and various other
compounds that bring death to bugs and sneezing
to humans; and he is also going to whitewash the
walls of the little building. One comfort about
Evan is that he not only knows exactly what he
wishes done, but is able to leave directions in such
a form that they cannot possibly be misunderstood.

76 THE GARDEN OF A

When -you live in the country and your husband
goes daily to town, you will soon recognize this trait
as akin to genius.

Already I can see the complete tool house in my
mind's eye from simply hearing Evan's directions to
Bertie. There are to be racks for holding pots
graded according to size ; wooden pegs across which
the various rakes, hoes, etc., can be laid ; hooks for
the water-pots and grass edging shears; corner
shelves for holding the measuring line (to be used
for vegetables, only I shan't allow it in the flower
garden), twine, trowel, weeders, while under these
is room for the two lawn-mowers, the wide for gen-
eral use, the narrow for borders. On the opposite
side a wide shelf either for potting, cutting, or to
hold the flower jars when I'm filling them for the
house, and above the shelf, hung between leather
loops (made of an old rein) pruning-shears, flower
scissors, a hammer, a saw, and a bag of assorted
nails and tacks are hung like articles in a dressing-
case.

Bertie JB a Dane, quite familiar with the Eng-
lish words necessary for asking and receiving direc-
tions, but fortunately not with those used either in
lengthy discussions or literary dialogues.

Evan suggests that we now have all the human

COMMUTER'S WIFE 77

material on the place necessary for spontaneous
combustion, or a race riot, and really it is an inter-
national mixture, much like the general population
and compounded by circumstances alone.

Tim, driver and stabjeman, Scotch and violently
of the Dissenting Church.

Bertie, Danish, general useful, religion probably
lacking.

Martha Corkle, cook pro tern., awaiting develop-
ments, English, aggressively of the Established
Church.

Delia, waitress and office maid, Irish- American,
violently Roman Catholic.

Elizabeth (cook until Martha's advent), laundry
and dairymaid pro tern., native and Methodist.

Martha Corkle, before whom the necessity of
tolerance of religious opinion and race was men-
tioned, came to me this morning, full of dignity
and responsibility, and said,

" Mrs. Evan " (she never accords me my last
name, that honour belonging to the portly mother of
ten and wife of our elder brother, the .vicar), " I
hope that you do not think I shall demean myself
by taking notice of opinions held in my kitchen or
outside ; that is unless things are disrespected
which are my vitals, though of course it would

78 THE GARDEN OF A

serve better for authority if they " (servants, not
vitals) "were all of the Church and came in to
prayers every morning as they used when I served
at the rectory. Then a word at all was a word
against the family as much as me, Mrs. Evan. Not
that I holds you responsible, ma'am, not at all, and I
feel for you, ma'am, for what can be done in a place
where there is no tenantry to be brought up to ser-
vice, and all the help comes from different places
and reared on disagreeing victuals, as it were? It
all seems as wild-like to me as Australia, where
my brother Joe bides, savin' the lack of those
jumpin' kangaroos, and I'm always expectin' them.
No, Mrs. Evan, on my word, I shan't contend
except for vitals, and no disrespect intended, ma'am."

How steadily it rains ! a wholesome fall storm that
the ground absorbs. Certainly gardening makes one
conscious of the great variety of ways in which the
work of moistening the soil is done. To some people
all rains are alike. In the city I have never heard
any distinction made except that of a storm or a
shower. I well remember being ill one spring at
the planting season and listening to the rain as I
lay in bed. I asked a town-bred maid whom we

COMMUTER'S WIFE 79

chanced to have, what sort of rain it was. She
looked blankly at me, then out of the window as
if hardly comprehending my meaning and replied,
"Just plain rain, miss, there isn't any thunder."
A countrywoman would have said either a grow-
ing, a cold, a washout, a spring filling, or a smart
rain, according to the facts.

I am sitting in the long, unsealed attic that is
lighted with a dormer window at either end. A
comfortable open-fronted wood stove glows away
by the chimney that fills the centre of the loft.
This has been my playroom ever since I left the
nursery and those far-away mother arms slipped
from about me. Now that I've come back I think
that I appreciate its privacy more than ever, and
keep it for a playroom still. Why may not grown-
ups have playrooms where they can throw off con-
ventionalities and restraint, be silly or only idle,
and romp either mentally or physically as they
please ? The garden of course is the best place
for these wild moods in seasonable weather, but
even then one needs an indoor retreat, a place to
lie flat on an old, unhurtable sofa, and think alter-
nately of everything and nothing, well out of the
reach of sudden callers.

What odious things callers are ! I love my friends

8o THE GARDEN OF A

dearly, but friends never call. They simply flit in,
knowing the times and seasons when you are at
liberty, or being mistaken and scenting anything
out of joint, they pat the dogs, pick up a book to
borrow, a flower to smell, and flit out again, as if
that alone was the object of their visit, leaving you
comfortable and unembarrassed. Or, finding that all
is well, they draw off gloves, unpin hat, and stay to
luncheon without forcing you through the responsi-
bility of asking them, a relief when you are dubi-
ous of the meal. Unless people have this tact they
can never really be called friends or safely asked
to come freely within the sacred home precincts.

A country doctor's daughter, like a minister's
wife, has many curious experiences in this respect,
and my time of trial has arrived.

In truth the two days' gap in my gardening op-
erations has been filled to overflowing with callers,
well-intentioned folk who would be friends if they
but knew how, people of many grades, all kindly
eager to welcome me home, and advise and ask
questions varied with remarks about Aunt Lot's
marriage and queries as to whether I didn't think
father had aged during my absence.

I had intended giving a sort of parish high tea
a little later on, bracing myself to answer questions

COMMUTER'S WIFE 81

en masse, fortified by a fine new gown and Evan to
share both admiration and criticism. Not that we
exactly enjoy this sort of thing. We should much
prefer saving up and giving them a musical after-
noon, Evan even perhaps being coaxed to play the
violin himself. But when you wish to entertain
people, you must give them what they, not what
you like, and what that is remains to be discovered.
However, this festival is still before me, while the
questions and advice have set me to thinking and
make me quite reconciled to spending this rainy
day in the comfortable fastness of the attic.

Before I went away Aunt Lot represented the
family, but now one and all, patients and neigh-
bours, recognize me as mistress of the house,
and are prepared to hold me socially responsible.
This is a great change for the young person who,
three years ago, never could be prevailed upon to
take a table at the annual fair or to make cake
for the monthly sale upon the proceeds of which
the subsistence of one of the three village ministers
depended.

I have been freely reminded of what a good cake
maker Aunt Lot was, and I'm trembling lest Martha
Corkle's confections should fall below her standard,
as I've promised three loaves, a pan of cookies,

82 THE GARDEN OF A

and a braised ham for next week's harvest-home
supper, and they must be faultless, for the supper is
for the hospital.

A school friend of my mother's, a very charming
woman, but rather a borrower of trouble, raised a
more serious point by saying that, glad as she was
to see me back, she hoped that I had not used undue
influence to take Evan from his native land, as she
thought such experiments dangerous and against
the nature of things. I'm afraid that my answer
was rather heated. It is not against nature for the
female to have the say as far as possible in choosing
the location of the home.

I am American to my finger-tips, though I fully
recognize the fascination and protective atmosphere
of old world tradition, but as the old proverb says,
"Every bird finds its own nest charming." Now,
as a matter of course, all birds'-nests are not equally
well located or built. The oriole weaves a sky cradle
moated by the free air, the cuckoo throws together
a few sticks in a bush — each to her taste. The only
bird despised and scorned of all is the outcast, the
cowbird, to whom, having none of her own, all nests
are equal and a matter of indifference. The only
being so despised is the songster without a nest to
uphold.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 83

My nest is America, Evan's England, and the
interweaving of the two makes the most logical com-
bination possible. But why should I expect Evan
to move his building materials overseas to join mine
instead of the reverse ? Because of a fact in the
law, also of the joyous republic of Birdland, to which
I would call the attention of all conscientious women
with foreign husbands. // is the female who always
chooses the nesting site. 'Nature rules that the loca-
tion of the home is of more vital importance to her
whose life is of the home, and nests are also usually
located in the region of the best food supply — there-
fore America !

Some of my guests expressed curiosity as to what
I should do for amusement in such a quiet place,
as if I had not been able to amuse myself in years
gone, and I foolishly unfolded to them in part my
garden hopes, which they straightway translated
according to their different temperaments to mean
everything from an Italian garden with terraces,
statues, a fountain, and clipped green walls to a
market garden wherein Evan was to raise cabbages
and afterward peddle them for a living. This last
notion went the rounds from the Village Gossip via

84 THE GARDEN OF A

the Village Liar to the Emporium, from whence it
was freely distributed up the road, and finally found
its way to Evan on the cars. The Emporium is not
a shop, as you might think, but a very genteel middle-
aged widow of comfortable means whose house
stands directly at the head of the village street, so
that people taking the road that branches on the
right toward the town, or on the left that goes up
through the farming region, must equally pass her
door. Thus, being in a position to hear and collect
news, she is also conveniently located for its dis-
tribution and constitutes herself local news agent,
an occupation she greatly enjoys, and quite safely,
as she keeps her own skirts clear by never guaran-
teeing her wares and always premising a bit of gos-
sip by, " I don't know if it's true, but they do say,'*
etc., etc.

I knew exactly what sort of flowers I meant to
have, though I had not as yet quite formulated
their grouping so as to explain it glibly to strangers.
I want a purely American garden, which may be
interpreted as anything and everything that will
grow in our sparkling but capricious climate; also
everything is to be in plenty — no single plants, but
great masses and jungles of flowers without bare
ground showing between.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 85

Evan has sketched me a rough map of the garden,
showing how the ground could be utilized to the
best advantage without changing its characteristics,
which were those that best harmonized with the
house. This, without being an antique, is of that
respectable no-period style of the forties, when we
began to forsake good, foreign models, and grope
for ourselves — a style that is best summed up in
the words Early American. Strange to say, his
plan does not satisfy me. It is the dearest, sunniest,
homiest house in the world, and yet to turn the acre
of ground that immediately surrounds it into the copy
of an Italian, Dutch, or old English garden would
be like enclosing it in a practical joke so cruel as to
wound its most sacred sensibilities. Quite like prof-
fering Uncle Sam himself a cardinal's hat and cloak
for daily use, or forcing him to wear his own beaver
with the uniform of a French field marshal.

" What is an American garden ? I never heard
of such a thing," asked Mrs. Jenks-Smith, the good-
natured chatelaine of the new show place, The Bluffs,
on the river-bank, to which Chris has transferred his
talent. I told her that I used the term in relation to
my bit of garden ground framed in the hillside
woods, of which it had originally been a part;
that it was to be itself, and not distorted into a feeble

86 THE GARDEN OF A

imitation of the classic gardens of other days and
times ; that I would not have it tricked out with the
wearisome, formal, tartlike beds that caused Bacon
to groan, even if the cost did not make such a
thing impossible for commuters of moderate means.
The last reason was within her comprehension.

" I know such things are very expensive," she
continued, with a sigh. " You wouldn't believe what
our Italian garden cost, with digging out and
filling in. My dear, we had to fill up thirteen feet
deep in one spot, and piping the water for the pools,
and after that the engine to run the fountain, and
the electric plant to light up at night. For of course
the trees are so young yet that there's no shade,
and it's perfectly impossible to go out there in the
daytime. And it was so thoughtless too in our
landscapist, this season he had yellow flowers that
close at night put in one of the most conspic-
uous places, and so some of the best effects are
spoiled.

" I think I shall have to coax your husband next
season to fit us up with a list of night-blooming
things. I suppose he'd be reasonable to a neighbour.
By the way, my dear, has it occurred to you what a
grand advertisement for him it would be to have a good
showy Italian garden on this hillside and his name and

COMMUTER'S WIFE 87

business address on a rustic sign just below ? It can
be seen a mile off from the cars.

" Garden wouldn't match the house ? Neither did
ours, but we put on a whole new outside all stucco,
you know, and the Prince who visited us last summer
said he only had to close his eyes to think himself in
Italy."

Verily, of such trials as these are calls composed ;
and I have to keep my temper and not say a
word of what rises to my lips, but she would not
have understood if I had, poor soul, and so I let
her clatter on.

" Not but all those old flowers that you've had
growing for ages down yonder have come in fash-
ion again. Yes, isn't it strange they're quite in the
swing, and those hollyhock roots that are scat-
tered everywhere would cost a lot if you tried to
replace them.

"Why, child, nature and all that stuff that you
and the doctor always thought so much about and
spent so much time over has come right in since
you've been away. There is a princess or a duchess
or somebody (anyway her name's in an almanac —
a patent medicine, I suppose, but I don't remember
what she took it for), and she lives in Germany and
is named Elizabeth, and she's written a book about

88 THE GARDEN OF A

her garden, and it made such things the rage. I
read it all through, thinking I'd get a great many
swagger points, but I didn't, that is, not on gar-
dening; but she was so chic, just did everything she
wanted to and never got rattled, and her house ran
itself, except giving out the sausages, and she
only looked at them. Her husband didn't count
for much more than furniture, for he liked cab-
bages and wouldn't dance, so how could he? But
the children were so useful — always said some-
thing bright at the right time. But then, she had
an unusual bringing-up and said her prayers in
French while her mother went to parties, so
you'd expect she'd be different.

" Now you'll be right in it and not thought so
queer as once. And as for birds, bird study's all
the rage. I've stopped wearing feathers anyway
until the excitement dies down. We've stopped
driving birds out of the fruit, and put up boxes to
draw them. They won't come in them, though,
because your father says the rooms aren't separate
and the openings draw a draft through. Though
I call that going a little too far, as if birds that fly
all day in the air can't stand a draft at night. In
the spring when we return here I'm going to have
a bird class, and a professor to take us out and
point out the birds.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 89

"It's awfully nice, my dear, much easier than
giving a garden party, no trouble, no fuss, man-
aged like a Cook's tour in Europe. He tells you
everything you ought to see, so you don't have
to think, you know. I went once this year across
the river where I was visiting. There were twenty
ladies in such becoming outing costumes, and such
a delicious lunch, served quite in the woods, my
dear. When we were eating we saw a quail ! Yes,
with its feathers on and all. Did you ever know
anything so appropriate ?

"We learned two other birds besides, — a blue
Jane, and the other was a red-eyed virago" [vireo].
" I remembered the name as so appropriate because
the bird sang or scolded, I don't know which you
would call it, all the time we were lunching."

As I think of that well-meaning, awful woman
I nearly choke, and it is a relief to hear Delia
creaking upstairs with my luncheon, which, as
father has gone across country on a consultation, I
am going to have spread on the window seat as of
old when it rained and I was housed.

VI

A RAINY DAY

AFTERNOON

October 31 (afternoon). I have already declared
that I am about to try the joyous uncertainty of an
American Garden. I desire the most flowers at the
least cost, as befits the frugal wife of a commuter.
Flowers for the table, flowers to go to town with
Evan and whisper home to him as he sits in his
office. Flowers for village brides, for the children,
and for church festivals, and flowers to make the
silent journeys from the hospital, that some must take,
less dreary for those who follow them.

I know what I may expect and what I must not.
I do not seek to duplicate Kew Garden on the side
lawn, or to start an elaborate scheme and en-
deavour to copy in a few years what has taken gen-
erations of old-world growth to produce ; for like the
copy of an old master the imitation garden must
lack the freedom of touch of the original, and before
time has mellowed it, the unrest that is in a sense
90

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 91

one of our moulding forces will have pushed the
mimic garden into other hands before it is even ripe.
But any one may have an American garden, and it
is such as these alone that from their simplicity and
the love born of their making may be kept from gen-
eration to generation.

However simple this garden of mine is to be, I
must see its shaping before I begin even to plant my
bulbs, or confusion will be my portion. A little mis-
take now may mean a year's delay.

O my Garden of Dreams ! do not vanish when I
am ready to embody you. This morning father
gave me mother's garden journal from the little
trunk under the eaves. To-night is Hallow-e'en !
Who knows but if I sit here and look out over the
leafless garden that was, that a vision of the new
will come from between the morocco covers ?

This quiet rain is very soothing to my impatience,
and the little splashes that drop from the eaves to
the piazza, roof below with first a single and then a
double drip, as the gutter is more or less full, seem to
say, Wait, wait, wait, Patience, patience, patience, in
a coaxing way.

A fair amount of damp and rain is rather good for

92 THE GARDEN OF A

me, otherwise my spirits keep so volatile that they
would often lead my body a sad chase if it were
always sunny weather.

In spite of the delay in planting, this day is a
perfect boon, ministering to me in the same degree
as does fresh air, a drink of water, or sleep at other
times.

It is also a pleasure to be in the attic again. One
may marry and leave, and life seems wholly changed,
but a room remains the same, year in and year out.
The furniture consists of a hammock, divers trunks
and chests, one an odd little affair from which the
journals came, covered with the mottled skin of the
hah* seal, the key to which father wears on his chain,
an ample and antique haircloth lounge, two shabby
but hospitable chairs, a cupboard, and an old library
table that makes up in drawers and pigeonholes for
what it lacks in varnish. At first the drawers are
obstinate and decline to open. Here in one are
papers of seeds and, of all things, a string of Dan'l's
hickory-nut beads with my initial cut on the biggest
or king bead, as we used to call it. Truly, I am
growing old !

There is a peculiar odour in this attic on rainy
days that is as much a part of it as the smell of
the hickory logs in the stove, the familiar furniture,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 93

and the view from the window. During the past
two years when I have closed my eyes, led by
memory I have gone from room to room of the ram-
bling house, and trodden every inch of the home
soil from the path beneath the Mother Tree in the
garden to the farther side of the field toward the
bars where the wild apple blossoms make a rosy
wall. When I arrived at the attic, the room and
the odour always came together, — the pungent, waxy
smell of wasps !

To-day, in addition to wasps and wood smoke,
a third tincture is added, — wet dogs ! Bluff is
here as a matter of course, and owing to his long
hair and affectionate disposition, his fragrance is
the most in evidence of the five. It has been very
amusing to watch Bluff, for his perturbation of
mind as to whether he should follow father or
me is singular. The first week he bounced wildly
hither and thither as if he had lost his wits, not
being able to decide what to do ; but during the
past few days he has adhered to an evidently
thought-out plan of following the Stanhope in the
morning and staying with me in the afternoon,
that is, unless I then go out also, in which case
he continues to follow until he begins to lag, and
we stop and pull him into the gig, where he lies

94 THE GARDEN OF A

blissfully content at my feet, occasionally giving my
shoes a furtive and affectionate lick as he used to
the birds he retrieved.

Pat, the wire-haired terrier, was a six-weeks
puppy when I went away. He had been given
to father by a dog breeder in the next village, in
an outburst of gratitude for a little bit of deft
surgery that he had done in the goodness of his
heart for a pet dog which the man loved with the
intensity that some rough natures feel for dumb
animals. There was no veterinary surgeon in the
neighbourhood, and father was always willing to
aid animals where his knowledge was applicable, re-
gardless of professional criticism, thcugh he would
not accept fees for such services.

The natural result had been that there was never
a dearth of animals about the place. I have always
counted from one to half a dozen dogs at my
heels since babyhood, and it was invariably a small
dog with a blanket pinned on shawl fashion that
rode in my little carriage instead of the orthodox
doll.

It was not to be expected that Pat should re-
member me, and in truth he did not. Bluff, how-
ever, had evidently told him all the facts of the
case and impressed him in my favour ; for he is now

COMMUTER'S WIFE 95

continually sneaking away from Tim, with whom he
has always lived at the stable, and nosing me out.
Then when I am found, he stands with his body
drawn backward, one ear cocked and the other
lopping over, a grin on his homely, hairy face, as
with a sort of twinkle of the eye he gives a few
short barks, as much as to say, "Did you think
you could hide from such a thing as a red-haired
Irish terrier by the name of Pat?"

He is a respecter of dog law, however, and never
ventures to lie on my feet when Bluff is by. Senior-
ity rules in dog-land, where the oldest resident, be he
great or small, strong or feeble, quarrelsome or easy-
going, is King and the final authority on matters of
etiquette. No one disputes his rule, that is, no full-
grown dog of gentlemanly instincts ; of course the
gambols of puppies do not count. Sedate old dogs
always tolerate them, sometimes administering a very
mild cuff when awakened from after-dinner naps by
having their ears chewed by the restless pups. But
quite as often they sit blinking and gratified with the
antics, wearing very much the same expression as
a big human whose hair is pulled and mouth pried
open by a rollicking pink-fisted baby.

Bluff's field companion, Lark, though only half his
age, is lying almost under the stove ; his soft white

96 THE GARDEN OF A

coat lightly touched with black is in a sad condition
being thickly matted with burrs.

He forgot himself last evening and his dignity as a
bird-dog, to go out with some farmers and their
clever mongrel curs with whom he was acquainted,
on a coon hunt. The poor fellow didn't even get a
sniff at the coon, but brought home half the burrs
and sticktights this side of the charcoal camp, mak-
ing a nice bit of work for me ; for as soon as he is
rested, I must get him in shape again with the aid of
an oily comb. Then Tim can wash him, but Tim is
too rough with a comb. You mustn't lunge at the
silky coat of a beautiful Gordon setter with the same
vigorous swish that is used to curry a horse.

The last two dogs of the group are twins, young
fox hounds of something under a year, and full of
promise. They have good bone, and are coated in
white and tan with a shading of black that brings
out their points. Their drooping ears are well set,
and their eyes of lustrous softness seem to follow
every movement that I make. This is their first visit
to the attic and its rainy-day comfort, so they are
lying humbly on the outside of the stove circle as
befits newcomers.

They belong to Evan and me, having been sent to
welcome us on our return by a countryman of his in

COMMUTER'S WIFE 97

a southern state who keeps quite a pack and does
cross-country hunting. Such fox hunting as we
have in the back country here is an annual combina-
tion of sport and dire necessity. When the red foxes
of the heavily brushed lowlands that divide the hills
grow aggressive with keen autumn appetite and
haunt the chicken yards, then the sporting farmers
and a few others who have energy and good legs and
lungs set out with dogs and guns, drive to the point
nearest the holes, tie up, then take to their feet ; and
when the dogs, a mixture of rabbit dogs, coon curs,
and a half dozen real hounds, have started the fox,
the men join the chase afoot, finally shooting the fox
when it is cornered.

I'm afraid that it will be a long time before Evan
can be brought to this style of hunting ; for shooting
a fox is a crime in England, where it is considered
more sportsmanlike to let the dogs rend it. But in
this rough and tumble region of rock ledges and
gullies, cross-country riding is an impossibility, and
so we take the shortest cut to the end to. rid our-
selves, or at least keep down the prowlers. The
Humane Society once urged father to introduce the
custom of trapping instead, as it expressed it, of
" teaching one animal to chase another " ; but some-
how it was very unpopular, the foxes wouldn't be

98 THE GARDEN OF A

caught, and all that the people accomplished was
to catch each other's dogs, who went hunting on
their own account.

Be this as it may, Bugle and Tally-ho have become
intelligent members of the family in a short time, and
made their first trip up two flights of stairs in a very
creditable manner without undue bumping. How
they will go down is another matter. If they hesi-
tate, Bluff will probably push them, for he gave both
Lark and Pat their first lessons in stair climbing.

The clouds are breaking away, and I think my
mind is also clearing as regards my garden. I will
let it keep its inheritance. The Mother Tree shall
be its keynote.

From these two windows I gain not only a bird's-
eye view of the stretch of our own land, once a farm
lying a little aside the top of one of a series of slop-
ing hills, but also its relation to the surrounding
country.

The house stands higher than the road, from which
it is divided by some great elms, clusters of shrubs,
and a bit of grass. This bank is kept from falling
into the road by a wall, the stones of which are
hidden by a tangle of honeysuckle. At the north a
driveway to the stable makes the division from a strip
of woodland from which the underbrush has been

COMMUTER'S WIFE 99

trimmed. This wood straggles in a half circle
toward west and south, out into a hillside pasture.
Back of the house is the vegetable garden plotted in
neat squares, edged with fruit bushes and trees, on
the farther side of which lie the long tangled beds
of mother's hardy flowers.

These beds start at the Mother Tree at the north-
west corner. On the right the higher ground makes
a sort of wall, against which honeysuckle has been
let to run wild. On the left the ground is level. The
walk falls gently with the curve of the land until it
stops abruptly at what was once a strawberry bed,
but is now a flat bit of grass perhaps fifty feet
square, beyond which is the wild land, only broken
by the old cart track and a meandering cowpath
that threads through hemlocks, birches, and cedars
to a disused bar gate.

Behind the apple tree, screening it from the
stable, is a stiff arbour made picturesque by sturdy
climbing roses that have been long unpruned. One
thing is certain, the hardy beds are in a charming
spot, with a high background on one side for the
taller plants, and open a lovely vista from the seat
under the tree and down over the fields. This much
shall remain, — the great clumps of herbaceous
flowers transplanted, thinned out and alcoved by

ioo THE GARDEN OF A

shrubs making a sort of cloister walk from the past
through the present to the future.

How everything material and spiritual, if it is well
rounded, groups itself into the mystic three. Past,
present, and future. God, nature, man. Father,
mother, child.

Ah, it is shaping, my Garden of Dreams! The
eye of the garden shall be the sundial, that bit from
Evan's past blending with mine.

Though I dislike a set straight garden above all
things, Evan says that a bit of formality often clari-
fies wildness and gives it focus, so some beds of
summer flowers around the sundial, with grass left
between for paths, will make a restful break in
the view. Beyond, we might continue a plant-edged
walk in the wake of the cowpath quite down to the
old bars, and turn them into a stile. However I
must not plan too fast, but leave beyond the dial to
Evan. That is the future part of the dream.

Mother wrote in her garden journal, now open in
my lap, during the first year of her marriage, " David
has had a seat made under the sweet apple tree and
a walk running from it to the strawberry bed. I
shall plant my flowers on either side both for con-
venience and to frame path and view as well. If
I may plant ten or fifteen feet every year, I shall be

COMMUTER'S WIFE 101

content, for the garden should be a pleasure, not a
burden."

Dear mother barely reached the strawberries in
those five years, but in spite of godmother's fifty
pounds I too must be careful about expansion; for, as
Evan says, it isn't the first outlay of strength or money
that will upset us, but the fixed charges, while father
jokingly adds that the cause of much physical and
all mental disease is " biting off more than one can
chew." How I shall have to set my teeth and quell
my garden appetite ! The garden will be so much
more lovable continued as it began. New things and
places are so terribly lonely. Fortunately, after all,
there is but one suitable spot hereabout for a garden,
and that is where it now is.

How blessed I am in having the responsibility and
temptation of choice removed from me ! I might
break loose and be ruined by visionary schemes.
Heredities may be horrible ghoulish things if they
are bad, but when good, surely nothing can equal
them. Imagine how terrifying it would be if we had
to decide the beginnings of things for ourselves : as
to what race we should belong, what sex, and all that,
instead of placidly coming out of unconsciousness to
find it all arranged ! Then suppose falling in love
and going away with one's husband were not a

102 THE GARDEN OF A

custom all over the world, how strange it would
be!

It is growing dusky in among the rafters, but the
Garden of Dreams is every moment growing more
distinct to my waking vision. To-night Evan must
put it all down on paper for me, so that I shall
not forget or make mistakes. What is that noise ?
Really, I can imagine that I see strange shapes mov-
ing among the rafters. The dogs are all alert. — Ah !
only the telephone bell in the hall.

Evan has just called me to say that he has
arranged to stay at home all day to-morrow! We
have agreed not to use the long-distance line
except for emergencies, such as his being unex-
pectedly detained in town over night, for it is so
expensive. But he knew how I have been longing
to have him here for a week day, so that we might
realize everything again, and decide the garden
plan, and he would not keep me waiting to know
of it for even an hour.

It is quite dark now when he comes home, so we
carry a flash lantern when he takes his after-dinner
cigar walk, that we may neither run into trees nor
fall into the new violet frame while we tell of the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 103

day's work. Oh, the joy of the telling, when every
commonest detail means so muchl

Really, I must be careful what I say, or rather
sing, in the presence of these dogs; for a moment
ago I gave vent to my feelings of joy in a bit of
a song that was between a cheer and a yodel, and
those two hounds first raised their heads and bayed
as if it was night, and the full moon shining in
their kennel, then dashed about the attic at full
cry. Next Lark took it up. Bluff tried to copy
until he choked, and Pat yelped.

Delia the waitress immediately appeared with a
white, scared face, out of breath from running up-
stairs, saying that in the old country such keening
always meant death.

Hardly had she disappeared when Martha Corkle
the decorous, knocked, begged pardon, but the
sound of the hounds had given her such a turn
she'd nearly dropped the soup kettle, and it made
her feel more settled and at home than anything
since she came. From that moment Bugle and
Tally-ho never lacked food, but, on the other hand,
any dog mischief that was done in Delia's precinct
was laid to their charge.

104 GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

Tim is coming up the road with the great wagon
and two big boxes, one long and one square. What
can they be? The sundial, of course. Pedestal
and top. For though it left before we did, being
freight, it was delayed.

To-morrow Evan will be here, and we will have
a festival and set the dial ; that is, if we can agree
upon the place, and it is good weather. Ah, there
is a red streak in the west, and it is widening. It
is almost train time. I will drive down for Evan
myself, and tell him that our talisman has come.

VII

A BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST

November i. Why has no one written a November
rhapsody with plenty of lilt and swing ? The poets
who are moved at all by this month seem only
stirred to lamentation, giving us year end and
" melancholy days " remarks, thereby showing that
theory is stronger than observation among the rhym-
ing brotherhood, or else that they have chronic indi-
gestion and no gardens to stimulate them.

Of course I do not know what November might
mean to some one living away from his kind without
love, in a cheerless house, lacking adequate means of
heating or light, with no bath tub, and a well low
from summer droughts, the sort of being whose intel-
ligence dries away in autumn like the leaves, and
whose breath of life merely nickers half dormant
until the spring sun forces it to quicken in spite of
itself.

The strange part of it is that so many city folk asso-
ciate this state of woodchuck existence with the real
105

io6 THE GARDEN OF A

country life, whereas the intelligent country life, if it
is lived and not merely toyed with in an amateurish
manner, is a full, sparkling, strenuous course, calling
for a more inventive brain and greater activity than
that of the city in proportion as its satisfaction is
greater. The difference is that in the city at best
one lives the life of others, the life of the shop, the
street, the crowd, while in the country one must live
one's own life. A selfish, warped, narrow life, some
say ? Doubtless it might he ; but if one has a home
to keep, a husband weaving his web daily to and fro,
and a country doctor, vibrating with sympathies of
many lives, for a father, the pulse can never beat
slow nor the heart grow cold.

I am daily realizing that it is a liberal education of
both heart and head simply to be Evan's wife and my
father's daughter. Father's private means, though
small comparatively, enable him to keep abreast of
outside affairs and the newest methods of his profes-
sion, so that he can do the best possible for his
poorest patient, regardless of fees or criticism, thus
carrying comfort and hope miles beyond the usual
limited circuit when controlled by mere pay.

The saying that " shoemaker's children lack
shoes " is simply a criticism of the relations between
the children and their cobbler parent. The parental

COMMUTER'S WIFE 107

attitude toward his trade evidently was not such as to
make it interesting in his children's eyes, otherwise
they would not only have thought shoes desirable,, but
have learned to make them.

Father's attitude toward his profession has always
made it seem to me like the highest expression of
the religion of humanity. To do the highest duty
amid the scenes in which his life is set frorn lonely
farm to the hovels of factory and brick-yard workers
in the town, the healer of the body must also at need
become the soother and strengthener of the soul.
Was it not this revelation of spiritualized humanity
that the Master preached and practised when he
cleansed the lepers, bade Lazarus come forth, and
comforted the dying thief with the positive promise
of things beyond ?

I think also that a certain knowledge of the
processes of natural law, so that the facts of it come
to one unconsciously and as a matter of course, pre-
vents many shocks and jars that would otherwise
meet a woman on entering the world that lies out-
side of the protecting doors of home. While a
knowledge of the evil of breaking these laws as seen
by the results, even in one little hospital, must make
one's relations to the race more sane and sound.

Surely the country life is not as wholly com-

108 THE GARDEN OF A

pounded of vegetation as the city dweller imagines.
The cockney who thinks that he has summed up
the essence of torpidity when he speaks of people
who "vegetate in the country," simply illustrates
his own ignorance and that he does not even know
the life history of a turnip. For, taking the term
literally, few things live more hurried and pushing
lives than vegetables.

Vegetables are chiefly articles upon which the
very life of the world depends; they do a great
deal of work, and do it in private — a method of
which most people have no conception, as not to
live in public is to them the equivalent of death.
Also to be a successful vegetable requires great
energy ; for not only must it work hard during the
growing season, keeping its health and digestion
in order often on scanty and variable rations, but
it must provide, either by seed or the storing up in
bulb, tuber, or rootstock, enough strength to insure
its further existence.

To return to November and its praise; mine is
conclusive, being both material and sentimental,
and stated in a few words. To-day has been one
of the happiest days of my life, and it is November

COMMUTER'S WIFE 109

first. True, Aunt Lot surprised us by coming in by
the evening train, Reverend Jabez being now located
at Centreville, thirty miles off, to get some winter
flannels that she left packed away and offer me
advice as to household management. But she has
not damaged the day, for father has kindly lured
her into his study; she merely acted as a sort of
nightcap under whose influence, together with the
result of an entire day out of doors, Evan and I crept
somnolently into our den to sit in the big armchair
in front of the wood fire, and whisper about things
that could be perfectly well spoken aloud; but to
make people tiptoe and whisper is Aunt Lot's effect
upon every one.

" Why are we sitting here, instead of entertaining
your Aunt Lot?" Evan asked contentedly, without
making any effort to move.

"Because we are rude and perfectly frank heathens.
We don't care to see her, for she wasn't nice about
our being married, and so we do not pretend we do.
We do not care a bit because the roof of the parson-
age pantry leaked and spoiled her season's jam and
jelly; we don't care that the 'four youngest' are badly
disciplined and a trial; instead, we feel very sorry
for them.

"Then she is sure to have speeches to make

no THE GARDEN OF A

about my duty to you, quite forgetting that in her
wrath two years ago she summed you up as ' one of
those foreign adventurers.' Yet I suppose I must
go in," I said dubiously.

But I didn't go. Evan said it would be undutiful
to him.

I wonder if she and the Reverend Jabez ever sit
in the same chair in front of the fire ! Evan says
they probably have an oil stove, and of course no
one would care to sit by that !

The day began for me at half past six o'clock.
Not that I got up then. I merely roused suffi-
ciently to go over to the window-seat and see if
the weather promised well.

It has been an opalescent day. When I looked
out this morning, the opal was dull with barely a
flush; everything was a mysterious pearly gray.
Season, location, time, equally veiled by the fog
that remained to tell of yesterday's downpour. One
thing, however, this fog surely indicated, — that the
weather was still mild, as a cold northwest wind
would have swept the world dry, while the first
thing that the window revealed would have been
the top of the bare gray maples that bound us on

COMMUTER'S WIFE in

the lower side of the hill. The silence was com-
plete, not even the plash of a drop of water or a
ripple in the sea of fog. Suddenly the sun, only
clear of the horizon, burned solidly through the
mist, a fire opal whose glints of green, scarlet,
yellow, and purple were caught by every leafless
twig and woven in a filmy tissue that covered the
grass.

All day yesterday a flock of despondent robins
took shelter in the honeysuckles of the porch and
in the hemlock hedge. The old birds were silent,
the young males, however, occasionally giving a
call or trying a few notes, as it were, to cheer them-
selves; but it was a sad autumnal sound with a
sort of pibroch wail to it.

This morning however, they were all darting
about across the lawn, and one, close above the
window, confided to my ear quite four bars of an
advance spring song.

How we are all more or less creatures of Sun,
Shadow, and Imagination, impressed or depressed
by weather! As the musical robin flew to join
his mates, I remembered that it was to be a holiday
with Evan at home, and the consequent agreement
to disagree between Exact Time and Breakfast, so
I curled up comfortably in bed again, not intend-

112 THE GARDEN OF A

ing to doze, but merely realize the luxurious state
of things. This enjoyment of an occasional late
breakfast is one of the joys of the commuter and
his wife which is denied the blase beings who always
breakfast in winter at eight or nine. As for spring
and summer mornings, who but a cripple could lie
in bed ?

In spite of my intention I fell asleep, for the next
thing I remember, the tall clock down in the hall
whirred and struck eight times, accompanied by the
baying with which the hounds always answered its
warning when within earshot. Evan was missing,
while strange noises on the piazza at the back of the
house whetted my naturally rampant curiosity, and
made me dress in a very incoherent fashion and
hurry downstairs.

Where was Evan ? Father was at the breakfast
table. Delia fluttered about in a conscious way, and
as I entered the room, Evan dodged in at the opposite
side through a long window, looking quite guilty and
with marks of the soil on the knees of his knicker-
bockers, his feet, and hands : the latter he hid in the
pockets of his coat. Then as I glanced at the table
almost covered with flowers, I realized that it was my
birthday, and that somebody had taken a long drive
to the greenhouse in town while I was still sleeping,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 113

and somebody else had a present that he was trying
to conceal.

"Which am I to sit by for these?" I said, as I
turned from the flowers to the two men, who looked
expectant.

" Oh, I didn't go over on purpose, dear child," said
father, quite innocently, drawing me down for his
twenty-five kisses. "I often make my trip to the
hospital early to take them unawares. It is well, you
know, sometimes. Yes, to be sure, this is rather ear-
lier than usual, but then, daughter, I wanted to have
a longer day with my children at home."

Meanwhile Delia brought in the coffee biggin and
lit the lamp (I make the coffee, Martha being too
thoroughly steeped in English tea making to compass
the mystery). Still Evan did not sit down, but fidg-
eted about by the window.

Seeking the cause, I too looked out, and there on
the piazza, was what at a glance seemed to be the
stock in trade of a nurseryman, all arranged sys-
tematically. There were bags of bulbs, rows of
prickly though leafless roses with their roots tied in
balls of moss, topless herbaceous plants, only iden-
tifiable by their labels ; a line of well-grown shrubs
leaned against the house, their roots, also, protected
with moss, while in the walk, quite safe and sound,

114 THE GARDEN OF A

reposed the sundial. Evan had not only unpacked
and sorted the modest supply of things I had
ordered, but supplemented them by those which he
knew we should need, and being slow of growth
ought to be planted without delay.

Father and Evan are never so handsome or happy
as when they have planned a surprise for me, and as
they are doing this almost every day, you can easily
judge of the personal appearance and temper of my
two lovers without further description.

In order to give each his due I pushed over three
chairs close together on one side of the table, and
sat in the middle one myself.

When the second part of the breakfast should have
appeared, a lull occurred, unnoticed at first, there was
so much to talk about. However, as we all wished
to go out, after a reasonable time I rang for Delia,
who had disappeared, and told her to serve the
steak.

She opened her mouth to speak, changed her
mind, and went into the pantry, where I heard
whispering. In a moment Martha Corkle appeared
in the doorway, her hands clasped over a faultless
white apron, her bosom heaving.

A shocked expression jarred her countenance as
she saw us all in a bunch on one side of the table

COMMUTER'S WIFE 115

as if blown there by a storm. I must acknowledge
that we were not behaving in a conventional British
breakfast manner. Evan had stuck roses in my
hair, and I had put one in every buttonhole of his
velveteen coat, which he wore over a sweater, while
a single bud was tucked over father's nearest ear —
a fact of which he was blissfully unconscious, as
he gave Martha the kindly and fraternal smile with
which he invariably greeted her over the top of his
paper, having refrained from handshaking since
the night of our arrival.

" The steak is gone, Mrs. Evan, stole and gone,
ma'am, by what ways it isn't for me to say. It
was as fine a cut as ever I've handled, leastwise in
this 'ouse. Two and a quarter in weight, without
the end that I always trims off for the soup stock,
Mrs. Evan. It was there when I cast my eye
through the ice-chest after last night's dinner; this
mornin' it was gone."

" Could the dogs have helped themselves to it ? "
suggested Evan, chuckling at Martha's perturbation.
" You might have taken it out without thinking and
left it on the table, you know," he said to her. " I
remember once long ago that you rowed a lot
about my taking a cold fowl and a ham shank to
make a feast for some boating chaps, and my

Ii6 THE GARDEN OF A

mother reminded you that we ate them the day
before in a pie ! "

" Mr. Evan, a sober woman doesn't so mistake
herself twict. That was when I was but fresh
widowed and my prospects gone, and I well re-
member how it turned me about. It was twenty
years — "

" Yes, but now — and the meat, that is the ques-
tion. Cook us some eggs, and we'll track the steak
later."

" Mr. Evan, sir, I can't deal with eggs until I'm
cleared of that steak." Then, lowering her voice,
" I do think that terrier, Pat, is the likeliest to have
ate it, though Delia says it was those hinnercent
'ounds." Mrs. Corkle spoke with unusual correct-
ness for one of her class, only lapsing when under
great excitement.

"Mrs. Evan, ma'am, in my 'umble opinion,
Pat is the only one of the dogs tricky enough to
make way with meat and dish besides, " she added,
as a convincing argument.

"The dish!" I cried. "No dog would take the
dish."

" Yes, Mrs. Evan, the dish is gone, a plate of one
of the old kitchen set, of whom there's but few left,
with a blue picture drawn out on it"

COMMUTER'S WIFE 117

" Steak gone, plate, picture ? " queried father, sud-
denly emerging from behind his paper and dropping
it, while a flush struggling with a half guilty, half
confused expression crossed his face.

"Well, Barbara, that is, you see — the fact is —
I took that steak last night, and forgot to replace it.
I've been visiting that poor Baker woman who is so
run down and has a cough. You know her, Barbara ;
she used to sew here sometimes — but born a lady,
and with the sensitiveness of one. She needs meat.
Cheap slops and medicine won't build her up ; but
she is too poor to buy it, and it would offend her if I
offered her money or ordered meat direct from the
butcher.

" Last night as I was going out I looked in the ice-
chest for some little knick-knack that I could carry
her as a home product, you know — quite a different
thing, I take it, from food purchased on purpose.
The steak was exactly the thing she needed, —
would last her three days ; and that old blue plate she
was sure to recognize as ours, so I took them to-
gether, and forgot to mention it or buy another steak.
You see, my dear, you understand ? "

Of course / did, of course Martha Corkle did not ;
but appreciating a man's property rights in his own
ice-chest and contents, she retreated, technically if

n8 THE GARDEN OF A

not entirely satisfied, and sent us in irreproachable
poached eggs, and the dish of toasted bacon that to-
gether with kidneys always makes us forget her
shortcomings in coffee, and the awful duck-on-a-rock
bread she perpetrates. This bread is of the consis-
tency of clay, and is called a " cottage loaf." You
can't slice it ; the native whittles it up with his knife
as one does a pencil. At present we live on toast,
the basis supplied by an itinerant baker. Later, I
shall doubtless get up my courage to ask her to take
lessons of Mrs. Mullins, an old ex-cook.

The commuter's wife should have a hen rampant
as her coat of arms, and adopt it as her patron saint.
I swear daily gratitude to this commonplace and song-
less bird, — for, given eggs, my household need not
go breakfastless either to town or to hospital. Both
father and Evan are not only satisfied but eager
,for eggs at breakfast and other odd times. They
may be cooked in any of a dozen ways, or at a pinch
not cooked at all, but shaken up in a deft way with a
few other ingredients. If a man regards eggs seri-
ously, there is no need for him to run to the train
breakfastless, leaving wife or maids in a state of ex-
haustion, one having stayed awake half the night to
wake the other. A late unsavory breakfast is never
pardonable, for fruit needs no cooking, and good cof«

COMMUTER'S WIFE 119

fee, a cereal, hot toast, and eggs " a 1'infinity " can
be as well gathered together in half an hour as in
half a day. You see, a country doctor's daughter has a
good chance to learn the ways of ministering to the
physical needs of a man who must always be well fed,
though often not lengthily.

The bacon and eggs had scarcely disappeared and
father had begged a third cup of coffee in honour of
my birthday, when there was a vigorous scratching
at the back door. I had been wondering all the
time what had become of the dogs, who usually were
the first to take their places either under the table
or beside the chairs of their favourites.

I could hear Tim outside, admonishing them and
evidently trying to chide them into order, which was
instantly departed from the moment the door opened.
They entered like rockets with a flash of colour.
Lark, Pat, and the hounds ran to me with every
symptom of joy, Bluff alone crawling under the
table with an evident desire to hide. Each dog had
a red ribbon tied around his neck, from which hung
a large pasteboard heart, bearing a birthday greet-
ing and a quotation, something of the penny valen-
tine order, appropriate to, if somewhat derisive of,
gardening.

One by one, much to the relief of the dogs, I

120 THE GARDEN OF A

gathered in the trophies. Stringing them on my
arm as I used to the hoops of wonderful paper
flowers that were used as favours at the dancing
class cotillons that vexed my youthful spirits. I
called Bluff to yield his ribbon, but he would not
come out.

Father commanded him in an unmistakable voice,
and then he crawled grovelling to his feet, as if in
abject terror, the cardboard heart chewed to pulp, in
his effort to get rid of it.

" I believe he thinks the dangling thing some sort
of a punishment for an unknown crime," said
father. "Once when he was a year or two old, I
tied a quail about his neck to punish him for eating
some game he should have retrieved, and I believe
the old fellow remembers it. Untie the ribbon, Bar-
bara, and see what he will do."

The moment the bow was loosened, I tossed the
whole necklet across the room, out of sight. Bluff
sat up still trembling and looked about, then with
two joyful barks, gave me his usual caress, the
veriest scrap of a lick on the nose, and with self-
respect restored, began to coax for toast.

By this time the sun was shining bright and
strong above the maples, and the air blowing
through the door that the dogs had burst open was

COMMUTER'S WIFE 121

full of unexpected softness. Father and Evan dis-
appeared each to his lair, to return simultaneously
armed with pipe and tobacco pouch, which prom-
ised me two outdoor companions. For these beloved
men instinctively avoid saturating the indoor air with
pipe smoke, knowing without a word from me that
a woman of sensitive organization has the nose of
a hunting-dog.

Then we three strolled down toward the long
walk to take the first step toward capturing the
Garden of Dreams, that I might live my life in it.
A song sparrow sang merrily, a bluebird purled
away from the Mother Tree, the soft bright air
bore the fragrance of Russian violets, and a bit of
the tangle was gay with the hardy pompon chrys-
anthemums, tawny, red, yellow, pink, and white.
My heart beat joyously, for love held me by either
hand, and before me there was work to be done, and
work is life. Still it is the first day of November!
Fie upon you, melancholy autumn poets!

VIII
SETTING THE SUNDIAL

November i (continued}. Last night I told Evan
my plan of turning the old strawberry bed into a bit
of formal garden, and he agreed that it would be a
natural resting place for the eye in its journey from
the seat under the apple tree down the walk and
across the fields.

He emended the somewhat crooked design that I
had traced on a slate found in the attic desk, and made
me a fascinating water-colour sketch in which the
strawberry bed appeared as a small level lawn in the
centre of which stood the sundial acting as the hub
to a large, wheel-shaped flower bed, or rather, group
of beds, as the wide spokes, each of a different but
harmonizing colour, were separated by narrow grass
walks. A similar walk circled the spokes and was
bounded in turn by a circular bed that might be
called the tire of the wheel, and divided the grass walk
into four in order that one might get to the centre

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 123

without walking through the outer bed. Four grace-
ful wing-shaped beds filled the corners of the grass
plot, which by actual measurement proved to be
forty feet square. This plateau was on three sides
enough higher than the surrounding ground to allow
an arbitrary grass slope of two feet, with a couple of
steps where the long walk joined it.

Without suggesting what plants should be used, —
that is to be settled on some dreary day in midwinter
when the first seed catalogue appears, bringing its
tantalizing mirage of possibilities, — Evan washed
in a colour scheme that he knew would satisfy my
rather savage taste, and make this formal bit a
blaze of light without the aid of a single "foliage
plant." For it is really astonishing how few colours
are inharmonious when they are profusely massed
and have green for a background.

One thing we decided about my Garden of the
Sun, as Evan calls this formal bit, because it stands
out in the open entirely without shelter. It is to
contain only the perishable summer flowers, really
flowers of the sun, and fit companions of the sun-
dial. Gorgeous blossoms that come into being in
June after the hardy roses have vanished, and glow
and blaze until they fairly bloom themselves to death,
before the frost touches them.

124 THE GARDEN OF A

Of these flowers some are annuals, and others
tender perennials or so-called florists' flowers that
it is always a mistake to mix with bulbs or hardy
perennials, for in the early season they are over-
powered, and in their turn choke the hardier plants,
exhausting the goodness from the soil by their rank
growth.

As for the spring bulbs, I do not like them in
set beds, each of a kind, and arranged in stripes or
figures, any more than I do the formal beds of foli-
age plants. Grown in this way, as soon as the bulbs
are out of bloom they must be replaced, or the space
will look ragged and unsightly. This does away
with the natural seasons of the garden. I think that
one of the greatest charms of nature to women is
that she is, like ourselves, a creature of moods, phases,
seasons, and not always equally radiant.

Her wild garden has its spring, summer, autumn,
and winter seasons, one waxing as another wanes.
I think the cultivated garden should follow the
wild plan, and while it must yield flowers in some
part during the whole growing season, it ought not
to be coerced and stuffed like pate geese and every
bed expected to be in full bloom at all times.

Besides, this constant pulling up and replanting
entails labour not within the power of the com-

COMMUTER'S WIFE 125

muter's wife, who, if she is wise, plans as far as
possible for the permanent, so if she is obliged to
neglect her flowers for a time, garden baldness will
not result.

Evan says that if gardening is to be my relaxa-
tion and a pleasure, I must pursue it, but be very
careful that it does not get the upper hand and pur-
sue me, for he has seen this turning of tables not
only cause the downfall of many gardens, but of
country homes as well.

If, a few days ago, Cris had put the sand where he
was directed, I should have planted my bulbs in the
wrong place. During the delay Evan discovered
that the grassy stretch outside the study and win-
dows of our den, where father tramps to and fro and
smokes when he is thinking, looked bare, and some-
thing was needed to shield the foundation of the
house.

This is a dry and sheltered nook, and an ideal
location for bulbs, if they are planted well forward
of the path and drip-line of the eaves. Evan has
marked out two curving beds that follow the line of
the path that goes to the rear door, and I am mass-
ing all my bulbs in them, — daffodils, narcissus, hya-

126 THE GARDEN OF A

cinths, tall late tulips, the golden banded auratum,
pure white madonna (candidum), and pink and crim-
son spotted Japan lilies. I shall plant them in groups,
not rows, according to height rather than colour, so
that by scattering some portulacca seed in June, the
ground will be covered beneath the tall stalks of
the later flowers, and we shall have colour under
the windows from April until October. There are
no plants more healthy, sturdily brilliant in bloom,
and unlikely to disappoint than the bulb tribe.

These are the only two flower beds to be allowed
out of strict garden limits, as we have decided that
all the other decorations grouped about the house
must be tufts of eulalia, various shrubs, and groups of
scillas, daffodils, peonies, and iris set in the grass.
The older shrubs we have in plenty, great masses of
lilacs, syringas, and snowballs filling every corner
and overarching the walk.

Our ancestors were aided by their usual common
sense regarding economy of labour, when they gath-
ered their little home gardens in a corner, often fenc-
ing them in from the rest of the land. Here the
flowers could be considered as a whole, be loved,
tended, watered, and protected from insect enemies
without waste of energy.

Upon this same principle I must collect my flower

COMMUTER'S WIFE 127

family under one roof, so to speak, keeping them in
such order that I may not only enjoy them freely,
but minister easily to their needs quite out of the
range of highway criticism. Not that I object to
being seen weeding, watering, tying, and insectiding
in a perspiring and collarless condition, but I do not
wish to be pounced upon by every patient that calls
and be expected to take them into my sanctuary,
there to prowl and despoil me of garden privacy or
flowers after the custom of the idly curious. It is
something of a responsibility of course to be one's
own gardener, but an infinite satisfaction withal to
feel that the making and even the marring is within
one's own grasp. That is, as far as things agricultu-
ral are ever within the power of a mere human. For
as a humbling and God-fearing occupation, none can
exceed the gardener's. Mother Earth has ways of
trying and proving the temper or lack of it that can-
not be surpassed for variety.

As I look back over the years that I have watched
garden processes, and sown and gathered my little
crop of flowers, it seems that I should now know
enough to keep clear of cultural sins both of omis-
sion and commission. Yet when I realize all the
things that are uncontrollable, I turn pagan and am
inclined to make a series of shrubby grottos to har-

128 THE GARDEN OF A

hour the deities of Sun, Rain, and Seasonable
Weather, so that I may secretly propitiate them with
offerings. It was a woman gardener who said feel-
ingly, " Paul may plant, but if Apollos declines to
water, what can one do about it?"

In these days, however, all well-conducted dwell-
ers in the country have artesian wells and wind-
mills, and are thereby able, up to a certain point, by
means of a diamond spray sprinkler, to sneeze in
the face of so important a person as even Apollos
himself.

Of course we have one of these wells, both for
outdoor convenience and because father has been
trying for many years to convince the community
that neighbourliness does not require them to drink
each other's drainage. This they do inevitably on
the village and river side of the hills, where wells
and cesspools alternate with great regularity. Surely
the country life is the healthiest in the world, other-
wise the rank and file of people who live it would
never survive the liberties they take with them-
selves !

This morning when father, Evan, and I, fol-
lowed by Tim and Bertie, arrived at the garden a

COMMUTER'S WIFE 129

further surprise was ambushed behind the rose
arbour, in the shape of two men from the florist over
in town of whom father had bought my birthday
flowers.

" You see, Barbara," said Evan, shaking hands
with himself behind his back, a manner he has of
expressing satisfaction, " people always call in extra
help at a ' house-raisin',' so I thought that I would
do the same at this ' garden digging ' ; for if your
beds are shaped now, you can in your mind's eye
plant and replant, until when spring comes every-
thing will be decided to your satisfaction."

I laughed aloud and clapped my hands at this new
outbreak of one of Evan's strong traits ; for the dear
fellow had only a few moments before warned me
that I could expect to do very little until spring, at
the very time that he was providing men with stakes,
measures, and lines to lay out the garden without
delay.

Making a noise when I am pleased is another of
my savage traits. Animals do it; the dogs bay with
pleasure when invited for an unexpected walk.
When good luck came to Toomai of the Elephants,
he sat out in the night and thumped a tom-tom in
pure joy. Civilization is mostly silent in happiness,
feeling doubtless that at least feigned indifference

130 THE GARDEN OF A

is expected of it. I often wonder whether we gain
or lose by being civilized. It is so much less com-
plicated to be a savage.

The next consideration was the location of the
sundial, for a hole must be dug and a rough founda-
tion of stones, rubble, and cement laid before it could
be set.

Fortunately the strawberry bed had been care-
fully levelled in its youth ; the ashes used as a top
dressing, drawing white clover to fill the place of the
departed berries, promised very respectable turf,
that by a careful weeding out in spring and raking
in of fresh seed would serve quite well. After Evan
had driven the central stake Bertie set to work with
his shovel, advised and admonished by Tim, whose
dialect Scotch must have seemed a weird language
to his Danish ears.

Meanwhile Evan and I strolled up and down the
long walk rather perplexed how to proceed, while
father surrounded by dogs watched us from his
seat under the tree, and the two extras stood at
" rest arms."

The borders, about six feet in width, were a hope-
less jungle of hardy plants interspersed at intervals

COMMUTER'S WIFE 131

with shrubs and tall bushes of the older roses such
as Magna Charta and Jacqueminot. Some of these
met over the path and partly barred the way. At
this season of course the hardy plants could be dis-
tinguished only by their leaves, and being herba-
ceous, any night a hard frost might destroy even
this clue.

There was a broad band of hollyhocks too well
placed against the honeysuckle bank to be dis-
turbed, straggling helter-skelter were foxgloves,
Canterbury bells, larkspurs, phloxes, sweet William,
columbines, white anemone Japonica still in bloom
in company with monkshood, hardy coreopsis, even-
ing primroses, honesty, and sunflowers, while the
autumnal growth of white, yellow, and red day
and tiger lilies and scarlet oriental poppies was
distinguishable.

After several turns up and down in a brown
study, Evan threw back his head and cried : " I
have it ! I will have the men grub up all these
plants with the exception of the roses and shrubs
and put them on the walk, work over the beds
thoroughly, and dig in good old manure from that
heap in the field. Then the plants can be reset
neither in a jungle nor in stiff lines, but in groups
of a kind between the shrubs, which really, when

132 THE GARDEN OF A

properly trimmed, will make a series of alcoves to
break the awkwardness of straight lines. Some
shrubs are too old and must come out or be re-
placed, and others, like the great syringas, lilacs,
and snowballs, can be allowed to meet over the
walk and may be cut out to form natural arches.
This I will manage myself. What do you think of
my scheme, Madam Commuter ? Doesn't it keep
the old and yet put it in a tangible, workable shape
without breaking any of the canons and laws of
my craft ? "

I said that it was charming and suited me exactly,
but did not add that it was precisely what I myself
had planned yesterday in the attic and sketched on
the reverse side of the old slate. It is a great mis-
take to collapse the lovable little self-conceits of
men, for they are of a wholly different quality from
egotism. Besides, to have told Evan that his plan
was "piper's news" or that "great minds think
alike" would have deprived him of the pleasure of
pleasing me. Poor Aunt Lot had this fatal quality
of forestalling surprises and caused me to lode up
the characteristic for future avoidance in my brain
cabinet.

Then Evan called the men, and the digging and
sorting began. It will take them at least a whole

OREAT SYHINCA BUSHES MEET OVBR THE WALK

<ARDEN

a*?*1 ' make a

of straight ],

id and « out or be re-

like the ;ngas, lilacs,

elf. What
Commut

a tangible, work

-s and laws of

tefctd on

egoti.s

If

COMMUTER'S WIFE 133

week to restore these hardy beds to order, but
luckily the " extras " are a birthday gift and do not
have to be recorded and extracted, or I should say
subtracted, from godmother's fifty pounds. Though
really I suppose I should credit the garden account
with them, all the same, if we are to keep track of
what it costs. But why keep a garden account and
reckon the cost of pure joy? Is it not cheap at
any price ?

But, on the other hand, if I do not keep the real-
izing sense of cost before me, I may be tempted
some day to write a delusive book upon how to
run a country home, horse and cow inclusive, on
ten dollars a week, supply a family of ten with
vegetables grown in a city plot, or give minute in-
structions as to the way a cripple may support him-
self by raising roses for market from cuttings
obtained from withered bouquets, in a greenhouse
glazed with castaway photograph plates and heated
by a kerosene lamp!

I may not be wholly sane in my regard for
money. In childhood a dollar did not mean a
hundred cents, but twenty packets of flower-seeds;
ten cents, a clump of pansies, a verbena, or a small
geranium ; while twenty-five cents stood for a helio-
trope, a Fuchsia, or a tea-rose in forced and conse-

134 THE GARDEN OF A

quently hectic bloom. Even now money never
seems an actuality unless reckoned by its products,
merely being according to its volume, — so much
food, so many plants, dogs, books, or a coveted bit
of land or a horse, consequently a commodity not
to be hoarded but to be immediately sent out to
fulfil its destiny. For as long as you keep money
it yields nothing but worry, the current rate of
interest being simply beneath contempt. On the
other hand, you buy dogs and you buy food ; one
eats the other, there is no waste, while satisfac-
tion and good company is the result. Also you
buy seeds and manure ; the seeds eat the manure,
and flowers are the results. Is not this true
economy ?

Evan shakes his head at my theories, and yet
when I corner him, he confesses that he has some-
what the same feeling and that the ideal condition
to him would be to work for pure love of it, never
thinking of money, but simply by putting the hand
in the pocket always finding the sum necessary to
pay for the article purchased.

This morning as we walked to and fro, hatless and
absorbing the wonderfully talmy air that father said

COMMUTER'S WIFE 135

was a reprieve granted to autumn by summer in
honour of my birthday, we crossed the open square
and followed the line of the cart track down the
field among the trees, until it wound in and out like a
cowpath.

"We might," I suggested, "use this cart track
as a walk through this short stretch of smooth
ground and end it where the bushes and trees begin,
continuing the beds of hardy flowers beside it.
Some day perhaps we will have this old wood lot
ploughed up and cultivated."

" Cultivated ? No," said Evan, as if an inspira-
tion had seized him, pointing over the half-dozen
acres where the children of the ancient wood in the
shape of second growth hemlock, maples, a few
beeches and red oaks mingled with dogwood, cornel,
bayberry, sweet fern, and hazel bushes, and the
dry yellow fronds of the cinnamon and bleached
hay-scented ferns grew amid a maze of seeded
asters and goldenrods that still showed here and
there a fresh spray of yellow. " No, this shall be
your wild garden. A strip of a made path here
until it curves under those hemlocks, then merely
a grass trail of a lawn mower's width running where
you will, and to be varied according to mood, until
it reaches the bars where we will have a bench and

136 THE GARDEN OF A

stile. Ferns there are already in plenty, and we
can bring fresh roots home from every back-country
trip we take. The wild things will never mope and
starve in these surroundings; so we need not cul-
tivate, but merely adjust ourselves to the land."

"Yes, and the spring hole with the mossy cask
around it, where the cows used to drink down by
the bars, we might use for a lily pool and have Japan
iris and native water plants in the surrounding
muddy ground. Oh, Evan, you angel, for a long
time I've suspected you of having nice, strong, prac-
tical, magic wings folded away under your coat.
.This thought opens possibilities not even shadowed
in my Garden of Dreams."

" It is for this and the wherewithal to make your
dreams come true that I am here instead of in that
older garden overseas. No, don't look distressed,
sweetheart ; for after all, a man's wife is his home
and kindred."

Then father came up, wondering what we were
discovering either in each other or in what, to
unilluminated eyes, seemed only a ragged wood lot,
brown with November's smoke tints.

When we had explained that the Garden of
Dreams was to begin at the " Mother Tree " and
end quite out of sight in a maze of wilderness, his

COMMUTER'S WIFE 137

face was strangely lighted, and putting an arm
around my waist and Evan's shoulder, he drew us
together, saying, "Children, your lives, I believe,
will be a long walk through the garden of your
affections, and your old father thanks God that he
is allowed to walk even a small part of it with
you."

The hardy roses and shrubs that Evan had
bought also as a birthday gift to supplement those
we already had, have been banked up in the vege-
table garden until the borders are rearranged. Of
course we take a risk in planting things so late.
October is a better time ; but if we Ijave a close
snowy winter, there is little danger, and we shall
put straw jackets on the roses until they are estab-
lished. On the other hand, if one waits to plant
hardy things until spring, the ground may be late
in thawing, and a whole season's bloom lost.

How delightfully the damp earth around the
plant roots smelled when Evan unpacked them this
morning. I think I must have a tinge of poor
Peter Schmidt's love of the soil, irrespective of
what it produces, in my nature, for the various
earth odours all have a separate tale to tell, and

138 THE GARDEN OF A

the leaf mould of the woods bears a wholly different
fragrance from that of the soil under pasture turf,
or the breath that the garden gives off in great
sighs of relief when it is relaxed and refreshed by
a summer shower.

This happy birthday has held two sensations not
in the planning and planting scheme. When we
were sorting the bulbs, the hounds carried off the
bag of snowdrops, and after worrying it, ate a por-
tion of its contents. Without looking in either
Dodoens's or Gerarde's "Herbal" for the medicinal
properties of snowdrops, I now know that they
give puppies severe colic. Fortunately Bugle and
Tally-ho did not eat many, and Evan secured the
rest and has bedded them in a spot unknown to
me, so that some early spring day I may go out
and be surprised by finding them.

I also have planted a surprise for Evan in the
grass bank at the foot of the honeysuckle tangle,
a spot where the sun lies warmest in March, — half
a dozen tufts of yellow primroses and cowslips taken
from the Somerset garden and smuggled home in
a box of moss deep in a trunk cover. If they thrive,
he shall have a bank of them in time, for I saved
plenty of seed.

The second happening was more serious. The

COMMUTER'S WIFE 139

sundial was to be placed early in the afternoon with
some little bits of sentiment, by way of dedication.
The foundation was completed, and the shaft, a sim-
ple, rather graceful vase-shaped column, set in posi-
tion. Martha came out, and looked solemnly on at
a respectful distance, taking no notice of the some-
what crookedly admiring glances of Tim ; for Martha
is not unattractive, having good hair and a portly
freshness not seen among our farming women of
fifty or thereabouts.

Father and Evan were busy with compass and
level ; but though the sun shone brightly, the
shadow cast by the quaintly wrought brass finger
would not fall in the right place. Alack ! the diffi-
culty could not be adjusted ; for owing to differences
in latitude, an English-born sundial cannot tell
New England time.

Father laughed mischievously as he rallied Evan
upon the inadaptability of the race to which he was
the exception that merely went to prove the rule.
Evan did not laugh, but as he glanced at me, we
mutually recognized each other's right of birth, and
the dial will stand as a safeguard to remind us to
respect each other's patriotism.

Meanwhile, Martha Corkle gave a suspicious sniff,
and remarked, "Crossin' seas don't change the

140 GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

'eart," while Tim forgot himself and indiscreetly
clapped her on the back, saying apologetically,
"Who'd ken the puir dumb stane 'ud be sa obsti-
nate ? " a proceeding she resented by stalking into
the house.

However, the dial is set, and will add a meaning
to the garden of the sun that shall surround it.
Mother, who went away in the long ago, I'm so
happy to-night, that I am sure you are very near.
I seem to feel your arms, and I know that you also
understand.

IX

CHIEFLY DOMESTIC

November 8. This has been a week of rush,
wherein shovels, men, shrubs, shears, garden lines,
and mysterious calculations have whirled before my
eyes. In spite of our determination to thin out
and readjust the old stock of shrubs and hardy
plants, only one of the long borders is completed,
the other being, after two years of comparative
neglect, such a tangle of indistinguishable roots
that we are leaving it as an experiment, thinking
that it may give us some new hybrids of old
flowers, or at least yield some startling groupings
and combinations of colour that will outvie mere
neatness.

Every day I grow more and more grateful for
the things that have been. If mother had not
cared for gardening, I might have spent restless
years in groping before I knew that I wanted a
garden, cramping my mind and body in a city
apartment, or else stifling equally in some newly
made suburb. Treeless made-country is, I think,

142 THE GARDEN OF A

even more arid and monotonous than the city
streets. I simply shudder at the awfulness of
new places, where a level onion field perhaps, hav-
ing survived its usefulness and sunk into weedy
slumber, awakes with a start so find a trolley whiz-
zing down the highway to the market town.
Straightway it is dissected, and offered in building
plots of the " Why pay rent ? Build your home
on easy terms " order.

One can readily tell what these hot little gardens
will be ; for even though the witch's cauldron period
has passed, there are other stock floral ornaments
for small lawns, the coleus anchor and the weeping
purple beech, a small tree that owes its lachrymose
appearance to having branches grafted on upside
down, so that eventually they grovel in the dirt.
The strange thing is that on a nearby cross-road
an acre or two of virgin soil with a dozen good
trees may often be had at the same price as the
arid lot.

" But," says some willing though gardenless
woman, " my parents did not have a garden for
me to inherit. Am I therefore to be shut out of
Eden? What am I to do?"

Do ? Buy the ground on the cross-road with
the trees, and make a garden with all possible

COMMUTER'S WIFE 143

speed, that your children may be born with the
love of outdoors in them.

At present there is a lull in our garden opera-
tions, and the soothing haze of burning leaves
hides the bare outlines of the new beds around
the sundial. The violet plants that are to yield
Evan's buttonhole flowers all winter are comfort-
ably settled in the frames in the sunny corner
between stable and bank. An ordinary frame,
with three sashes, such as we use for seeds in
spring, will hold a hundred violet plants, and these,
if carefully protected by mats from freezing, and
well sunned to encourage bloom and keep out
mould, will furnish my commuter with his daily
flower until the out-door violets come in bloom,
besides giving his wife many a handful of fra-
grance to put in the iridescent glass vase that
stands on her desk-top for the harbouring of lov-
able flowers.

We bought the violet plants this year, but next
season we shall grow our stock. The lilies-of-the-
valley have spread wonderfully in my absence, and
must have a thorough weeding and be thinned by
having six-inch trenches cut through them before
they are bedded with manure for the winter. We
have always had glorious lilies because, in the face

144 THE GARDEN OF A

of gardeners and tradition, mother planted them in
sunny, rich soil instead of letting them starve and
dwindle in the shade. They grow south from the
apple tree thickly as the grass, their only limit being
the amount of room we can give them.

Evan made a discovery early this morning when
the dull red light of the sun, falling between the
bare interlaced branches, drew traceries on the win-
dows, and shot long rays of the gorgeous shifting
hues of stained glass upon the floor, for the mo-
ment turning the plain frames into a latticed case-
ment. He saw that such was the slope of the land
that by cutting an opening through the thick maple
branches, the garden would lie before us like a
picture framed in leaves.

Then a second idea, born of the tree shadows, is
a plan to replace the windows of the square shallow
bay with latticed casements, and under them a
low, broad window seat, from which we may enjoy
the garden from afar.

The morning after my birthday the inevitable
conversation with Aunt Lot took place. Conver-
sation ? No, Interview is the word, — an Interview
conducted on the parish visitor (inquisitor) lines.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 145

She was evidently aggrieved because father had
not confided to her the precise date of our home-
coming. She wished to have been present to wel-
come us, after having vigorously upset the house
from garret to cellar in the historic name of house-
cleaning; and this topic furnished the opening text
for the discourse.

" I'm sorry, very sorry, Barbara, that the fall
cleaning was not done before you came, and with
your father here alone for almost two months, every-
thing must be in a shocking condition. When do
you begin? I suppose you intend to have it over
before Thanksgiving ? "

" I'm not going to begin, Aunt Lot."

"Are you putting it off until spring? I think
that's a risk."

" No, forever. Every room has its day for weekly
cleaning, and there will be no need for an up-
set, as if we were fumigating after a contagious
disease."

" Humph ! and be sweeping and dusting all the
time ! You'll never manage it in the world, but I
suppose that is one of your new English ideas."

" No, simply common sense, like taking a bath
every morning, though I believe that there may still
be people who prefer to save up and take a semi-

L

146 THE GARDEN OF A

annual soak in pearline, the execution of which
makes them weak for several days afterward."

At this she shifted the subject.

" I must say, Barbara, that I was surprised to
hear that you were coming home to live. You
know I've always held the opinion that there was
no house large enough for two families. My
brother, though easy-going in general, is most
set in some things, and from what I have seen of
your husband, I should say that he was not only
set, but high spirited."

She had endeavoured to cross swords with Evan
at the time of our marriage and had never forgiven
him for declining to argue.

" Two families in one house ? Surely, Aunt Lot,
you do not practise what you preach ; for you have
gone into a house with another family, and a large
one at that. This, however, is really one household,
— a big house, the dearest father in the world, with
a son and daughter to keep him young."

" Then, too," she continued, as if she had not
heard, " you are beginning most extravagantly, —
three women in the house and two men outside. In
the old times I only had one woman, until your
father got the notion of having the office door waited
upon, and making patients send in their names

COMMUTER'S WIFE 147

and come in turn, instead of leaving the door on
the latch for people to walk in sociably when
they pleased. No doubt, as he said, people did
sometimes go and wait round just out of curiosity
to see who was there, and somehow Miss Bache
found that Mrs. Dennison had liver trouble that
spotted her complexion, and mentioned it in sew-
ing society, and her own husband's sister, not
knowing she was ailing, felt grieved to hear it
from a stranger.

" But I suppose you still expect to run wild as
you did when a girl, never going in the kitchen
except when you wanted something, and spending
all your time either grubbing in the dirt or reading
books that were not at all the thing for young
women, — I never wasted my time in such idling, —
or else listening to some impostor's tale over at
the hospital, or crying over the funerals of ragged
children that were much better dead. I hold three
women sheer extravagance, and it's a woman's duty
to surprise the kitchen at odd hours; otherwise
how find things amiss ? "

"Not extravagance, Aunt Lot, — cooperation, the
only way in which twice two make five, and some-
times even six or seven; and as to finding things
amiss, father always said we find what we look

148 THE GARDEN OF A

for; consequently, as I don't wish to find things
amiss, I shall never look for trouble. If we had
taken a little place of our own with a horse, cow,
and garden, we should have had to keep a maid
and a man, should we not ? "

" Certainly."

"And father must still have kept two maids and
a man ? "

" I suppose so."

" Then where is the extravagance of three women
and two men when we live together?"

"That's not the way to look at it. When two
families live in one house, it is that they may get
on with less, else why do it ? " she added trium-
phantly.

Poor Aunt Lot ! she has always made of life a
sort of combination bargain sale, a debit and credit
account, with material loss and gain her only stand-
ard, at least until she married the Methodist min-
ister; and then I verily believe the gain that tempted
her was holding domestic authority over the mother-
less eight.

" I think you are mistaken," I said, swallowing my
wrath ; " that is the sort of family combination that
fails and brings discredit upon the word. Coopera-
tion is the having more of everything" (I was going

COMMUTER'S WIFE 149

to say " love," but I cannot speak that word before
Aunt Lot), — " home life, leisure, books, and all the
material things to boot." I was hastening to explain
also that Martha Corkle was an accident, a sort of
after-thought in our plans, but before I could speak,
Aunt Lot was again on the trail.

"The most objectionable feature about the house
is that woman you've imported. She is a most offen-
sive person. Last night when I went into the kitchen
to chat with Delia and Eliza and ask them how they
were satisfied with the change of things, — by the
way, I think Eliza is greatly wounded and depressed
at being set down from the cook's place after having
done the marketing when your father was alone, to
doing laundry and mere shift work and having no
say so, and then, too, Delia appears as if she'd been
crying, and wouldn't talk about her wedding, which I
don't think looks well, — that woman, Martha Cock-
spur, stood all the time I was there and glowered at
me as if I had intruded and had no right to go to the
kitchen and speak to the help."

" Martha Corkle comes from a class of society
where the servants stand when the mistress visits the
kitchen, which she never does to discuss the members
of her family," I said emphatically. " She was quite
right ; you forgot yourself, and you were intruding.

ISO THE GARDEN OF A

And now, if you please, we will talk of something
else."

" I meant no offence, Barbara, I'm sure. I only
thought it fair to warn you," she persisted. "You
are young and impulsive and have no experience.
You never had any responsibility before in your life,
and now what you'll do for jellies, preserves, and
canned things this winter I can't imagine. There is
a very worthy woman in our town who puts up such
things for sale. I might order some for you if you
like. I suppose you'll be putting in a great many
improvements, — a hardwood floor in the best parlour,
perhaps, to set off those new rugs and heavy plush
curtains. You must have had a good many wedding
presents I've never seen."

" Thank you, but I do not need preserves and such
things. We all prefer fresh fruit and vegetables;
out of the growing season something can always be
bought at the market in town. I do not see why I
should make any change except little by little to
renew worn-out things ; for father, as you see, has
had a lovely rosy paper put in this room and given
me all the dear old mahogany that was mother's.
New brass beds ? No ; I detest them. I like the
feeling of being surrounded and having my toes
tucked in instead of poking them between the bars
as a canary does his beak.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 151

"As to hardwood floors, father has them under
ban, for in a year he has traced two compound leg
fractures, a broken arm, collar bone, and an obsti-
nate case of water on the knee, to polished floors.
Besides, very soon there won't be any best parlour.
It's to be our den, with plants and only the lightest
of frilly muslins at the windows and fresh matting
under the rugs. In fact, I'm going to banish all
carpets as soon as possible and have thickly lined
matting and rugs everywhere."

" It's plain that you are set in your ways already,
and don't wish my advice or value it," said Aunt
Lot finally, rising bonnet in hand as if to go, quite
in a huff, " but one thing more I must free my mind
of. You'll find your husband will get many a hard
cold coming up in those hot cars on stormy winter
nights, besides losing business by never meeting
people in the evening."

"Evan belongs to a club where he has a room
that he can use when weather or necessity requires,"
I answered, boiling so internally that I am afraid
my voice shook.

"Humph! I shouldn't have expected that he
would have laid plans to deliberately stay away
from you so soon."

"Stop, Aunt Lot! The plan was father's, and

152 THE GARDEN OF A

Evan only consented to it because I urged it. No
woman should try to live the country life if she is
hysterical and makes her husband a train-slave.
Now, if you please, this talk must stop, and never
be renewed. I hear Tim bringing round the horse."

As I went to help her with her bag and the
packages containing her various belongings, I saw
that she hung back and evidently had something
further on her mind. To bring the really painful
visit to an end, I asked if I could do anything for
her. She hesitated, and then whispered,

" Would you show me your new clothes ? I've a
great deal to fix over. I didn't buy a trousseau, as
your Uncle Jabez was changing his charge at the
time of our wedding. Have you anything tasteful
in hats ? Being at the head of a parish, and going
to teas, cake-sales, funerals, and experience meet-
ings, I'm called upon for quite a change."

The relief was almost too sudden. At last a
subject that could not breed strife! I showed her
my modest store, — a London tailor suit, some dainty
waists, an outing gown, an evening dress, a fur
jacket, and the hats. Hats have always been one
of my weaknesses. You can express so much in
a hat ; it often calls for flowers, and it requires very
few stitches. Other sewing seems such a waste

COMMUTER'S WIFE 153

of time, the cutting of good cloth into more or less
fantastic shapes, and then pricking it full of holes
with a needle.

Poor soul ! how longingly she handled the head-
gear, picked and puffed out the bows and flowers,
and laid each down with a sigh, lingering over a
girl's soft Alpine felt whose only decoration was a
band and buckle. Aunt Lot is rather pretty out-
side, but in a faded sort of way, as if the fire of her
constant and, as she thinks, righteous, indignation
had had its searing effect.

She hung over one puffy little toque of mouse-gray
velvet with a big pink rose set squarely in front,
murmuring her desire to try it on, as, if it became
her, I might let her copy it, of course in cheaper
material ! An inspiration ! I immediately offered to
give the thing to her, promising to add strings to make
it bonnet-like, and to veil the brightness of the rose
with black tulle, — all the work of a few minutes.

She accepted the gift with alacrity that bore a
resemblance to pleasure, but resented the strings
as too heating, also the hiding of the rose, saying
that Jabez liked pink.

How strange it is that the only effort of so many
well-meaning women to keep young is by dressing
in the way that most accentuates their wrinkles, con-

154 THE GARDEN OF A

cealing the gray locks that soften the face, by either
covering the forehead with a sort of scrambled egg
arrangement of brown curls or mounting the horror
of a fat artificial pompadour !

The doorstep was reached at last, and the packages
stowed in the rockaway ; I breathed more freely, but
no, there was a last word, and it was not mine.
With her foot on the step, Aunt Lot turned to
say,—

" Now, Barbara, when Delia marries at Christmas,
you'll doubtless have difficulty in getting a waitress.
This commuting business, with early breakfast and
late dinner, and the dishes to wash up at goodness
knows what hours, isn't popular, and you'll have
trouble. But if you'll let me, I can get you a good
young woman from our town. She is not very
strong and she has never lived out, so she wouldn't
expect high wages, and I might keep her a few weeks
without pay to help me out and counsel and train
her for you."

At this juncture from some cause known only to
Tim, the horse grew restive, and I had just sufficient
self-control left to cross the piazza., enter the house,
and close the door without banging it; then I flew
up to the attic, followed by Bluff, who had been in
hiding behind of the study sofa, as he had never

COMMUTER'S WIFE 155

forgiven Aunt Lot for once beating him with her
parasol, his only whipping as far as I knew, when
he had given her a too affectionate greeting on her
return from making state calls.

Once in my retreat, I closed the door and lay on
the old lounge panting; I remained there, saying
things for quite a time, and finally recovered enough
to take my outlook seat at the dormer window.

Oh, the soothing whisper of outdoors even when
the voice comes from leafless trees having a clearer,
more incisive tone than that of dense leafage, and
the pines and spruces come forward and keep up a
full accompaniment like the lapping of waves that
is unheard at an earlier season.

As I looked out I realized a feature that I had
never before noticed. The evergreens, so old that
they had lost all Christmas-tree stiffness and taken
easy attitudes, had been so planted that as the elms
and maples lost their leaves, they seemed to dis-
appear into the draperies of these sturdy trees, and
be replaced by them. So that on hill, grass slope,
or flanking the walk the furry green of white pines
or the fretwork of spruce and hemlock barred out
winter desolation, while the living green in the form
of younger bird-sown seedlings of the old trees
crosses the woody pasture until it blends with the

156 THE GARDEN OF A

sombre tone of the native red cedars that gather
round the bars.

Woman ; you who have bought the bit of ground
with trees on the cross-road, that your children may
be born to country life, plant evergreens in the north
for a windbreak and on the south for a pleasure to
the eye. Not the new-fangled blue spruces, golden
hemlocks fit only to be confined to the lawn as
breeze-excluding ornaments, or the stunted firs of
florist's catalogues, but the sturdy old forest trees
that rear their heads laughing in the gale and grow
mightily, white pines and the Scotch fir of ruddy
bark, white and black spruce of long or clustering
cones, graceful hemlock spruce, and the dwarfer bal-
sam fir of fragrant breath.

These are the things of the garden of winter that
none may spare, and they also become welcome
havens to the birds that are brave enough to bear us
company.

I was quite soothed by the prospect before me in
combination with the warmth of Bluff's body, for he
sat leaning against my knees with his chin resting in
my hands and eyes fixed on my face. A knock on
the door broke the spell.

Enter MartJta Corkle, neat, respectful, but evidently
labouring under excitement.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 157

" Mrs. Evan, what ham I ? You having told me
never to take kitchen complaints to Mr. Evan, I'm
obliged to ask you, and no disrespect intended, what
I ham."

For a moment I thought she had lost her mind,
then I realized that Aunt Lot's visit to the kitchen
had probably created some sort of storm, and that
Martha's query was a bit of the wreckage, so I
waited for further information.

" Ham I 'ousekeeper with hauthority over the two
maids, or only cook ? and if but cook, does my word
'old in the kitchen ? "

Shades of inherited service descending upon an
overfree country, this was indeed a dilemma ! I
temporized from lack of ability to express in suit-
able words the entire liberty of the house servant.
Perchance if Martha understood, she would be
reasonable, for I simply would not have domestic
broils.

"You are Martha Corkle, Mr. Evan's old nurse,
of whom he thought so much that when he left
his old home he brought you away with him. I
knew that our ways are not yours, and I was
afraid that you would be unhappy ; but I did not
want to disappoint the master by telling him so,
and I thought that a familiar face might make it

158 THE GARDEN OF A

seem more homelike here to him. In this coun-
try, unless it is a great household of many men
and maids, we do not put one in authority over the
others, for the mistress is the housekeeper.

"You are the cook, and it is your place to be
motherly and make the kitchen pleasant to the
others who are younger and have not the advan-
tage of your training ; but if they make you dis-
comfort that you cannot avoid, tell me, and I will
speak to them. What was the trouble to-day ? "

" Tea, Mrs. Evan, tea and pins on my pastry
board. Not but what the allowance is liberal
enough and to spare for the extra cup that it
makes a body feel homelike to draw when they so
likes, but the quality. I stand by English break-
fast as the wholesomest and most tasty, Eliza and
Delia prefers rank oolong, which I hold puckers
the stomach and coppers it.

"This morning you wrote the order for the
grocer for so much tea, at so much a pound weight,
without mention of the kind. I tells him break-
fast, Delia says oolong. When I disputes her
right, she says that two wants it, and over here
the majority rules! and I want to know must I
have my inwards coppered or drop tea?"

The situation was both comical and pathetic, for

COMMUTER'S WIFE 159

in the selfishness of majority rule how often
individuality as well as individual right is made to
suffer.

" How about the pins ? " I asked.

" It is this way. The others being through
before me of an afternoon and at leisure for a
couple of hours, and their room being overcool
for sitting, bring their sewing to my kitchen, and
instead of keeping it neat and together, Mrs.
Evan, they scatters their needles and pins about
reckless, yesterday leaving pins on the edge of
the board itself where I was making those pa'tridge
the doctor bagged, into a game pasty, and two
pins rolled into the hupper crust, it being a mercy
that they pointed up and I saw them. The blame
of them would be to me, and yet I have no say-so
to stop it."

My native spunk urged me to say that she had
better return home if she was discontented, but
then my Familiar Spirit who often talks with me
and sometimes gives good advice, made a sugges-
tion; for after all, there was reason under the
grievance, and that is too often overlooked in
kitchen matters. Surely the girls should have a
place to sit and sew.

" Martha," I said, " there are many things that

160 THE GARDEN OF A

I shall readjust and change, but I cannot do it at
once. Let us both be patient and help each other
for Mr. Evan's sake.

"You shall have your own allowance of break-
fast tea, and the others their oolong, for they, also,
have a right of choice ; and to-morrow I will have
the little storeroom out of the kitchen cleaned
and fitted for a sitting room, with table, lamp, a
spare sofa from upstairs, and, perhaps, a sewing-
machine, and then it will be against the rule to
have sewing in the kitchen. But if you still feel
discontented in the spring, I'm sure Mr. Evan
will send you home again."

"I'm not for goin' that far in complaints, Mrs.
Evan," she replied, in evident horror at striking
her colours or at implied desertion of one of " the
family," even if only the youngest son. " And
now that you understand me, Mrs. Evan, is con-
solin,' and I'll say no more, as the pins is to

go."

Exit Martha Corkle.

The clumping made by her flat, stout, English
shoes on the stairs had hardly ceased when it
seemed to begin again. Was she returning?

No, Bluff gave the growl that announced a
stranger, who knocked with masculine vigour.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 161

Enter Mrs. Mullins, — a one-time cook, but now
a portly Irish matron, owner of a smooth tongue,
that lies comfortably and coaxes successfully, a
cow, two pigs, numerous fowls, and an onion field,
in addition to a husband and five daughters. In
spite of being a perfectly healthy woman, she had
come to father at diverse times with the symptoms
of all the ordinary diseases at her tongue's end, of
which same troubles she was miraculously cured by
chalk powders and brown dough pills, so I went
directly for her chief foible.

" Well, Mrs. Mullins, what is amiss with you to-
day ? Is the pain in your head or your heels ? for
you are too thrifty to leave home before dinner-
time merely to make a call."

"And yer right and yer wrong, Miss Barbara,
darlint; God forgive me, for Mrs. it is! I'm never
the one for gallivantin' in the mornin' widout cause ;
but, all the same, the trouble's not mine, but an-
other's, and as it's well-nigh noon, I'll make short
words of it. It's Dalia. Your Dalia that has shook
off her match and has asked me, she bein' ashamed
to face it and expectin' reproaches, if you'll kape
her on in her place, for she's entoirely out of the
notion of marriage."

" Delia not going to be married ! and her wedding

162 THE GARDEN OF A

gown bought, and the date set for Christmas, after
all the talk of the fine house Patsy's mother was
to deed to them on the wedding day?"

"That same talk's the meat of the trouble en-
toirely, — Dalia give out about the day and the
house, Mrs. Doolan she smoiled an' says, 'There's
toime enough yet. Patsy's but a lad, only thirty-
five come Easter next. Av course, and him my only
son and me a widdy, when I bespoke Dalia for him '
(for they do say it was the mother that fixed the
match to plaze him, Patsy bein' too bashful), ' I
give promise o' the house on the weddin' day,' givin'
a big wink, ' but that same day is not yit set.'

" Dalia claimed she'd bring Mother Doolan round
all so fine, and worked Patsy to backing her up, for
as they'd been keepin' company, two years come
Michaelmas, she'd the right of thinkin' of being
settled, and settled now it is. It wor well before
dark Hallowe'en when Patsy come creepin' up the
lane wid Dalia, she laughin' and confident, well
pleased wid herself, and castin' her black eyes
around sassy like. But he wor unaisy, and all
broken out on the face wid sweat, though a cool
evenin'.

" Says I to my oldest daughter Kate, who was
home, there bein' a strike in the shoeshop, ' Puttin* it

COMMUTER'S WIFE 163

together wid the words the old woman spoke the day,
they're a-walkin' reckless near home/ 'Look, mother,
for the love o' heaven, they're a-goin' in ! Dalia
t'reatened to have it out, and there'll be music for sure.'

" And widout another word, us two, being o' wan
moind, clipped out in the shed that commands Doo-
lan's premises through a knot-hole that Katie's
enlarged a bit for convaynience. But I hadn't got
me best eye placed comfortable, — the doctor, bless
him, knows well the trouble I had wid me off eye, —
when something flew out o' Doolan's front door, dasht
boy, and up the lane to the turnpoike.

" When I got me soight straight, I saw it was them
three all a-sprintin' for dear loife. Patsy was a
leadin', Dalia a-followin', givin' him her mind for
outrunnin' her. Old Mrs. Doolan, a lashin' the air
wid a big broom, was but a step in the rear.

" ' But there'll be murther done,' says I to Katie,
and we shlipt down the road behind the cedar
bushes. In that we was dishappointed, for just be-
fore they all reached the turn, Dalia passed Patsy,
givin' him a terrible cuff, and callin', ' Take that,
ye quakin' bowl o' mush ! ' that he stumbled and
fell into the ditch, from which Mrs. Doolan had him
out in an eyewink, and was leadin' him home by the
ear like a sthrayed pig.

164 THE GARDEN OF A

" Not a word was spoke the noight, but come All
Saints' mornin' I took up wid Mrs. Doolan goin' to
mass.

" ' Mrs. Mullins,' says she, ' will yer belayve me,
Patsy's that fond o' me he can't think o' marriage,
and he's broke wid Dalia, but a nice farm he'll get
the day he does it, though he do claim the girl's not
born he'd look at along o' me. Yer might ha' heard
him swearin' it only lasht night.'

" ' Bad cess but I didn't,' thought I ; but I said,
1 Sure the boy's but a lad,' to kape the peace, me pig-
sty a lappin' a bit on her land, the same convaynienc-
ing me greatly.

" That night Patsy he come a-bawlin' and prayin'
to me to coax Dalia to see him, and a-sayin' he'd lave
the old woman if Dalia'd make up ; and I had fair to
trap her at our house, she was that contrary.

" ' Dalia, darlint, whatever'll I do ? Have patience !
the old woman won't last forever,' he playded, the
tears streamin' from him ; ' and if ye lave me, I'll go
drown for sure,' he begged on his two knees.

" ' She's long outlasted my notion for you,' quoth
Dalia, ' and her dyin' would change nothin'. There's
two buried in your grave already, and she'd be over-
near the top for safety. I've got sense, thanks to
you, Patsy Doolan, which is what I lacked before.'

COMMUTER'S WIFE 165

And she walked out, and Patsy he got up from his
two knees, and to kape his word went out and
drowned hisself in drink before witnesses in Grogan's
saloon."

Mrs. Mullins talked so rapidly, hurried by a keen
relish of her subject, that I followed her with diffi-
culty, divided between laughter and admiration of
Delia's spirit. So when Mrs. Mullins creaked down-
stairs, she carried the tidings to the girl that, failing
of being a bride, she might still be a waitress without
reproach.

Having a healthy appetite, and no woman being
within reach with whom I could discuss the morn-
ing's happenings, thereby magnifying their impor-
tance, I went in search of luncheon, and by the time
it appeared, together with father, the only part of the
trilogy of woes that seemed worth repeating was Mrs.
Mullins' s account of the failure of Delia's venture in
real estate.

X

WINTER

THE GARDEN OF BOOKS

December 3. Winter has come in a single night,
the picturesque winter of Christmas cards wrapped
snugly in ermine robes and travelling to the jingle of
sleigh bells. It is only occasionally that he travels in
this guise, more often coming as gaunt Black Frost
with the northwind for pace-maker, trampling the
naked fields with mailed feet, freezing the very pith
of the leafless trees, numbing the huddled birds as
they glean seed in the furrows, and making us feel
the hopeless cruelty of Nature's sterner moods when
unassuaged by human kindness.

However fickle our climate may be, it is never
monotonous, and so after three open, or at least
snowless winters, to-morrow many sleighs will be let
down from the lofts where they were fast sinking into
Rip van Winkle sleep, while wolf skins and buffalo
robes, the relics of a vanished tribe, will leave the
camphor chests, and again see the light of day.
166

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 167

Night before last was the time of the "watch fires."
The sun went down with the clear red afterglow that
in summer usually indicates the coming of hot dry
weather. The air in fact was warm, of the real
Indian summer softness, such as often continues for
many weeks after the killing frosts of middle No-
vember.

I am glad that the watch fires are still kept up. I
remember being wakened, wrapped in a blanket, and
taken out to light my first fire. Father himself
started the custom, and I feared that it might have
died out during my absence, with other signs of the
seasons that add so much to country living.

All through the autumn, as the farmers cut the
brush from meadow edges or cleared weeds and stub-
ble from the corn-fields, fires would be seen at night,
the leisure time they took for burning the rubbish.
Oftentimes these fires were lighted, and being left to
tend themselves, spread, doing much damage, or else
a conflagration of house or barn was thought to be
merely a brush fire, and so neighbourly aid was with-
held.

For these reasons father had suggested that
every one should gather his rubbish as usual, but
wait to burn it until the first night of winter, when
all the neighbourhood could be out and on the

168 THE GARDEN OF A

watch to see and enjoy the bonfires that flickered
from hill to hill quite out to the point that runs
into the bay, and make a festival of "watching in"
winter.

Evan and I went together to the hilltop well back
of the house and woods, where Bertie had collected
a grand pyre of stubble, shrub trimmings, and weed
hay from the roadsides, all capped and held in place
by pine and hemlock boughs that had been cut away
in clearing the meandering cowpath that was to be
the walk through our wild garden in the wood lot.

It was a beautiful night, the many voices coming
from afar and the vivid flames lent an air of newness
and mystery to familiar surroundings. Every time
Evan stirred the pile with his fork, the landscape
perspective changed, and now and then a weasel,
a fox, or some other little night-prowling animal,
startled from its lair, would dart across a streak of
light, to be instantly swallowed by the darkness again.

Finally the last flicker died away ; and when noth-
ing remained but a glowing circle of embers that
could do no harm in the middle of the ploughed
field, we strolled slowly home, Evan with his coat on
his arm, and I fanning my face which the fire had
toasted, with my useful but rather dilapidated hat
which had seen service as carrier for nuts or small

COMMUTER'S WIFE 169

tufts of ebony spleenwort, pipsissewa, or partridge
berry that from time to time I added to the little wild
fernery that lives in the middle of the dinner table.

" Are you ready for winter ? " asked Evan, who
had been away for a few days' visit to an F. M. (an
American title signifying Financial Mightiness)
whose recent purchase of a tract of forest, field, and
river was to be turned into a home park.

" Is any one ever ready to be shut in or see the
friendly earth so seemingly dead ? But if you mean
have I done all the outdoor gardening that is pos-
sible before spring, I can certainly say that I have,
and that I am ready for winter. The narcissus,
Bermuda lilies, Roman hyacinths, early tulips, and
freezias are all potted and buried in the cold frame,
ready to be brought in succession as house plants.
I've sown ounces, in fact quite half a pound of
Shirley poppy seed in front of the hardy plants, the
entire length of the walk on the way to the sun
garden ; the perennials have cedar bough windbrakes
over them, the old roses are mulched with coarse
litter, and the new ones are all bonneted with straw
after the most approved fashion. The only thing
remaining to be done when the ground freezes for
good is to cover the bulbs outside the study win-
dows.

I/O THE GARDEN OF A

" Then," said Evan, slyly, " I think I shall not be
interfering with your garden operations if I bring
home some plans to-morrow night and work over
them here where I can be free from interruptions.
Incidentally, I might spare a few hours of daylight
to unpack my bachelor belongings, and get our
books into winter quarters."

He knew exactly what I should say, or rather do,
and he slipped around a tree that we were passing,
thereby causing me to embrace it fervently in the
dark, bumping my tip-tilted nose.

Ah, the joy of unexpected holidays ! their ecstasy
must be forever missing to the habitually leisure
class. Even the dogs sniff the news in the air on
the rare autumn field-days that father takes, and by
the time he brings out his gun and examines stock
and muzzle, they are running circling about in a
frenzy of excitement.

Precisely this feeling possessed me when Evan
said that he could do his planning here. Yet such
a creature of contrariety am I, that I can imagine
nothing more deadly to motive and affection than
to have one's husband belong to the American
branch of that pernicious institution known as " The
Men who Stay at Home." The subtle art of being
agreeable though unemployed in the technical sense

COMMUTER'S WIFE 171

requires both heredity and greater preparation than
most of the learned professions, and to be done well
must be the outcome of an older and possibly more
degenerate civilization than ours. For here, save
in exceptional Newport-like communities, "The Man
who Stays at Home " must, as far as male com-
panionship goes, suffer the pangs of Robinson
Crusoe loneliness, which does not improve his
temper.

But it is pure joy to have Evan for a few precious
days all to myself in the den, where I can sit in the
window and watch him make his free-hand water-
colour plans from the necessary but stiff scale draw-
ings, knowing when he is satisfied by the way in
which he rumples his hair, and when perplexed by
his horseshoe scowl. There is something very
interesting to me about an occasional horseshoe
scowl, savouring as it does of the wild but satisfac-
tory hero of Miss Edwards's " Barbara's History,"
one of my favourite novels.

Yesterday morning the weather was gray and
threatening. The lowlands were white with frost,
and upon trying to uncover the frame to pick Evan's
violets, I found the straw mats frozen to the glass ;

i/2 THE GARDEN OF A

an occasional snowflake drifted through the air, but
with the motivelessness of a floating feather.

Bertie, who has also been a sailor and is wise in
weather signs, predicted a storm, and suggested, as
it was Saturday and there was little to do, that he
should drive over to the sawmill for a supply of
lumber from which during the next three months he
is to construct and fashion new hotbed frames for
the spring seeds, garden seats, plant-boxes to screen
the piazza., and the framework for supporting the
chicken wire upon which sweet peas, nasturtiums,
and other summer vines are to be trained. By
planning winter work for Bertie we can keep him
the year through, and so be spared the uncertainty
of looking up a new man every spring, — a trial from
which many gardens and dispositions suffer.

By noon, when he returned with the first load,
snow was falling in soft, irregular flakes that by three
o'clock had grown finer and more persistent, while
the wind was rising fast and the pines were swept to
and fro by the unseen force.

Father had taken an all-day drive to Stony Hill for
a consultation and must return in the face of the
wind. The sudden change made me restless ; I could
neither sit still nor stay indoors : so buttoning myself
into an ulster with a hood, I called the dogs and

COMMUTER'S WIFE 173

started down the long walk to the path through the
wood lot.

The dogs were wild with excitement which they
expressed in different ways. Pat alternately tiptoed
along and made bounds into the air. The hounds,
to whom snow was a novelty, pawed and played
with it, took great mouthfuls, then rolled and finally,
when exhausted, sat down to rest, only to jump up
again, surprised and disappointed at the inhospitable
coldness under them. Lark started off, nose to
ground, trying to unravel the crossed trails of many
rabbits who, evidently surprised by the storm in
their daytime forms on the wood edge, had thrown
precaution aside and hurried helter-skelter to their
holes. Bluff alone stayed close beside me, sniffing
and glancing about apprehensively, his tail held close
and motionless.

There was a great flocking of such birds as live
with us at this season, and much chattering and com-
motion. Jays and nut-hatches were hurrying in
from the oak woods to the shelter of the evergreens,
robins sat in rows, humped and sullen, among the
cedars. I could hear the plaintive voices of invisible
bluebirds, various sparrow calls, the notes of cross-
bill and goldfinch, while the occasional " keo-keo " of
a distant red-tailed hawk made me feel that strange

174 THE GARDEN OF A

elements were abroad, for such a chorus of alarm
cries I had never heard save in the anxious nesting
season.

In some places the snow was even and a couple
of inches deep, in others there were tiny drifts, while
the cowpath itself was almost bare. The seeded
stalks of goldenrod, mullein, and the lattice-work of
the wild grapevines took fantastic shapes from the
clinging snow, above which the Christmas ferns
emerged crisp and shining.

By the time I reached the end of the path at
the bars and turned to go back, I began to realize
the blinding power of snow, for both the fall and the
wind had increased; night seemed to be coming,
and I was almost obliged to grope my way. In
crossing the sun garden I walked into the dial post,
in turning aside from the apple tree, I found my-
self under the rose arbour on my way to the barn
instead of near the house, so I continued on to put
Pat and the hounds into their night quarters in the
stable.

As I opened the door, half a dozen j uncos flew in
after me, and bunched half exhausted in the bottom
of a hay-rack. I called Bertie and told him to open
one of the ventilating windows in the hay-barn, on
the side away from the wind, and there was also

COMMUTER'S WIFE 175

shelter for the birds under the various sheds. Fi-
nally I struggled back to the house, surprised to find
myself quite spent.

Martha Corkle was in a state of ill-concealed
alarm, which made her head shake ominously, in
spite of a painstaking dignity.

" Mrs. Evan," she whispered, when I went to the
kitchen the more quickly to get a needed cup of tea,
" Mrs. Evan, it's a mercy the 'ouse is well victualled
and blankets and coals in plenty. The last time I
saw a storm come up like this, I was but a girl,
serving Mr. Evan's uncle in his shooting lodge in
Scotland, to the which same place he had gone to
keep Christmas.

" The snow came that deep that we were not dug
out until Twelfth Night, and there were shepherds,
sheep, and cattle being turned up at times until
spring; the same, of course, being stiffened corpses,
the thought making me fearful for the doctor and
Timothy Saunders."

I laughingly told her that with the stout gray
horses in a country of travelled roads, a few inches
of snow meant no danger; nevertheless, I was
relieved when, a little before six, father returned.

"I've known nothing like it except the great
Storm of '88," he said, stamping the snow from his

176 THE GARDEN OF A

shoes, while the whistling wind nearly drowned his
voice, " and this time yesterday you were sitting out
on the porch, Barbara, and I was driving without
an overcoat."

The telephone bell rang, blessed nuisance ! Evan
was detained in town, but would arrive at nine ; we
were not to wait dinner, and the storm was not yet
bad at that end of the line. This comforting mes-
sage was the last word the telephone uttered for
five days.

At a quarter to ten Evan came home, snow hang-
ing to his face, bearding it white as Santa Claus.
After a bit of supper we all went to bed, feeling a
strange sensation of suppressed excitement, for the
wind was shrill as when keyed by a ship's rigging,
in "spite of the muffling snow that fell with a posi-
tive sifting sound. Bluff and Lark, who usually
slept on the door mats in the lower hall, insisted
upon coming upstairs, whining and fidgeting until
in self-defence we let them in, when Lark crawled
behind the lounge, and Bluff stretched himself beside
my bed, whence he arose at intervals to lick my hand
or nose as if in assurance of protection.

This morning there were none of the usual
sounds of day. About these, however, the commuter
troubles himself but little on Sunday. The dense

COMMUTER'S WIFE 177

silence was more disturbing than positive sound and
seemed to press upon the brain. I think the
present experience has taught me an intense pity
for the deaf, who in the midst of moving objects
must perpetually feel this tenseness and pressure
of silence.

Outside was a world of snow which was three feet
deep on a level and everywhere billowed into fanciful
drifts. There were no paths, no fences; one
unbroken sheet stretched from the front door,
covering bank-wall, and road, levelling them with
the field beyond.

It was impossible to open the east door, so
deeply was the snow heaped against it, and the
dogs cowered and refused to go out, even by
the back way, where the wind had left a bare
spot.

Bertie had not appeared, and Tim with difficulty
fought his way in, bringing the milk pails, and
has remained here ever since. It was of no use to
attempt the breaking of paths while it was still
snowing, and an effort to free even the back stoop
was as foolish as the proverbial task of sweeping
the wind off the roof.

Father tried to call up the hospital, but the tele-
phone was useless. The lack of church bells told the

i;8 THE GARDEN OF A

plight of the village, and so we had a day of absolute
and enforced rest in which to arrange and plant our
indoor garden of books.

The one-time parlour across the hall from father's
study and office had been developing (I suppose
Aunt Lot would say degenerating) into a comfortable
den for a month past

The best chairs that for so many years had stood
primly back against the wall were scattered about
the room, their places taken by a continuous line
of book-shelves of a height that left picture space
above. The claw-footed mahogany table was drawn
well into the bay and littered with books and maga-
zines in a way that must have surprised it. A pair
of scroll-ended mahogany sofas faced each other
on either side of the fireplace, improvising a sort
of ingle nook, their antique and inhospitable hair-
cloth hidden by the bright, harmonious colours of
some Mexican rugs. The north window was Evan's
lair; an open bookcase jutted out on either side to
form an alcove with a wide-topped desk between,
while I had a somewhat similar nook by an odd,
doorlike casement at one side of the fireplace. A
great rug and a few big chairs made up- the
furniture, leaving plenty of room for ' living, moving,
and having our being.' A woman educated by men

COMMUTER'S WIFE 179

soon learns the importance of having standing room
within as well as out of doors.

There are many things that make the account of
the miracle of the loaves and fishes not only seem
possible but quite an everyday affair, and the
unpacking and rearranging of books is one of
them.

The plants in my book garden, like those of the
hardy beds, were jumbled together, regardless of
size, colour, or season, and quite overflowed the
space allotted them. Evan suggested that as in the
outdoor garden, when pressed for room, we should
dispense with most of the annuals, — the books of but
a few months' bloom, which having served to brighten
a brief period, have no lasting qualities, — and send
them to the hospital, thus giving first place to the
books of perennial delight and to the biennials, —
those volumes that one turns to at least every other
year. To this I agreed, until I found that opinion
plays a large part in the hardiness of books, and
that they cannot be as arbitrarily classified as flower
seeds.

My little library was built up of three periods,
childhood, girlhood, womanhood ; or boyhood would
have been a triter term for the first, as boys' books
preponderated at this time. Strange, isn't it, that

i8o THE GARDEN OF A

sex should be asserted in books at a time when
the readers are the most sexless, and then quite
disappear as the readers themselves develop ! Books
are written for girls and boys, " The Boy's Own Book,"
" The Girl's Toymaker," but never " A Novel for a
Woman," or " A History for a Man " appears.

The first period of reading stood by itself and
ranged from Grimm's and Laboulaye's " Fairy
Tales," " The Wilds of Africa," " Tommy Try and
What He Did in Science," " Robinson Crusoe," an
expurgated Gulliver, " Alice's Adventures " and "Hia-
watha," from which I made a play wholly my own,
to certain famous histories and biographies that may
be read from childhood to old age, each reading
yielding new meaning according to the development
of the reader.

Girlhood began with Clarke's " Shakespeare's
Heroines," Strickland's " Queens," " Ivanhoe," " The
Pathfinder," and " Little Women," — a combination
of the literary, martial, and domestic, that was much
to my taste. Then for a long time history in all its
branches, especially that of the Anglo-Saxon race,
reigned supreme, and with it came folklore. In a
single year, according to the dates written on the
neat record book-plates father had given me, I be-
came possessed of Brand's "Popular Antiquities,"

COMMUTER'S WIFE 181

the convenient Bohn edition of the " Chronicles of
Mathew of Westminster," " Florence of Worcester,"
" Roger de Hovenden," " Ingulph," and the " Ven-
erable Bede," besides Plutarch's " Lives," and the
ponderous volumes of Schoolcraft upon our own In-
dians, from whom I then fancied myself descended.
Natural history and the poetical side of nature
came later. Figuier's works and Emerson's " Trees
and Shrubs of Massachusetts " hovered about my
seventeenth birthday with a bevy of bird books. It
had never before seemed any more necessary for me
to locate the birds, with which I was wholly familiar
and which were my field companions, and analyze
them by means of books, than to search the town
records for statistics concerning my neighbours whose
habits and daily lives were open to me. The next
year I met Thoreau quite informally, though he had
always been within easy reach, like the near neigh-
bour upon whom it is so easy to call that we put it
off, and Wilson Flagg went with me to the attic on
rainy summer days in guise of " Woods and By-
ways of New England," and its companion " Birds
and Seasons," while Burroughs and Hamilton Gib-
son were as a pair of rose-coloured glasses through
which I learned at once to differentiate and to beau-
tify everyday things, though far back two books

182 THE GARDEN OF A

belonging to mother had set this door ajar. They
were both Michelet's " The Bird " and " The Ocean."

Then books on plants and gardening followed
thick and fast, and I picked up a few inexpensive
oddities at the book sales when I went with father,
sometimes venturing to bid myself, — the " Flora His-
torica " of Phillips, two quaint volumes on the Three
Seasons of the British Parterre being one of the
results of my prowess; while the first book that
Evan gave me was the rare North American Sylva
of Michaux and Nuttall, with coloured plates.

As Evan began to sort and stack the books, I
stood by in a state of increasing alarm as one fav-
ourite after another went to build up the pile of
annuals. I saw the Rollo books and "The Wide,
Wide World " depart without a sigh. I never
cared for them except when I was rather feeble
physically, as after whooping-cough or the mumps ;
but when " The Parent's Assistant " and Hooker's
" Child's Book of Nature " followed, together with
"The English Orphans," "Les Malheurs de Sophie,"
one of my early French books, "The Children's and
the Schoolgirl's Garland " of Mrs. Kirkland, and
" The Struggles and Triumphs of P. T. Barnum,"
a souvenir of a festive trip to the circus, I pro-
tested.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 183

"Do you ever read these books?" quoth Evan,
who was momentarily becoming aware that, accord-
ing to the habit with book lovers, as far as the
the shelf room was concerned we were expecting to
have more than a cat in her skin.

" Of course I haven't recently."

" Do you ever expect to again ? "

" I'm not sure — that is, I may wish to. I used to
like them, and I do now, though I can't tell why."

" I will give you an idea," said Evan, as he saw
my expression. " Range them along the attic
shelves and call them the garden of remembrance,
where you may stray for memory's sake, just as we
keep in an odd corner of the outdoor garden some
old-time flowers whose use is gone, whose beauty is
questionable, and yet the remembrances they bring
entitle them to life."

It was slow work, this arranging ; for almost
every volume had something to say or a reason to
give why it should be planted in a particular nearby
case. * It was noon before we had more than made
a beginning.

Then there was a temporary interruption caused
by the appearance of a man who lived far up the
road. He was first seen coming zig-zag along the
stone fences steadying himself with a pole. He

184 THE GARDEN OF A

disappeared twice in fifty yards from losing his foot-
ing and stepping into a drift, and when he finally
reached the kitchen door he was exhausted, having
been several hours in coming less than two miles.
His quest was some milk for his baby, as of
course the local pedler who usually supplied him
had failed.

After he had rested and been fed with hot soup,
Tim went to start him on his way back along a
more direct line of fencing, while we ate our mid-
day meal in unusual awestruck silence. Still the
snow fell and the wind blew without cessation.

Every now and then a bird driven from cover by
hunger, would be dashed against a window, and
before night half a dozen such unfortunates had
been fed and were resting in an open-work basket
in the kitchen.

A sharp-shinned hawk, the wildest of its tribe
perched for so long on the trellis of the porch that
Evan had full time to sketch its half-defiant, half-
cowed attitude.

Back to the den we went, and after the books
were housed, then came the placing of the pictures.
I had some Houbraken prints of Shakespeare,
Chaucer, Spenser, etc., and my special pride, a beau-
tiful copper engraving of Van Dyck's Charles the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 185

First, with his war horse, a print full of light and
brilliant blacks. Evan has a Rembrandt's Three
Trees, Earlom's mezzotint fruit and flower pieces, two
"Kit Kat" pictures by Kneller, of Dick Steele and
Congreve in the same style as father's Dr. Garth of
Dispensary fame, Tonson, the bookseller, an engrav-
ing of the two Tradescants, gardeners to Queen
Elizabeth, a set of coloured prints of men of the Lin-
nsean school, in which the head is as it were framed
in an engraved oval. He has, besides, a dozen last-
century prints, also coloured, of many famous gar-
dens of the Thames, — Hampton Court, Vauxhall,
Kew, Ranelegh, and St. James's Park; and lastly,
the very apple of his eye, an engraving on copper
representing Charles the Second with his spaniels in
the gardens of the Duchess of Cleveland at Dauney
Court, while Rose the gardener is in the act of pre-
senting the king with the first English-grown pine-
apple.

At last all was arranged, the garden pictures mak-
ing a harmonious frieze above the book-shelves.
Only one gap remained; the broad panel over the
mantelshelf was quite empty.

" Something will turn up, as usual," said Evan,
shrugging his shoulders as we laughed at the omis-
sion, for we should have begun with filling this space.

186 THE GARDEN OF A

" Some day I will have a portrait painted for this
panel. It shall be of you, Barbara, in the garden
with Bluff, your faithful squire, at your feet. Who
shall the artists be? It will need three, — a por-
trait, an animal, and a flower painter."

" Meanwhile, take this," said father, crossing the
hall, carrying a portrait in a plain Dutch oak frame,
that had long hung over his study mantel.

"Linnaeus! Are you really going to part with
him?" I cried, in joyful amazement. "You angelic
father ! it is the one thing needful to complete the
room. But our old shrine will be desolate."

"The truth is, Barbara, I've something to replace
it. You know how long I've been collecting por-
traits of the men that were the founders of my pro-
fession, both medical and surgical, the Houbraken
Harvey, Galen, Sydenham, Par£, and all the rest ?
After your Aunt Lot's marriage, I seized the oppor-
tunity to group them in one large frame, without
being reproached for extravagance, thus putting
these worthies in a house with many windows, as it
were, where, being together, each may keep his sepa-
rate point of view. But disliking to disturb anything
your wish had placed, I let Linnaeus keep his shrine,
storing the prints close at hand in my office closet,
until your return."

COMMUTER'S WIFE 187

Dear father ! the buying of the Linnaeus portrait
had been one of our booksale romances that had
culminated in the Dodoen's " Herbal " and Evan. It
happened on a dreary February day. Father was
browsing along a line of dingy books in the auction
room, scanning them closely in the dim light, when
his foot struck against a picture-frame that rested on '
the floor, causing it to tip forward. A hasty glance at
the face interested him, and he asked an attendant to
move the frame into the light. It was the portrait
of a man done in oils, life size, and a little more than
waist length. The face was clear cut and alert, the
head covered by a white wig that curled above the
ears. A dark green coat with red collar opening
slightly over a buff vest was finished at neck and
wrist by lace frills. A glance told that the hands
were beautifully painted, the flesh being firm and the
colour true. The right hand, partly resting on a
stand, was half closed over a few flowers, while the
left was held palm out and half extended, as if
in explanation. The background was quite dark,
though a church spire could be distinguished at one
side, and a festoon of ivy on the other.

" A fine piece of colour, and the face seems
strangely familiar," said father, adjusting his
" nearby " glasses. " What do they call him ? "

i88 THE GARDEN OF A

" ' A Gentleman in a White Wig,' " I replied, on re-
ferring to the catalogue where half a dozen pictures
and some prints were listed with the books.

" A true though certainly not very enlightening
title," mused father, still looking at the face with
narrowed eyes. " Barbara, I believe this is no less
than a portrait of Linnaeus. Those are not decora-
tive flowers, but botanical specimens, a wild rose
and a spray of agrimony, toward which he is calling
attention with his outstretched hand, possibly in
lecturing. That steeple is of the church in whose
manse garden he played when a boy. I'll not say
that it is an original painting, but probably a copy
of some museum picture abroad, of which there may
be fifty others floating about unrecognized. Still it
is good, and bears a certain resemblance to prints that
I have seen, and I've a mind to buy it."

" Do, for I am simply in love with it," I assented,
"and Aunt Lot doesn't squirm so much about pic-
tures as over books. But I won't believe it's a
copy. The brush marks are free and without a
draggle or stumble. Who knows but it is a master-
piece gone astray ? At any rate, we will christen it
' Linnaeus ' at once, and make a shrine for it over
your study mantel, and always keep wild flowers
under it."

COMMUTER'S WIFE 189

" First we must buy it, Bab the impetuous,'1
laughed father, " and some one may realize its beauty
and easily outbid us, for we have been a week in
town, this is the fourth day of the sale, and my purse
is pretty thoroughly purged."

But we bought it, there being only two other
' competitors, one a man of the buy-anything-cheap
type, and the other a real lady collecting ancestors,
who would doubtless have outbid us if her daughter
had not checked her audibly by saying, " Don't, ma ;
you know we agreed to stick to the military line,"
and so Linnaeus, was knocked down to us for the
small sum of twenty dollars, when, as the auc-
tioneer patronizingly assured us, " The frame alone
is quite worth the money, being hand-carved Dutch
oak ! "

Now " Linnaeus " has fitly come to preside over
our garden of books, and I still believe that he is
all my fancy imagined, and that one day he will
be proved his real self, and it will be explained
how he came to be travelling incog, as the "Gen-
tleman with the White Wig."

Toward four o'clock the storm lightened, but it
was too late for road breaking. Then the wind

IQO THE GARDEN OF A

blew again, and more snow and nightfall came to-
gether. Two hearth-fires glowed, and father sat in
his study and looked contentedly across the hall,
silent save for a soliloquy on the contrariety of
new-fangled notions when, after running his paper
knife in a leisurely way as usual through the top
pages of a magazine, he began to read and found
the leaves were joined at the bottom.

8 P. M. Evan has been to the barn with Tim,
and reports the sky clear and the stars bright, and
promises that in the morning I shall ride on the
snow plough that breaks the first road.

A crude implement this snow plough, merely a tri-
angle of timber with a platform set midway, the
horse being fastened by a whiffle-tree to one of
the points. Ah, but I remember the excitement of
it all, the buffeting and breaking the way through
the trackless whiteness, and even the half-acid
taste of the crisp snow I ate to quench my thirst.
My face tingles already at the thought of it.

Lark and Bluff, however, were not happy. First
they stretched before one fire, then the other, and
finally took up their places in the hall, Bluff facing
one way, and Lark the other, so that they could
see both halves of the family and nothing might
escape them; and I, too, sitting in the ingle nook,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 191

can compass my two lovers with a single glance as
I write half by firelight.

Dear garden of outdoors, I love you best ! but as
you vanish, then the door of the garden of books
opens to me with its main roads, bypaths, and end-
less vistas, and I also rejoice at this. Do you realize,
you happy, happy Barbara, what it is to have both
gardens and both lovers?

XI

THE TERRIBLE TEMPTATION

Febmary 10. Why is it that so many people think
that charity consists in giving away merely what
they cannot use instead of the article the recipient
needs ? For it often seems to me that in the eyes of
the multitude, it is not until a thing becomes useless
that they think of passing it on.

This miscellaneous unloading of trash upon the
hospital reached such a pass at Christmas time that
the managers, many of whom were leaving to winter
in the city, appointed a Committee of One with
Power, to handle the problem. I am It, and my
name is Committee for the Reception of Donations
Other than Money, — a title as long as the duties are
various.

The old way had been to have the gifts sent to the
Superintendent's office, thence being distributed at his
discretion, or in the case of books, pictures etc., often-
times to allow visitors themselves to do the giving.

Murmurs of the lack of tact displayed had often
192

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 193

reached father, but it was only recently that the
extent of the abuse first appealed to me.

I was arranging some Christmas greens in the
men's surgical ward, when a poor fellow, an engi-
neer who had lost both legs through a railway col-
lision, called me and said with grave face but keen
humour twinkling in his hollow eyes : —

" Ma'am, isn't it funny how some well-meanin'
folks like to grind a fellow when he's down," and he
pointed to a card hanging on the opposite wall, and
to a book on the floor beside the cot. The picture
was' a flaming illuminated text hung by a ribbon.
It read, " Arise, take up thy bed and walk ! " The
book was a sensational account of railway acci-
dents !

The grim humour of the combination struck us
both, and we laughed over it heartily as I confis-
cated book and text, the man telling father after-
ward that the cheer of the sympathetic laugh was
the first thing that encouraged him to get well.

I bore the articles to the superintendent's office
and there listened to a tale from his wife that amazed
me. Not only were useless articles of furniture and
clothing sent almost daily for which receipts and
official thanks were expected, but unsuitable food
arrived as well, — skim milk on the turn, soggy
o

194 THE GARDEN OF A

potatoes, " jellies " that from stinginess with the
sugar declined to jell, the last donation of all being
a case of fermented fruits from the Lady of the
Bluffs. Fruit kept so long that the tin cans had
popped at both ends ! together with some equally
suspicious tins of deviled ham ! This gift was
accompanied by a violet-scented note saying, " If
the fruit, a superior California grade, and quite
expensive, is nicely and thoroughly cooked, and more
sugar added, it will be a refreshing treat to our dear
convalescents." Of course such food was destroyed
and never given to the patients, but the Village Liar
via the Emporium had started the tale that the
Superintendent's family " fattened on the delica-
cies sent to the sick ! " Shades of ptomaine poison !
Was it not time to appoint a Committee of One
with Power ?

I have established a food quarantine in a little
room off the hospital kitchen, and nothing unsuit-
able is allowed even to be received ; while all other
articles are collected in a loft where once a week I
go to inspect and sort them, the useless things being
left to accumulate. They will be scattered annually
by a well-advertised " rummage sale," to which, if I
know human nature, people will flock in order to
see if they will recognize any of their neighbours'

COMMUTER'S WIFE 195

goods. The proceeds will of course belong to the
hospital.

The Village Liar will doubtless have plenty to say
upon the subject. She sent fermented cabbages
that were rejected yesterday. The Emporium must
also be already bursting with news ; but as the Em-
porium is treated by a natural herb doctor and the
Village Liar is a Christian Scientist, I do not have
to come in contact with them either for professional
or social reasons.

These memoranda may seem out of place in my
Garden Boke, but then, gardening isn't all earth,
the growing of flowers, and the crushing of weeds;
it is the developing of the soul and the body
as well. As there are human beings whose very
presence seems to bring God nearer, so there are
others who by their nothingness send us the more
gladly back to the companionship of the beasts
and flowers of the field. Surely there is no greater
garden for human-nature study than the flotsam

and jetsam of the hospital.

******

Two months of winter gone already ! White
winter is never dreary, for the trees are wreathed
with snow flowers that bloom by day and night.
On the shelf around the bay window of the den

196 THE GARDEN OF A

where I am sitting, freezias, Roman hyacinths, pink
and yellow oxalis, and cyclamen are in bloom, the
delicate colour being enhanced by half a dozen
medium-sized plants of the ubiquitous Boston fern
(Nephrolepsis Bostoniensis). This fern should be
divided every spring and not allowed to grow too
large, as the pots are then heavy to handle, and
the fronds are less vigorous and perfect than with
the smaller plants.

Now that we have this fern, there is no excuse
for keeping the rubber plant, that abomination of
stationary motion that would be quite as satisfac-
tory if made out of zinc and painted.

I returned home too late to prepare anything
except bulbs for my window garden this season,
for pot plants bought of a florist and brought
from greenhouse heat to the conditions of a living
room soon grow feeble, and seldom adapt them-
selves to the new condition. From outdoors in is
quite change enough to be overcome.

After all, I am quite sure that bulbs are by far
the most satisfactory things for window culture.
They may be brought from the frames in succes-
sion, and removed again to be dried off when out
of flower, and what in nature is more pitiful than
a pinched and starving house, plant? — nothing

COMMUTER'S WIFE 197

except the caged wild bird that, grown too feeble
even to struggle, sits crouching on the perch, and
with dimming eyes looks through the bars toward
the sky.

I have led quite a virtuous and commendable
existence these past months ; in fact, ever since
the great storm quenched, for the time being at
least, the outward manifestation of my gardening
passion and forced me indoors, face to face with
the domestic occupations of a commuter's wife in
a snowy winter. Now we are pruning the fruit
trees by degrees, and the days are lengthening.
Thirty more of them will bring hotbed making, and
the garden is again beginning to lure me in
thought. I've devoted a fair share of my days to
my fellow-beings and the before-mentioned scan-
ning of hospital donations. I've made personally
and carefully certain concoctions that the sick but
respectable poor, with traditions and pasts, associ-
ate with a self-respecting convalescence, and have
taken my wares to the hospital for special cases.
It has always been one of my pet amusements to
watch people eat the things they enjoy, from chil-
dren drooling over a lump of sugar upward.
Mouths have so many different expressions; even
Bluff's lips look dry and contracted when his meal

198 THE GARDEN OF A

is of dog biscuits, and totally different from the
abandon with which they linger over the leavings
of kidney stew.

It is well worth a little effort to see parched,
fevered lips moisten with expectancy when I take
from my "hospital basket" the glass plate of
lemon jelly or glac^ed orange, seeded and parted
in its natural divisions, sprinkled with sugar and
frozen. The jelly, I know, would not be as pala-
table from a thick hospital saucer.

True, modern science questions the nutritiveness
of many "sick-room messes" of our grandmother's
day. Yet father thinks that there is such a thing as
satisfying the mental side of an invalid's appetite,
which some of the young doctors, learned in every-
thing except the common-sense of experience, do
not understand. For surely there are some nerv-
ous, homesick conditions, where a little home-made
apple sauce is more reviving than a pint of correct
and unpalatable peptonoids.

Besides this work, which I really like next best
to sitting in the den with Evan, or gardening, I've
done a little sewing in spite of my prejudice, and
absolutely made holders for the kitchen, neat car-
pet cookies covered with ticking, binding them prop-
erly about the edges with turkey red after Aunt

COMMUTER'S WIFE 199

Lot's habit, instead of hobgobbling them with shoe
thread as my Familiar Spirit suggested. By the
way, this " Familiar " is not of the guardian angel
tribe, for it is frequently a suggester of question-
able short cuts and of shifting purpose, invariably
opposing me in argument.

I have given the village tea, which passed off in
a cloud of glory composed of hot oysters, chicken
salad, chocolate with whipped cream a-top, sand-
wiches, biscuit glac6, and pistache cake, instead of
the usual local sop of salty ice-cream and adaman-
tine chocolate cake.

That collation was an inspiration of Evan's. I
said, having argued fore and aft about it with my
Familiar for two months, —

" I must have this tea as a matter of course, for,
you know, having no reception at the time of our
wedding, and going away so soon, they scarcely
realize us as a unit."

" Which you are quite determined that they shall
do, having made up your mind to that effect,
and notified me long ago," said Evan, laughing.
" Do you know, Barbara, there have been times
when I've been afraid that you were not quite
feminine enough to be wholly comfortable in your
surroundings, but I shall worry no longer ! "

200 THE GARDEN OF A

" What if I do wish to show you to all the peo-
ple that have known me ever since I was a kitten,
even if some of them are — well — original! Surely
there is nothing strange in that."

Then I, too, was forced to laugh at the complete
way in which I had committed myself.

" We will allow a double motive, then, if you wish,
but doing so is a compliment to you, for which you
must pay by telling me how to entertain them. Of
course they will not come and go as people do in
the city when bidden to tea at four, but arrive at
the beginning and stay for two hours. Even your
charms, great as they are, will hardly withstand
such wear and tear. Shall we have some one to
recite, a lecture on foreign missions illustrated by
magic lantern slides of the India famine and pious
Chinese, or will a palmist and some coon songs
do?"

" Neither one nor the other," Evan answered em-
phatically. " Put all your strength into a substantial
hot collation, order it from town, but do not mention
the fact. Food bought ready made suggests hash or
something warmed over, as well as a shirking of
trouble to the simple rural minds of all countries.
Having done this, give them plenty of time to talk,
and your succes« is assured."

COMMUTER'S WIFE 201

Perfectly true. On the appointed day Evan came
home a little after four, donned his newest frock
coat, his most deeply creased trousers, and an ob-
streperous tie, and pervaded the rooms smiling, and
at intervals cheerfully partaking of cake which he
never eats, and ice-cream, which always gives him a
pain in his nose. Father wafted uneasily about, wear-
ing his genial expression, but avoided emphatic ex-
pression of opinion upon any subject.

The good things disappeared rapidly, and at one
time I feared a famine, but I had ordered in accordance
with the number invited, and not on the two-thirds prin-
ciple of the society which suffers from social surfeit.

The cream pistache cake was the belle of the ball.
It was eyed dubiously at first, but every one took a
second piece, and Mrs. Haddock from Centreville, dear
soul, who had absolutely hired a livery team for the
ten-mile drive, an unheard-of extravagance, took a
third piece, which she dexterously concealed in her
large squirrel muff, whispering to a neighbour : —

" That mustache cake beats me ! It just creams in
your mouth without chewin', though the fillin' does
appear to be of green peanuts, and the icin' beat up
with spinach. I feel called to take a piece home to
see what my son's wife makes of it. And do you
know," subduing her voice still further, " I'd power-

202 THE GARDEN OF A

ful like to ask what it's named for, but I can't quite
fetch myself to. One thing's certain, that's a proper
smart woman help of Evan's that they fetched over,
if she is English. Lot, she never made such cake,
let alone bein' so liberal with her victuals."

The fame of the pistache cake spread.

I was called upon to furnish the recipe, which was
easily obtained, but called for so many ingredients
and such skill in making that it impressed them as a
species of culinary mathematics. It was decided by
the Emporium that we were really well to do, and
had not come to live at home because Evan was
poor, that he had no intention of peddling vege-
tables, but owned a whole block of granite stores in
the city, and merely went to town to collect his
rents.

Upon such a trifle as the making and liberal
distribution of cake does country reputation often
hang, while in the city diamond stomachers, an
opera box, a yacht, or an automobile would not
reflect half so much glory.

After the tea was quite over, father and Evan
disappeared together, and I found them sitting at
the pantry table before a deliciously broiled porter-
house steak and dish of crisp potatoes, which Martha
Corkle herself was serving. As I gave her a glance

COMMUTER'S WIFE 203

in which question and approval blended, she said by
way of explanation, born of the proper English
regard of the man's rights in his home, in which, by
the way, there was no tone of apology, rather of in-
struction, —

"The gentlemen needs something hearty, Mrs.
Evan. Company food and sweets is most destroying
to their habits. In the old days at such times I
always served the master a steak in my sitting room
with my own hands, I bein' housekeeper then, Mrs.
Evan."

Good woman ! I think if the habits of our American
men were not so frequently "destroyed" by haste and
by company food, we should be better off. Thank you,
Martha Corkle. I am not ashamed to learn of you.

I should be restless or at least tired and fidgety
after these months of indoor life and repression, but
I'm not. However, indoor life in the country is only
a figure of speech to me at any season, save in the
evening; and I've been so well that I've not even
had the excuse of a snuffle cold to keep me in bed a
single dark, sleepy morning. Now I feel, however,
that the grip of civilization is loosening, and since
morning I've been confronted and surrounded by a
Terrible Temptation, one of the greatest that besets
the commuter's wife on gardening bent. All day it

204 THE GARDEN OF A

has been beside me. I have fought it bravely until
various tasks were done; for when I once yield, I
shall be absorbed and no longer mistress of myself.
Now there is a comfortable hour before dinner;
Delia, another log for the fire, the lamp with the
pale yellow shade, the deepest chair ! I abandon
myself and draw the Terrible Temptation to me, —
the seed catalogues that Evan has collected at the
office and then sent in a bunch by the morning
mail!

I sort them over, selecting four, of which all the
others are but understudies, and straightway the
hope of spring fills my heart and I am once more
in the land of expectancy.

February n (evening). Like the pnident and
methodical Plymouth Rock hens who may be seen
going in procession to the seclusion of their house at
a stated hour every evening, the time being regulated
the year round by sunset, so twilight in winter invari-
ably sees me at home, not dozing, but drawing my
keenest mental stimulus from father and Evan ; for
as they spend their days in active contact with their
fellow-men, their evening desire is of peace.

Many of the troubles of country living would dis-

COMMUTER'S WIFE 205

appear if people would only cease dragging in city
hours and conventionalities, or I might even say the
hours and conventionalities of other climates and
countries.

In England, city or country, it is the universal
custom to wear low bodices to even informal dinners,
but that does not make it a suitable habit to intro-
duce amid New England rigours. It is sheer folly,
as well as the custom of half-past seven or eight
o'clock dinner in houses where the same maids, or
often a single maid, must be ready to prepare and
serve breakfast at seven or half-past the next morn-
ing. It is things like these that make the commuter's
servants a floating population, and the employers
themselves the butt of comic papers.

Hereabout a few of the summer people have tried
to set an electric pace in everything, but long ago
father and I agreed that we should keep to simple
ways; when I dined from home or others came to
us, ! might wear the gayest, brightest gown I could
concoct, but never bare my shoulders. For we out
of town women of the upper middle class, com-
muters' wives especially, do not go often enough
to such festivities to acclimate ourselves to changes
from flannels to nothing, or to feel at home with
topless garments, and they are therefore among us

206 THE GARDEN OF A

an assumption, — a vulgarity. Oh, the flaunting of
bare bones and leaf lard that father and I have seen
in the past when entertained by some of his "summer
resident " patients, whose culinary pretentions, by the
way, were very slight. None of these, however, had
the peculiar quality of flesh possessed by the " turtles,"
a species of Englishwoman that Evan and I constantly
met and so classified — age between fifty and seventy,
never the mother of sons, but of daughters, only
unmarried daughters, who evidently made their own
clothes with the neck openings all of the same meas-
ure, irrespective of under or over development.

I've often wished when at some of the " profes-
sional necessity " dinner parties, that less meat on
the hoof had been exhibited and more had been
cooked and served at table, instead of the eight
courses of spinklets that frequently separated the
very tough and altogether-too-large-to-be-eaten-raw
clams from the half cold, disintegrated coffee ; but
such are the risks of society, and so we learned to
smile and say nothing ; but when we came home, we
always had a supper of honest roast beef sandwiches
and — Bass's ale. It does sound vulgar, but it's so
comforting, and ale is quite safe when one is rather
tall, slender, and takes plenty of exercise.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 207

Alack! the divergences in my Garden Boke are
many, but this one explains why I can now conscien-
tiously give way to the Terrible Temptation ; for to
keep Evan and the maids in good condition, I have
foresworn evening visiting for the cold months, and
so this evening is quite my own.

February u. Last night I attempted nothing
in the way of list making ; I simply explored my four
catalogues.

One was a dainty leaflet from Vermont, chiefly
exploiting hardy and native plants for the border,
wild and bog garden. Bog Garden ! I've an idea
that the wet spot around the spring hole by the cow-
path in the wood lot would make an enchanting
boggery. The soil ranges from water covered
through wet to merely damp, and could be easily
shaped, and the tussock grass grubbed out. Besides,
I see that this catalogue lists a great many plants of
wet ground that used to grow wild here, and that we
can dig up free of cost.

The next catalogue is from northern New York,
of fruits, shade trees, shrubs, and roses. I will put
this aside, with a sigh, however, for we have agreed
not to buy any more shrubs and roses until falL when
we shall be quite sure where we wish to plant them

The third is a substantial and conservative vol-

20S THE GARDEN OF A

ume devoted to seeds and a few well-tested bulbs
and roots. My grandfather bought his seeds from
this firm, and from this I shall make my final list
and send my order; and yet I turned almost fever-
ishly to the fourth, the catalogue of adjectives and
gay lithographs, upon whose cover is pictured a
young and lovely lady (it would seem lacking in
gentility to call her a woman). With her left hand she
holds up her lace robe, showing high-heeled slippers,
with the other she pushes an improved mowing
machine, with which she has just completed cut-
ting the grass on a two-acre lawn, though it is
apparently early morning. In the far background
is a bed of roses, each flower the size of the lady's
head ; and from the vegetable garden, which is in
plain sight, the husband, clad in a dress coat and
a four-in-hand tie, is taking in some strawberries of
large size for breakfast, apparently twelve to the
barrow in which he is wheeling them.

In spite of knowing that this is a Yellow Journal
of Horticulture, I fold back the cover and con-
tinue the walk through a midsummer night's dream
of improbabilities, — violets the size of a silver
dollar, pansies as big as saucers frilled like a
skirt dancer's robe, dwarf nasturtiums all flowers
and no leaves, self-supporting sweet peas, and worse

COMMUTER'S WIFE 209

yet, a well-known weed with a showy orange-red
flower, hawkweed or devil's paintbrush, is recklessly
praised. The same being a perfect curse to agriculture
in the grass region is offered as a floral novelty, and
so on until, passing from flower to vegetable garden,
a tomato appears that requires a folded twelve-inch
plate to picture it, " three-quarters life size " !

I still read on. The pictures are " all from
life," taken at the seed-testing ground. Ah, yes, but
please realize, Madam Commuter, that the seed-test-
ing ground is not your garden, that the remarks
do not apply to you, and that it is easy to enlarge
photographs. Be thankful also that it is not your
garden ; for you would become blind with the glare
of colour, and gardening would be such a mechani-
cal certainty that there would be no pleasure in it.

I know all this by bitter experience in the
days when plant money was tight. I have eaten
the wild apple, and yet return to the bitter fruit.
I have been burned, and yet poke the fire with
my fingers. I know that the coloured flower packets
at ten cents contain only as many seeds as the
plain ones of the conservative old firm do at five
cents, yet I reach for my pad and pencil, and find
myself wondering if possibly the Perpetual Bloom-
ing Pekin Perfection Poppy offered, may not

210 THE GARDEN OF A

bloom for five months instead of, as usual, shrivel-
ling and disappearing after a fortnight's tropic
glowing that necessitates sowing in succession.

No, the gambling spirit is strong in all agricul-
turalists, and especially so in the commuter's wife,
when the vernal equinox approaches, and surely
Wall Street itself is not possessed of more wiles than
the Seed Catalogue. Even the offerings of the Plant
Catalogue are a government bond by comparison.
You buy your plant and at least it is tangible, but
the seeds are promissory notes which nature upon
occasion does not hesitate to repudiate. Still the
fascination remains, a charm born of optimistic
hope, of the same sort as is exercised by the
patent medicine, flesh-reducing, wrinkle-destroy-
ing, and household washing-machine-without-work
advertisements.

February 15 (evening). St. Valentine's Day. No
birds mating as yet but English sparrows, which
never seem to be otherwise. It was my painful
duty to have three couples of them evicted from the
martins' house this morning.

Evan has just brought me a box of roses and car-
nations from the city. The roses are all of the
fragrant and lovable kind, and the carnations are
great golden beauties with a rosy fringe. They made

COMMUTER'S WIFE 211

a fine decoration for the dinner table, as my little
wild fernery is fading, and I must refill it at last with
some of my yellow tulips. I hope never to be too
poor to have something flowery on the table ; for eat
as daintily as we may, it is a very physical employ-
ment, and flowers do much to divert our minds at
least, from foodiness. Next to the dining table, the
stand in the hall is my favourite place for a bouquet
or a plant in bloom. Here every one can enjoy their
beauty — the patients bound for father's office, to
whom the visit should be made as cheerful as possi-
ble ; and the maids about their work as well as
we ourselves are cheered even though uncon-
sciously.

Evan says when I am ready to make my bog
garden, which if I follow his advice will not be
this spring, I had better buy my plants instead of
despoiling our own streams and ponds of them. Also
that it will be quite as cheap if I credit the price of
the necessary labour and wear and tear against them.
As usual he is right, I think, for I remember several
years ago I tried to dig some rose mallows by the
river several miles away. I broke my trowel and
ruined a pair of shoes, and the next day when Tim
went for the mallows he brought the clump back in a
fine block of peat ; but unfortunately it held only the

212 THE GARDEN OF A

stems, the roots being somewhere between here
and China, so that it was a decided case of Plant
Labour Lost !

It is always nice to have something ahead of one,
so I'm putting the bog garden idea away in my
desk, catalogue and all, together with that of the
shrubs and roses. That is to say, I'm only ordering
six crimson ramblers and fifty summer-blooming roses
for the sun garden, such as La France, Perle,
Augusta Victoria, Malmaison, Coquette de Lyon,
Duchess of Edinburgh, Souvenir d'un Ami, Sunset,
and Bride. These will give Evan a bud for his but-
tonhole after the June roses have gone and before
the Margaret carnations grown from seed come in
bloom.

I'm also ordering a dozen or so packets of seeds
from the " Yellow Journal" catalogue, merely to settle
my mind and prove that they are humbugs. I now
have before me the catalogue of my ancestor's firm
that has weathered time and sensation; so once
again heredity comes to my aid.

This catalogue I have read and reread many times
during the past five days, and I'm quite surprised to
find, among the hundreds of species of flower seeds
it offers, how comparatively few are needed for the
making of my garden, or would be missed by any but

COMMUTER'S WIFE 213

the specialist or dealer who wishes to make a numer-
ous showing, if they should entirely disappear from
the market. With the vegetables we discovered this
years ago, and acquired great caution in trying new
varieties. Evan also says that it is much the same
with the plants, trees, and shrubs used in producing
effects in everyday landscape architecture.

Of course all plants are suitable where they are
native born, many are adaptable to new conditions,
and many others are lovely, but of such a fleeting
quality of bloom that they are quite out of place in
a garden where space is in any way limited, so that
in spite of the trivial cost of the seed, they are an
extravagance because of the small yield of satisfac-
tion in proportion to the soil they cover.

Most of these evanescent flowers flock under the
title of annuals ; and though many may yield masses
of gorgeous colour in July and August, they have
little or no part in the bloom of the earlier and later
season.

Last night, after I had revised my list for the third
time, — the first lists would have stocked a ware-
house,— and recopied it, I showed it to Evan.

He looked rather cynical, made a rapid calculation
in which the quantities I had ordered and the square
feet seemed inextricably mixed, and then said, —

214 THE GARDEN OF A

" Far be it from me to limit you, but at a moderate
estimate, allowing for the usual failures to sprout,
you are ordering enough seeds to sow two acres.
Where do you mean to plant them ? "

" Why, in the sun garden, of course," I stammered,
beginning to realize that the gardening possession is
like intoxication, for when under its influence you see
double, and not only do your flower beds increase in
number, but in size also. " You know we planned to
keep all the perishable summer flowers together there ;
that is, except the nasturtiums and sweet peas, which
of course must go either side of the long walk."

" With the quantities limited, the list is fairly con-
servative," he continued, " but I see a dozen annuals
there that we surely have no room to waste upon, and
they will leave a bare spot early in September, if not
sooner. I do not expect that you will give them up
without a trial, — nothing less will convince you, — but
I'll lay you a wager of a new rose-arbour to nothing,
that their names will not be on your list next year,"
and as he spoke, he checked off a name here and
there, adding a remark as if dismissing the plant for
good : —

" Sweet alyssum : Only good for formal edgings."

" Amaranthus in mass : All too big and weedy for
a small garden."

THE GOLDEN CLOW OF HARDY COREOPSIS

214 THE GARDEN OF A

" Far be it from me to limit you, but at a moderate
estimate, allowing for the usual failures to sprout,
you are ordering enough seeds to sow two acres.
Where do you mean to plant them ? *'

" Why, in the sun garden, of course," I stammered,
beginning to realize that the gardening possession is
like intoxication, for when under its ii
double only do your flower beds inciv

numb " You know we planned to

hable summer flowers together there ;
^turtiums and sweet peas,
;f the long walk."

' -ly con-

servat'.- /on annuals

there tl
they M
sooner. I

without a tr • • > ng less w i — but

I'll lay you if a new n -thing,

that their names will not be on year,"

and as he spoke, he checked «. e here and

there, adding a remark as if dismissing the plant for

•

ars-ioajKX) YO*AH fo WOJD nacrjoo 3HT
" Sweet alyssum : Only good for formal edgings."

" Amaranthus in mass : All too big and weedy for
a small garden."

COMMUTER'S WIFE 215

" Castor beans : Too pretentious for your garden,
and not in character."

"Tassel flower (cacalia): Feebly inefficient. Be-
longs to the days of little choice."

" Annual chrysanthemums : Turn to mush in a
rainy season and require as much care as bedding
plants."

" Gourds : Grotesque. Only fit for a child's gar-
den, and they harbour squash bugs."

" Everlastings in variety : Belong to the days of
dried apples and herb tea. Not needed by those who
can buy fresh flowers in winter."

" Love in a mist : Trivial."

"Annual poppies : Either dry up or decay. Climate
too uncertain for the annual varieties, excepting fall-
sown Shirleys."

Until finally my list, chastened and much reduced,
is copied for the last time. Of annuals it has
asters in separate colours, Truffants, Victoria and
pompon ; calendulas, coreopsis, centaurea or bluets,
cosmos, lobelia errecta, mignonette, climbing nastur-
tiums, Japan pinks, portulacca, salvia splendens,
white " cut-and-come-again " stocks, sunflowers in va-
riety, sweet peas, wall flowers of the annual dwarf
kind, verbenas of the mammoth tribe, evening prim-
rose, nicotiana affinis, — the white night-blooming

216 THE GARDEN OF A

tobacco, — cheerful balsams, and zinnias in many
shades.

The perennial and biennial plants and bulbs of the
hardy borders we shall renew by seed or root division,
but the list of what were here already, or were set out
in November, is a brave one : peonies (colours un-
known), phlox, columbines, Canterbury bells, fox-
gloves, bleeding heart, white, yellow, and red day lilies,
Spanish, German, and Japan iris, honesty (lunaria),
golden glow rudbeckia, pyrethrum, oriental poppies,
hollyhocks, monkshood, anemone-Japonica, larkspurs
of all shades from white to deep metallic blue, hardy
white, pink, and red fringed pinks, lupins, evening prim-
roses, bee balm, and hardy pompon chrysanthemums.

I have also here a list of roots and bedding plants
to stock the garden with, that I hope to keep from
year to year in a flower pit with a stove in it that
I have in mind if godmother's fifty' pounds hold out;
and I think they will, because Evan has been so
good and forgiven me a small sheaf of bills that I
expected to pay from it, so that it's only been sampled
as yet. These plants are heliotrope, scarfet and fra-
grant geraniums, lemon verbenas, tender roses, chrys-
anthemums, both Japanese and Chinese ; Dahlias
double, single, and cactus, and gladioli in plenty.

How long it will seem from the time my seed list

COMMUTER'S WIFE 217

goes until the hotbed is ready for the planting!
Middle March is quite early enough, because if you
begin sooner, unless you pot off the plants, they
grow too big, and are mashed when the sashes
are opened and closed.

I haven't shown Evan the list of things that I
ordered from the " Yellow Journal " catalogue, and
now he is over in father's study, where he has
politely gone to take a hand at whist, so I will
not disturb him.

Father wishes to interest the local clergy in the
hospital and have them all on the board, so that
the institution shall be unsectarian, but not irre-
ligious, which is what that poor word often seems
interpreted to mean. I wonder how it will work!

If sects could exist without bigotry, I think it
would be so much better than trying to abolish
them. As this is a material and not a spiritual
world, a certain amount of competition seems nec-
essary to keep things going, so religion has got to
have a physical body and sex, so to speak, just the
same as people. Only cherubim and seraphim can
afford to do without either.

Three of the clergy dined here to-night, — the
Roman Catholic, the Anglican Catholic (ours), and
the Severely Protestant.

2i8 THE GARDEN OF A

We had a very good dinner, — that is always a
safe thing; but if the Board meetings are to be
like the conversation, I'm afraid they won't do, for
there will be no food as a bond of sympathy.

The S. P. bubbled over with good fellowship of
the " dear sister in the faith " order, only he took
it that everybody else was of his opinion, and
didn't wait to see. He is a peculiar man and
religiously inconsistent, constantly doomed to de-
plore his own actions. He has, like John Rogers,
nine children, which he uses alternately as flags of
triumph and alms basins. As it is spring, he waved
them vigorously at the R. C. : autumn, the time of new
shoes and flannels, is the alms-basin season. The
R. C. ate in comparative silence, watched, fed the
dogs quietly, and — smiled. The A. C., really a
charming and cultivated man, felt himself between
two fires, and was so aggressively uncomfortable
that I did not know him.

One thing I feel, that if the R. C. goes on the
hospital board with that smile and his power of
holding his tongue — well, it's not my affair, but I
shall advise father not to ask him.

The reason that Evan is over there playing
whist is because the S. P. doesn't believe in
cards, or at least says politely that he "can't

COMMUTER'S WIFE 219

play." Blessed "can't." Neither can I. The card
cell was left out of my brain, or perhaps was early
absorbed by the gardening cell, which should lie
next door to it, both being games of chance.

My defect, however, has kept us from joining
the Hillside Social Whist Club, without giving
offence, because of course Evan isn't expected to
go without me, and for a person who can't play to
join a whist club of seasoned matrons and patrons
would be worse than for a blind man to go to a
pantomime.

Then permanent clubs that go on winter after
winter (I think Aunt Lot joined this one when I
was sixteen) are so — well, so stupefying, to say
the least; and the supper is likely to be of what
Evan calls the surprise order, because you are sur-
prised if you get any, and I'm so hungry if I sit up
after ten o'clock in winter. Then imagine voluntarily
leaving a tete-a-tdte with Evan in a garden full of
books all in full bloom, not to mention seed cata-
logues, for a whist party, even if you could play.

What do I hear? The jingle of glasses, and
father's room is full of smoke, too. Evan is actually
offering the S. P. hot Scotch! The wretch! Has
he no tact?

Ah, the S. P. is taking it!

220 GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

Yes, of course, "a little for the stomach's sake,"
etc. ; he has a cold, and father is prescribing it pro-
fessionally. Wicked father ! All three have colds !

The R. C. smiles and makes no apologies. He
seems a companionable sort of fellow, after all.

XII

PLANTING

March 10. The snow is falling softly and stead-
ily, as it did on that Saturday in December when
winter and the great storm came together. Earth
for the most part has been snugly blanketed ever
since, but during the last two weeks she has seemed
restless and thrown aside the covering, showing her
brown body here and there ; but as yet it is pulse-
less and irresponsive. For even as human vitality is
at its lowest ebb in the early morning, so it is with
plant life in the early spring.

From the sense of sight alone it might still be a
midwinter afternoon, but the ear catches the spring
keynote. True, the winter birds, pine finch, cross-
bills, and chickadees, are calling in the spruces, but
an occasional song mingles with their greetings, the
exquisite carol of the fox-sparrows beginning jubi-
lantly and dropping to a swift close, and I know that
these are the first migrants feeding below in the field
where the wind has laid bare the seeded grasses.

222 THE GARDEN OF A

Wonderful gift of the senses divided as well as
united for our use ! To the eye it is winter, to the
ear and the heart it is spring.

I have not written in my Garden Boke for a
fortnight, — not since the night I completed my lists
of seeds. I have been away, away in my commuter's
city.

I did not care to go, and my Familiar Spirit and
I held heated arguments over the visit. Yet I
went.

I said, " Why should I go ? "

The Familiar replied, " Because you wish to."

" But I do not. I dislike the very idea."

" Then why consider it ? "

" Because I think it will do Evan good to have a
vacation from travel, and because I think that I
ought to go. He also thinks it will be good for me.
Because some dear old friends have invited us.
Because the time between seed buying and seed
planting is so long that I'm out of patience and in
danger of wearing holes in the seed packets by
fingering them."

" All good reasons, but the main one is that you
wish to go."

" I tell you that I dislike the city intensely."

" That may be, and yet you can like some of the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 223

things it has to offer. It is not well to decry the
source of supply. The money to support com-
muters' wives is largely made in the city."

My Familiar Spirit can be exceedingly material
and disagreeable at times, so I pretended not to
hear, but continued, —

" Of course there is music to be heard there just
now, and some paintings I wish to see, and if one
does not go to the city once in a time to really visit,
not to be a hotel mongrel, one is not able to eat or
shake hands in an up-to-date way with the summer
people on the bluff, or know what the queer new
table utensils are for. Though one doesn't care, at
the same time one likes to know."

"As I said, you wish to go" emphasized the
Familiar Spirit in an exasperating way, retiring
from the dialogue as if the final word had been
spoken. I should have explained, if my Familiar
Spirit had given me time, that the only real objec-
tion I have to the city is born of the impossibility of
living there. As a great fair-ground, a place to
visit, it is satisfactory and seldom monotonous, for
you are quite sure never twice to find your
friends living in the same house or following the
same fads. You may be amused, then bored, then
have your wits sharpened or your nerves racked;

224 THE GARDEN OF A

meet friends gathered from the four corners of the
earth, or find the place as desolate as Siberia. You
may laugh and you may also cry. Yes, that is one
of the reasons why I could not stay in a city.
There is so much misery one must see and cannot
help, that it makes one feel small and shrivelled,
while hereabout there is no one so wretched but
what it is possible to aid him. You may, in short,
do everything in the city but live. I mean live your
own life, and not that of some particular clique, the
society of which, if you ignore, your loneliness will
be such that not the remotest dweller on the moun-
tain side could compass or imagine it — the desola-
tion of a crowd !

Then to be ill in the city ! I was ill, very ill there, the
winter that I was eighteen. It was in a good house,
and the people were kind. I lay there day after day,
and all that I could see of the sky was a little ragged
scrap between the tall house-tops. The sun never
crossed this gap, but sometimes at night I saw the
dogstar, and from the diffused light I knew that the
moon was up. I lay watching and pining more and
more until one night, when the moon at last crossed
my vista, it was a strange thing rent and divided
by overhanging wires, and Sirius himself seemed
only a lamp in the tallest building. As I looked, life

COMMUTER'S WIFE 225

seemed to steal away from me, not leaving wholly
but keeping beyond my grasp, as it does when the
body lies long unconscious before death.

Then father, wholly comprehending, in spite of
risk carried me home, I never knew how, and when
I next looked out I saw the gray-limbed maples
framing sunset, and in that glow my life came back
to me. Now it occurs to me that father's study of
two imaginative, high-strung women at close range
has given him his wondrous insight into the sex
temperament, a knowledge that the mere technically
perfect scientist fails to compass.

I have been to the city, and the return fills me with
ecstasy. Here are some delights that the savage
misses from sheer lack of contrast, some phases of
civilization- that are worth bearing temporarily for the
pleasure of the reaction. If one never went to the city,
one might not so keenly realize the country's potency,
just as it is well worth the trouble of wearing best
clothes occasionally, if merely for the pleasure of
taking them off.

I should have stored away the details of this visit
with the " general results " of the year, for after all
it was fairly comfortable as visits go, but the Fa-

226 THE GARDEN OF A

miliar Spirit would ask somewhat impertinent ques-
tions.

" Was Evan rested by the vacation ? " for like all
familiar things it calls us by our first names.

"He was amused and had an entire change of
scene, which is said to be the same thing," I an-
swered laughingly.

"And you? How about the handshake? And
did you conquer the rotation of forks ? How are
they wearing soup plates, flat or deep ? "

" As there are two social schools, the old and the
new, I must confess to you, Familiar Spirit, the
handshake is in a chaotic condition and the soup
plates also. In two cases, however, what I took for
bonbon scoops proved to be soup spoons, dreadful
utensils for high-chested dowagers inclined to slobber,
as well as for mustached men. But then, mus-
tached men are under ban, and these scoops were
doubtless invented to complete their extermination.
However, I predict gold straws for soup sucking in
the near future, and Saxon beards should be due
next winter. Listen, Familiar Spirit, but do not
repeat ! In spite of all my watchfulness, at the most
formal dinner of my stay I lost count of weapons,
and when at the finish I had exhausted all but one, I
faced the problem of lifting rather soft ice-cream and

COMMUTER'S WIFE 227

hot chocolate sauce with what to my benighted vision
seemed to be a silver toothpick ! A sub-butler finally
brought me an ice-cream fork, warm from the dish
water, greatly in contrast to his chilly glance.

"When I retrospected later, I discovered the spiked
tool was meant to unscale the artichokes, and 'twas
there I dropped the stitch. But tell it not, Familiar
Spirit, until you hear my excuse. My dinner partner
was the last of six who in two weeks' time had said,
'Don't you get jolly bored living in the country?'
as if they had rehearsed the words and tone in
chorus."

I never before formulated how crude and narrowly
cockneyfied the town life is here in the United
States until I went away. What English gentleman
would ask a country-living woman if her life bored
her?

Two weeks of this instead of the home-table talk,
and a weird entree constantly at your elbow in lieu of a
dog's soft nose ! And the after talk about who won
at " bridge " that afternoon, or whether it should be
Lakewood for the week-end, or if the husbands could
be coaxed as far as Aitkin. Think of it, — instead
of listening to father and Evan's book arguments,
comfortably curled up in the ingle nook. Or if they
were silently busy, strolling about old London with

228 THE GARDEN OF A

Leigh Hunt, spending an hour of mystery in the
Tower with Ainsworth, or, being in a frivolous mood,
donning a moral mask, the more discreetly to follow
Houssaye, a gentleman of Evan's introduction, into
the company of the Duke of Buckingham and
Madame Popeliniere.

Shakespeare was a sage for any and every day,
and our merry-making paper Puck chose a headline
that no one will dispute : " What fools these mortals
be!"

It is narrow for me to criticise the ways of these
women. They could not have my father for theirs
or be married to Evan, so what can be expected of
them ? It's a combination of sheer good luck and
stupidity that my sporting interests have gone to
horses, dogs, and garden, instead of to " bridge."

But worst of all to my country-bred body was the
two weeks of going late to bed wide awake and
vibrating, and of waking up dull and exhausted.

Ah ! the snow clouds have parted before the last
sunbeams, proving it March and not December.
One more walk amid the snow draperies that have
cheered the winter, and lingering here kept away
the only combination which the country dweller need

COMMUTER'S WIFE 229

dread, — a black March where frost and tha\v
wrestle, and the result is — misery and mud.

March 15. The Ides of March, of tragic memory,
have brought me snowdrops, — which are the first
waking thought of the Garden of Dreams. I did
not expect them so soon. I was not searching for
them; I was standing in the sunshine by the Mother
Tree, looking at the wound made by the cutting of
a branch that the great storm had broken, when I
spied the snowdrops peeping from under the shelter
of the circular seat where Evan had planted them.

I could not bring myself to pick these, for they
seemed to belong to mother, but there were more
beside the path and nestled against the grass-bank
by the rose arbour, so I gathered some of them and
massed them with green moss in a frosted jar, — a
spring greeting to the dinner table. Father has always
held that everything best and brightest of word or
thought or face ought to be gathered round this board,
considering it a sacred place from which all hurry and
trouble and dissension should be banished.

This afternoon I planted the flower seeds in the
hotbed, and the touch of the moist warm earth was
like a caress. It seems a very simple thing to do,
this planting, but it is not, for the adjustment of
depth and pressure to the size of seed requires in-

230 THE GARDEN OF A

telligent handling. If too deeply covered, they will
mould ; if too lightly, they will be washed out by
the slightest lack of judgment in sprinkling, and the
cry of the discouraged, " My seeds did not come up,"
is the result.

The "general useful" may be exemplary, and in
all other respects "know a hawk from a handsaw,"
but he cannot tend seeds in a hotbed. In his anx-
iety lest they be thirsty or chilled, he waters too
much and hesitates to ventilate properly on pleasant
days. The result is that the seedlings either spindle
or suddenly disappear altogether, through the rav-
ages of mould. In short, hotbed responsibility is
not to be transferred.

I must wear gloves in my gardening work, else I
may have knobs on my joints at forty. I allowed
myself the luxury of touching the soil to-day, for
my fingers are like the antennae of an insect, and
receive many a thrill of pleasure that would be insu-
lated by gloves. Then, too, I seem to breathe partly
through my finger-tips.

I think it better to start all flower seeds in the hot-
bed except half a dozen kinds that are grown en
masse, like sweet peas, nasturtiums, mignonette, nico-
tiana, bluets, convolvulus, or the untransplantable
sweet sultans and annual poppies. It is so much

COMMUTER'S WIFE 231

easier to keep track of your colours and adjust the
plants themselves in the beds than to thin out seed-
lings. Then, too, with our climate of droughts and
cloud-bursts, the growth of the more delicate seeds
is precarious. If one lacks a hotbed altogether,
much can be done in terra-cotta trays on the win-
dow ledge. In fact, I've sown my Margaret carna-
tion seeds in this way, for the hotbed does not give
them the cool air they need, and they are already up
and thrifty.

Under my eye Bertie has also sown some tender
vegetable seeds this afternoon, — egg-plants, toma-
toes, peppers, cauliflower, — besides devoting a frame
each to early lettuce, radishes, and cucumbers. He
has a straight eye and a sense of proportion that
promise well for the neatness of the vegetable
garden.

March 20. The snow has retreated from the open
places, but still whitens the north side of fences and
shady places in the wild garden. The Christmas
ferns, polypody, and mosses, missing the frosty
moisture, are looking quite shabby. The cheerful
phoebe bird is here, and the redwing; and the cro-
cuses that I planted in October are unfolding, the
golden yellow taking the lead. Early this morning a
prelude of the spring chorus floated up from the ever-

232 THE GARDEN OF A

greens, drawing me to the new window-seat. I
know that morning and evening will often find me
there in comfortable disarray, listening and gazing
through the vista of the trees.

The violets in the frame have done bravely all
winter, but now their stems are growing short and
the deep purple colour is paling. To-day Evan
had his first outdoor buttonhole flower, for snow-
drops are too frail for wearing. It was a tiny
cluster of Daphne mezereum, nestling in its ever-
green leaves, — the earliest shrub to blossom, hold-
ing the same place in the garden that the trailing
arbutus does among woodland flowers.

March 25. We have a new dog — number six.
We did not buy him, but were made his guardians in
a way impossible to refuse. He is a most unique
animal, a real old dog Tray in looks, not years.
His name is The Orphan, and he looks it. His
coming was in this wise : —

A few days ago a flagman on the branch railway
that runs northwest from town was hurt to death
by the derailing of a train. Father saw at once
that he could live but a few hours, and that freedom
from pain was all that he could give him. He
asked the man if there was any one he wished to
see, any little matter that he would like adjusted.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 233

At first the man seemed stunned, and did not
answer. Then he said: —

"I'd like to see The Orphan, sir. There's no-
body else that'll care. He's my dog. I guess
you'll find him in my flag-house behind the coal
box. That's where he lies of nights, if you care
to bother. I don't suppose you will, though," this
with a wistful glance, while a big tear rolled down
his cheek.

In half an hour or so the dog was brought, a
sombre creature, big and woolly, looking like a huge
Skye terrier. He gave a little whine of joy, licked
the poor man's hand, and crouched close to him.

" He's almost four years old. He was a freight
car ' left over ' when I got him as a pup. He'd be
good company to you if you happen to need a dog,
and he don't eat much. Else perhaps you'd give
him something — a drug, you know. He's too retir-
ing to make out foragin' for himself, and he ain't got
any friends but me. His looks was always up
against him."

"I have five dogs already," said father, "but I
will take him. No faithful dog is ill-looking to me."

So he arrived, sitting solemnly by father in the
gig, and Evan pronounced him an old-time English
sheep-dog, and well bred.

234 THE GARDEN OF A

Strange to say, he has attached himself to Tim,
after fretting for a time and seeming ill at ease with
so much space to walk about in, and a whole horse
stall for a bed. And Tim, who only tolerates dogs in
a grudging sort of way, evidently returns the feeling.
To-day, hearing conversation in the stable, I thought
Bertie was there with Tim, but found only The
Orphan leaning against Tim's knees and licking his
fingers that were feeding him scraps of meat, while
Tim looked positively pleasant.

It doesn't so much matter what one loves. To
love is the transfiguring thing.

March 26. To-day I found hepaticas on the wood
edge, and the tiny white violets that bloom almost
before the leaves uncurl are perfuming a dozen sun
spots in the garden. It is not often that wild and
garden flowers may be combined and keep their attri-
butes, but these two harmonize perfectly, and carry
indoors the elusive spirit of early spring.

April i. All Fools' Day. I have planted my sweet
peas, a pound's weight, in a long double row in the
new ground beyond the sun garden. The tall nas-
turtiums will match them on the other side, making a
narrow alley of the walk where it meets the cow-
path to the wood lot.

The garden will have a trick played on its trustful-

COMMUTER'S WIFE 235

ness, I fear. A sharp, cold wind already rebuffs the
violets and makes me tremble lest we have laid bare
the hardy beds and uncapped the rose bushes too
soon.

In the hardy garden the Scylla and Charybdis of
springs lies between the keeping of things too warm
and uncovering prematurely.

April 10. A sullen week of hope deferred. Evan
has been on a little journey. How changed the
house is when the personality that pervades its every
corner is withdrawn ! Each one feels it, the maids
and dogs alike. Father even is restless, having come
from years of lacking it to lean on male companion-
ship ; and I — I fully understand why in old times,
when the knight went forth, his lady, feeling too
cross for general society, betook herself to a tower.
There she alternately gazed at and polished his
second best shield until trumpets sounding and the
drawbridge falling announced his return, when, rush-
ing down, she fell into his embrace, unclasped his
armour, and kneeling, relieved him of his sword.

Of course now there is no drawbridge, the door
opens easily, the dogs replace the trumpets, and very
well do Bugle and Tally-ho imitate them. Evan
sets down his suit case unassisted, but the embrace
remains and all the gladness.

236 THE GARDEN OF A

April 15. The first hyacinths, daffodils at theh
height, and the Russian violets by the Mother Tree
a bed of glorious velvet bloom.

To-day we filled an alcove between two snowball
bushes in the bed of the long walk, thick with bud-
ded pansy plants and tufts of English daisies. What
a delicate birch odour the pansies have !

April 1 8. Early tulips ablaze. All the narcissi
out except the polyanthus with its clustered blossoms,
and the poets, with the lovely pheasant's eye. The
hardy plants are. now tufting the long beds with
many shades of green. Forsythia is in golden glory.
The scarlet quince at full, and the countryside white
and pink with peach and cherry blossoms.

May i. At last the Garden of Dreams has
awaked. It is ! After the healthful winter of snow
the whole land is a-bloom. All the bulbs are out
except the parrot tulips. Down by the spring hole
in the wild garden the marsh cowslips are heavy
with gold, and the same colour is swept across the
pastures by the dandelions. Is it not all my garden ?
All the cultivated and the wild, every flower and fern
in the wood arid open as well, for not only what I
plant is mine, but also everything that I enjoy. And
the birds, too, do they not belong to me through the
loving of them ? Though they must not know it ;

COMMUTER'S WIFE 237

even the thought of being possessed might mar
their liberty.

Evan found his primroses yesterday morning, one
tuft showing half a dozen blossoms. When I saw
his face as he called me to him, holding them in his
hand, I realized that after all it is the little things
of life that count, for the primrose was not only
precious in itself, but for all it stood for.

I was thinking this morning as I watched
the bluebirds flitting about their knot-hole in the
apple tree, heard the meadow-larks down in
the pasture, the flicker laughing in the wood lot, the
robins in the spruces, and the jolly song-sparrow
almost by my elbow, that the important garden
birds are like the flowers in number. How few com-
paratively of the hundreds listed in the ornithologies
we can know well enough to call garden companions,
even if the residents of the wood lot and home woods
be counted in.

Many come and go, travelling beyond us. We hear
a strange note and see a flutter of unusual feathers.
We may call them by name ; but like the flowers
unsuited to the garden, they are not of our world.
A list of twenty-five would cover the confidentially
intimate, of fifty the really tangible.

Martha Corkle came to tell me mysteriously that

238 THE GARDEN OF A

Tim has a cold, she is quite sure, because he has
taken off his flannels too soon, "which, Mrs. Evan,
is risky for a man of his years " (Tim must be up-
ward of fifty), " and would you not kindly ask the
doctor that he cautions him ? "

I asked her why she does not speak to Tim her-
self, as she has observed the cold and I have not,
and as a middle-aged widow she could certainly
mention flannels.

" Indeed, Mrs. Evan, I thought it more proper-like
to come from a married woman that is recent, so to
say, me being so long widowed is the same as not
being ; and as for age, there's others older, ma'am.
The shape of those common bought flannels not
fittin' his leanin' figure might be at the bottom of
it. I bein' willin' to make up some more suitable
from always making Corkle's, if you'd but give me
the order so to do, Mrs. Evan."

After a moment the complicated sentences straight-
ened themselves to my understanding, and I solemnly
said : —

" Martha, could you oblige me by making some
spring flannels for Timothy Saunders if the doctor
prescribes them for him ? " Whereat the nearest
approach to a smile I had ever seen there crossed
her features, and she actually dropped an old-world

COMMUTER'S WIFE 239

curtsy, saying, " I will, and thank you kindly,"
becoming for the moment the comfortable English
countrywoman, instead of the hereditary servant out
of her class. Really there are human possibilities
in Martha.

May ii. I think there is a four-handed romance
brewing in the kitchen sitting room, the quartette
being Bertie and Delia, sober-minded Eliza and
Tim, who is perfectly unconscious that he is an
admired party. In the evening I hear laughter and
know that " hearts " and " forty-five " are being
played. I also know that Martha Corkle does not
approve, for I see her rigid shadow sitting apart,
taking no share, but bound to play the matron.

May 15. Colour is swathing the land again, — lav-
ish colour, the delicate whites, flesh, and pink of
apple blossoms, fleecy clouds of lilacs drifting from
the bank-wall before the house to the roadway,
pinxter flower on the hillside, along the wood road
blending with the white dogwood, and in the garden
lilies-of -the- valley. Truly does the flower language
translate their meaning as " Return of Happiness."

May 17. For two days we have picked and picked
the lilies, and yet there is no end. They will last the
month out if there is no heavy rain to make them
yellow. Evan has gone to town each day laden like

240 THE GARDEN OF A

a Maypole, the neighbours have had their share and
to-morrow I take a clothes-basket of little bouquets
to the hospital.

I think if we were to fall asleep for ten years, the
whole place would be overgrown with these lovely
flowers, the soil suits them so perfectly.

The resting time is over for garden and gardener.
All is push, excitement, and hurry, the relentless
hurry of growth. Every day something is planted,
some long-watched bud unfolded. After the twen-
tieth it will be safe to move the seedlings from the
hotbeds and set out the bedding plants, geraniums,
heliotrope, and such-like that this year I've ordered
from a wholesale florist in town.

One and all we rush outdoors twenty times a day,
the dogs rebelling at the curbing of their liberty,
" Down ! charge ! " being the order of the season.
Bluff alone is discreet enough to be allowed within
garden bounds at planting time, and he has learned to
tread gently ; often he is meekly apologetic for
even overstepping on the grass border beside the
path.

The breakfast table is drawn into the bay window
looking toward the garden, and on balmy evenings
we take our after-dinner coffee under the Mother
Tree. Gardeners may not sit idly on the front

THE LONG STRIP IS A PERFECT RAINBOW OF IRIS

240

THE CARD}

eiy

a Maypole, the neighbours have had their share and
oihes-baske - bouquets

to the hos

I think if we were to fall asleep fo
whole place would be overgrow.,
flowers, the soil suits them so per!

The ,e is over for garden and

AM it, and hurry, the relentless

Every day something is planted,

bud unfolded. After the twen-

move the seedlings from the

not: « bedding plants, geraniums,

heliotnjpe, a. , year I've ordered

from a whoicv

One a t ^y

the dogs i
"Down!

kly apologetic for
border beside the

rawn into the bay window

I3«! A Z\ «H5tT3 OHOU 3HT

'almy eve"
:offee under the M

garden b«
tread ger
even over
path.

e breakfa

ke our af

COMMUTER'S WIFE 241

porch at evening daintily apparelled. This is the
best time for labour, the time to disappear from
view and, collarless and wrapped in a russet apron,
delve and grovel until dusk conceals one altogether.

For a woman, early morning is the time to gather
flowers, not to cultivate them. The gathering and
arranging brings their fragrance into one's life, but
weeding or kneeling among dewy plants, stooping
and moiling while the sun each moment blazes more
fiercely, is for the workman only. To the woman it
means fatigue before noon, and that sunken feeling
in the chest that whispers of indigestion or desire for
sodden sleep directly after luncheon. I have done
it and I know.

May 30. Decoration Day. Evan at home. The
garden is time-true, and yields deep crimson peonies,
white iris, and blue lupins to be blended together for
the soldiers' graves, as it did of old. The peonies, to
be sure, are not true red, but they at least complete
the symbol.

The hardy oriental poppies, scarlet with the black
eye, are fast unfurling from their green coverings,
and the long bed that we left all of a jumble is
bright with iris of many hues — white, violet, purple,
wine-red, yellow, and variegated; in fact, the long
strip is a perfect iris rainbow.

242 THE GARDEN OF A

This morning we planted the seven raying beds
around the sundial. Evan conceived the idea of
matching them as nearly as possible with the colours
of the solar spectrum. These are red, yellow, green,
blue, and purple, with the intermediate shades. The
difficulty is to get the various colours in flowers of
even growth. We found all of the shades but blue
among the double zinnias, a family of sturdy growth
and willing bloom, — crimson, scarlet, yellow, orange,
lilac, and purple. For the blue we chose the rich
metallic cornflower (or centaurea), Emperor William,
the grass between the rays giving abundance of green.
Of course this combination is a lottery. The wheel
may be either gorgeous or hideous, for there is but a
step between. It is such experiments as this, how-
ever, that keep the gardener alert. Yet there are
people who are surprised if one is not bored by
living in the country!

May 31. The first garden tragedy. Alas, that
Evan should be the victim ! This morning when
he was picking a few last sprays of lily-of-the-valley,
his commutation ticket slid from his vest pocket
unobserved and lodged among the leaves, where it
hid until I discovered it in the afternoon. Not only
did he have to pay his fare to town and back again
at night, but he had no ticket to exchange for the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 243

next month's issue. The pathos of this tragedy
cannot be writ in words. Its inwardness is ethical
and not financial, and to be appreciated only by the
commuter and — his wife !

XIII

JUNE

OLD ROSES WORTH GROWING

June 8. The first rose, — only the frail, briery,
Harrison's yellow that came overseas in 1830 and still
lingers in old gardens, but a June rose nevertheless.

The garden of the long walk is all aflame with
the oriental poppies, and the fall planted Shirleys, as
if kindled by them, are carrying the fire line quite
down to the sun garden, the deep red colour paling
through all shades of scarlet, rose, and pink to blush-
edged white. The poppy though brief of days is the
garden hypnotist. Look steadily at a mass of these
glowing flowers blending their multicolours in the full
sunlight. At first their brilliancy is blinding ; then
as the petals undulate on the slender stems, your
attention is riveted as if a hundred eyes returned
your gaze, and drowsiness steals over you, for each
flower bears the spell of the hypnotic pod, whose
seeds bring sleep.

244

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 245

" Why does the pine tree moan ? " asked the
poppy.

" It does not," answered the grass that crept
about the pine's roots. "That is its way of
breathing."

" I make oblivion," said the poppy.

"And I, love," said the rose.

" Are they not both the same ? " asked the tall
white pine, stooping to shake the dew from its slender
fingers.

In these days the morning scent lies heavy, and
even the grass yields it. The mixed grasses of the
early meadows are more fragrant than the later.
The perfume of the vanilla grass is ravishing, while
the stiff, stark timothy seems more like straw. Now
among the outdoor sounds, bird music at its height
and the babbling notes of the early nestlings, comes
a new tone, the voice of the lawn mower. If you
listen to it sympathetically, you will find it has a
various vocabulary and that its moods may be easily
interpreted by the human ear.

If the grass is of the right height and condition
for the cutting, then is the machine happy, cheerfully
talkative, easily garrulous. If, however, the turf is

246 THE GARDEN OF A

overlong and wet, the accents are thick and choked
as if its throat needed clearing. If one wheel is on
the narrow border and the other on the walk, there is
a rasp of protest and a complaining tone denoting a
limping gait; while if the machine is banged heed-
lessly against tree trunk or porch steps, recoil both
mental and physical is suggested by the angry growl
and whirr.

All garden tools have speech if the ear is keyed to
hear it. The shove-hoe working on the gravel path
can voice whether it is seriously searching out weeds
or merely shuffling irresponsibly about. And the
same tale is told by the common hoe in the corn-
fields.

The garden history of June would still be in many
volumes if there were no roses, but as it is, all else
must give place to the head of a family that also
yields us strawberry, peach, pear, plum, apple, and
many of the most useful shrubs.

The scarlet poppies of early June introduce a
colour that seems to belong with the flowers of mid-
summer and appears out of place among the more
delicate hues of the early garden even as the scarlet
tulip looks gaudy in contrast with the narcissi and
iris, though perhaps for well blended richness the
hardy flowers of June will match those of any season.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 247

inging from white through sky and
o a metallic purple ; Canterbury bells
•rcelain opaqueness, white, lilac, rose, and
lumbines of every solid colour and the
lined varieties, too, that suggest the fairylike
blossoms wrought by skilful glass blowers; lemon-
yellow day lilies that make a brave showing against
a backgro h branches; peonies

May with the crimson

•i old-world foxglove,

the golden glow of

sweet William, white,

eye, and harlequin, that

crowd the fringed clove pinks almost out of the bor-
der. Then, too, there is a day edition of the yellow
evening primrose, and honesty (lunaria), the herb of
magic, in three tints, — white, lavender, and purple.

All these flowers are of course improved by fre-
quent resowing and resetting, and by having
elbow room, and yet nowhere do they se,

gracefully lovable, and so wholl
hardy be, as in the bit of the old bor-

ot discip': -c the

JJlV T3HW3 .aSmOl TO 3JOWAT A

soil by a tangle of poppies,

sweet WB oves.

A b might be writtea to hardy

COMMUTER'S WIFE 247

The larkspurs ranging from white through sky and
mazarine blue to a metallic purple ; Canterbury bells
of a fine porcelain opaqueness, white, lilac, rose, and
purple ; columbines of every solid colour and the
white-lined varieties, too, that suggest the fairylike
blossoms wrought by skilful glass blowers ; lemon-
yellow day lilies that make a brave showing against
a background of copper beech branches ; peonies
like great roses, beginning in May with the crimson
Jacqueminot colour; spires of old-world foxglove,
four feet tall, swaying above the golden glow of
hardy coreopsis ; and mats of sweet William, white,
pink, crimson, pheasant's eye, and harlequin, that
crowd the fringed clove pinks almost out of the bor-
der. Then, too, there is a day edition of the yellow
evening primrose, and honesty (lunaria), the herb of
magic, in three tints, — white, lavender, and purple.

All these flowers are of course improved by fre-
quent resowing and resetting, and by having ample
elbow room, and yet nowhere do they seem so
typical, so gracefully lovable, and so wholly what
hardy folk should be, as in the bit of the old bor-
der that we have not yet disciplined, where the
soil is completely hidden by a tangle of poppies,
sweet William, and foxgloves.

A book of praise might be written to hardy

248 THE GARDEN OF A

shrubs. June may claim many that in late seasons
overflow from May, — the newer lilacs (though they
are never so satisfactory as the old, that, straggling
into the hedges may be gathered by the armful),
spireas, snowballs, Carolina alspice and syringas,
while Deutzia, hydrangea, and althea carry the shrub
flowers well on toward autumn.

Few things are so permanently satisfactory about
the home acres as shrubs ; and the commuter's wife
may find refuge, likewise her table decorations,
in them when mischance overtakes more delicate
flowers.

" Shrubs are an awful bother to trim, aren't
they ? " said the Lady of the Italian Garden yester-
day, on making the first call after her summer
entry at The Bluffs, and professing astonishment
at the number of our pickable flowers.

" We set out a lot two years ago," she continued,
" and certainly should have flowers this spring, but
you see the fault all lies in the trimming. The
landscapist that started us off said of course the
gardener would know which ones had to be trimmed
in the spring and which at midsummer. But it
seems he got mixed, and balled the thing up, so
the first year there was not so much as a sprig of
bloom, and hardly a leaf.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 249

"Last fall, when we hired your Chris as second
gardener for the outdoor things, I particularly
charged him to find out which was which, and re-
member it. Instead, to make things sure, he has
shaved 'em off all alike, round as cheeses and the
twigs as short as my French poodle's hair when
he's clipped for summer. Yes, my dear, not a bud
left on the rhododendrons, two hundred bushes of
them arranged with rocks behind to make a ravine
effect on the left side of our lawn by the grand
drive. All connected, too, for lighting 'em with
electrics. It is simply maddening. Jenks-Smith
has just bounced him, and we've got to fill in the
ravine with cannas and coleus. The landscapist was
up yesterday, fifty dollars every time he comes,
and he was shocked, and says the scheme is wholly
inconsistent. But what can we do?

" Perhaps your husband would come over some
evening and suggest something, not in the way of
business, — just an informal call, you know, — for
those poor clipped things look like left-over Christ-
mas greens. How do you manage your pruning
now?"

I smiled internally as I thought of Chris, and told
her that the old shrubs had largely taken care of
themselves, except for a little shortening of strag-

250 THE GARDEN OF A

gling branches and cutting out of the old wood as
fresh growth replaced it, and we expected that the
new shrubs would do likewise.

Then, too, I said that we do like father's old
woman patient over on the charcoal hill. She had
only six shrubs, and yet her little dooryard seemed
overflowing with bloom. When people stopped to
ask how she pruned to get so many blossoms, she
answered, " Prune ? Pickin' constant and givin'
away, is the naturalest sort o' prunin', I reckon."

Of course Mrs. Jenks-Smith did not believe me,
however.

" I know very well that you've got some secret
about gardening that you won't tell."

" You are partly right," I assented wearily. " Yes,
there is a secret, but I'll tell it to you willingly,
and in it also lies the reason why we let Chris go.
' First, be sure what you want, and then do it your-
self, or at least see it done.' "

" Is that a rebus ? " queried Mrs. Jenks-Smith,
wrinkling her brows. "Ah, yes, I understand.
But, my dear woman, it's impossible! Me stand
out in the sun ! Me cut flowers to give away !
It would ruin my social position. Then the mani-
cure says that arranging flowers is so bad for the
fingers and greens the nails, and that I shouldn't

COMMUTER'S WIFE 251

even do that, for I must have good hands; I've got
so many new rings, you know. Jenks-Smith gives
me one every time he makes a coup."

June 10. The Fuchsias that I planted two weeks
ago in the shady corner between the end of the
rose arbour and the bank are doing finely. I wonder
why this flower is so neglected. True, the country
women often cherish a plant or two on the porch
in company with the oleander, night-blooming cactus,
and tub of amarylis. It is also used in filling window
boxes, but it has almost wholly departed from the
gardens. Fuchsias when well grown and trained
against a wire screen are not only one of the most
graceful and decorative outdoor plants, but when
gathered on long sprays and arranged either in vases
or laid on a white cloth as a table decoration seem
fairly to drape themselves under one's fingers. The
plants also are easy to keep from year to year in a
light cellar or flower pit, and by cutting them back
in spring, they make vigorous and almost vinelike
growth. Storm King, Elm City, Surprise, and Mrs.
Marshall are among the best, fairly covering them-
selves with scarlet, magenta, or rose and white
flowers.

252 THE GARDEN OF A

I gathered the first real bouquet of roses this morn-
ing,— splendid Jacqueminots, a few clear pink Anne
de Diesbachs, and half a dozen moss buds and heavy
tinted leaves from a bush that was very old even
when father bought the place, and being ungrafted
and on its own root has kept perpetual youth by aid
of new suckers. It is always best when possible to
plant ungrafted roses. Our seasons are so variable
that in spite of covering, all but the sturdiest bushes
are liable to die down below the graft ; flowerless
briers spring up undiscovered, so that the untutored
may cherish them a whole season.

Of course no other flower can compete with the
rose, except perhaps the carnation ; that, owing to its
qualities of endurance and fragrance, rich vivid or
delicate colouring, is almost an equal. The green-
house rose and the rose of the American garden are
almost two different flowers, however. Of course, in
England, with its humidity that always veils even
though it does not obscure the sun's intensity, the
outdoor conditions are more even and like those of
a greenhouse. There the roses even of cottage
gardens are perfect, thick fleshed, and sturdy, while
the climate allows Gloire de Dijon and Marechal Neil
to festoon second story windows unchecked, in com-
pany with white jasmine ; and Marie Van Houtte, a
tea rose, grows to the size of a great lilac bush.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 253

Those who plant their rose garden with the
memory of English roses blending with their dreams
must be disappointed, as well as those who read
the English garden papers telling of gathering La
France buds outdoors in January, and then start
out thinking to do likewise by buying the latest
offerings of the " Yellow Journal " catalogues.

Of course the new bushes that we set out last
fall will only show their colours and yield a few
tardy buds this June, and it takes at least a two
years' trial of a bush to prove its hardiness, colour,
fragrance, and vigour of growth. But my present
hope is in the old bushes that are proven, and as
they bloom, I shall make a list of them to give
to my friends who have small gardens and are
always asking for the names of roses that are " not
cranky."

Some of these bushes are old settlers, like the
white moss, Harrison's yellow, the nameless wine-
coloured rose of many petals, and Madame Plan-
tier, the bush that Dan'l gave me so long ago, now
grown a huge shrub, while its children trained as
vines are mingling on the rose arbour with Balti-
more Belle, climbing Victor Verdier, and the shell-
pink, thornless blush rose, also an old-time favour-
ite in English gardens. Some of the others are of

254 THE GARDEN OF A

later fame, though all have borne the test of at
least a score of years, — the original growth renew-
ing itself from the root, — and one and all are faith-
ful, satisfactory bloomers, asking only deep, rich soil,
a shelter of cedar boughs in winter, a light April
pruning, and two sprayings with weak whale oil soap-
suds before the buds show colour, while in return
they will yield armsful, apronsful, yes, clothes-
basketsful, of roses.

June 14. Saturday. This morning as I was
pottering among the roses, making ready for the
June festival now beginning, by tying up a branch
here and there, and seeing that the bushes were
well supported in case heavy showers should come
when the bloom was at its height, I heard a babel
of voices that seemed to come from the wood lot
in the direction of the wild walk.

I hastened down there because we have already
transplanted many ferns and wild plants to the
edge of the path, and the trees and bushes are
full of nesting birds that I knew of old used to
attract unregenerate school children on egg hunts
bent, so that either father or Tim had been fre-
quently obliged to patrol the place on Saturdays
in May and June.

Guided by the voices, I soon came upon a group

COMMUTER'S WIFE 255

of perhaps a dozen females standing about a stunted
maple, gesticulating wildly. At the moment I
appeared, as if obeying a signal, they sank to the
ground in unison like a band of conspirators on the
stage, and there remained squatting uncomfortably,
the grass being deep and soaking wet, while they
gazed at the maple.

For a moment I was nonplussed. The women
ranged from youngish to middle aged, the chief
conspirator (I judged her to be the chief because she
stood up and pointed, though not with a dagger) was
perhaps fifty ; tall, lean, thin in the legs and hair,
but wearing an untrimmed sailor hat, and a very
short divided bicycle skirt. She carried a book and
an opera glass, while a luncheon box was hung over
one shoulder. Then I saw that all the others were
equipped in a similar manner. As I went forward
to warn them away, I heard the voice of the chief
say: —

" Ladies, in that tree is the clay-lined nest of a
wood thrush. The mother-bird is now brooding. In
a few moments, when you have observed her patient
immobility, I will see whether the nest contains eggs
or young birds ; if the latter, we may hope to observe
the method of feeding and home sanitation practised
by our feathered little sister in the bush."

256 THE GARDEN OF A

" Not while Barbara and six dogs are on the prem
ises," I thought. Then the whole thing flashed
across my intelligence. The conspirators were doing
a Cook's Tour in Birdland ! For a moment I ex-
pected to see the group arise solemnly, take hands
and dance around the chief, singing : " Follow the
man from Cook's," then I took action, steadying my
voice, and using father's pacific formula for such
cases.

" You probably are not aware that you are tres-
passing, but this is private ground," my voice becom-
ing more emphatic as I saw that the thrush had left
the nest, and was summoning assistance by means of
her cluck of alarm, which was instantly answered by
the nearby robins' " quick, quick," the veery's
" whew " from the woods, the catbird's " miou "
from the garden, as well as a chorus of others.

" Oh, not at all, not at all," said the chief, beaming
upon me patronizingly. " That is, I mean we are not
in any way trespassing. We are studying birds — a
Bird Class, you know. Of course I was aware that
this land belongs to the doctor, and that is the very
reason why I have chosen it as the meeting place
for my class for the next two weeks, as I hear that he
has protected birds for a long period, so that more
species can be found nesting in a small radius than in

COMMUTER'S WIFE 257

any place conveniently near town. This fact guided
my choice, for we've quite exhausted the city park ;
and later on we are going into the deep woods to
observe the moulting, and to differentiate the plu-
mage of young and adult birds. Ladies, look quickly !
the female wood thrush is just above your heads, giv-
ing a tender maternal call to attract the attention of
her young. Observe her smaller size, and the differ-
ence in the breast marks."

" That is not a female wood thrush," I asserted
boldly. " It is a veery that has come up from the
spring to help the wood thrush drive away intruders.
If you were a red squirrel or a garter snake, you
would get a good pecking, I can tell you; but as
you are a human being, the thrush asks me to tell
you to go away, and not come back."

" Really, this is most extraordinary ! " gasped the
chief. " Do you take no interest in bird study ?
This is the only method of learning their normal
habits. Perhaps you would like to join my class.
It might open a new vista before your unseeing eyes.
I would take you at half rates if you are connected
with the doctor's household."

My patience vanished. Ah, for a tomahawk to
hurl! Lacking that, I used words.

" One moment, if you please, before you leave. I

258 THE GARDEN OF A

am Barbara, the doctor's daughter, and I know the
birds in this field and these woods as well as I do the
fingers on my hands. So well do I know them that
I will not have them worried, or their privacy
invaded. Even if I did not object, it is useless for
you to go about in a mob to try to learn a thing
about them ; for, so surrounded, not one of their
actions would be normal. Two, even, is a crowd,
if you wish to learti the ways of birds. How would
you like to have a party of ten or a dozen people
camp outside the window of your bath-room to
' observe ' you ? Would your actions be normal and
unflurried ? "

One of the young girls giggled, but still the chief
would not retreat, and tried suavity.

" This is the new method of ' naming birds without
a gun,' my child, instead of shooting the poor little
things, to learn their names as wicked scientific men
do."

" But even you haven't learned their names rightly
it seems ; so how can you teach these others ? And
I'm sure it's no worse to kill a few outright to be
object lessons to hundreds in a museum, than to
shatter the nerves of entire families, and addle
unhatched eggs, as you are doing. Now I think I
know why my pair of mourning doves deserted their

COMMUTER'S WIFE 259

nest over in the pines last week. You've been
observing them, too ! "

The chief actually blushed, stammered, then led
the retreat, which was made the more rapidly, as at
that moment Bluff, Lark, and the hounds, having
found my trail, nosed me out, and though naturally
most polite dogs, something about the conspirators
jarred upon them, and they said all the things that I
could not say.

In the afternoon, in driving along the wood road
with father, I came upon the party crouching by the
wayside and evidently endeavouring to identify a
large round nest well up in an oak tree by aid
of a coloured picture book of birds' nests. I do not
think they were successful because the nest hap-
pened to be the old winter home of a gray squirrel !

June 15. Rose Sunday. A gentle shower last
night, together with a warm, hazy morning, has
unloosened hundreds of buds, and the Rose Festival
is now open. For two weeks at least we shall think
and almost eat and drink roses. Nothing rare or
wonderful, or large ; merely plenty of good, healthy,
old-fashioned roses, the only kind worth growing in
the garden of the commuter's wife.

I gathered four bouquets from the great bushes this
morning, one for the table, one for church, one for

260 THE GARDEN OF A

father's desk in the study, and one for Martha
Corkle, whom I found down in the garden before
breakfast, gazing at the flowers in a state of pensive
admiration. Martha has not had her usual spring
and snap of late. I've been afraid the climate is too
hot for her, and I was glad to have a chance to speak
with her, out of doors.

" No, Mrs. Evan, I can't say as I do feel natural
like. Some'ats come over me, and no disrespect
intended, I think it's the beer, Mrs. Evan, or, I should
say, the want o' it."

" What ! beer ? " I asked in alarm, visions of the
stately Martha overcome by drink rising before me.

"Maybe you never knew or else disremember,
Mrs. Evan, that in the old country we all had our
allowance of ale or 'ome-brewed, the same which is
meat and drink to the stomach, Mrs. Evan, mine as
being house-keeper never being less than eight pints
the week. Not that I blame you, Mrs. Evan ; for how
can the lady give out beer for one in a 'ouse that would
upset another, Mrs. Evan, and I'd not take the
responsibility of seein' it served to Delia, she bein'
Irish and so hot-headed ; and Eliza would take it to
heart sore, she thinkin' all beers and liquors the Devil's
dish-water, though she bein' herself one of the white
cheese breed of women that a drop o* beer would

260 THE GARDEN OF A

father's desk in the study, and one for M
Corkle, whom I found down in the garden before
breakfast, gazing at the flowers in a state of pensive
admiration. Martha has not had her usual spring
and snap of late. I've been afraid t. te is too

hot for her, and I was glad to have a chance to speak
with her, out of doors.

" No, Mrs. Evan, I can't say as I do r
like. Some'ats come over me, and no dis:

hink it's the beer, Mrs. Evan, or, I should
ant o' it."

>eer ? " I asked in alarm, visions of the
stately Martha overcome by dri; refore me.

r knew o . mber,

Mrs. Evan, 'f\ country we all had our

allowance of
meat and dr
being hous,

the week. ; >r how

can the lady give • that would

upset anotv d not take the

responsibility of '. to Delia, she bein'

Irish and so hot-headed ; and Eliza would take it to
heart sore, she thinkin' all beers and liquors the Devil's
dish-water, though ^nVHeln ncrself one of the
cheese breed of women that a drop o' beer would

COMMUTER'S WIFE 261

hearten. I've thought it over, Mrs. Evan, and I don't
see the way clear to it, bein' the fault o' mixed races,
and not yours, mum. For that matter, Timothy Saun-
ders he says there isn't any 'ome-brewed to be got
over here, the same bein' thin and watery, and I do
claim there's no such thing for making one feel
respect for the stomach as 'ome-brewed along with a
lean cut o' beef."

Neither could I see the way, and I could under-
stand her craving, though I had not before thought
of the omission. Beer dealt out in the kitchen of a
New England physician ! and Martha was not one
to take it secretly. Irrespective of the Village Liar
and the Emporium, such a thing was not to be con-
sidered. Poor Martha, as well as the sundial, it
seems, is the victim of changed conditions.

I turned the talk to the roses and gave her a
bouquet for the blue and white ginger jar that she
keeps for stray posies on the sill of the long window
above the kitchen table, and promised her a row of
geraniums to fill the shelf, a frilled curtain for the
top, and a canary, — things that made the Somerset
kitchen so quaintly attractive ; for stiff as Martha is,
she is not ashamed of loving flowers, in fact, such an
idea would never occur to her. Still, I'm afraid that
they will not be as " heartening " as the home-brewed.

262 THE GARDEN OF A

I think this is a matter that I may bring before
Evan without breaking my vow of never talking
servants.

June 1 8. Evan says the beer question will adjust
itself. Blessed faith of man! But then, I've ob-
served things generally do, if not scattered and
tossed about by argument like thistle balls in a gale.

I spend several hours every day now in arrang-
ing my flowers, for outdoor roses are blooms of a
day that need frequent renewal. I have a special
shelf in the pantry for this work, the tool house
being overcrowded. I am also now realizing the
benefits of a large supply of flower holders of
various shapes and sizes. Not only have I inherited
a whole family of blue and white bowls, the most
fascinating receptacles for short-stemmed garden
roses, and two darling India jars that belonged to
father's mother, as well as some pieces of fine cut
glass ; but friends knew my foible, and my wedding
gifts ran to vases, instead of coffee spoons and
pie knives; while Evan has given me half a
dozen inexpensive jars of a fine shade of dull
green glass for holding heavy, long-stemmed flowers,
like peonies, hollyhocks, and lilies.

The honeysuckles that wall the long walk on
the northwest and drape the windows and porch

COMMUTER'S WIFE 263

are in bloom, and the humming-birds only leave
the feast the long-tubed flowers offer when dusk
and the hawk moths appear together.

Is there anything more intoxicating than a great
bowl of pink, red, and white roses that have been
picked before the dew dries, all fringed and
wreathed with honeysuckle? They go to my head
as wine might, and when I bury my face in them
I feel moved to dance and sing like a bacchante.
I am a pagan these days, dazzled with colour,
moved by sensations not logic, and ruled by the
god Outdoors. Father says, however, that I am
not a pagan at heart, but a Christian pantheist like
himself, and moreover affirms it to be the most
wholesome and sane of beliefs.

Evan carries a bouquet of roses to town daily,
the name of Maypole which he acquired in lily-
of-the-valley time still adhering to him. Some of
the other commuters, hoi polloi with crumby chins
and egg on their mustaches, cannot understand
what a man, full grown, broad shouldered, and six
feet in height, without symptoms of softening of
the brain, should want with a perpetual bouquet
The man in question, considering it purely his own
business, does not enlighten them by saying that
he cares so much about having flowers on his

264 THE GARDEN OF A

office table that he carries them gladly, and there-
fore is called eccentric.

I have always noticed that when people consider
others eccentric, it is because they are revelling in
some form of enjoyment that their critics can neither
compass nor share, and there are no people so devoid
of nature sentiment as the rank and file of commer-
cial American males.

June 20. Roses, and more roses ! The arbour
vines are rich with colour. I am almost glad that
roses do not last all summer ; they are so strenu-
ous, they demand the best of everything, food
lodging, care, and I should be worn out also with
the prolonged luxury of the revel.

The sweet peas are beginning to fringe the trellis
top, and bow and blush to the nasturtiums opposite,
all swaying to and fro in a line on either side the
path as if taking sides in the country-dance that fol-
lows the minuet of the courtly roses, and marks the
entry of the glowing, less aristocratic summer flowers
of July and August.

******

] 've been watching a pair of song sparrows for two
weeks past, and have arrived at the conclusion that

COMMUTER'S WIFE 265

there are birds of defective judgment as well as
people. This couple evidently were either young
and undecided, or for some other reason late in-
mating, and they did not build their nest between the
roots of a shrub or in a sturdy bush as well-conducted
song sparrows should do, but balanced it almost
at the end of a branch of a rose bush that would
surely bend over as the roses opened and grew heavy.
To-day the inevitable happened. A shower bent the
bush, and the eggs rolled out and were broken. I
reproach myself, for I should have tried to prop up
the nest, but I thought that they knew their business.
However, it is only June, and it may teach them to
plan better next time.

June 30. The hardy border roses are practically
over, a great storm last night having scattered the
ripened bloom upon the ground in a foam of red,
white, and rose-coloured petals. The arbour has not
yet reached perfection, and the summer roses in the
four corner beds of the sun garden are sending up
strong shoots set thick with buds.

We have made our list of satisfactory hardy,
fragrant roses that we have tested up to date. I will
write it in my Garden Boke so that I may not for-
get when people ask me about them. Some of the
bushes are now too old and woody to yield large

266 THE GARDEN OF A

flowers, but we shall simply renew them in kind, and
avoid experiments as far as possible. A hundred of
such bushes are all that a woman gardener, even
with a wide ambition, can manage either to plant,
suitably care for, or to gather and give away the
flower crop, while fifty will yield almost equal joy.
Of white we have Madame Plantier, Bath Moss,
Coquettes des Blanches, and Coquette des Alpes ;
pink — Centifclia, the hundred-leaved Provence
Rose, Magna Charta, Anne de Diesbach, Paul
Neyron (the child of Anne de Diesbach and Victor
Verdier), and La Reine ; dark red — Baron de
Bonstettin, Duke of Albany, Camille de Rohan ;
deep bright crimson — Alfred Colomb, Jacqueminot,
Fischer Holmes, and Marie Bauman. Of the mosses,
both the common and crested.

These roses grown outdoors of course must have
shorter stems, and fade and drop their petals sooner
than their indoor brothers. Others may have finer,
and the Italian garden on The Bluffs disports two
thousand rose trees, but these are my very own to
love and gather and give away; their faults, even,
are born of the shortcomings of the climate of my
own country. In short, they are my children, and
therefore none others can be so lovable.

Late this afternocn a young coloured girl of a very

COMMUTER'S WIFE 267

humble family came to the door and asked for me.
Her sister is to be married to-night, and she came all
a-giggle to beg a bouquet for " de bride. Roses, an'
horse-hair ferns, an' you please, missis ; dem's what
de quality most allers carries."

I took my scissors and was about to gather a gay
bunch of the brightest that remained, when a voice at
my elbow said, " Could yo' spare dem white uns
climbin' on de clo'se rack yander ? Sis is so per-
tikeler to have dem 'propriate, an' she done want no
common colours to break luck, — all nice white roses,
— an' I've brought a sash to tie 'em jes' like hern, if
you'd be so good's to bow it on. Folks reckon down
town you've got such a way o' techin' things."

Thus beguiled, I arranged a graceful bouquet of
Madame Plantier, unlike the stiff pyramid of my
first intention, fringed it round about with moss
buds and maidenhair, — wild, to be sure, — and tied
it firmly with string, then held out my hand for the
ribbon, rebuking myself the while for smiling at the
dark woman's desire for the symbolic white. Wasted
twinge of conscience, as many New England twinges
are ! The " sash " was fully two yards long and of
intense scarlet!

XIV
JULY

THE BED OF SWEET ODOURS

July 2. I think it was Jefferies who said, "The
sowing of life in the springtime is not in the set
straight line of the drill." Surely every one must
realize this, who lives close to Nature and watches
her mobility, for the incoming of growth envelops
both the cultivated and the wild garden of the field
and wood like the returning tide that first creeps
wildly hither and thither, covering the open flats, and
merely curling about the higher places, until finally
gathering sudden force, every bar and promontory is
suddenly submerged by the wave of colour, so that
we scarcely realize that the tide is high until it is
well-nigh ready to ebb again.

To-day for the first time in a month I have sat
under the Mother Tree, with folded hands, passively
drinking in the beauty of my garden without feeling
spurred to do so much as tie up a vine. The last bit
of summer sowing is over, the planting of the third
268

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 269

instalment of gladiolus bulbs, the other two having
been set in middle May and June successively. These
I have grouped in close circles of six, so that when
ready to bloom in late September they may be tied to
a central stake, making a sort of bush instead of hav-
ing the military stiffness of single specimens.

As I leaned back against the tree trunk and
looked up through the twigs, where the sun rays
fluttered among the leaves, I saw that a new branch,
as yet slender and unformed, is springing from the
trunk beside the wound left by the limb that was
rent in the great snowstorm. To me, the wonder
of perpetual renewal is as great as ever. That is the
stimulus of nature ; it is never, never old, and always
developing. Even the scarred, wrinkled earth herself
is a mere infant among the old ladies and gentlemen
that tread foot-paths in the sky ; and I dare say that
she is frequently rebuked by her sun-mother, for
frivolity, besides having to listen to long tales of hap-
penings in the good old days when she was an imma-
ture, roly-poly fire ball without a rock in her head.

It is delicious sometimes to do nothing simply for
its own sake. As I leaned luxuriantly back and
alternately looked down the vista of the long walk
toward the sun garden and into the rose arbour, then
closing my eyes and merely breathing in fragrance

270 THE GARDEN OF A

and sound, I was no longer the commuter's wife who
breakfasts at seven, and is obliged to, partly at least,
observe the conventionalities, but a Lotus Eater lis-
tening to the nightingale. I'm not at all sure that
flower and bird inhabit the same country, but I'm
sure they ought to.

I did not care a particle as to which flowers gave
the perfume or what birds the music. I was simply
saturated with both, and resolving not to move until
afternoon, I must have fallen asleep; for the next
thing I knew, I was startled by an emphatic bump
on the head, caused by a falling apple and Bertie's
voice, which said, " The young cabbage-flowers are of
the beautifullest. It should much pleasure you to see
she."

Vegetables are a most wholesome and necessary
a.djunct to a flower garden, though of course there
are people who would transpose this sentiment. I
went immediately to see the cauliflowers, and at
once became enveloped in a contrasting atmosphere
of bean poles, pea brush, tomato trellis, and cab-
bages, where mathematical preciseness and the
straight lines of beets, carrots, lettuce, and parsley
drew my wandering vision into focus again. As to
the cauliflowers, I could honestly admire " she," milk-
white in a crisp green setting, and surely the rosy

COMMUTER'S WIFE 271

beets with their colour running well up into the foli-
age, and the delicate, translucent green of the long
heads of Trianon Cos lettuce are beautiful, while the
great bunches of ripening currants bring as fine a
colour to the vegetable garden as the oriental poppy
lends the parterre. Then, too, the vegetable garden
has, to counteract the pungent breath of cauliflower
and cabbage, a fragrant bouquet all its own, that is
distilled nightly by the dew, the breath of sage,
thyme, sweet marjoram, basil, and lavender.

Yes, I am a pagan, as I have often suspected. I
have a material streak in me that finds intense
satisfaction in soup vegetables and pot herbs as
well as roses and honeysuckle. Sickness alone de-
prives me of my appetite, and I have never yet
been so sad or sentimental that I felt a loathing
for my luncheon. I think father and Evan encour-
age this materialism in me, and so does Martha
Corkle, who sees that luncheon comes to me if
father is not at home and outdoors bids fair to
hypnotize me.

Father says that hungry sentiment develops
melancholy, but well-fed sentiment, enthusiasm ; so I
suppose that I must be an enthusiast.

There are four great pleasures of gardening — the
planting, the development, the gathering, and the

272 THE GARDEN OF A

distributing. Each one in its turn seems the keen-
est, and surely the last is not the least; for what is
life worth if one has nothing to give away ? This
lack, it seems to me, must be the sharpest pang of
poverty.

Then, too, garden gifts are all pleasure — light
and slight matter-of-course gifts that carry no im-
pediment of obligation with them ; for one may
give a whole basket of home-grown flowers when
a mere handful, if purchased, would be an intru-
sion. Here again, in order to fulfil its destiny, the
garden must be dual, — flower and vegetable ; for
there is always a neighbour whose peas are affected
with weevils, whose lettuce has run prematurely to
seed, or a dear old farmer crank at the hospital
who has fallen from the hay-mow and fractured a
rib or leg (this seems a favourite midsummer pas-
time of farmers past middle age ; the young ones
fall from cherry trees), who is "pining for garden
sass " or a " good dish of beets and raw onions with
plenty of cider vinegar." Not to mention my Lady
of the Bluffs, who, I know of old, would stray out
from father's office, where she had called, and levy
upon the necessary leaf, fruit, or berry for some
desired entree.

It is strange oftentimes to see how little the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 273

gardens of the rich yield them, even in satisfaction
in proportion to the outlay ; but perhaps it is well,
else we middlings would have no ground upon
which to meet them, which would deprive us of
much merriment.

I lunched in the garden to-day, and Martha served
me with her own hands, a mark of attention denoting
either special favour or a desire for the opportunity
of private discourse. Really she is not as plump as
she was, and though she says nothing, I sometimes
feel the ghost of the " 'ome-brewed " is between us.

She arranged the little table that we keep under
the rose arbour for after-dinner coffee quite deftly
in the breeziest corner, and had brought out the
tray before I realized what she was about. But as
my look of inquiry was unanswered, I asked more as
a form than from a desire for information, "Where
is Delia?"

"She is not feeling exactly herself, Mrs. Evan,"
Martha replied, stopping short with pursed-up lips,
evidently hesitating between merely answering the
question and opening a conversation.

" I wonder why she didn't tell me she was ill,"
I said half to myself.

274 THE GARDEN OF A

" I'll not go so far as to call her hill, Mrs. Evan,
but shook up and scattered like, and she took the
chance of slippin' down to speak with the priest
about it, while he would be in at his dinner, the
same which I call a liberty, having ought to ask
you."

Shaken ? scattered ? priest ? I could not unravel
the matter, so I told Martha to explain, as she was
so evidently anxious to do.

"Well, it's this way, Mrs. Evan, for it's not
listening and tattling to repeat what is spoken
aloud to those who has a right to hear. When
Delia broke with Patrick Doolan the night before
she thought to hear the banns read, she was glad
enough for a while, free in her mind and well con-
tent to be rid of him. After a time, howsomever,
the waste of her wedding gown, as it were, set heavy
on her; for you see, Mrs. Evan, it were all made
and ready even to the neck frill, blue silk trimmed
out with white lace, and a white hat, with a
plume that long " (measuring the length of her
arm) "all curled up around it.

" I said as there were other men to marry, to com-
fort her, as it were ; but she says, ' Mrs. Corkle,
what's other men to me so long as they doesn't
ask me, and my dress going out of style from

COMMUTER'S WIFE 275

backs coming in fuller, which can't be changed,
it being a remnant?' The same being quite the
truth, Mrs. Evan.

"Then she took down-hearted, and news kept
comin' to her that Patrick had never done a day's
work since Hallowe'en and was drinking most
shocking. ' I never thought he was that fond o'
me,' she'd keep saying, and rocking to and fro,
'and it's I that was a fool to throw away me luck,
and a fine house, too.'

"'I kenned it was yersel' was throwed, hoose
and a',' said Timothy Saunders, unfortunate-like,
one night. So for a while she kept her trouble
to herself, out of stiff pride.

"Last night I was sitting down to my needle,
when some one knocked, and I opened the door to
a respectable looking body dressed out quite decent
in black. Before I learned her business she was
past me, to where Delia sat at the machine, and
a-kneeling before her, crying and ' taking on not
fit or proper for a woman of her years.

" Mrs. Evan, if it was not old Mrs. Doolan beg-
ging Delia to marry her son to save him from death
by drink and disappointment, then Corkle isn't dead
and I his widow !

" Mrs. Evan, Delia gave her promise all too ready-

2/6 THE GARDEN OF A

like, I'm thinking, and the two went out crying to-
gether, to run down Patrick, whose whereabouts I
mistrusted was undecided."

" Is the old woman going to give them the farm ? "
I asked, quite confounded at the turn of affairs, for
I thought Bertie was consoling Delia.

" That she is not ! She says that Delia may live
in with her, and that she'll not object to her takin'
up work in the shop, if she feels like keepin' inde-
pendent." Here a fine sneer of derision curved
Martha's nostrils.

"And the boil-down of it all is that Delia is
going to be fool enough not only to marry a
man what's at best a burnt match, and now con-
fessed always in liquor, but she's going in with
the old party, Mrs. Evan, who will undertake to
see her work to keep him idle." Here Martha
gave the tray a little push toward me, as if she
thought it time to change the subject.

" I will speak to father : he will never allow
Delia to throw herself away like this."

" Best not, Mrs. Evan. The doctor is clever, no
doubt, but this marryin' rascals is a disease beyond
him, especially when the parties is Irish, for I
knows them well and thorough ; they blows hot and
cold so quick, it keeps bothers all of a shiver, and

COMMUTER'S WIFE 277

when you reaches out the 'elpin' 'ands, it's not me
nor you can tell if it's a kiss or a knife they'll meet.

" What does concern me is this, the seein' you
inconvenienced by changes in hot weather, Mrs.
Evan. Delia should give her proper month's
warning, but instead she's took her bank-book
and gone down to the priest to get him to speak
with Patrick and hurry the wedding without the
calling of banns, if it may so be.

" Now, Mrs. Evan, Timothy Saunders's sister's
girl, Effie, is leaving service in Canada and is
looking to crossing to the States, having written
her uncle to speak for her where he is acquainted.
Which same I bid him do, but he being so back-
ward, I'll venture it for him, that you might try
her, the same making less of a mixed family, you
know, ma'am."

I assented, thanked Martha, and she departed.
As the luncheon was a cold one, it had not suffered
by delay. An egg and lettuce salad, waferlike
sandwiches of ham and chicken, strawberries
heaped on their own leaves, hulls on, with sugar
to dip them in, and a glass of milk. As I ate
leisurely, thinking of Delia the while, Bluff came
up for crusty bits, as a matter of course, but The
Orphan seated himself at a distance and sniffed

278 THE GARDEN OF A

until I called him. That last arrival is . a curious
character study, a self-made dog, deserving admira-
tion for his reserve, but much like a person whom
it takes years to outlive a youth of deprivation.
When he first came to us, after living between coal-
box and wall in the flagman's house, he did not
understand having space to move about in, and so
he continually backed solemnly into corners. I love
Bluff, but I can only respect The Orphan, who is
old before his time, and while faithful, yet is too
humble, and lacks the spontaneity that makes young
children and animals lovable.

The air grew cooler in the early afternoon and
light clouds gave a grateful half-veiled atmosphere
that coaxed me to. leave the tree and stroll to the sun
garden. Our scheme of grouping the spectrum
colours about the dial is a complete success, for the
zinnias are blooming evenly and the blue centaurea
matching them in height, the effect is at once rich
and unusual. Amid all the wealth of colour, the
blaze of light reflected from low-growing portulacca,
nasturtium, geraniums, and the first buds of many-
hued hollyhocks, it is through the nose more than
the eye that I am guided to where lowering clouds
are casting a few drops upon the bed of sweet
odours, thus completing the fragrant spell.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 279

Without such a bed no garden is completely
gracious, and yet few there are, pretentious or
humble, that have one. When Evan designed the
beds of the sun garden, he said that the tire of the
fiery wheel should be of subdued colours, shaded
greens or at most half tones. For a moment it
seemed that the dreaded coleus would be inevitable ;
then my Familiar Spirit whispered, " Let this circle
be your bed of sweet odours."

There are comparatively few wholly scentless
flowers, while there are many like hyacinths and
the ranker lilies whose heavy perfume closes the
house door upon them. These last, however, have a
very limited period of bloom, while the plants chosen
for my bed of sweet odours breathe fragrance from
frost going until its return and even after.

There are only three colours but many tints in this
bed of mine, green, — silvery, velvety, and glossy ;
violet, purple, and ruddy-gold. The plants are,
reckoned from tallest downwards, lemon verbena,
rose, nutmeg, and apple geraniums, heliotrope of
violet to mauve, annual wall-flowers of warm yellow,
and mignonette; this last being of three kinds, —
Mammoth, Parson's white, and Machette.

Though the plants were set in rows each of a kind,
with the shrubby lemon verbenas as a ridge-pole,

280 THE GARDEN OF A

and the mignonette edging the whole, by middle
June they were so blended that the earth was com-
pletely hidden. Now with the greenery in luxurious
leaf, heliotrope and mignonette in bloom, this bed
holds more subtle fascination than any other.
Heliotrope is best enjoyed at morning and evening,
when the dew holds its fragrance earthward, for
when gathered it withers quickly, and if mingled with
other flowers in vase or jar, blackens and seems to
poison the water, causing the whole posy to droop.
In its bed it is one of the generous contributions to
the charm of the garden of night that lures us
abroad under the summer moon.

For the rest, the bed of sweet odours is most
pickable, and its foliage gives the crowning touch of
sympathy to each bouquet. For tea roses I choose
geranium leaves ; for sweet peas, a fringe of migno-
nette, with long sprays of lemon verbena for asters
and old-fashioned hardy blossoms; while the wall-
flowers should flock quite alone, bunched in small
glass globes, that they may lose nothing of their
potency. I have grown this last flower a dozen years,
and yet it seems either quite unknown, or else set
aside for its more showy perennial brother, that in
this climate needs winter housing. This humble
annual, if sown early and if the season is not too

COMMUTER'S WIFE 281

wet, blooms from July until snow hides it, and I
once remember gathering a delicious bunch on a
Christmas morning.

In a nook of this darling bed of mine hides a
silvery cut-leaved plant, a mascot that I hope
will thrive and soon hold a braver place. This
plant is rosemary, the flower of remembrance. I
brought this little root from Shottery, "and it is
planted here in remembrance of the glory of the
literature of the mother tongue and of all true
lovers.

If flowers make a garden, so also do the greens
that form their setting, and I now find the wild
space beyond the sun garden inseparable from the
cultivated in this matter. The madonna lilies now
in perfect bloom, when gathered, need delicate
maidenhair and lady ferns for company, while holly-
hocks set in the great India jars should emerge
from a mass of vigorous brakes in order to hide
their usual shabbiness of stalk.

July 1 6. Full moon, and both single and double
hollyhocks at height. All day long the garden is
a-bloom under full pressure of the sun and frequent
showers, and the bright moon so carries day into
night that we often stay out until the striking of
the magic hour, and even then I linger at my lat-

282 THE GARDEN OF A

tice window, for below lies the moonlit garden, an
etching framed by trees.

For a week past Evan and I have been wan-
dering in the garden of night, as we call it, and
continually meeting surprises in familiar places.
One of the alcoves in the border of the long walk
is filled with yellow evening primroses mingled with
the starry, long-tubed flowers of white tobacco
(nicotiana affinis\ Both of these open at sunset,
a time when sweet peas furl their butterfly wings
and many other plants contract both flower and
leaf; then all through the night they give forth the
fragrance that lures their insect lovers, so that
above them is a perpetual flight of moths, while
the blending of gold and silver under the moon-
spell defies description. The most gorgeous of red,
crimson, pink, blue, and purple flowers grow dark
at night in proportion to their daytime richness,
and it is to the light colours alone that the garden
then owes its beauty.

Night before last we were wandering about the
garden, peering in corners where masses of holly-
hocks that had strayed without border bounds re-
flected moonlight from their disks, and great spiders
spread their webs across open spaces and hung in
waiting, savagely patient while the dew turned their
homespun into cloth of gold.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 283

Suddenly a snapping noisfe seemed to drop from
a spruce tree overhead. There was a ponderous
flapping of wings and a note of warning that
sounded like the passing of a broom across a sanded
floor. The tree was half in deep shadow, but after
a few moments we could see the outline of some
stocky birds that were sitting in a row upon a limb
close to the trunk. Another cry, a flapping and
shifting, and we named them screech owls, and their
number five, evidently two parents and three owlets.
Then the dance began.

If I had ever doubted the capacity of animals
for play, I should now be converted. Of course a
habit of gambolling is common enough among dogs,
cats, and the intelligent quadrupeds, but I had never
before suspected the solemn owl of such humour,
and shall in future regard it as a professional wag
of great ability.

At first the old birds mystified their children by
separating and giving the " get to cover " cry from
separate trees. This seemed to be by way of
emergency drill, and lasted half an hour, until at
the signal the youngsters stopped flopping about
aimlessly and flew direct

They were quite fearless and did not object to
our presence in the least In fact, as we tried to

284 THE GARDEN OF A

follow their erratic course through the garden and
wood lot, and along the grassy walk that, edged
by daisies, seemed a pathway to the moon direct,
they seemed to take delight in seeing how nearly it
was possible to fly into our faces without absolutely
touching us.

Once safe in the fastness of hemlocks and spruces,
their tactics changed. Perching five in a row upon
a downward sloping branch, they pushed and jostled
each other until the one nearest the end was crowded
off. Instantly it flew to the top of the line and
took its turn at edging, until each had slipped off
many times. When at last they became tired of
this aerial coasting, they silently disappeared in the
darkness of the woods.

July 22. The owl play still continues nightly, and
Evan and I take part in it and likewise gain a fine
view of their antics by flashing a small electric
search-light into the deep shadows, thus catching
grotesque poses and their amazed and dazed expres-
sions. Last night two of the owlets ventured close
to the house, and sat for some time a-top the clothes
poles, turning their heads about so completely that
they threatened to wring their own necks ; then snap-
ping their beaks, they crooned, and conversed quite
plainly in high class owl, much to Bluff's indigna-

THE GRASSY WALK THVT EDGED BY DAISIES SEEMED A
PATHWAY TO THE MOON

and jostled
vas crowded

; had slipped off

Became tired of

ared in the

1! continues nightly, and

v gain a fine

\iall electric

as catching

•

1 close
p the clothes

COMMUTER'S WIFE 285

tion, until he howled furiously and dashed at the
poles so desperately that they lurched away, uttering
unmistakable swear words.

This is hollyhock week, and the forest of gayly
draped stalks flanks half the length of the long walk,
overflows the corner of the bank wall, and straggles
in a crowd toward the barn, where it forms a hollow
square about the chicken house. The hollyhock
disports all colours and tints, — white, pink, cerise,
crimson, apricot, yellow, and blush, both with a
decided pink eye and a rosily diffused centre.

Having been let alone for several years, the single
or half double flowers predominate, and I am quite
sure that I prefer them to the heavy double blossoms,
whose chief claim is their solidity of form and colour ;
otherwise they are nearer kin to the paper roses that
garnish Christmas mutton than to garden flowers.

The phloxes that have massed themselves regard-
less of colour, are showing bloom, — white, crimson,
white with crimson eye, and dull purple. Neither in
colour nor form are they as handsome as the young
plants we set out last October, among which many
new shades of cherry, salmon, and rose appear.

Phloxes especially require frequent resetting, else

286 THE GARDEN OF A

they crowd themselves out, the flower clusters grow
small, while they lapse to the parent colours from
which they were hybridized more rapidly than other
hardy plants. Now are the nasturtiums rampant, and
their trellis seems consumed with a flame that reach-
ing over has caught the salvia tips. The annuals that
I bought from the "Yellow Journal" catalogue are
making a fine showing, having an alcove all to them-
selves, and Evan almost acknowledges that the
Pekin Perfection Carnation Poppy is gorgeous, "at
least at present," he added cynically.

The first planting of gladiolus is in bloom, and I
have been surprised and fascinated by the beauty of
the new hybrids. Here, too, the range of colour
covers everything but blue, and the exquisitely shaded
and veined flowers, no longer contracted and stiff,
but winged and poised gracefully on the stalks, seem
more like a new discovery than a development.

The moon gets up late nowadays, having a slant-
wise, rakish look, and I am often tempted to leave
bed for my window where I could sit for hours listen-
ing to the owlets' shivery laugh and looking down
at the groups of striped and spotted eulalia that
shimmer like fountains in the moonlight. Delia,
who is to be married on Sunday evening, she having
failed to get her dispensation owing to the reluctance

COMMUTER'S WIFE 287

of the bridegroom, has asked me to have the owls
killed, as, if they cross her path the night of the
wedding, ill luck will surely follow her. A nice way
to cast the sure result of her own folly upon Fate
impersonated by me ! But the owls are quite safe.

The improvident song sparrows that built in the
rose spray have not learned wisdom by experience.
Yesterday afternoon as the wind that foretells a
shower was sweeping the garden, Bertie discovered
their second nest, in which were three young birds.
It was set squarely upon a broad corymb of feverfew
which, having gone to seed, was ready to snap at
any moment and the other foliage that had sheltered
it was beaten down. Silly sparrows ! In whose gar-
den were you raised ? Were there no honest bushes
there ?

We slipped an improvised platform under the
nest and braced it with four corner stakes using an
inverted strawberry box as a canopy, making a
structure that, as Evan said, looked like the judge's
box on a race track. The birds seemed satisfied,
however, and stayed by the nest, which was thus
enabled to weather the storm.

I believe that those sparrows were orphans and

288 THE GARDEN OF A

double first cousins raised by a maiden aunt in a gar-
den of flimsy foliage beds. Nothing else can justify
their dementia. I wonder if they will make another
nesting venture this season and where it will be.

July 29. Delia was married at seven last even-
ing. The gods were not propitious, for it rained,
though of course the fact that the wedding gown
was still fashionable was the main thing.

A funereal city hack containing the groom and
bridesmaid came to the side door, and as I bade
Delia good-by, in pity I pretended not to see that
the redness of the groom's face was from other
causes than bashfulness. The bride was white as
her ostrich plume, and unluckily, as they drove out
the gate, a mischievous owl gave a perfectly audible
though distant hoot.

Mrs. Mullins dropped in this morning to "give
me the news" and a fragment of very boggy
wedding cake.

" Sure, Miss Barbara darlint, 'tis bad to be shifty
moinded altogether, and that's what them three are,
mother, son, and Dalia. I'm looking for loively
times betuchen them. 'Six to one,' says I to Mullins,
' if Dalia isn't in the onion fields agin spring, like the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 289

old woman used herself ! Then do yer mind the
three bad omens, darlint ? "

"The rain and the owl," I answered, "but what
was the third ? "

" Oh, wherra ! wherra ! Crowin' hens is common,
but the likes o' the last doin's is seldom known,
though I onct heard it out o' County Kerry, that
same bein' next me own.'

" Old woman Doolan she mischanced to raise a
pair o' crowin' hens lasht fall, and all the neighbours
has beseeched her to kill them lest ill luck befall the
sittlement, goin' so far as to beg the priest to inter-
fere. But not an axe would she take to them, they
bein' foine layers.

" What's amiss wid crowin' hens ? Shure now,
that's aisy. Ye know well the cock that crew three
times and give the lie to St. Peter to his shamin' ?
Well, the blessed saint cursed him well for his impu-
dence and turned him to a hen, the mother o' the
whole lot, and that's why, himself doing it, the curse
holds that firm that holy water itself can't dissholve
it.

"Now what does the old devil do, unbeknownst
but only to me on account of the knot-hole, she
being stingy, but kill thim hins for the weddin'
f aste ! Did ye ever hear the loikes ? For we all

290 GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

knows that of a sprinklin' o' holy water even won't
break the power o' crowin' hens, 'tis a mortal sin to
touch them. So, says I to meself, 'It's the same
as aitin' death'; and though they was biled and
dressed wid onions, I come from the feast fastin',
but Dalia she ate her fill!"

XV

AUGUST

A PLEA FOR A WILD LAWN

August 5. Effie has come and dropped so
quickly into our needs and ways that even the
good points possessed by Delia, being at best " writ
in water," are quite obliterated. Effie has lived
for two years in medical families overseas, one
being that of a real M.D. and surgeon, the other
only a medical man. I wish that I could compass
this English professional distinction, but I cannot.
However, as far as Effie is concerned, it suffices to
say that she is fully impressed with the importance
of remembering a message and writing the names
and needs of callers upon the record pad in a firm
angular hand which is one of the best results of
the public education of British females. Likewise
she has the gift of afternoon tea making, knowing
after a single lesson the quality of August day when
cracked ice and lemon should be served instead of
milk, and quite agreeing with my taste, that many
191

292 THE GARDEN OF A

consider whimsical, which prefers good milk to
cream, as the latter cloys the palate and destroys
the flavour of really fine tea.

I am glad that there is no possibility of my Gar-
den Boke ever falling under the eye of a critic even
as comprehensive as Evan, for the question would
surely rise, Why so much of domestic affairs in an
outdoor annal ? As both in- and out-door life are
equal members of the body vital, they must be in
perfect harmony to produce that even mental cir-
culation known as happiness. The mutual discom-
fort of having either state awry is as unsatisfactory
as warming one's fingers at a cheerful blaze at the
same time that one's feet are in a tub of ice water.

The garden is en fete these days. In an equable
season like this, August is the gala of the spring-
sown annuals as well as of many perennials of the
hot summer colours.

Scarlet, and its allied tints, that started with the
oriental poppies, is now represented by the vivid
nasturtium and geranium hues, shooting its tongue
of flame in salvias and gladioli, while the phloxes
that outline the long walk are now at their best
and run through all the shades of lake and car-

COMMUTER'S WIFE 293

mine to purplish lavender, the same colours appear-
ing as eyes in the white varieties.

Yet even where scarlet and magenta almost meet, the
antagonism is averted and turned to barbaric splen-
dour by the groups of glowing golden rudbeckia
that combines in its blooms the richest of sun-
flower colour, with Dahlia solidity, and the long
stems of specimen chrysanthemums. \

The auratum lilies planted last November are
coming forward finely. They were grouped mainly
in the bulb beds below the study windows, where
they came the earliest in bloom. But for an ex-
periment I scattered a couple of dozen bulbs at
random, through the beds of the long walk, and
the effect of the great golden-banded, ruby-spotted
flowers is magical, giving depth of focus to the
maze of phlox, as well as the thrill of oriental
suggestion that the lily and iris tribes always
bring with them. In an old-fashioned garden
such as mine, this result must be by suggestion
only ; for if it is allowed to dominate, it becomes
incongruous, and would wholly denationalize the
garden. This is why Evan bars palms, caladiums,
castor beans, and all such growths, only allowing
the graceful eulalias as an equivalent of the humbler
old-time ribbon grass.

294 THE GARDEN OF A

August 8. This is the month for gathering
flowers, not as individuals, but in masses, when a
sickle is often more serviceable than scissors. In
fact, this morning I possessed myself of a mass of
phlox and golden glow in this manner, and filled
the study fireplace with them most effectively with-
out rearrangement, using an old stoneware jug,
to hold the water. So often the best effects in
decoration come from transferring the flowers
indoors without disturbing their natural pose.
Gather an armful of goldenrod, for instance, put
it in a jar, with only a loosening shake to adjust
it, and the most careful spray by spray arrange-
ment will not yield equal grace.

The dogs are happy again, being free of the
garden, for now that the ground is everywhere
covered, instinct seems to keep them to the walk,
and Bluff hardly gives a tail wag of apology, when
he joins me, stepping carefully between the rows,
or sitting gazing at me with apparent interest,
as I fill my basket from the beds of the long
walk.

That we have the poor always with us, is one
of the most daily evident of the Master's truths,

TAIL. WAG OF APOLOGY

294

THE GARDEN OF A

August 8.
:rs, not as

phlo,
the s-
out
to h

ment

'

gard
covered, >

and I Q
he j.

or sii-'

This is the month for gat'r
•o. but in masses, u'

glow in this ma:
with them most effe.
E^ using an old

often the best e£
transferring the flowers
their natural
'or instanc

adjust
spray a:

en the rows,

*erest,

of die long

So OAW JAT A 23^10
That we have t«e poor
of the mo the Master's i

COMMUTER'S WIFE 295

especially if the term is allowed, as it must be,
to cover the inefficient. The illustrations in point
usually come to me from the hospital or the fac-
tory cottages, but once again the offenders belong
to the world of garden birds. Those poor mis-
guided song sparrows have built their third nest,
three feet above ground in a bush of golden glow,
at the junction of a twisted stalk with the support-
ing string and stake! This morning I well-nigh
dumped out the four eggs in trying to straighten
the plant.

I had a mind to leave them to their fate, but who
would risk the lives of four possible song sparrows
that may return and bring joy to a gloomy March
day, for the sake of giving their parents a moral
lesson ?

Not Barbara, surely, so I made a very neat struc-
ture of double mosquito net, a sort of skeleton nest,
and fastened it by the corners to four slender bam-
boo stakes, very much as a redwing blackbird hangs
his home between the reeds.

With Bertie's aid I slipped it under the toppling
nest so that it was made secure without altering its
location. The sparrows did not seem alarmed in the
slightest, and this afternoon they are alternately
brooding and feeding cheerfully upon the crumbs of

296 THE GARDEN OF A

dog biscuit that are always plentiful about the ken.
nels. I must tell Tim that this biscuit makes the
best bird food that he can scatter about the barnyard
and hayricks in winter.

I'm wondering if these are Severely Protestant,
clerical song sparrows who think the world owes
them a living, and so thrust their progeny at it alms-
basinwise ! Well, I think it does, as far as the spar-
rows go, when you take their joy-giving qualities into
consideration, which is certainly less often the case
with their human prototypes.

Three new blossoms are this month added to the
garden of night, — one, the moo'n flower, a half hardy
convolvulus, festooning some poles that are joined by
light rods on either side of the long walk, while the
other two are silvery pink petunias and white, pink,
and yellow four-o'clocks that fill in the alcove be-
tween the evening primroses and nicotiana.

The sweet peas still yield even more flowers than I
can comfortably pick, and Evan comes to my aid
every evening, though very soon now our after-din-
ner gardening will have to be done by either moon or
lantern light.

I wish that I could have an interview with the

COMMUTER'S WIFE 297

Equinoxes and the Chief Engineer of the Earth's
Orbit, and persuade them to alter its grade, especially
on the curves, so that all the long days might be
bunched between May first and October, and thus
some hours of light be stolen from March and April
for the benefit of August and September.

The dark mornings and evenings of early fall and
winter are one of the trials of the commuter and his
wife that can only be overcome by a large supply of
"sweetness and light."

The garden of books, to be sure, mitigates and con-
soles the evening end, but as for the morning from
November to March, even the always questionable
consolation of the fact that the " early bird catches
the worm" is quite valueless. The commuter
who lives at a reasonable distance can only
console himself with knowing that he has had at
least an hour more sleep than if he lived in town,
and his wife's reward lies in her power to keep her
promise of sending him off well nourished and trim,
no list of errands in his pocket, no egg on his mus-
tache, and no crumb, but merely an invisible kiss on
his chin.

Alack that this short time between seven and eight
A.M. should be the downfall of so many well-ordered
lives ! Last winter after the great storm Evan

298 THE GARDEN OF A

christened this time the " philosophical hour," saying
that as under modern pressure one needs to give an
hour out of every twenty-four to this cult, the earlier
it comes in the day, the better.

August 20. I have realized anew the almost
spiritual beauty of the common morning-glory. I
avoided planting these flowers anywhere about the
garden, because they seed so freely that they soon
become an annoyance, strangling more important
plants, and even tangling up the vegetables mis-
chievously. Instead, I have given them a screen
that breaks the bareness of the tool house, and
let them run riot. The leaves are not especially
notable, being rather coarse ; but the flowers are
as exquisite in their richly coloured fragility as if
Aurora, in the bath, had amused herself by blowing
bubbles. These, catching the sunrise glow, floated
away upon the breeze, and falling on a wayside
vine, opened into flowers that from their origin
vanish again under the sun's caress.

Among all their colours none is more beautiful or
usual than the rich purple with the ruddy throat
merging to white — night shadows melting into the
clear of dawn.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 299

August is one of the few growing months when
the female gardener may, without neglecting her
posies, if she chooses, attire herself becomingly, sit
on the porch in idleness, and read a novel.

To be sure, work is still to be done, but the
weeding and tying to stakes is not so violently
necessary as heretofore. The building of the cold
pit, a sort of small, sunken greenhouse, in the bank
south of the barn, is being conducted by Bertie
with a carpenter to help him, though of course the
cuttings that are to be kept in it must soon be set
in sand to root.

I was thus lounging and reading a novel, — not
a new one, for, thank Heaven, my hardy perennials
in this line have not given out, but " Christian's
Mistake," one from my Tauchnitz family that live
together in one bookcase, wearing a cheerful uni-
form of half red morocco, — when father drove up,
and, without first going to consult his office pad,
seated himself opposite me with a perturbed look
upon his face.

I smiled encouragingly, and was instantly pre-
pared to supply any need, from flowers through
fruit and soup to baby linen, the last "loan bas-
ket" of which, after having been nicely laundered,
was enjoying an unusual rest.

300 THE GARDEN OF A

" I have a very special favour to ask of you,
daughter," father began, his solemnity striking me
with dismay.

"With pleasure," I answered; "that is," as an
idea struck me, " unless it is to go somewhere away
from home and stay all night."

" No, it is to invite a guest here for a whole
week."

" Not Aunt Lot and the Reverend Jabez ! " I
cried, jumping up so that " Christian " fell sprawl-
ing on the floor to the bending of a morocco corner.

" Dora Penfield," he said, much to my relief, then
paused to give me time to recollect when I had last
heard of her.

Dora — Penfield ! Ah, yes, I recollect. She was
the orphan daughter of an old school friend of
mother's, who used to live with a distant relative,
in a stately colonial house on the farther edge of
town. One of those fine old places, with good china
and mahogany within doors, and box-edged walks
and a well-preserved garden without, that had much
impressed my girlish fancy. In those days, though
several years under thirty, she had been quite a
personage, a lady bountiful, and every one had
been surprised when, without apparent reason, she
had suddenly closed the house, all but a few rooms

COMMUTER'S WIFE 301

for a caretaker, and had gone abroad to "study
art."

The community was amazed, for to it " art " was
an extremely indefinite term (which, by the way, it
really is in such cases), variously meaning china
painting, embroidering fat strawberries or flowers
on tea cloths in such high relief that the cups and
saucers go rocking about among them as if at sea.
Or, more novel yet and quite the latest thing,
copying chromos of gamebirds in oils on well-var-
nished bread boards, the same to be hung by an
elaborately careless knot of hemp rope over the
dining-room mantle, surmounted by either the family
gun, a tennis racket, boxing gloves, or a fishing
basket, according to material available.

The Emporium was sure that Dora Penfield (she
was never called "Miss" — that was common) must
have lost her money, and hoped if there ever was
an auction up at the mansion, she might be alive to
go to it.

The Village Liar took an entirely different point
of view, affirming that a certain young doctor was
at the bottom of the change. He, after serving two
years at the hospital for a special course of study,
had gone to a distant city as junior assistant to a
well-known physician. The why and wherefore of

302 THE GARDEN OF A

the matter, however, she did not attempt to un-
ravel.

As this flitted through my brain, I said, seeing
light : —

" I suppose she is returning from abroad, and
you think it would be more cheerful for her to come
here while her home is made ready than to go to
a hotel. Of course I will make her welcome,
though, if I remember rightly, I was always a bit
afraid of her, she sat up so straight, and had a long
slim waist, fine clothes, and such white, pointed
fingers."

"Her fingers will no longer be either white or
pointed soon," said father, with a sigh. " She has
come home not to open her house, but to take up
the vocation of a trained nurse. Why she does it,
I do not know. It is not from lack of money, and
as she is mentally and physically sound, I have no
choice but to take her; and I am glad to have our
new venture of a training school start with such
good material. When I saw her last week at the
hospital, she was quiet and serious, and her choice
is evidently not a mere whim.

" You know that we were to have opened the
school the middle of this month, but circumstances
have delayed the date a week. As she has made

COMMUTER'S WIFE 303

all her arrangements through my mistake, I wish
to ask her here, where she will be as free as possible
from the village questioning that her resolve is sure
to call forth."

I am much relieved that there is nothing com-
plicated about the visit. I see nothing strange in
her choice. Nursing always attracted me, and she
probably wants to understand how to care for sick
people properly, and perhaps have convalescents
sometimes share in her big house.

Father had but gone indoors when the Lady of
the Bluffs drove up, seemingly quite surprised to see
me clothed and in what she considers my right mind,
lying back in a piazza chair.

"Well, this is most unusual!" she gasped after
taking the stiffest seat. She always was breathless
on moving ; for her dress waist, which looked fluffy
and easy enough, was, I am sure, extremely tight
underneath, where some sort of rigid bar gave the
straight downward slope affected by Queen Bess, to
a form that naturally would express itself in the
one or more hillocks common to well-fed middle
age.

"To find you at 5 P.M. actually sitting still and
playing the lady ! Is your garden dead or are you
tired of it ? Mine is, or rather my fernery. Would

304 THE GARDEN OF A

you believe it, my dear, there were green bugs on
some of the ferns, and I told our new gardener (he is
a German, but only understands some outlandish
dialect, and does not take in a word of the easy con-
versational German I speak) that I knew they ought
to be fumigated with something, and he'd better ask
for it at the store. I spoke slowly in English ; he
knows that better than his own tongue evidently,
though he won't try to speak it; and I'm sure he
understood, for he wrote down what I said.

"What does he do but go to the store and buy
sulphur candles, dozens of them, and not only kill all
the plants in the fern house, but my two darling
macaws as well, that I always have perched among
the plants in the conservatory when I give a blow-
out. So decorative, you know ! Though I couldn't
keep them there all the time, for they screech so that
Jenks-Smith says they curdle his blood, which is
dangerous for a short-necked man who won't give
up port though it's horribly out of fashion. Well,
they are dead, the poor dears. Now, what would
you do ? "

"You might have them stuffed," I suggested.

" Oh, bother the birds ! About such incompetent
help, I mean."

" If I were you, I would hire a trained English or

COMMUTER'S WIFE 305

Scotch gardener of experience, and then let him
engage his own assistants and give him full control,"
I said, feeling sure that this was one of the many
cases where the master and mistress must learn of
the man.

" What ? and have no say-so about my own
things ? I guess not. We began that way with a
' trained English gardener,' and if you please, when
I ordered him to trim the rooms with cherry blossoms
from the young trees for my Japanese tea (I sat
under an umbrella and wore a ravishing costume
imported especially), he had the impudence to tell me
that if he picked the flowers, we must do without
cherries later. And when I told him that it was the
business of a trained man to see that we had cherries
anyhow, he left! When- I asked why, the coach-
man, who is Irish and sociable, told me that the
' blamed thing ' said he ' had no use for such as us.'
Just fancy ! "

I suppressed a fit of giggles with great difficulty,
but Effie helped me out by arranging the tea table.
Ice and lemon this time, as befitted a very muggy,
hot afternoon.

As my lady sat and sipped, — she has recently
lost a molar and so used her lips like a beak, — she
forgot her woes, and suddenly reverted to me, saying,

306 THE GARDEN OF A

"Now you must really tell me what you are
thinking about. What are you planning ? You are
staring downhill there as if you had not heard a
word that I said. Ah, I know, you are thinking to
make that slope into a lawn, and a nice one it will
be if you can get the grass to take. We've had
horrid luck and are all ploughed up on three sides
again for the fourth time."

" A lawn ? Why, it is a lawn now ! " I exclaimed
indignantly, — " a lovely, wild lawn."

" A wild lawn ? How odd ! just fancy ! Why, it
is full of everything but grass. Somehow, I thought
a lawn was all grass, you know." This with a criti-
cal squint that she always gives when she thinks she
has made a point.

" I believe, now you mention it, that lawns are
usually made of plain ordinary grass all one even
colour, shaven, shorn, and oh, so monotonously
green ; an unnatural sort of thing, in short, just like
the foliage beds people freckle these lawns with.

" Now our lawn that you see down there is decid-
edly unusual, I will grant, but it's perfectly natural and
not at all monotonous, for it's never the same colour
for two successive months. Nature, when undis-
turbed, is never monotonous, you know. Even when
using green, the most frequent colour on her palette,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 307

she throws in contrasting tints by way of expression,
and you will seldom see two sides of a leaf of the
same hue, and the leaf stem frequently gives a bold
dash of bronze or purple. Look at the wild grasses
of meadows and marsh lands. Do not all the flower
colours wash over them in the course of the year,
and our bare hillsides wear nearly the heathery hues
of the old world ?

" In our climate the usual lawn implies a pro-
cession of men picking 9ut weeds, followed by an-
other lot sprinkling a mixture of grass seed and
earth ; then comes a din of mowing machines, and
in the fall an avalanche of top dressing, making one
think of modernizing the old proverb, ' A grain of
wheat is worth a grain of gold ' to read ' A blade of
grass costs a grain of gold..'

" My lawn is full of resources, and therefore
makes few demands. An occasional sprinkling of
fertilizer is gratefully received and calls forth a
rich green blush of pleasure, but is not exacted ; a
very moderate trimming by a single mower keeps
its tresses in decent array. Then, too, it has its
seasons like the garden and many surprises to boot,
for in parts it has both moist and dry soil.

" In April, pussy-toes, the little white vernal ever-
lasting, patter across it, and early blue violets hide

308 THE GARDEN OF A

between the tufty grass at the bottom toward the
stone fence. Saxafrage flowers spring from the
leafy rosettes in dry spots where the rock comes
nearly to the surface, and in late May moss pink
shows its rosy glow here and there.

"Then there are always guinea gold dandelions,
strewn at random, that later turn to down and fly
away like veritable flowers of magic. Next, following
the white violets, come blue speedwell, bluets and
coy windflowers in the moist hollow. A few vagrant
ox-eye daisies will hang about the fence edge and
nestle in among the shrubs, and Jack-over-the-ground
creeps hither and thither with golden cups and shin-
ing leaves.

" In July yarrow spreads its fragrant fern-cut
leaves, and covers places where the grass is thin,
and bedstraw with its queer, rough stems and white
cross flowers, while up under the hemlock trees on
the right, Indian pipe raises its ghostly stems, and
pyrola flourishes under the beech tree by the bank
wall

" Look across the green now, for the lawn is
delicately green, even if not wholly grass. Do you
see that purple tint where the slope begins ? It is
wild thyme, and next month these purple flowers will
be replaced by purple-bronze leaves, and yonder,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 309

climbing around the hill, is a trail of wild marjo-
ram. Do you not smell the clean fragrance that
the afternoon dampness holds close ? My lawn is
a bouquet an acre wide ! "

" I smell turkey dressing," said my lady, suddenly.

I had quite forgotten to whom I was speaking,
but the shock sobered me at once.

" That is, soup flavouring, I mean ; but it's a right
stiff guess enough, I reckon, for they do use thyme
and such things in cooking. I remember ordering
some once when I used to go to market.

"Well, my dear, you always were odd, and you
can have your lawn a ' kitchen bouquet ' if you
choose, but I'm sure our landscapist would say it
isn't at all the thing for us.

" By the way, where do you buy your tea ? It is
delicious ! Our butler never gets mine twice alike,
and he blames it on the second man whose duty
it is to see that the water boils. He only pours it
on, of course, and serves it.

" Make it myself, as you always do in the indoor
season ? I tried it once and burned a hundred-
dollar mechlin sleeve drapery in the horrid urn lamp.

"Would you just give me a bunch of your delicious
lemon verbena ? It will be such a relief to have a
change in the flavouring in the finger glasses. The

310 THE GARDEN OF A

only good-smelling thing we have this year is rose
geranium, and we're done to death with it. Last
night I really believe the chef flavoured the ices
with it, and last week he candied some with rose
leaves, and they looked real well in my new pierced
silver basket."

I do not think that I shall sit upon the piazza.
in the afternoon again for some time. I shall have
the seat mended up in the old cherry tree where I
used to perch and play princess in a tower and feel
romantic ten years ago, and then I can vanish among
the branches where nothing worse than tree-toads
and blue-jays can see me.

I find myself wondering about Dora Penfield.
Is it a case of vocation, or is there a romance in
hiding ? I wonder how Evan will bear up under
a whole week's visitation. If she comes Saturday,
I shall know all about it ; and if she doesn't, I shall
forget that I wanted to know, which will do quite
as well. I wonder if she will be interested in the
garden. I hope so, for I must do some hard work
again next week.

That reminds me that I have promised father
that I will speak to Martha about learning to make

COMMUTER'S WIFE sii

Franco- American bread. Poor lamb, he is really
pathetic. He says he has eaten toast until he ex-
pects to turn to crumbs, and that pikelets, muffins,
and Sally Lunn cakes are no longer a consolation
or substitutes. Heigh-ho! it is too late to-night.

Ah, how the fragrance floats up through the
window from my " bank whereon the wild thyme
grows." I wonder what Shakespeare would have
thought of Mrs. Jenks-Smith ! She would hardly
have considered him "the thing", but possibly
might have suggested that he give a reading in her
garden at half rates to introduce himself.

XVI

SEPTEMBER

THE COLOURS OF FLOWERS

September 5. The garden change between late
August and early September is in degree of ripe-
ness only. Two weeks ago the annuals pleaded
their cause most eloquently by their cheerful profu-
sion. Now a storm of a night and day that threat-
ened to bring cool weather, but merely passed
over leaving a wake of yellow haze, has well-nigh
stripped these summer flowers of their fleeting
finery. Everywhere the seed pods raised above
the fallen petals make their bids for perpetuity,
while the early-blooming, hardy plants that escaped
trimming, like foxgloves and sweet William, are
already surrounded by a colony of downy, tender
green seedlings.

" Pods are the poppies, and slender spires of pods
The hollyhocks."

The alcove of camelia balsams is quite dishev-
elled, and the pointed, cocoon-like pods, from which

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 313

one always expects to see a moth or butterfly emerge,
are ripening at the bottom of the stalk, and sending
forth a fusilade of brown shot. These balsams,
though rather unpickable flowers, have been a two
months' glory, from their solid quality and the beau-
tiful colours of the spurred blossoms. No annual
more perfectly displays the so-called pastel tints, —
peachblow, lilac, mauve, ivory white, pale salmon,
in addition to vivid crimsons, scarlet, and many
vivid and spotted hybrids.

Alas for my bed of novelties from the "Yellow
Journal " catalogue ! Not only did it become merely
a mass of miscellaneous wreckage even before Au-
gust ended, but so sodden and water-soaked that I
had to have the debris removed with a garden fork,
and Bertie has now thoroughly worked over the
ground for the first planting of Shirley poppies.
Those sown in early September make sturdy tufts
before frost, and in spring, bloom three weeks ear-
lier than those from the October-sown seed that
does not germinate until April.

Father and Evan have taken their vacations
during the past three months by daily install-
ments, thus making the most of opportunity and
fine weather. Evan has made many little garden
improvements ; for to him as well as father, vacation

314 THE GARDEN OF A

idleness is merely a change from mental to physical
employment.

The wild walk beyond the sun garden offered the
greatest possibilities, and it is chiefly there that he
has spent his strength, sometimes varying this work
by training our new horse in side-saddle docility.
This penchant of Evan for horse training was the
primary cause of depriving the Church of his ser-
vices. In his youth, when on a probationary visit
to his uncle, the Dean, he had escaped daily to a
nearby race course, and there ingratiated himself so
thoroughly with the stable men that he was allowed
to exercise an especially cantankerous mare. He was
thus surprised by His Reverence when handling a
mount in an exceedingly scientific and jockey fied
manner, and sent home in disgrace.

The wild walk born of the cowpath is either
arched by trees or screened by bushes for the greater
part of its length. In one place, however, for a space
of some twenty yards it crosses the open field, giving
a view of cultivated farmland below that mars the
effect of wildness and seclusion.

To overcome this defect, Evan, with Bertie's aid in
post setting, has made the framework of a sort of
arbour that screens the walk completely. It is not
of set and formal lattice work like the old rose

COMMUTER'S WIFE 315

arbour, for its posts, though nearly of the same
height, are no two of the same size or distance apart,
being slim trees — birch, cedar, maple, tulip, pine,
and chestnut, with the bark left on. These he has
bound together with the woody vines of wild grapes
from the grove above the house, where they reach
up sometimes thirty or forty feet into the trees, with-
out branching, and then loop and twist themselves
into huge grotesque knots. An ox yoke, found in
an old barn, and venerable with lichens, makes the
entering lintel of the roof, also woven of grape vine
and curved branches.

Already the effect is of a path cut trail-fashion
through thickset trees, and when to complete the
plan it shall be covered with native vines meshed
carefully in and out, — bittersweet, clematis, coral
honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, frost grapes, bind-
weed, climbing hemp, wild yam, and even catbriar,
— it will be quite unique, a bit of wild "pleached
alley " conceived and born in the garden of a
commuter's wife.

The September garden has flowers all its own that
have more of the personality that mark those of May
and early June.

316 THE GARDEN OF A

The sweet peas have done their work ; that is,
those of the trellised vines of the long walk. In July,
after a heavy rain, I planted a row of the dwarf pink
and white Blanche Ferry as an experiment, just as
we use dwarf peas in the vegetable garden for
autumn bearing, and they are now full of buds break-
ing into bloom, though the flowers are not so large as
those of the earlier season.

I have never been successful in sowing the tall
sweet peas in succession for autumn blooming, for
they are of deliberate growth, and hot weather wastes
their vitality in feverish effort. This, to be sure, has
been an exceptionally equable season, and rather the
exception than the rule. I like to think it is a sort
of golden jubilee to welcome me home to my own
again. Even Blanche Ferry might have dried up or
died from mildew if August had been either wholly
dry or rent with battering thunder storms, as I have
known to be the case. Let every one who makes
garden plans frequently insert the letters C. P. in
them as a reminder, the same standing for climate
permitting.

The Margaret carnations are now blooming as
freely as border pinks, and with the summer roses
give the table a fragrant bouquet once more. Helio-
trope is still in profusion, also the mignonette that

COMMUTER'S WIFE 317

had a half-shady exposure. The wall flowers are
growing more bushy and profuse, while the last plant-
ing of gladioli, by chance wholly lacking in pink tints,
is striving to rival nasturtiums and salvia in colour.

The white panicled-flowered clematis, though in its
first year, is covering the end of the honeysuckle
wall, where it is entrenched, with snow. Yet the
distinctive character of the September garden is to
be found in two species that divide the honours of
the month equally between them, — the asters and
the Dahlias, once represented only by the neat but
rigid quilled species that have now been hybridized
into a dozen graceful forms and exquisite tints.
Though the cactus type of Dahlia is the most interest-
ing and individual, the long-stemmed single varieties
are very graceful, and when gathered are more amena-
ble to arrangement, while the large quilled rosettes
of splendid winey crimson and purple colours seem
in their turn unmatchable ; their velvet texture is the
garden's autumn robe donned at the first thought of
colder weather.

I have tried the experiment of fastening my Dahlias
against a low trellis such as supports the nasturtiums
and sweet peas, and it is very satisfactory. Such
succulent plants are likely to be broken down and
bereft of many branches if merely secured to a stake.

3i8 THE GARDEN OF A

But in this way the shoots may be pulled through
the wires, and a sightly hedge is the result, while
the support is high and strong enough to let me
cover the plants nightly with light-weight unbleached
cotton, if frost threatens too early.

If asters like a garden, they thrive mightily ; if not,
they are the most ungrateful of annuals. They must
have deep, cool soil which ants have never inhabited
or from which they have been banished, else at the
very moment when they should bloom, they wither
away almost in a single night. When the plant is
pulled up to find the cause, a swarm of white lice
will be found feeding upon the root, these being the
cows that supply milk to the ant nursery, and always
plentiful in ant colonies.

Asters may be had in all shades of colour except, I
think, the three distinct primaries, — true vermilion,
blue, and yellow, in this following the balsams, save
that these last possess a real scarlet.

To these September flowers must be added the
waxy white day lily (funkia subcordata), a light,
scattering, second blooming of many, hardy June
plants such as larkspurs ; the late phloxes and a
slender sheaf of hybrid perpetual roses, though in

COMMUTER'S WIFE 319

our soil at this time they yield only flat, semi-
double flowers of poor quality. The hybrid teas are
our only satisfactory hardy autumn-blooming roses.

Dora Penfield has come and gone, staying not one
week, but two. In fact, her visit was the cause of
my neglect of you, my Garden Boke, during the last
half of August. Now I will make up for it by telling
you about her, for you are discreet, having ears and
no lips. I've felt so pent up and conscious ever since
she made me her unwilling confidante ; for though I
gave and was asked for no promises of secrecy, I feel
a reserve altogether new to me, and that I ought
not to tell Evan even, which is very uncomfortable,
for he is too wholesomely direct to sympathize.
Later I may hint of it to' father, however ; for he
must often come in contact with her at the hospital,
and may need to understand her peculiar attitude
and moods. Why she told me so much about her
life I cannot imagine, unless she felt that she must
have the relief of speech, and seeing the perfect
understanding between Evan and me, thought that
I of necessity must sympathize with her. So I do.
But no, pity is the word ; for the darkness of her
life, father says, as in the case of so many he meets.

320 THE GARDEN OF A

comes from the fact that she has stood, as it were,
in her own shadow, and tried to manage nature.

I think that poor Dora must have been born to
or inherited a certain vein of ill luck that she has
either had too much self-complacency to recognize
or else lacked the force to forestall. According to
her own fragmentary account, which I have pieced
together by intuition, from her girlhood, when her
parents died leaving her rich as money is reckoned
in the country, mischance continually fell upon her in
ways for which she denied all responsibility. She is,
in fact, the sort of woman who is always overtaken
by a shower when she goes out in her best clothes.

She went to college, and seems to have obtained
a feeling of superiority over her less ambitious sis-
ters, instead of breadth of vision and culture. Next,
she travelled abroad awhile with some college
friends, and, on her return, opened her old home,
which she improved, having one gift, the rare skill
that knows how to renew without making the new-
ness apparent.

For several years she led a self-satisfactory life,
being a leader of a small social procession, ready
in charity and much flattered and consulted. Then
fate stepped in and began to meddle with the even
fabric of her life, and as she thinks, tangle the skein

COMMUTER'S WIFE 321

and mismatch its colour. For to a vague thing to
which, when kind, she referred as Providence, and
when harsh, Fate, she attributes all events, with the
superstition of Delia or Mrs. Mullins, and never
arraigns herself for errors or deems her judgments
impeachable.

Fate came a-wooing in the form of the serious
and really fine-looking young doctor of the hospi-
tal, upon whom at the time the Village Liar fixed
her suspicions. For a year Dora and he were
much together. It was really the first time that
she, in her narrow, suburban life, had come under
the influence of a man evidently much more than
her equal, and near her own age, she being, perhaps,
two years his senior.

She justified the acquaintance to herself and jug-
gled with its reality by calling it friendship. He
did not, and the moment that he had secured a
footing on the professional ladder, a good opening
in a distant city, he told her in all sincerity that
he now might ask her for the promise that it would
have been selfish and one-sided to have expected
before; he being frank and simple-minded, never
for a moment doubted that she was as single-
hearted as he himself.

She really did love him, that is, as far as she

322 THE GARDEN OF A

knew how, the shadow of self always keeping well
between ; but she resented his taking her love for
granted, though she had been telling it by eye and
accent for many months. She was not yet proud
of him, though she meant to marry him, but the
shadow lay heavily; for whether she realized it or
not, she did not care to leave her pedestal to be-
come either the betrothed or the wife of a man as
yet unknown. She fenced to gain time, using the
well-worn subterfuge, half argument, half coquetry,
saying " to bind him before his way was made
might retard his progress — she was too old for
him, he would meet younger, prettier faces, and out-
grow her — their friendship was intellectual, while a
doctor needed heart more than head in a wife."

Then seeing that he stood white and aghast, suf-
fering but making no protest, she grew angry, and
told him hotly that in two years' time — the space
that he asked her to wait for him — he would prob-
ably thank her for the advice, never dreaming that
he would take her seriously. He assented humbly,
only asking if he might write to her in the interval.
She said, " Yes, if you will never mention love or
marriage until two years are over," not even then
expecting that she would be taken at her word.

He went to his new post ; a letter or two came,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 323

detailed and full of his professional work. Restless
and miserable, but still keeping rigidly to her ped-
estal, she went abroad, ostensibly to study art,
but really to follow the great procession who wander
aimlessly about, guide-book in hand, for various
reasons trying to kill time out of eye-shot of the
critical.

Every other week letters were exchanged, and
in order to match his professional enthusiasm in
kind, Dora dropped the easy gossip of travel, visited
the hospitals wherever she went, grew technical,
and dilated upon the splendid career offered women
through trained nursing, hinting idly that she felt
strongly drawn to make the vocation her own.

When two years had nearly passed, she turned
homeward in an apparently leisurely sort of way
without special significance. But in reality she was
feverishly impatient, and her trunk contained many
of the pretty things that make up bridal finery.
When she arrived and was well rested, she sent Him
(for she thought the word in capitals now) a note to
say at what hotel she was stopping, and that she
was "only passing through the city on her way
home" — nothing more.

He came at once with honest eagerness. A
lover would have noticed that it was two years

324 THE GARDEN OF A

to a day since they had parted, but he only re-
garded the time approximately, took both her
hands, and looked her squarely in the face as he
told her how well she looked, and that as the for-
bidden time for speaking of himself was over, he
must be selfish.

He thanked her for her patient friendship, and
for her wise advice, saying that even two
years before she had known him better than he
himself had done. He told of his success and
that what she had said had all proved true. He
now realized that a physician from his anxious
life did not need a helpmeet of the head as much
as of the heart, and that he was just betrothed to
the daughter of his senior, a wholesome, fresh
young girl, whom she would love and who carried
restfulness in her very laugh. No one knew it yet,
as he wished Dora to be the first to hear the news,
and give her good wishes to them both.

He said that in another year or two he expected
to have a hospital for children in connection with
his practice, and that as Dora seemed deliberately to
have chosen to adopt the vocation of a nurse, what
would be more fitting than that she should have
charge of it!

Did you ever dream of such a tangle, you dear,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 325

straight-forward, open-paged Garden Boke ?
me who was to blame, the man or the woman ?
I fear me it was the silly, selfish woman. The
man was simply attracted by an older woman, as
many are, lacked imagination, did as he was told,
found his mistake, and shifted Dora to a maternal,
cousinly place in his regard as she had bid, and
thought all well. If it turned out to his own advan-
tage, who can blame him ? Dora would not have
been a good doctor's wife. She is too rigid. I
am sure that she would have objected to extra or
irregular meals, insisted upon regulating the social
status patients, and had a large and prominent door
mat, saying, " Wipe your feet " spread down during
office hours.

Now having committed herself, her pride is
forcing her to go into training for a profession
she only half likes ; and I truly believe that the ill
luck that still clings, combined with the old New
England disease of unnecessary self-abnegation,
which father says is a curse left by the witches
the Puritans burned, will lead her eventually to go
to the children's hospital, and thus literally keep
a wound from healing by rubbing salt in it.

Ah, me ! suppose I had hesitated about going
to England with Evan and put him off. Would

326 THE GARDEN OF A

he have waited and come back ? Of course he
would, but then I'm glad I didn't. What non-
sense I'm thinking. Evan says that the difficulty
with women is that they take everything person-
ally, and thereby are often unnecessarily tormented,
which is perfectly true.

September 20. Twice lately father and Evan
have been over the hills to Chain Lakes, fishing
for black bass, and had great sport, father getting
the most exercise, and Evan the most fish. Father
is classic and conservative, and used artificial flies,
while Evan took a choice collection of small toads,
newts, locusts, and big grasshoppers, which evidently
were more attractive. Yesterday I went with them,
riding the newly trained horse, who proved com-
fortably meek, while the men each took one of the
grays.

Ah, the colour of the September hills ! Earlier
in the season we look for form, detail, fragrance.
Now colour seems to fill the eye, and we store
it away against the time of neutral tints. The
trees were as solidly green as in July, only here
and there a Virginia creeper winding through
them like a gay ribbon, while the fragrance of wild

COMMUTER'S WIFE 327

grapes sunning upon the stone fences was wafted
everywhere. The colour followed the ground; Joe
Pye and goldenrod surging in great waves across
the open, settling in shoulder-deep pools in the
hollows and breaking into a golden spray of giant
sunflowers over the fences and against the wood
edges.

The dwarf sumachs were beginning to glow like
live coals on the drier hills, and here and there the
cardinal flower followed a brook out to the road,
but the prevailing colour was the peculiar purplish
pink and gold — the tint that heather, gorse, and
broom give to the English moors and Scottish hills.
So many people go out and admire the more gaudy
autumn leaf reds and yellows, and never seem to
notice this intermediate stage between summer and
autumn. The fishing proved too intricate for even
short petticoats, so I amused" myself by following a
number of tempting wood trails on horseback, and
saw in the course of the morning, much to father's
delight, samples of our trio of game birds, wood-
cock, quail, and ruffed-grouse — all quite tame and
seemingly conscious of the protection of the close
season. They had better be on guard, however ;
in ten days or so fishing rods will be put to bed
and guns will appear. Meanwhile, the local sporting

328 THE GARDEN OF A

element goes out at night semi-weekly to train the
young hounds to trail and locate fox holes for the
real hunting later on.

Evan went last week, taking Bugle and Tally-ho.
He didn't come home until after two in the morn-
ing, tired but happy, four promising dens having
been located. The hounds were brought back
this morning by a farmer to whose house they had
gone. The old dogs lead, and the young follow
with some of the huntsmen afoot, while the others,
especially invited guests, choose a point of vantage
and listen to the music of the full cry as the course
winds in and out, almost every owner recognizing the
voice of his own dog. When the practice is over, a
midnight supper is eaten at the rallying point, and
the pack divided, each going home with his owner.
Of course many of the young dogs get off on
crossed trails and rabbit tracks and keep on run-
ning.

These, according to local etiquette, are always
returned by the first to find them, the tariff being
a dollar per dog, irrespective of distance travelled.
Of course the whole thing would seem very primi-
tive to the costumed chasers of tame foxes and
aniseed bags, but it is the custom here, and as it
meets the people's needs, what would you have ?

COMMUTER'S WIFE 329

I used to go on these trials, and I'm going again
next week. The mad baying of the hounds over
the hills and the break to full cry is as stimulating
as martial music. As to seeing the fox killed, that
is another thing, — a necessary act, but not for the
sight of Barbara.

September 27. I have left a number of plants to
go to seed in the garden in spite of the ragged air
they lend, for the sake of the birds they attract.
The composite flowers are the favourites, — coreopsis,
zinnias, asters, rudbeckias. This morning a line of
tall Russian sunflowers that head the vegetable
garden seemed fairly alive with the darling black-
capped goldfinches, who swung to and fro, perform-
ing all sorts of trapeze feats, as they picked out the
seeds, like pins from a cushion, all the while giving
their canary-like call.

Flower form is becoming indistinct; the later
blooms are less articulate. The anemone Japonica
is the single exception that upholds springlike purity
of shape and whiteness among the ragged, twisted,
or primly tufted October chrysanthemums.

The colour influence of flowers upon the mind
has never before appealed to me as it has this

330 THE GARDEN OF A

season. For many months I have gathered and
arranged flowers of all kinds in all ways, giving
especial thought and love to the decoration of the
table, striving to group the flowers according to
their meaning as well as to the day and meal.

Of this one thing I am sure, that the rarest
colours are those that are least effective by them-
selves. Take blue, for example. We have fewer
true blue garden flowers than any others — lobelias,
centaurea, larkspur, a lily or two, forget-me-nots, lu-
pins, scillas, hyacinths, and a few more, but to be
effective they need white as a foil. My blue alcove
would have been dull indeed but for an edging of
white candytuft, while the loops and spires of lark-
spur seemed out of place amid its green foliage until
an underlying mass of white feverfew came in bloom
and made a setting. The beauty of a sapphire is
unrevealed until it is mated with a» diamond.

If the cultivated garden at any time does not
yield flowers of the right expressiveness for the
flower language of the table, the wild garden will
always supplement it. All summer I have striven
to have" the breakfast flowers more delicate and of
paler colours than those for the later, heavier meals.
In May white narcissi with their own foliage in a
slender green vase at breakfast, rich tulips in a

COMMUTER'S WIFE 331

solid hued bowl at dinner. In June, pink and white
rose sprays well mingled with ferns at breakfast,
the bowl of gorgeous crimson and rich pink roses
garlanded with honeysuckle for dinner. The
trouble is very slight, for each arrangement will
serve two days.

In July and August water-lilies floating close
together in a flat glass dish of conventional lotus
shape were my morning motive; of course they
closed at noon. These only required renewing
semi-weekly, if I was careful to gather the freshly
opened flowers with stamens thrown widely back
to tell of their youth.

In June, too, the common field daisies almost
rivalled the rose in usefulness, combining with
white and shell-pink poppies in the morning, while
what could be more fitting at midday than an old-
time blue jar filled with a* bouquet of daisies and
scarlet poppies edged with ribbon grass?

The colour change can thus be rung endlessly,
every day and every rnood suggesting variations;
and so many lovely blossoms close at noon that
they must make their bow at breakfast table or
not at all, while others are only wide awake at night.

I wondered if my men noticed this flower whim
of mine, for they said nothing. But then, men

332 THE GARDEN OF A

are more prone to speak of what they dislike, and
quietly absorb the likable. One intense August
morning that promised a day of the dizzy heat of
which the locust sings, I discovered that the flowers
picked the day before were drooping and pitiful; so
hurrying down the wild walk, I gathered a great
handful of ferns, the hay-scented, lady ferns and
maidenhair, to which the heavy moisture ef the
night still clung, and grouping them hastily in one
of my frosted vases, set them on the table at the
moment that Evan came in.

" How did you know that my head aches to-day ? "
he asked, as his eyes rested on the bit of wood cool-
ness. " Nasturtiums would have positively irritated
me this morning; but then, your breakfast flowers
are always restful, Barbara."

So he has recognized it all along ! Dear, blessed,
stupid men, why don't you realize what your slight-
est word of praise is worth to those who love you ?
I've waited quite three months for those few words.
By the same token, — for it's growing cold this af ter^
noon, — I must make haste to gather a great jar of
Dahlias and red geraniums with their leaves, to sup-
plement the hearth fire we shall have at dinner time,
keeping one ruby velvet flower for my hair.

Effie has brought in the tea, and said, " Mrs.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 333

Corkle bids me say that she would like to speak
private with you and Mr. Evan, and she may."

What can it be ? Are the bread lessons too diffi-
cult for her to master? Is it the "'ome-brewed "
again, or can she be wishing to go back to Eng-
land when the year is up ? I thought that she had
seemed happier since Effie's coming. Six months
ago I. should have welcomed this, but not now.
There is a great deal of home comfort concealed
about Martha Corkle, if only she and her environ-
ment were not somewhat at odds.

XVII
SEPTEMBER

THE APOTHEOSIS OF MARTHA CORKLE

September 28. Can it possibly be only twenty-
four hours since I closed my Garden Boke in haste,
and left it on the window seat ? Since the after-
noons have become cooler, close before dusk I find
myself lounging or writing in my watch tower, as
Evan calls the latticed window. Through its dia-
mond panes the garden landscape separates itself
into miniatures personal and intimate, which by the
opening of the casement merge again to one broad
picture.

Father came home last evening a little after
dark, which is now before six. He had been to a
consultation a half-day's drive away, but instead of
seeming worried or tired he was laughing heartily
as he opened the door, which hilarity, upon seeing
me, he subdued to an exceedingly quizzical expres-
sion about the nose, such as his face wears at times
of special content. The last demonstration of this
334

GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 335

kind happened several weeks ago, when at the end
of a discussion with one of his book-mad friends
upon the subject of the misnamed and impossible
portraits, which had proved snares in the path of
their extra illustrating, the Dominie came hurrying
back in great excitement to show that he had picked
up a portrait of Nicholas Culpepper, hitherto unget-
table, the which father soon proved conclusively to
be that of Rene Descartes misnamed !

Upon my telling father of Martha's request for
an interview in private, he only laughed the harder,
while Evan took the matter quite indifferently,
though I could see that he writhed a little at the
idea of a first experience in coming face to face
with an uncertain domestic discussion.

He seemed to linger an unusual time over his
coffee, and I was obliged fairly to drag him into
the den to finish his cigar, while father retreated
to the study, his eyes shining with mischief, and
closed the door in a very ostentatious manner.

Evan went to his desk, but drummed with his
fingers instead of writing ; I tried two chairs, and
finally curled up in the ingle nook, divided between
anxiety and curiosity.

Presently we heard Martha's firm tread come
down the hall. Stumbling over Bluff and Lark,

336 THE GARDEN OF A

who as usual were lying back to back halfway
between the doors of den and study, she made a
somewhat sudden entrance without knocking; the
jar, of course, accounting for her flushed face.

We were both aware of a difference in her dress,
but did not dare exchange glances. The usual
starched and spotless apron was lacking; she wore
her Sunday cashmere with cuffs and turnover collar
of white crocheted lace, fastened by a large brooch
containing a Jubilee portrait of the Queen ; while
upon her sleekly brushed black hair that was almost
guiltless of gray, rested a lace cap of staunch Brit-
ish build ornamented with a spray of red roses that
formed a quivering bowsprit in th«; front.

She did not curtsy as usual; she did not smile.
Instinctively I drew a chair close to Evan's, while
he asked Martha to be seated.

"An' thank you kindly, Mr. Evan," she replied,
moistening her lips, that seemed glued together,
"but I feel easier afoot and firmer-like for what I
'as to say."

"Why, whatever is the matter?" said Evan,
kindly, rising and going toward her; for great
beads of sweat stood on her forehead and she
clasped and unclasped her hands continually. " 111
news from home, or are you unhappy over here ? "

COMMUTER'S WIFE 337

"Worse than that, Mr. Evan, and I'm shamefaced
to tell it. I'm going to marry Timothy Saunders ! "

" Good Lord ! " cried Evan, checking a long-
drawn whistle with great effort.

" Mr. Evan, sir, it's not that bad as you need
should speak so, I'm sure! I'm not fifty-two till
come last Guy Fawkes eve, and many an older
marries. My mother's sister Janet she took her
second when turning sixty and her third full five
years later."

" It's not you, Martha," said Evan, pulling himself
together, and getting his laughing muscles well under
control. " I've often wondered, with your face and
figure, that you haven't married. In fact, once when
I was six years old and you gave me a whole queen
cake for not telling when I got a black eye in a fight
with the butcher's boy, who was your cousin's son, I
seriously thought of marrying you myself."

"But you was always so considerate-like, Mr.
Evan," Martha interrupted, dropping her stiffness
and a curtsy at the same time.

" It's Crumpled Tim I'm thinking of," continued
Evan. " He's good as gold, but not the sort of man
I should think would take your fancy, Martha. He's
lopsided and growing rheumatic ; besides, he has a
poor opinion of women. He has often said when

338 THE GARDEN OF A

I've asked the cause, ' Maister Evan, I'm done on
weemin. They're a' that feekle and flutterin' that a
mon can neersomever ken where they'll licht next.
I'm weel cleart o' them.' "

" Good as gold is a true sayin', Mr. Evan, and that
without references to the eight hundred pounds he's
got in bank from twenty years' service. His rheu-
matics is much improved since I made up those
proper flannels ; 'tis the hawful shrinkin' of the others
(no one to wash them thinkin' like) that's had much
to do with crumplin' his figger ; not that I hold it bad,
legs and arms all bein' there, but a mite disarranged,
as it were. As for women bein' changeful, they
generally his so, and worse ; and how could he halter
his mind until he'd seen different? Has you can
certify, Mr. Evan, and Mrs., too, I never flutters, and
where I puts down my foot, there I stands."

" Does Tim know that you are going to marry
him ? " asked Evan, to my horror, for I expected that
Martha would retire in high dudgeon, and we should
altogether miss the dramatic particulars. But she
was too desperately in earnest to heed his meaning.

" Yes, Mr. Evan, I told him this day come twelve
of the clock when, lackin' 'ome-brewed, I give him a
cup o' broth to hearten him for goin' across country
with the doctor to a conversation or a crowner's quest

COMMUTER'S WIFE 339

or sumat. He standin' outside my window where the
geraniums be, me inside, and to token it we both is
now wearin' a flower, chance he hasn't lost his in the
jolting." And Martha pointed to a red geranium sur-
rounded by a tuft of parsley that garnished her
belt.

" Sit down and tell us all about it," chuckled Evan,
fairly pulling her into a chair with a genial determi-
nation that was infectious. " It's all in the family,
you know."

"Yes, that it is, and who else should I tell?
And what's the good of having news an' ye must
coop it? It's like cold veal pie upon the chest for
supper, the same being over old, under done, and
dry o' gravy.

" Yes, Mr. Evan, and Mrs. too, not to be partial,
Tim'thy Saunders didn't have an idea o' marryin',
and though ailin', didn't know of what, so he had to be
told, that he had ; and me knowin', I had to take the
leadin', bein' my plain duty to a fellow creature, so to
speak.

"Two months gone Tim'thy fell backward in his
eatin', for they fry meat to rags up at the farm
he bides at. He'd come outside my window when I
was dishin' stew, dressin' kidneys, or turnin' out a
loaf, and sniff and breathe heavy like, and say, ' Mrs.

340 THE GARDEN OF A

Corkle, they don't handle victuals 'ere like they did
at 'ome. E'en the mouthful o' bread rises to the
nose and leaves the belly empty.'

"There are some, 'owsomever, that doesn't like
durable bread, so to speak, tastes differin'."

I could feel the scorn wave settling on my guilty
head, but Martha never paused.

"It's terribly piteous to 'ear a man sigh on
account of poor victuals, and it shook my vitals. So
now and again I offered him a tit-bit, knowin' you'd
not object, and he always eat them hearty.

"Next I noticed he'd sit in the stable at night,
his 'ead on his arms ; and the same bein' lonesome
and unhealthf ul, I bid him be free of the settin'
room, and have a game with Eliza and Delia, me
mindin' my needle that he needn't think I was
wishful o' the sight of him.

"Then one day when he flung down his coat
to take in some firm', I minded it lacked every
button, and his braces was tied up with strings,
the same which when I took notice of he turned
very distant and sour and drew a long sigh which
would start one a-shiverin'.

" So it dragged along, and never a good word he
said in return for the flannels which I gave on your
hand, Mrs. Evan, but just hintin' the sewin' was

COMMUTER'S WIFE 341

mine, only growling out that one woman is tor-
mentsome enough, but two's like the fire that never
quenches.

" He hadn't passed a word with me since Sunday,
when to-day, me workin' by the window, he stops
and stands glowerin' in. I passes him the cup o'
broth, which he didn't touch at first till I called out,
for it burned my fingers ; and when he did, his hand
shook till some spilled over.

" ' Whatever ails ye, man ? ' I calls, me grabbin'
to catch it, bein' inside pantry china that I'd
snatched up heedless.

" ' I dinna ken, Martha Corkle, unless it's death
a-beckonin' me,' he said most doleful. Then I seed
my duty plain, which I never shirks, and I up and
says, ' Timothy Saunders, I know what ails you ; it
ain't death, it's marriage ! You needs a home to sit
in after hours, and good cooked victuals, and buttons
instead o' strings, and roomy flannels ; you needs a
sip o' hot Scotch well sweetened of a winter night,
and a fire o' yer own to take it by, shut from remark.
Tim'thy Saunders, you needs 'Ome Brewed! You
needs a wife ! '

"'It may be as you say, Martha Corkle,' he
says, meek-like, 'but there's not one as would take
Crumpled Tim, lest to make sport of him.'

342 THE GARDEN OF A

" ' God guide you,' said I, ' but is your pate thick
as a Christmas pudding ? Don't you know I'm ailin',
too, for need o' a man to do all those same things
for ? I'm goin' to marry you, Timothy Saunders ! '
and says he, ' If ye will, ye will, and it's no for me to
contradict ye, Martha Corkle ; and I'll go further to
say I'm weel content.'

"Now wasn't that just grand o' him, Mr. Evan,
and Mrs., too, with no disrespect intended? I
trowed he'd need more convincin' and circum-
ventin'.

"With that he fetched a grand, loud laugh, and
give his word, and, Mrs. Evan, I'm sad to tell that
china cup is broke ! clean parted, and I've made
bold to say we each has kept a half ! "

Martha paused for breath, while Evan shook her
hand and poured out somewhat incoherent words
mingled with compliments on her generalship.

A moment served her for recuperation, and she
began anew in answer to Evan's statement that,
as she had married before, she probably knew her
own mind, which was an advantage.

" Before has no concern in the matter, Mr. Evan,
for a body, man or woman, hits the real marriage
but onct ; gin it be first or last, there's only reely one.
My own mother hadn't her own mind till her third,

COMMUTER'S WIFE 343

and her step-aunt's brother was never rightly suited
till his fourth, and he over seventy.

" I am lucky, as ye say, Mr. Evan, to get my
choice, early in life, as it were, which might pass
for the first, as Corkle, though fairish while he
lasted, wasn't o' my choosin', it b'ein' brought
about by the cattle-show and cousins, with me too
tender-hearted to say no."

"When are you to marry Timothy?" I ven-
tured, with visions of domestic change.

"Two weeks come Wednesday, if it's approved,
Mrs. Evan. I worked that all hout in my mind
before I spoke to Tim'thy. An' the doctor's agree-
able, we could take up house in the floor by the
stables for the time, the same bein' quite a cottage,
havin' as good a settin' room as needed, :: cleaned
well and freshened up a bit with a red rose paper.
I've told myself many a time these years that if I'd
ever a settin' room again, it's" red roses I'd choose.

"There's a good bit o' unused meadow on the
north side where I could raise fowls and a goose
or two ; please Heaven, I'll have one fatted o' me
own next Michaelmas, and spread the linen to
bleach. There's no such pleasure as doin' laundry
when you've the time to coax it clean, so to
speak."

344 THE GARDEN OF A

"Laundry? what laundry?" I asked, amazed.

"Why, yours and the master's and the doctor's,
to be sure. I've rattled on that heedless that I've
brought it out end first. I thought, and no disre-
spect intended, Mr. and Mrs. Evan both, that
Eliza could go back to cookin', her bread bein'
approved, if her kidneys is as yet underdone and
bacon flabby, while I'd handle the laundry quite
away and private, besides lending a hand, as one
of the tenantry might, with jam and Christmas
puddings ! "

- " Good Old Reliable ! " exclaimed Evan, patting
Martha on the back ; while I do not blush, dear
Garden Boke, to say that, braving an eye poke from
the red rose, I kissed her, — the hereditary servant
with our comfort inseparable from her own. This
act, however, she promptly discounted by saying
with a suspicious sniff : —

"Thank ye kindly both. One aint hexactly
responsible for acts, when hexcited by talk of
weddin's. For Efne she's that pleased she's near
forgot her manners, too, on account of me asking her
to be bridesmaid, which belonging to his family is suit-
able, and Timothy'll give her a new gown to wear,
her savin's bein' small, and those she brought from
'ome bein' drawn too tight in the front o' the body."

COMMUTER'S WIFE 345

Exit Martha. Enter father, so suddenly that he
was self-convicted of eaves-dropping, and tumbling
into a chair, rocked with laughter.

" Tim told me this afternoon," he gasped.
" ' Doctor,' he said, ' Martha Corkle's going to
marry me. She asked me this morning.' But he
put it differently as to preliminaries. It seems that
he has admired Martha since the day we set the sun-
dial, but in his youth, having been jilted by a girl
the day they were to marry, he left his home after
swearing ' by the hearthstone,' which he considers an
inviolable oath, never to ask another woman to be
his wife.

" He was greatly bothered, and finally resolved
that he'd pine and mope, and perchance work upon
her pity ; and I don't know which pleases him most,
the circumvention, as he thinks, or the winning of
Martha."

This insight from Crumpled Tim, the woman-
hater ! So each one takes the credit for the result.

" Which," added father, blowing his nose vigor-
ously, " I believe to be a love match to the core, in
spite of the contrariety of the principals.

" And what do you suppose Tim asked of me as
' a token ' for his housekeeping but The Orphan !

" ' Doctor,' he said, a comical look spreading over

346 GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

his features, ' a woman's a good thing, and a dog's
anither, and I'm weel suited ter baith in the same
year. Gin a year agone, I'd an ill word for the
wan and a kick for the ither.' "

" Barbara," said Evan after a moment's silence,
" did I not say that the question of the ' home-
brewed' would probably adjust itself?"

This being during our three married years his
nearest approach to " I told you so," is additional
proof of Evan's superiority over his sex.

XVIII
OCTOBER

THE YEAR'S MIND

October 18. The first real frost came to the garden
last night, though for two weeks past the hoar has
silvered the lowlands at every sunrise. The helio-
trope hangs its blackened head, and the vigorous nas-
turtiums are spilling their sap as the season's sacrifice.
A few verbenas, Margaret carnations, and rosebuds
alone remain of the summer garden. The Dahlias,
owing to protection, have gained a few days' reprieve,
but their quality is impaired. After a hard frost all
flowers droop when taken indoors, except the hardy
old-time chrysanthemums, 'whose red, yellow, white,
and tawny buttons seldom fail to outlast the month.

The pit Is finished, and comfortably ensconced in
it are the various cuttings and the tea roses, together
with the first instalment of potted bulbs for winter
blooming. This year I am trying Bermuda Easter
lilies as house plants, having prepared a dozen pots
of large bulbs that after being buried will evolute
347

348 THE GARDEN OF A

gradually through the pit to the den windows. The
violets are quite settled in their frames, and to-day
Evan is wearing some in his buttonhole.

Frost is never welcome, and yet without it one
would lack the courage to destroy and regulate the
garden for its winter sleeping season. Frost bids us
pause and retrospect, giving us time to note the
difference between the good and illy planned before
snow obliterates the traces. For this reason October
is the " year's mind " of the garden, the anniversary
of completion.

Ah, the glitter and sparkle of the mornings and
the rides down to the shore and along the crisp shin-
gle ! I never care much for the bay in season, when
the summer people use it for a bath-tub, or disport
themselves nervously in naphtha launches that fret
its placid surface. But when the October winds
have scattered these and the gulls return to circle
and call, then I must go to the wafer, for my heart
answers the gulls' notes with a wild cry and, like
them, has its time of venturous free flight. Father
goes with me, and often we do not speak a word
after the lighthouse boat answers our signal, but sit
and watch the water slip off the oars, in the complete
companionship of silence.

Walks, too, there are, long walks to the hill country

COMMUTER'S WIFE 349

both for the pleasure of motion and for ferns to add
to the wild garden, Evan toiling home with a well-
filled pack like a veritable pedler, while I carry a
fishing basket slung over the shoulder to harbour
more delicate plants. For alack! a bit of our
favourite woods is being stripped of its trees and
turned to a quarry, so that now any plants we
take cannot be reckoned despoiling, but rather a
rescue.

Martha and Tim were married yesterday at noon
in the den, and Evan gave away the bride. Martha
would have preferred a church wedding, but the
suggestion had such a paralyzing effect upon Tim
that she quickly abandoned it, wisely remarking : —

" It may be just as well, Mrs. Evan. I'd not be
for pushing a dissenter too far ! "

I decorated the room with flowers from town, and
made a littb bower of the earliest of my potted
chrysanthemums. Martha- looked really superb in
a black silk gown, Evan's gift, and a reasonably
decorative white bonnet of my making, for her
taste in headgear is not to be trusted ; while Effie
wore a darkish blue that mediated between her
fiery hair and freckles.

The dogs all came to the wedding with white
bows on their collars. This at Martha's request,

350 THE GARDEN OF A

and the Anglican Catholic did not object; while
The Orphan acted as best man, sitting close to Tim,
at whom he gazed solemnly, and wagged his tail
audibly whenever he responded, which Tim did
with full swearing vigour.

After the feast the couple were to have gone
down to the city for a few days, sight-seeing, but
the cake was hardly cut, and the bride toasted, when
Tim seemed to grow uneasy, and mumbling some-
thing about Bertie's having no hand with horses,
edged toward the door, followed by Martha, who
explained in answer to questioning looks : —

"Thank you all kindly, but the thought of the
town, 'twas quite enough for us. Tim'thy's new
boots bein' over small, and my silk gown that rich
and thick 'twere a sin to sit down in it, we'll just
slip over home'ards to the 'cottage' instead, and
ease us of them and have a cosey cup o' tea, and no
disrespect intended."

Sure enough, at five o'clock Timothy was lead-
ing the grays to the watering trough, the same as
usual, save only one difference : Tim, the erstwhile
silent, was whistling " The Campbells are Coming "
in at least three keys.

As Evan always cheerfully predicts, things do
adjust themselves, and this marriage is a distinct

COMMUTER'S WIFE 351

gain to me. Martha in the kitchen was just a trifle
oppressive. Martha in the cottage will prove a sub-
stantial guardian angel.

I said almost a year ago that if I was a ser-
vant, I should not care to live with but one of my
friends, and perhaps not even in my own house-
hold. Now I have decided that I would do the
latter, because I think that a masculine logic domi-
nates here that might be worded, " Do not meas-
ure a servant's capacity for toil by your own
necessities, but by the reverse order of things."
And though we Americans may and do lack the
staple comfort of hereditary service, we can do
much for ourselves. As father says, the great
knack in domestic service is to begin with good
stock. Earn a reputation as a mistress, and the
outgoing one will usually supply a " cousin " to
succeed her. For this reputation I am striving in a
comfortable, leisurely way. • But I feel sure already
that Effie will have a cook up her sleeve if Eliza
and Bertie ever combine, which they doubtless will
in time, as they have a melancholy streak in com-
mon which they seem greatly to enjoy.

October 19. A northeast storm following black
frost. The garden is laid low almost a month
earlier than last year. Only the red-gold wall

352 THE GARDEN OF A

flowers, the last tenants in the bed of sweet
odours, have withstood both chill and storm and
given me a generous bouquet for the table, at
once a greeting and a good-night. A greeting for
the anniversary of our return, a good-night from
the garden.

Evan stayed at home to-day so that it should be a
festival for me, even if the storm howled, and he
has drawn me a plan for developing, not altering,
the wild garden, so that everything we add may
be of account, while I have revised my seed and
plant lists ; and though there is fair-day garden
work for a month yet, we cannot always have a
November like the last. Now it is the sowing time
in the book garden, which we intend more than
ever to plant with perennials. Blessed gardens of
flowers and of books! Is there any phase of a
woman's life, either of joy or of sorrow, when you
will not strengthen and comfort her?

A little before nightfall, as we were sitting in
the ingle nook, half dreaming, half conversing with-
out words, father came in hurriedly with a package,
which he took to the study.

In a moment he crossed the hall and laid some-
thing upon the mantle-shelf under Linnaeus's por-
trait, trusting to my curiosity to take it down.

COMMUTER'S WIFE 353

"This is my gift to you, Barbara, the year's mind
of the home-coming. Open it, my daughter. It is
my treasure, and given for an heirloom."

I lifted down what seemed to be a carved wooden
box with a metal fastening. On taking it to the
light, I saw that it was an outer case with a broad
silver clasp, and contained a book.

The book was Dodoens's "Herball," the volume
of contention and introduction! The case of apple
wood was made from the broken limb of the Mother
Tree, a narrow border of violets was carved across
top and bottom, while inserted on each side were
two small ivory miniatures. On one cover, young
mother — the miniature that father always kept in
his desk — was beside that of himself ; the reverse
held those of Evan and myself, all three done with-
out my knowledge. The clasp was engraved with
this legend in Old English characters.

"33le00rti is 0fje to fcrfjom it is giben to link t&e
twin lobe foitfj tfje olb."

" But after all, is there such a thing as old love ?
Is it not always young ? Look ! " said father, and
following where his finger pointed through the
splashed pane and across the pathway, we saw Tim
going home with his milk pail in one hand and a
chubby bunch of chrysanthemums in the other

354 GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE

followed by The Orphan, who, unreproved, carried
his muddy feet into the cottage.

Martha stood at the door, and as Tim came under
the porch, she took off his dripping coat, and stoop
ing — kissed him!

'"THE following pages

contain advertisements

of a few of the Macmillan

books on kindred subjects

OLD TIME GARDENS

NEW SET FORTH BY

ALICE MORSE EARLE

Author of " Home Life in Colonial Days," " Child Life in Colonial
Days," " Stage Coach and Tavern Days."

"A Book of the Sweet o' the Year."

Mrs. Earle calls this A Book of the Sweet o' the Year, and it might well
bear the old Sundial motto: "I mark only sunny hours." She begins her
work with an account of the planting of the Early Colonial Gardens, dis-
cussing the favorite flowers of the Old Time Gardeners. Few of us there
are who do not recollect the flowers of the front yard which was our for-
bidden paradise in childhood. The illustrations which Mrs. Earle has
gathered together are from photographs of ancient gardens, of those which
show the taste of other days which still survives in some families ; also of
rare old flower favorites and quaint cuts from old herbals, the attraction
of which can be well gauged by those who have already read her other
works, illustrated with the same devotion to truthful archaeology and quaint
interest. The stately illustrations of the Formal Garden and the equally
charming pictures of the less orderly Herb Garden are accompanied by
chapters containing a full account of their making and uses, their folk-lore
and beauty. Among other interesting topics are Old Orchards, Blue
Flower Border, Box Edgings with all their delightful sentiment and variety;
Flower Names, Flower Neighbours, Sabbath Day Posies, Winter Gardens
and Posies, the Moonlight Garden, Joan Silverpins and Tussy-Mussies, In
Lilac Tide, Magic and Mystery of Flowers, Childhood in a Garden, and
Dancing Flowers and Flower Dances, are chapter headings with a wealth
of pleasure hidden in their text.

The last two chapters of the book are on Sundials and The Roses of
Yesterday, which remind us that though a few years ago the Old Time
Garden seemed a thing of the past, of late years its beauties have been
created again by the genius and good taste of the few to whom old associa-
tions make a strong appeal.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

Elizabeth and Her German Garden

Crown Octavo, Cloth, $1.75

" We find ourselves in the presence of a whimsical, humorous, cul-
tured, and very womanly woman, with a pleasant, old-fashioned liking
for homeliness and simplicity, with a wise husband, three merry babies
... a few friends, a gardener, an old German house to repose in, a
garden to be happy in, an agreeable literary gift, and a slight touch o<
cynicism. Such is Elizabeth. It is a charming book." — The Academy.

" Elizabeth . . . prevails upon her husband — The Man of Wrath —
to let her go down to an old neglected country-seat on the Baltic, and
fix things up to suit herself. For one thing she resolves to have a gar-
den. On this matter of a garden, she has plenty of ideas but no ex-
perience, and she undertakes to realize them by the aid of a gardenei
who has experience but no ideas, except the general one that Elizabeth's
are stupid. Her struggles with the stupidity of man and the perversity
of nature are amusingly told." — The Nation,

THE SOLITARY SUMMER

By the Author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden
Crown Octavo, Cloth, $1.50

"A continuation of that delightful chronicle of days spent in and
about one of the most delightful gardens known to modern literature.
The author's exquisite humor is ever present, and her descriptions . . .
have a wonderful freshness and charm." — Evening Post.

" Perhaps even more charming than the fascinating original, which is
saying a great deal." — The Glasgow Herald,

" One of the most charming books that has been published for many
a month." — San Francisco Chronicle.

These books are also issued in a handsome edition, each vol-
ume illustrated with 12 full-page photogravure plates. Price
$2.50 each.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

66 Fifth Avenue, New York

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

Los Angeles
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

MTABL

1998

DUE 2 WKS FROM flAl t KhCEIVED
REC'D LD-URL

Form L9-50m-9,'60(B3610s4)<U4

•V93g Garden of a
1901 commuter's "wife

University Of California. Los Ar

L 007 375 108 3

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3364

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