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THE GARDEN BOOK FOR
YOUNG PEOPLE

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PLATE I

. — JOSEPH WAS THE REAL GARDENER

Photograph by Alice Boughton

The

/Garden Book

for

Young Peopl^

By Alice Lounsberry

Author of A Guide to the Trees f Guide to the

Wild Flowers f ^'‘Southern Wild Flowers
and Trees ^ ” “ The Wild Flower
Book for Young People^ ’ ’
etc.

New York

Frederick A. Stokes Company
Publishers

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

March, iqo8

PREFACE

This book tells the story of a young girl and her
brother Joseph, who utilise a triangular strip
of ground for planting a flower garden. The girl
loves her roses best, and the boy finds delight In
working the soil and In tending his hardy plants.
Together they sow seeds and watch for them to
sprout; they set out young plants and wait In
patience until their flowers unfold; they wage war
with weeds and Insect pests, and, at length, prepare
to meet the winter.

These young people learn the habits of birds that
build nests among the flowers and In the bordering
coppice where shy wildlings grow. Their life Is
far from dull.

Older Inhabitants of the suburb, who have
beautiful gardens, become Interested In the desire
of Joseph and his sister to make their home
attractive, and continually encourage and teach
them. The garden Is their meeting place of
work and play and their opportunity for studying
the out-of-door world, the secrets of which they
would gladly share with the reader.

A. L.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I — The Decision i

II — Early Preparations .j 9

III — The First Planting 17

IV — Miss Wiseman’s Suggestions. 24

V — Day’s Hard Work 32

VI — Joseph Does Some Transplanting. . 40

VII — Making the Seed and Flower Beds 48

VIII — Planting in the Seed-Bed 56

IX— Joseph Continues Sowing Seeds. ... 64

X — Finding Ferns to Transplant 72

XI — My Rosarium 80

XII — Planting Before the Wall 88

XIII — Joseph Completes the Planting of

the Garden 96

XIV — May Time 104

XV — ^About Wild and Cultivated Flowers 113

XVI — The Last May Days 122

XVII — The Opening Day for Roses 130

XVIII — The Comedy of the Garden 138

vii

Vlll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX— A Day of Play 147

XX — The Garden Gives Its Reward ... 155

XXI— The Drought 163

XXII — Our Phloxes and Heliotrope. ... 17 1

XXIII— The End of the Drought 179

XXIV — The Fall of One of the Spruces. . 187

XXV — Our Golden Glow and Hollyhocks 195

XXVI — Water Gardens and Other Things 203

XXVII — Early August Days 21 1

XXVIII — Little Joseph Wins the Tourna-
ment 219

XXIX — The Return Home 227

XXX — September Days 236

XXXI — Getting Ready for Bulb-Planting 244

XXXII — Chrysanthemums 252

XXXIII — The Autumn Work 261

XXXIV — Days Near Thanksgiving 269

XXXV — The Snow 277

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE FACING PAGE

I — Joseph was the Real Gardener,

Frontispiece

II — Map of the Triangle i

III — The Bluebirds took Possession of the

House hung to the Tree 6

IV — “Summer is not here” 26

V — He slept without rocking 38

VI — A Border of Narcissus poeticus 52

VII — “I have a bird’s egg” 60

VIII—Fiddleheads 72

IX — ^Windflowers 74

X — '“Fronds uncoiled beside some lovely

wake-robins” 78

XI — Rose Fantasy 82

XII — “I may become a Rosarian” 86

XIII— Wild Ginger 94

XIV— Two Spring Orchids 98

XV — “Blue flowers that should bloom for

us soon” 100

XVI — “Blowing out his cheeks and breath

to keep the moths away” 102

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE FACING PAGE

XVII — “May in the country is as lovely

as June” 104

XVIII— The Wild Blue Flag 108

XIX — Pink Dogwood no

XX — Columbines 114

XXI — “Apple blossoms have begun to

drop their petals” 122

XXII — Pointed Blue-eyed Grass 124

XXIII — June Roses 132

XXIV — “Joseph had to get down on his

knees and use the sickle”. . . . 144

XXV— “The long drive outlined by

spruces where the bridal

wreath is in bloom” 154

XXVI — “We like to observe these lark-
spurs” 156

XXVII — Phlox Drummondi 160

XXVIII — Nasturtiums 170

XXIX — -Cosmos 176

XXX — “Their golden cups gleamed as

brightly as ever’ ’ 184

XXXI— “The foxgloves are still lovely” . 188
XXXII — “Golden glow against the sky”. 196
XXXIII — “He knows without being told

just how to handle a plant” . . 198
XXXIV — “Pink, blue and yellow lilies float

on the surface” 204

XXXV — Countless Irises 208

XXXVI — Rose-mallows 212

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE FACING PAGE

XXXVII— A Petted Hydrangea 216

XXXVIII — “Miss Wiseman’s narrow path

with the hedge on one side and
the flowering shrubs on the

other” 224

XXXIX — Hydrangeas and Phloxes 230

XL — The Tamed Butterfly 234

XLI — “Joseph with a large package of
seeds, dropping them awk-
wardly over the ground” .... 238

XLII — Wichuraianas over Arches 244

XLIII — ^The Drive up to Nestly Heights. 248
XLIV — Chrysanthemums in the Glass

House at Nestly Heights . . . 252
XLV — “The chrysanthemums that Tim-
othy brought us” . 254

XLVI — The Men at Work 262

XLVII — “Timothy has been in the clutches

of the farmer” 268

XLVIII — -“At the point of the triangle all

is dead” 272

XLIX — “Queenie trudges through the

snow” 282

THE GARDEN BOOK FOR
YOUNG PEOPLE

PLATE II.— MAP OF THE TRIANGLE

THE GARDEN BOOK FOR
YOUNG PEOPLE

CHAPTER I

THE DECISION

For some time Joseph and I had thought that
we should like to have a garden. Not until
we inherited the homestead of a great-aunt, how-
ever, did we regard our desire with seriousness.
Then the first decision we were obliged to make
was whether our garden should be of vegetables or
of flowers.

The square brick house into which we moved,
while March was trying to make us believe it was
still winter, stood in the suburb of Nestly, a pretty
place, and readily accessible to the city by railway,
trolleys and automobiles. It was a suburb where
many people lived, and had lost, therefore, the rural
charm it possessed in Revolutionary days, when
our great-aunt’s home had been one of the three

THE DECISION

important places in that part of the country. Nev-
ertheless, in Nestly to-day gardens are still thought
quite as important as houses, which can never be
true in a large city.

For generations our great-aunt’s place has been
called the Six Spruces, because at a short distance
in front of the house there stands in a circle that
number of spruce trees, their great, out-held
branches enclosing, according to the season, a sum-
mer house or supporting one of snow. Joseph,
who is barely thirteen, and much in sympathy with
the lore of fairy folk and the adventures of pirates,
thinks a great deal of these trees. I am four years
his senior, besides being his sister and natural guar-
dian. To me, as to Joseph, these six spruces seem
the most wonderful trees in the world.

When my brother and I are alone, I call him
“Little Joseph,” although he is now so well grown
for his age that he dislikes me to do' so when neigh-
bours are present. At first we were both chagrined
that our inherited mansion was so' severe in looks
and so dilapidated, because our means for making
alterations are small. This, however, has not in-
terfered with Joseph’s lasting admiration for the
cupola, which reminds him of a sentry box, and
neither of us would exchange the Six Spruces for
the highly cultivated acres of our neighbour, Mr.
Hayden of Nestly Heights.

Within, the seriousness of our aunt’s disposition
was indicated by the plain furniture and walls,

THE DECISION

while outside, the overgrown and unkempt grounds
were evidence of her dislike for out-of-door life and
the trouble of flower-growing.

Mrs. Keith stayed with us as a reminder of our
great-aunt’s day and power. She had been the
housekeeper of the Six Spruces for many years, and
saw no reason for changing her abode because two
children were coming there to grow up. Indeed,
Little Joseph and I greatly preferred to have her
remain. We had discovered that her heart was
good and kind, although from what she said about
It we might have believed she had no such organ
at all.

Both our near neighbours have gardens for vege-
tables and for flowers, and their contentment Is
very great. We hear that last autumn Miss Wise-
man, whose place adjoins ours on the north, had
a single dahlia, larger and finer than any which
unfolded at Nestly Heights. Earlier In the sea-
son, however, the beets grown by Mr. Hayden’s
gardener were somewhat sweeter than her own, so
the dahlia was doubly prized as making up for
their deficiency. Hearing our neighbours argue
whether It was more pleasing to plant pansies by
themselves, or to use them as ground covers for
rose-beds, we became convinced that great enjoy-
ment was to be found In watching things grow, and
incidentally, of course. In outdoing one’s neigh-
bours.

Our neighbour, Mr. Hayden, has three sons:

THE DECISION

one a year older than Joseph and one a year
younger; the eldest, a boy of twenty, whom we
have not seen, is away at college. The only little
girl in the neighbourhood is Queenie Perth. She
lives with her aunt. Miss Wiseman, who takes a
wonderful amount of care of her, and talks a great
deal about her health. Whenever she plays with
Joseph or the boys at Nestly Heights, however, I
notice that she romps as hard as any of them.

The strip of ground that Joseph and I thought
possible for our garden lies in the shape of a long
triangle, one end of which snuggles up closely to
our south veranda. Bordering the longest side of
this triangle there is a strip of light woodland, com-
posed mostly of coppice, while both the point and
the straight side fit into Mr. Hayden’s well-kept
land. This straight side, moreover, is outlined by
a high wall.

It was not on account of any preconceived plan
that our garden plot is so shaped. We perhaps
should have preferred a circular or a rectangular
garden; but the triangle happened to be the most
available bit of ground for planting that our great-
aunt had left us. Joseph, who has the gift of spy-
ing out the advantageous in all things, says that at
least we can put the same plants in a triangular plot
that we can in any other.

The great decision was about the kind of garden
to plant; for we soon became sufficiently modern
in the fashion of gardens to feel that it should be

THE DECISION

of some particular type. I remembered that one
or two authors recommended Japanese gardens,
that others preferred the old-fashioned kind, while
one of ambitious talents described gardening on
miniature mountains. The more I read, the more
I looked askance at our triangular patch, and twice
I dreamed of it covered with cabbages; when one
day Joseph wisely remarked that we would plant
the prettiest flowers, grasses and ferns, and trust
to luck to get vegetables to eat. Above all, we
should try to make the places where we set out the
flowers look like their native homes.

Then a little trouble arose. Whenever, at gath-
erings in the neighbourhood, our friends discussed
the prices of bulbs, seeds and young plants, Joseph’s
eyes sought mine, and it seemed as if a mist had
passed over our imagined garden. We had, in
truth, but little money to spend for flowers. But
again Joseph wisely said that we could at least
go to the woods and fields and get pretty plants,
even if we could not afford to buy them of the
nurserymen.

One day, still early in March, an old man came
to the Six Spruces to sell some bird-houses which he
had made when storm-bound during the winter.
They were short pieces of the hollowed-out stems of
trees, covered with pointed roofs, and given firm
floors and open doorways. A bird might well be-
lieve that Nature herself had made them. Joseph’s
delight in these houses so pleased the old man that

THE DECISION

he helped him to hang one from a tree; to swing
another from the veranda, and to set the third in a
niche of the wall separating the triangle from
Nestly Heights. We flattered ourselves then that
we were quite In advance of the bird season.

Yet the very next day a bluebird flew with much
directness and took possession of the house hung
to the tree. It must have been the female bird
that slipped In first to see If it pleased her practical
mind. She very quickly decided to occupy It for
the summer, and when she joined her mate, who sat
on the top of the house, she nodded her head and
appeared to be telling him all her Intended arrange-
ments. Joseph thought that they were also con-
gratulating themselves that their long trip north-
ward was over and that they could now settle down
in so cosy a home.

Soon after this we were overtaken by the ap-
proach of spring. There was a scent of new earth
In the air and the sound of soft winds In the tree-
tops. Winter with its biting cold was being driven
away. The bluebirds talked loudly together, and
at the point of the triangle where it becomes soft
and. spongy to the feet we saw a number of long,
slender, black birds, very merry and busy with woo-
ing and chatter. Yet the grass that covered the
triangle was still colourless; the trees were bare,
and the earth under them was strewn with dead
leaves. Noticing these things. Little Joseph asked
if spring really began in March.

PLATE III. — THE BLUEBIRDS TOOK POSSESSION OF THE HOUSE HUNG TO

THE TREE

THE DECISION

On the morrow Joseph awoke early. He was
enthusiastic.

“Those long, black birds,” he told me at break-
fast, “that stay at the lower end of the wood by the
triangle are called grackles; and a pair of blue-
birds have taken possession of the house in the
wall. There is now only one house to let for the
summer.”

Thus far we had secured our tenants without the
slightest exertion.

This same day the man who had made the bird-
houses came and asked if he could help us get
ready for planting. The back of winter now
seemed to be broken, he said. Here indeed was
something definite. “The farmers hardly think
it is time for ploughing yet,” he remarked, and
added that there was a good deal of clearing up
to be done about the Six Spruces. Further, he told
us that his name happened to be Timothy Pennell,
and that he took an interest in the place, having
sometimes worked on it for our great-aunt. It
was he who had told Joseph the long, black birds
were called grackles. Timothy seemed to know
all about planting turnips and potatoes and beans
and a good deal about flowers, although he said
he mostly noticed the wild ones that came up of
themselves in the woods and swamps.

“We shall plant some wild flowers,” Little Jo-
seph told him, “and have others that grow only in
gardens.”

THE DECISION

“You’ll tame the wild ones?” Timothy asked,
for he had caught the idea.

Indeed, I began to think that Joseph’s simple
garden in which wild plants would grow freely
and birds build nests might be made as attractive
as one where only rare and costly flowers bloomed.
We both listened eagerly as the old man related
how, when his boy was ill, he had taken hepaticas
from the woods and forced them to open before
their natural season. He abetted Joseph’s scheme
of getting flowers and ferns from our own woods
and transplanting them in the garden. The num-
ber of ideas that soon began to tumble over each
other in our minds was astonishing.

It was perhaps unfortunate that Timothy spoke
so strongly about weeds. This word shocked
us both, since it made us foresee strife and innumer-
able difficulties. He had said that weeds in a garden
were not only probable but necessary to its beauty,
and that some of the rankest of them there were
handsomer than many hot-house flowers. “A gar-
den without weeds,” he declared, “would be like a
loaf of bread without salt.”

“They will come anyway,” Joseph replied,
“there is no’ use in planning for them. What we
must think about,” he added, and, from the way
Little Joseph spoke, the old man must have known
that the decision was made, “is how to plant the
triangle with real flowers, both tamed and wild.”

CHAPTER II

EARLY PREPARATIONS

HE lively way in which the bluebirds continued

1 to build their nests caused Little Joseph and
me to think that spring was coming with hasty
strides, and that there was not a minute to lose in
making preparations to plant the triangle. Joseph
had bought some flower seeds with the first money
we had set aside for our garden, and his fingers
tingled to put them in the ground. We could not,
however, induce Timothy to agree that the time for
doing so really had come. The old man had a
provoking way of looking at the clouds and then
dubiously shaking his head. “The farmers are
still asleep,” he said, “and it is best to follow their
movements.” From his doubtful expression Little
Joseph and I began to fear there might always be
frost behind the clouds.

In the meantime the Six Spruces was having such
a clearing up as it had not had in years. Timothy
assured us that it was better to make the things
that were already on the old place look “ship-
shape” before giving attention to new ones. He

EARLY PREPARATIONS

first borrowed Miss Wiseman’s heavy roller and
used it on the lawn in front of the house, and the
triangle. Then he trimmed the edges of the gravel
path that circles the lawn, and raked up all dead
leaves and tufts of grass lying about the Six
Spruces. He worked very hard over the front
lawn, and seemed sorry we had no new ones to
make, as he said it was the right time of year for
making lawns.

Timothy had a pair of pruning shears that
seemed to give him great delight. They were so
large and heavy that I could barely open and close
them, although Little Joseph soon learned to use
them with ease. When Timothy had finished
trimming the lawn borders, he pruned the grape-
vine with such eagerness that he appeared to be
chopping it up for fire-wood.

“I am sure Aunt Amanda never would have
allowed him to do that,” I said to Joseph, and the
old man overheard.

“No, miss,” he replied, “but it is just what the
vine has needed these many years.”

We were really thankful when he left the cur-
rant-bushes alone, only remarking that in a day or
two he would give them a good spraying with lime-
sulphur. He went next to the blush-rose bush that
stands near the south veranda and began clipping.
Now I had heard that this rose-bush and the lemon
verbena that was planted each year on the other
side of the veranda steps were the only flowers in

EARLY PREPARATIONS

the world that Aunt Amanda had really loved. It
was pitiful to hear Timothy’s sharp scissors going
clip, clip every minute. He had always told our
great-aunt, he said, how much finer the roses would
be if he could have pruned the bush properly. Of
course we let him go on.

He did not clip the yellow bell shrub, nor the
two spireas that stand near one of the front corners
of the house. Neither did he touch the three lilac
bushes near the stable. These are the only orna-
mental shrubs on the place. With a wave of his
hand, Timothy said that he would give them all a
good spraying before their buds opened.

We had then no outfit for spraying. We de-
cided, however, to buy one, since it would be needed
throughout the blossoming season, and we could
not be always borrowing Miss Wiseman’s tools.
Already Little Joseph and Timothy had cleaned
up and sharpened the tools we had found at the
Six Spruces; but many of them were now anti-
quated, although we were glad enough to have
them.

After rolling and raking the lawns, clipping the
grape-vine and the blush-rose bush, and spraying
the cherry-trees, currant-bushes and shrubs, it was
astonishing how tidy the old place looked.

When Miss Wiseman came to see us she ex-
claimed : “Goodness, children, how surprised your
Aunt Amanda would have been ! You really have
given this place a quite different look, and with only

EARLY PREPARATIONS

Timothy Pennell to work a day for you now and
then. You have started to make your garden in
the best way — by clearing up first.”

Of course I told her that Little Joseph was the
real gardener, and that he was impatient because
not a single grass or flower seed had as yet been
planted.

“Make ready first,” Miss Wiseman said again,
and went away, leaving on the table a beautiful
book for Joseph, called “An Ambitious Boy’s Gar-
den.”

We have both noticed since living at the Six
Spruces the beautiful colours of the out-of-door
world. Here spring is like a fairy tale. First of
all, the grey look of winter fades out of the atmos-
phere. Then the birds began to chirp, toads croak,
and bullfrogs are heard in swampy places. Every-
thing appears to grow slightly pink. The great,
bare trees are touched with it, and the grey, dead
look vanishes from their twigs. Wherever there
are willows, they turn yellow, and can be distinctly
recognised among other trees. The red maples
that grow in moist places are covered suddenly with
tiny red blossoms. Neither Joseph nor I had ever
noticed this before.

Near our wood-border there are three red maples
which we are now watching grow redder and red-
der every day. But this red is not, as one might
suppose from a distance, just a thick cloud that
lights on the trees. It is caused by little blossoms

EARLY PREPARATIONS

that burst out from the twigs, each one being as
perfect as if it were a grand lotus lily. When
Joseph saw these blossoms for the first time he
could scarcely believe his eyes. A day or two ago
he asked Mr. Hayden of Nestly Heights if he
had noticed how finely our red maples were blos-
soming.

Mr. Hayden said: “Gracious, they are a splen-
did sight !”

There is no weeping willow at the Six Spruces.
I should very much like one, but those the nursery-
men have for sale look very small in comparison
with the great ones in this part of the country.
Nevertheless, I shall buy one when autumn comes,
since Timothy says that is the best time for trans-
planting them.

It has always been declared by the people of
Nestly that the soil at the Six Spruces was rich
and well drained, and that flowers would have
grown there luxuriously if our great-aunt had de-
sired them. The blush-rose bush was noted for
sending out many and perfect flowers each season
when, from one year to another, it was neither
pruned nor sprayed. It was left instead to grow
by the south veranda as unmolested as a wild
flower in the woods.

Timothy talks now a great deal about the prepa-
ration of the soil since the triangle is to be planted
,with flowers. Mrs. Keith tells us that it was once
our Aunt Amanda’s favourite bit of lawn, and was

14.

EARLY PREPARATIONS

the one place where she minded weeds as much as
Betsy Trotwood disliked donkeys. Still, Timothy
thought necessary to roll it down a number of
times, to sprinkle fertilising powder over it, and
then to sow it with grass seed. This he did one
day after a night of rain, when the earth was moist
and therefore ready to take the seed. He lamented
that he could not have sown the seeds in late Sep-
tember, since they might then have taken root and
had a long sleep during the winter. He said his
old head had then no idea that, when spring came,
he would be working at the Six Spruces for two
children instead of for our great-aunt.

It seems all right for Timothy tO' call my brother
a child and to have his own way in spite of what Jo-
seph says ; but I do think he sometimes forgets that
I am nearly seventeen.

Naturally, one of the difficulties we shall have
with the garden is that no work was done here in
the autumn. No preparations were then made for
spring. Moreover, at the Six Spruces there are
hardly any flowers to reseed themselves. There
are none of the kind that come up year after year.
Here we found only the blush-rose bush, the yellow
bell, the spireas, and the lilacs. Little Joseph
realises that this spring the garden is merely to be
started. It is likely that we shall have but few
flowers, but we hope that with each succeeding year
the garden will become more beautiful.

Even if shabby and neglected, the Six Spruces is

EARLY PREPARATIONS

one of the most important places in Nestly, and we
have no need to economise space. But just because
there is so much room and opportunity for growing
flowers, we have decided this first year to make our
garden exclusively on and about the triangle. In
front of the house we shall only try to improve the
lawn. Sometimes we dread lest what we do will
not be quite right; but then Joseph says that pretty
flowers can never make a place look ugly.

Joseph indeed has his own ideas about flowers.
Although he has never before had a garden to
work in and to rule, he has often watched the gar-
dens of other people. His love for most flowers
is very great, and at the Six Spruces he hopes to see
growing the ones that he loves best and to have
none that give him no pleasure. Several times he
has said: “I do hope you will not ask me to plant
petunias.” For some reason he seems to think that
these flowers mar the look of a garden as much as
the appearance of a tree is spoiled by being struck
by lightning. If all Joseph’s ideas about the gar-
den come true, I think we shall some day have
flowers and shrubs rivalling Miss Wiseman’s and
even those at Nestly Heights. It delights me to
imagine how the old place will look when the wall
is covered with vines, when flowers of many colours
bloom on the triangle, and when others peep from
the wood-border.

It has lately turned so cold that Little Joseph
has been prevented from working out-of-doors and

EARLY PREPARATIONS

has been busy making window-boxes in which to
start seeds. These boxes are not pretty, but Miss
Wiseman says they are ingenious. She always calls
Joseph “Master,” instead of “Little,” which makes
him feel very grown-up in her presence.

To begin with, Joseph cut down some old soap
boxes to about two and a half or three inches in
height, and then filled them with some of the rich
earth that lies all through our woods under the
dead leaves. He intended to place them in the
library window, where the sun would shine brightly
upon them. But, even so, he was not quite satis-
fied. At Miss Wiseman’s he saw the gardeners
starting their seeds in glass houses, and this filled
him with alarm lest they should sprout long before
his own.

One day in a dark closet he found a high pile of
my camera plates which unhappily had been fail-
ures. He washed them ofl: with hot water and
soda, and soon had a number of neat pieces of clean
glass five inches by seven in size. With strong gum
he then pasted several of them together on strips
of cloth until he had three lengths of glass as long
as the boxes. He intended to cover the seeds with
them when they were sown, and to hold them up
with little prop-sticks whenever he wished to admit
the air. Of course such covers were wabbly and
difficult to handle; but Little Joseph did not mind
this. He would now be able to have some of his
seeds under glass.

CHAPTER III

THE FIRST PLANTING

My way of helping Joseph in these March days
has been to attend to the correspondence.
I have written to a number of nurseiymen for
catalogues, which, after much reading and ponder-
ing over, have helped us to decide on the seeds for
our garden. Many of the names In these cata-
logues we had never heard before. It would be
fun, we thought, to buy all the seeds mentioned and
then to find out for ourselves what kind of flowers
they would turn Into; but this we did not venture
to do, since we wished first to be sure of having
some of our old friends In the garden.

We chose ten-weeks stocks, baby’s breath and
cardinal-flowers to start In the boxes, and bought
numbers of other seeds to sow out-of-doors as soon
as the frost left the ground. Almost every day
Little Joseph looks over these seed packages, read-
ing anew their labels and thinking how wonderful
It will be when through his care they turn into
pretty flowers of different forms and colours.

I helped him sow the seeds In the boxes. It was

THE FIRST PLANTING

the easiest work of all. We first passed the top
soil through a sieve, In order that It might be fine
and free from lum.ps. Then with a pointed stick
we made little furrows, dropped in the seeds, and
drew the soil over them, patting It down evenly
with a ruler. The furrows for the baby’s breath,
which we planted In a box by itself, were about an
eighth of an inch deep, and those for the ten-weeks
stocks which filled the second box were made a full
quarter of an Inch In depth. Mrs. Keith, who
seems to know as much as Timothy about planting
seeds, told Joseph that such matters as these were
most Important. The very small seeds of the car-
dinal-flowers In the third box were simply sprinkled
over the surface of the soil and then pressed down
lightly.

It was most fascinating to handle these little
seeds, which looked as though they had no life at
all In them; and to know that they will certainly
turn Into real flowers. When Joseph gave them
water, I felt that their thirst was being quenched
and that they would begin at once to soften and
grow. Of course Joseph could have wet them with
the rose sprayer, but thought It safer to submerge
the boxes in a large tub of water, since the small
seeds, especially those of the cardinal-flowers, were
not so likely to become dislodged.

The seeds that we did not use In the boxes Little
Joseph put carefully away In their packages. Later
on they might be sown out-of-doors. Mrs. Keith

THE FIRST PLANTING

bound some green paper muslin around the outside
of the trays after they had been placed in the sunny
library window, and we all quite ceased to think
that they were only ugly soap boxes filled with dead-
looking seeds. We already imagined the little
plants shooting up through the earth.

Joseph said it was too bad to have made three
boxes and three glass covers for but three kinds of
flowers. I told him, however, that I would rather
have a good many flowers of one kind early in the
year, than to have only a few later of a great many
kinds.

Little Joseph knew as I did that It was not neces-
sary to plant the baby’s breath, the ten-weeks stocks
or the cardinal-flowers Indoors. We could have
waited and sown them In the open when the frost
had left the ground. But Little Joseph’s fingers and
mine also were tingling to plant something. We
could not wait with patience until the farmers began
to plough. The window-boxes made us feel that
some things were already started. In fact, they
were our first experiments. Joseph was pleased
besides to think that he had done something which
was not mentioned in “An Ambitious Boy’s Gar-
den.” That boy had not a bit of glass on his place
as large as a camera plate. But then this was not
the first year that he had had a garden.

The closet that Little Joseph uses for his tools,
seeds and spraying outfit is in the hall opening on
the south veranda. It Is a convenient place, since,

THE FIRST PLANTING

when It is warm, he can do his hammering and
other work on the veranda. While working he
can also watch the bluebirds make their nests. He
notices that they are very clever at this building.
In fact, Joseph says he would rather try to build
a man’s house than the nest of a little bird.

There is another closet In the library which Jo-
seph has taken possession of for his magazines and
catalogues. These latter are coming now by almost
every post. The nurserymen have somehow found
out that Joseph Is one of the heirs of the Six Spruces
and many of them attach “Esquire” to his name.
This makes my calling him “Little Joseph” seem
very familiar, and even Miss Wiseman’s “Master
Joseph” sounds too unimportant. The shelf In
the bookcase that he has cleared for his garden
books has as yet but one occupant. This, of course.
Is “An Ambitious Boy’s Garden.”

Lately we have been so busy getting ready to
make our garden that I have said nothing about
the wrens that have settled In the house, swung from
the veranda. Timothy says they have come earlier
than usual this year, and thinks the spring may
follow their lead. Nothing was pressing to-day,
so Joseph tried to discover how nearly they had
completed their nest.

He was surprised to find that they had made a
blockade in front of the doorway to their house.
He pushed his finger through the small opening in
the house until It touched a heap of fine, smooth

THE FIRST PLANTING

sticks so interwoven that they were almost as re-
sisting as a stone wall. By it the doorway appeared
quite closed. Joseph wondered how the wrens
ever went in and out. He had watched them so
often since they moved into the house that they
had wisely made up their minds he meant to do
them no harm. He was now hoping that one or
the other would go in or come out, so that he might
see how they managed to slip through the blockade.

Suddenly then the female bird flew towards the
house. She slipped in without apparently waiting
a minute to think how she would enter. It almost
appeared as though she went through the barricade.
Little Joseph was quick enough, however, to see
that from the bottom of the doorway her flight
slanted upward to where a tiny space had been left
free. Indeed, the little wrens had been clever
enough to block completely the doorway at the bot-
tom and to let the nest slant back a little from the
top, thus leaving the space to slip in by an upward
line of flight.

Only a little bird knows how to build in that
way, Joseph thought, when out she flew so quickly
that he could not see where she went. When she
returned she had another tiny twig in her mouth.
So the nest is not yet finished, Joseph mused, and
wondered if they were fastening things up tighter
to keep him out. He then remembered that birds
had other enemies besides boys, for, only a day
after the wrens had come to the house, a pair of

THE FIRST PLANTING

bluebirds had tried to drive them away. Although
the wrens were the smaller, they had fought very
hard to keep their home, and, after a battle that
lasted two days, the bluebirds had left them in
peace.

No doubt Little Joseph would have paid a visit
to the bluebirds and also to the grackles, had I not
gone to tell him that Queenie Perth had come
with a note from Miss Wiseman asking us there for
luncheon.

At first Joseph shook his head, saying he had far
too many things to attend to at home to spend
nearly a whole day visiting. I reminded him that
Timothy had not come to help him, and just then
Queenie ran out and joined us. Joseph very
quickly said we would go to Miss Wiseman’s. He
then showed Queenie the bird-houses and told her
about their occupants. He would not let her go
as close to them as he did because, he said, the birds
were not accustomed to her.

“Birds like me very much, and butterflies, too,”
Queenie told him. “Down at Auntie’s they are
no more afraid of me than your birds are of you.”

She ran home after this, since she had to carry
the message back to Miss Wiseman.

Little Joseph then spent the rest of the morning
raking up the dried leaves and dead twigs that were
lying In the coppice by the longest side of the tri-
angle. The earth had begun to feel slightly moist,
and we wondered if the frost was not now nearly

THE FIRST PLANTING

out of the ground. The air, however, was still
chilly. As Joseph gradually raked down by the
boggy point of the triangle he saw that the pussy-
willow shrubs were nearly covered with soft grey
catkins. They had grown a great deal since the
last time he looked at them, and were the largest
pussy-willows he had ever seen. This was because
no one had picked from or marred the bushes for
many years. In this quiet corner of Nestly they
had grown stronger and lustier every season.

Our Aunt Amanda had not cared for flowers,
except the blush-rose bush and the lemon verbena ;
neither had she cared for people, and surely no
one would have ventured into her place to pick
or to destroy anything. These pussy-willows looked
different from the thin, little twigs and small cat-
kins that we had seen by the side of the public road-
way. They, poor things, stand where any one
may pluck them. After a few more years they
will perhaps grow tired of blooming for no better
purpose and will give up altogether.

Joseph was extremely cheerful at having such
fine pussy-willows at the Six Spruces. He thought
they could not have more perfect ones even at
Nestly Heights. I knew then that Joseph was
touched by the spirit of rivalry which lies hidden
in all gardeners.

CHAPTER IV

MISS WISEMAN S SUGGESTIONS

S we drove through Miss Wiseman’s gateway

jt\ and looked over her lawn, Joseph exclaimed,
“Surely there are flowers in bloom, see there, every-
where !”

This was true. Little baby snowdrops were lift-
ing their heads and blooming in many places. Some
of them were only in bud, but they also made a
white gleam through the grass.

“I wonder that no one reminded us about snow-
drops,” I said. “We might have set out a few
through our own lawn.”

“Their bulbs have to be planted in the autumn,”
Joseph replied, “and last autumn we were not the
owners of the Six Spruces.”

“You must just enjoy my snowdrops and crocuses
and Siberian squills this year,” Miss Wiseman said,
when we spoke to her about them, “and next spring
you can have your own. This is the first day,” she
added, “that they have made much of a showing.
These little snowdrops come first of all. In a fort-
night larger ones will be in bloom, while the

MISS WISEMAN'S SUGGESTIONS 25

crocuses and squills will soon make the ground look
as gay as a carnival.”

“Will they also come up through the lawn, or be
in beds by themselves?” I asked.

“Ohj through the lawn,” Miss Wiseman an-
swered. “We make believe they come up by them-
selves at random, instead of having to be planted
in the autumn with an English bulb planter. But
next autumn will be time enough for you to attend
to that matter, while to-day I have a surprise for
you.”

We followed Miss Wiseman to a part of her
grounds where a great deal of shrubbery grew.
Two men were busy taking up bushes from some
places and planting them over again in others.

“You see I am thinning out my shrubs,” she said,
“they grow at a rate we think little about in the first
ardour of planting. I have now more than I can
take care of, so to-morrow, Master Joseph, some
are to go over to the Six Spruces.”

Master Joseph was delighted. He had been
wishing that we might have more shrubs at the
Six Spruces than just the one yellow bell, the two
spireas and the three lilacs. He and Queenie at
once ran to ask the men to tag the shrubs with their
names, that he might later read about them in “An
Ambitious Boy's Garden.”

After we had lunched and had seen the other
changes Miss Wiseman was making in order that
her place might be more beautiful this year than

26 MISS WISEMAN’S SUGGESTIONS

ever, Little Joseph wondered if people ever really
find out how to make a perfect garden. Until to-
day he thought that Miss Wiseman had learned
it long ago like a lesson. She always spoke with
decision, and as though there was only one way in
the world of doing things. To-day, however, she
continually pointed out to us the changes she in-
tended to make. The year before, she told us, she
had noticed that colours of certain plants did not
look well side by side, and that some had outgrown
others and left ugly gaps in the top line.

All this time Little Joseph was learning impor-
tant things. Now, whenever he sows seeds, he will
think about the colours of the blossoms, and how
each will look beside its neighbour. He will re-
member, also, not to plant flowers that are very
small by the side of those that are very large. He
thinks it will be a good plan to keep a little diary
of the things he should and should not do.

Queenie did not like to stay in the garden, nor
did she wish to talk about it. “Summer is not
here,” she said, “the butterflies have not come.”
She loved the butterflies and often ran and played
with them. The flowers, of course, could not fol-
low her as she dodged and sprang lightly from
place to place. Indeed, Queenie Perth reminded
me of a butterfly herself. She was not exactly a
shy child, yet, when one attempted to catch or to
caress her, she sprang away and ran about playing
little games which only she understood.

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MISS WISEMAN’S SUGGESTIONS 27

At another part of Miss Wiseman’s place, Jo-
seph saw that the men had dug a deep trench and
that seed packages were lying near it on the ground.
He had heard of no seeds being planted out-of-
doors as yet, so he thought they must be grass seed,
and he wondered if the grass would come up and
turn green by the time the birds had finished their
nests. He did not like to appear ignorant about
such things before Mr. Bradley, the head gardener,
so he said very jauntily:

“It’s just the right time to plant grass seed.”

“Is it?” Mr. Bradley replied. “We were
thinking it was the season for putting in sweet
peas.”

Then Little Joseph asked a great many ques-
tions: why Mr. Bradley dug the trench twO' feet
deep — for it seemed to him that the plants would
have to climb a long way before getting out of the
earth — and why he had turned the sods taken from
the top of the trench upside down, laid them at its
bottom, and then spread them over with manure.

“That is rotted cow’s manure,” Mr. Bradley
answered. “It settles down after it has been wet,
and makes the earth rich for the roots to sink into.”
Joseph then saw the men fill the trench nearly to
the top with a rich-looking soil made of old ma-
nure, garden loam, and earth from the woods. He
saw them pat it down firmly. They then made a
furrow for the seeds about six inches deep, and
planted them an inch apart. Mr. Bradley told

28 MISS WISEMAN’S SUGGESTIONS

Joseph to notice these things, since they were of
great Importance.

As the seeds were covered up with only about
two inches of soil, Joseph asked what was to be
done with the rest of the earth lying by the side of
the seed-row.

“That,” Mr. Bradley answered, “will later be
drawn in to cover the plants partly when they have
shot up to the length of my thumb; and as they
continue to grow the soil will be used In this way
until the furrow is filled. It Is likely that we shall
give it a good watering about twice a week.”

After the newly sown seeds were watered, Mr.
Bradley said things were pretty well looked after
for the present. Joseph then asked when the
sweet peas would be in bloom and what would be
the colour of their flowers. He had other questions
on the tip of his tongue when Mr. Bradley said:

“My lad, those flowers will be In bloom about
two months from now — that is. If we watch them
well, water them and cultivate them. You see
these strong posts we have driven Into the earth?
Later we will cover them with wire In order that
the sweet peas may have a suitable place on which
to climb.”

This all seemed very wonderful to Little Joseph,
who told Mr. Bradley that he wished he had bought
more sweet peas and less grass seed.

“No need of wishing that,” Mr. Bradley an-
swered heartily. “We have more here than we

MISS WISEMAN’S SUGGESTIONS

shall use this year, and the grass seed will always
come in handy.”

He then gave Joseph several packages of sweet
pea seeds, white, blue, red, lavender, green and
pink. Mr. Bradley was a fashionable gardener
as well as a wise one, and knew that sweet peas of
one colour make prettier bouquets than when vari-
ous kinds are mixed together. While assorted
seeds cost a little more than mixed ones, consider-
able time was saved later in picking the flowers.

Joseph’s pockets stuck out on both sides when
he returned to the house, and he had naturally a
great deal to say about what he intended doing at
the Six Spruces. First of all, it was necessary for
us to decide where we should plant our sweet peas.
We could not put them on the triangle itself, and
they were not suitable for flower-beds or borders.
The boggy corner would not do, since there the
soil was too moist, and the side by the wood-border
was far too shady a place. Mr. Bradley had told
Joseph that they needed plenty of sunshine.

‘‘Perhaps we can plant them along the wall that
separates the triangle from Nestly Heights,” Lit-
tle Joseph said. “The sun can peep at them there
and the wall will be good for them to lean against
when they begin to climb.”

We believed we had decided the matter, when
Miss Wiseman returned from where she had been
looking for a catalogue, and naturally had some-
thing to say about planting sweet peas.

so MISS WISEMAN’S SUGGESTIONS

“It will never do to plant them by the stone
wall,” she said at once. “They need light on both
sides, and it is best to have them running from east
to west. Now if you had a rail fence — — ”

“But we have not,” Little Joseph replied mourn-
fully. He had begun to feel very disturbed about
the sweet peas.

“Then the best thing you can do. Master Joseph,
is to set about and build a wire trellis. If I were
a boy, I would help you,” Miss Wiseman said, in a
way that made Little Joseph think it must be no
end of fun to build a trellis. “You can make it
any shape you like and place it wherever you like.
You just set posts in the ground and fasten your
wire around them. At least that is the way I man-
age to accommodate my sweet peas.”

I hastened to say that her flowers were very beau-
tiful, for Miss Wiseman is as sensitive about them
as many mothers are about their children.

Here then was a new idea for Joseph. He not
only had to dig a trench and to plant his sweet peas,
but to build a trellis for them to grow upon.

“I seldom hasten things as much as Mr. Bradley
does,” Miss Wiseman said. “If I were you, I
should not put in the seeds for a week or ten days.”

“But the wrens have their nest nearly built,”
Little Joseph replied. “Spring will soon grow
warm, and we shall have no flowers.”

“It is just because the wrens have their nest
ready that they can keep warm when the late frost

MISS WISEMAN’S SUGGESTIONS 31

comes ; but there is no place for a flower to snuggle
into when it unfolds before the weather is settled.
You set about the trellis to-morrow, Master Joseph,
and plant the seeds when it is finished. Your flow-
ers will be here soon enough.”

We both felt that about this, as about everything
else, Miss Wiseman must be quite right.

After we had returned home. Little Joseph and
I walked down by the six spruces. They were
moving very gently in the breeze, and had the sol-
emn look that always comes over them when the
sun begins to sink in the west. Underneath them,
the ground was a mat of needles, and they had still
the dull brownish look which they assume in the
winter. Little Joseph said that, if we had some
seats and a table within their circle, we should have
a real summer-house where there would always be
a breeze. We wondered if Timothy, who had
made the bird-houses so well, would not help with
the trellis and furniture for the summer-house.

The six spruces began to wave their branches
more strongly: the sun dropped quite out of sight.
We then went into the house. Little Joseph thinking
of the many things he had to do on the morrow.

CHAPTER V

A DAY^S HARD WORK

Although Timothy came early the next
morning, Little Joseph was already up and
astir with several new Ideas In his head gathered
the night before from “An Ambitious Boy’s
Garden.” First of all, he determined to settle the
matter of the trellis for the sweet peas. As they
would not bloom until two months after the seeds
were put In the ground, he thought the bare posts
with wire stretched on them would look very ugly
awaiting them all that time. We, therefore, de-
cided to plant our sweet peas along the upper side
of the plot where the clothes-posts stand. They
would then be near enough the house for us to see
them often and to enjoy their delicate scent. At
Miss Wiseman’s, they are far away from the house
in what she calls her picking garden. Before break-
fast, Joseph and the old man had set about making
a strong but simple trellis.

It took them some time to drive the posts firmly
Into the ground, and to think out the exact way In
which they would manage the wire. It ran from

A DAY’S HARD WORK

east to west, the exposure Miss Wiseman had so
strongly advised, and it was in two sections, each
being placed at right angles to the square of the
clothes-posts, so that these sections appeared to
form the borders of a little path.

When the trellis was well along, I told Joseph
that it looked strong and new, but not exactly
pretty.

“It is not yet finished,” he replied, “we are going
to paint the posts green.”

While helping Timothy build this trellis, Joseph
learned the knack of swinging a hammer. When
he first began to drive nails into the window-boxes,
they entered the wood much as they pleased, and
twice he bruised his fingers. His birthday was
now not far off, and I thought that I would give
him a box of carpenter’s tools instead of the base-
ball bat I had had in mind.

Just as the last nail was being driven into the
trellis, and Joseph and the old man stood viewing
their work, a wheelbarrow full of shrubs came over
from Miss Wiseman’s. The plants were not much
to look at, being then entirely without leaves, and
we could not even imagine what blossoms would
do for them. To us, one bare twig had an appear-
ance very like another. Still they were tagged as
Mr. Bradley had promised, but with names that
neither we nor Timothy had ever heard before.
Timothy looked at them most carefully.

“This one has reddish twigs,” he said, “see how

A DAY’S HARD WORK

different it is from the others. I am thinking it
must be the red-twigged dogwood.”

“The twigs of this one look reddish underneath,
while above they are covered with a greenish-brown
roughness,” I said.

“Then it is likely to be that old-fashioned sweet
syringa that has flowers as smooth and white as
wax,” the old man told us.

“These twigs look yellower.”

“Likely another yellow, or golden bell, the same
as the one by the west corner of the house,” Tim-
othy said.

“And this one?” I asked, for he seemed to be
able to tell by the twigs the names of the shrubs.

“It may be called Deutzia,” he answered. “You
notice it is not very tall. Most likely it will bear
white flowers. These three are the bridal-wreath,
and these two are hydrangeas,” he continued. “I
feel doubtful about this large tree-like one here, but,
if I am not mistaken, it will turn out to be the
smoke-bush.”

“If that means smoke-bush, you are right,” said
Little Joseph, and he held up the small labelled
bit of wood he had found tied to the shrub. The
old man nodded his head.

“So that is what those smart gardeners call it,”
he said.

I then looked at the label and it read rhus cotinus,
which we found out later was the scientific name
for the smoke-bush.

A DAY’S HARD WORK

“It Is a fine* collection,” the old man commented.
“The yellow bell will bloom along with your own
in April, the spireas will be like brides in June, and
that little Deutzia will be coming on In July. The
smoke-bush will be all feathery In August, and for
September you have the hydrangeas lasting until
frost.”

“But May has been skipped,” Little Joseph said.

“Indeed, then, you have the dogwood,” Timothy
answered briskly, “and your own three lilacs, which
did your Aunt Amanda every year as long as I can
remember. It is October that has been skipped,
and for that month I will bring you myself as fine
and odd-mannered a shrub as any of these — ^just
one of our own wild ones from the woods.”

While we were looking at the shrubs, I had
grown quite chilly, for the sun had gone under the
clouds and a piercing east wind was blowing. It
was one of the days when March makes believe
that spring has moved very far off. Little Joseph
also was tired from his work on the trellis and from
looking over the shrubs, and Timothy said he
would take care of them until later In the day when
we should all attend to their planting. Joseph and
I then went into the house for luncheon.

Afterwards, he took out “An Ambitious Boy’s
Garden.” The book, how^ever, had not a word In
It about shrubs. It was all about flowers.

“It Is fortunate that we have shrubs,” Little
Joseph said, “for, although we shall not plant them

A DAY’S HARD WORK

on the triangle, they will give the Six Spruces a
very gay look.”

We then began to think where we should plant
the shrubs, and this led to my getting a pad and
pencil and drawing a small plan of the triangle, the
paths between It and the veranda, and the circle
In front of the house.

It was easy enough to dispose of the yellow bell,
for we both thought It should go near the one which
stood by the corner of the west veranda. The
old-fashioned syringa I wished to plant just outside
the dining-room window. I remembered the sweet
scent of Its waxen flowers, and thought In that posi-
tion It would be near to us. The hydrangeas were
more difficult to decide about, but we concluded to
put them at the bottom of the circle, slightly follow-
ing its curve. They were even now tall shrubs.

Joseph thought one of the spireas would look
pretty between the south veranda steps and the
wall, and we marked a place for It there on the
plan. The other we planted by the long drive bor-
dered by spruces that leads out of the front gate.
The smoke-bush we placed rather near the house
on the side where the triangle Is bordered by the
wood. Only the Deutzia and the red-twigged dog-
wood then remained, and, as neither of us knew
how they looked In bloom, we left their placing to
Timothy.

When once Little Joseph begins a thing. It Is
very difficult for him to leave before It is finished.

A DAY’S HARD WORK

His head this afternoon was full of going to town
to buy paint, that he might continue work on the
trellis. At length, I persuaded him to leave that
entirely to Timothy and to occupy himself with
drawing designs for planting our flower-seeds. Any
day, I said, the spring might surprise us by growing
very warm, and I especially wished him to make up
his mind where we should have roses.

“The smell of paint,” I said, “makes me very
sick, and" I have heard of boys having painter’s
colic as well as girls.”

Little Joseph then wondered if this smell might
not disturb the sweet pea seeds, but soon concluded
that they would know nothing about it, as they
would be well covered up with earth. From the
window we could see the old man busy digging the
trench before the trellis.

“To-morrow,” Little Joseph said, “he must go
somewhere else to work, so he is doing as much as
he can to-day.”

When he had finished digging and had put the
overturned sods and the manure in the bottom of
the trench, and had filled it nearly to the top with
earth, Joseph went out with his sweet peas. He
placed each little seed on the soft earth himself,
remembering all that Mr. Bradley had told him,
and lightly covered them over with soil. Later,
Timothy showed Joseph about putting on the hose.
The water trickled gently down to the seeds and
settled them into the soft earth. The planting

A DAY’S HARD WORK

of the sweet peas had been very simple, but when
Little Joseph had first seen Mr. Bradley and his
men at work, he had wondered if he ever would
be able to put the seeds in the ground in just the
right way.

Later in the afternoon we helped Timothy plant
the shrubs. He had already dug holes in the places
we had chosen, and we held the shrubs straight
while he shovelled in and packed the earth about
their roots. They too were given a good soaking.
The Deutzia was set in front of the house and the
red-twigged dogwood at the edge of the wood-
border, opposite the middle of the triangle.

“It will feel at home there,” Timothy said, “for
many of its relatives are in the woods.”

At first Joseph could not follow Timothy when
he talked about the relatives of plants. He thought
relatives meant parents or people like our great-
aunt. Afterwards he found out from “An Ambi-
tious Boy’s Garden” that plants are divided into
great tribes and families. This interested him ex-
tremely, and now he seldom hears of a plant with-
out wondering to what tribe it belongs, what fam-
ily, and then what kind of a member it is in that
family. All plants, it seems, are not good and
lovable any more than all boys are wise and useful.

It was after five o’clock when the last shrub was
planted, and Little Joseph’s hands were red with
the cold. He went into the house, and, after con-
siderable scrubbing and dressing, he appeared

Photograph by Alice Boughton

A DAY’S HARD WORK

transformed from a young gardener to a small gen-
tleman.

“The trellis is built,” he said while we were at
dinner, “the sweet peas are planted, the shrubs are
set, the old place has been cleaned up, and some
seeds have been sown in the window-boxes. It is
only the twentieth of March and, as the wrens have
not yet finished building their nest, I think we are
keeping up with them pretty well.”

Almost before Little Joseph had finished speak-
ing, and long before he was through with his din-
ner, I noticed that his q^elids slipped down often
over his eyes. His work in the open had caused
the “sandman” to come unusually early. “An Am-
bitious Boy’s Garden” was not even opened after
dinner, and, as our Aunt Amanda would have said,
he slept without rocking.

CHAPTER VI

JOSEPH DOES SOME TRANSPLANTING

SEVERAL days passed before Timothy came to
work for us again. The weather continued
chilly and damp, although each time that the sun
peeped out and lingered on certain spots, it seemed
warmer than the time before. Over at Miss Wise-
man’s the snowdrops have been joined by hundreds
or even thousands of Siberian squills tossing little
blue flowers through the grass, while in their neigh-
bourhood there are many crocuses of bright yellow
which appear to play at being laughing spots on
the emerald grass. Some of the snowdrops, I no^
ticed, even began to fade and to hasten out of sight
before the sun had a good chance to warm them.
It appears that they really love March with its cold
air and winds.

Little Joseph still regrets that we have none of
these flowers to cheer up the Six Spruces and help
us say good-bye to winter. He enjoys seeing them
at Miss Wiseman’s and at Nestly Heights, but this
kind of enjoyment is quite different from the pleas-
ure of having them yourself. In his note-book, he

JOSEPH DOES TRANSPLANTING 41

has written down the names of the bulbs we shall
plant the coming autumn so that next spring the
Six Spruces will appear less desolate.

For the last day or two, our attention has been
given to the w'ood-border facing the triangle on its
long east side; and there this morning we had a
surprise. Joseph found some flowers blooming as
gaily as those on Miss Wiseman’s lawn. They
were hepaticas standing up jauntily among their
rusty-looking leaves, having taken the precaution to
cover their stems thickly with silky fuzz that they
might keep warm despite the variable moods of
March. These stems are as yet, however, very
short. On one plant the little unfolded flowers
were all lavender, while on another they were white.
Joseph found none that were pink. Indeed it had
been rather hard to find these flowers in the woods.
They cannot be seen plainly as can the crocuses
and snowdrops and squills. But when they were
found and looked at closely they appeared just as
sweet. The unfolded ones were in the sunny spots
of the woods. It seemed as if they had just jumped
into the passing footprints of Jack Frost.

At once, Joseph had the idea to transplant some
of them to the very edge of the wood-border, where
they might be seen from the path separating it from
the triangle. He remembered all that Timothy
had told him about having once forced some hepat-
icas to bloom when his son was ill. Little Joseph
therefore set about this work very methodically.

42 JOSEPH DOES TRANSPLANTING

He first staked out fifteen places where the wood-
border slopes slightly towards the path. There
was no regularity in the design he made, although
he set his stakes to cover a space greater in length
than in width. Then he dug fifteen holes, picking
out the stones and rough clumps of earth. After-
wards, Joseph took his spade and shoved it into the
earth to its full depth at the four sides of each plant,
and lifted it up so carefully that it did not realise
it was being moved from its home. One by one
he slipped them from the spade into the holes, fill-
ing up any remaining space with earth. At length,
when fifteen of the lustiest ones he could find had
been transplanted, he watered them freely.

When Joseph told me what he was about to do,
I felt sorry. My imagination connected hepaticas
with the woods. I thought they would surely lose
their wild charm if placed near a garden where
poppies and pansies bloomed. But when he showed
me where he had set them along the wood-border,
and that they were still under the protection of the
great trees, I changed my mind and was delighted
with his work. Like the snowdrops, these little
flowers are not afraid of March.

“Even after their blossoms are gone,” Joseph
said, “their leaves will look pretty here. See how
they lean upon the earth.”

I told him that these leaves had not come up with
the spring, but were those of last year which had
remained strong and green throughout the winter.

JOSEPH DOES TRANSPLANTING 43

“Later,” I said, “this year’s leaves will unfold.”

More than ever, then, was Joseph pleased with
the thought that he had set out fifteen plants which
bear flowers as early as the snowdrops, and whose
foliage keeps green even when the earth itself ap-
pears dead.

We were both a little disturbed later in the day
when Mr. Hayden of Nestly Heights came to see
us and said he remembered having heard his son,
Percy, explain that those particular little wild flow-
ers should be transplanted in August in order to
establish a permanent colony which would continue
from year to year. Little Joseph hastened to tell
him that he had transplanted them with such large
blocks of earth that they could not have felt being
moved at all. Mr. Hayden himself saw that they
were set in the same kind of soil, and amid the sur-
roundings of their original home.

“Well,” Mr. Hayden said, “see how the plan
works. This is your first year at gardening and
is the time for experimenting. Over at the Heights,
our gardeners are so experienced, and have such cut-
and-dried rules about everything, that I seldom
venture to pick off a dried leaf, fearing I may do
it out of season. My son, Percy, however, has
dabbled in wild gardening and, when he comes
home for his Easter holiday, he will tell you more
things than you will be able to jot down in twenty
note-books.” It was Little Joseph’s note-book that
had amused Mr. Hayden so greatly.

44 JOSEPH DOES TRANSPLANTING

Mr. Hayden is a very large man, and his way
of speaking reminds me of the blowing of the wind.
There appears to be always a strong current of air
about him, although Joseph has noticed that he is
never cold. We have heard that Mr. Hayden is
very proud of his eldest son, who will soon be home
from college. He says that Ben and Harry are
both fat and lazy, and that he will have to send
them out West as cowboys to get some sense
knocked into their heads. But even Joseph has
learned not to take Mr. Hayden quite seriously.

We both know, however, that the boys at Nestly
Heights seldom go into the gardens and that, when
they do, the gardeners invariably complain about
them. The boys think gardening stupid and have
been amazed at Joseph’s interest in his seeds and
planting.

“We never sow or plant here,” Ben told him.
“Our flowers come up by themselves.”

Joseph concluded that he must be sadly ignorant
about flowers, and ceased to talk with him on the
subject.

While Mr. Hayden was walking with us at
the Six Spruces, and Joseph was telling him some
of his ideas about the vines he intended to plant
along the wall which separates our place from his
own, Timothy came with a straggly, unattractive
shrub which he wished to set out. It was a present
from himself. Of course, Joseph and I knew it
must be the “queer one” he had told us would

JOSEPH DOES TRANSPLANTING 45

bloom in October and November. As it lay on the
wheelbarrow it looked to be five feet tall. There
was no vivid colour showing in its bark, and as it
was bare of leaves I wondered how the sun and the
summer would transform it.

“It is the native witch-hazel,” Timothy said,
“and the best way to learn about it is to set it out
here and let it grow until near winter-time, when it
will begin to flower.”

Mr. Hayden said he had no witch-hazel on his
place, although the shrub had been a favourite of
his as a boy w^hen he had lived farther north. He
thought in fact that witch-hazel needed to grow in
a colder climate than that of Nestly.

“They may not come around here much of them-
selves,” Timothy replied, “but, when they are
planted, they thrive almost like weeds, only a bit
more slowly.” He had bought the one he gave
us from a nurseryman on the outskirts of the town.
It was in truth through his interest and that of Miss
Wiseman that the Six Spruces would be likely to
have a shrub in bloom every month from April un-
til November.

Timothy planted the witch-hazel at the edge of
the wood, not very far from the dogwood, but more
snuggled in among the trees.

“It will not bloom,” he told Joseph, “until these
trees have had their flowers and leaves and fruits,
and dropped them all to the earth.”

“This coppice creeping down near your triangle

46 JOSEPH DOES TRANSPLANTING

gives an excellent opportunity for planting wild
flowers and ferns,” said Mr. Hayden.

“And that point where the triangle is so moist
is for marsh plants,” Joseph explained. “And the
wall separating the Six Spruces from Nestly
Heights is for climbers.”

“My boy will be one of them when he comes
home. Eh!”

Mr. Hayden then winked at me and gave one of
his great laughs that seemed enough like the wind
to make the bare twigs tremble.

“At the Heights to-day the men are planting
hardy roses,” Mr. Hayden continued. “We pride
ourselves on our roses. I declare we do.”

Then he told Joseph to go with him and see if his
men had not a few to send over to the Spruces.

“Perhaps you don’t think so, my boy,” he said
to Joseph, “but I know your sister believes there is
no flower so beautiful as the rose.”

Joseph followed Mr. Hayden, and for a while I
wandered about the Six Spruces by myself. March
was nearly over, but summer and its radiant flowers
still seemed a long way off. I wondered a little
if Aunt Amanda would have been pleased at our
doings in her old home. She had been a severely
minded woman, and had disliked Mr. Hayden be-
cause he invariably referred to the place as the
Spruces, instead of the Six Spruces. I wondered
about Mr. Hayden’s son who knew wild flowers
and ferns, and would join the vines in climbing the

JOSEPH DOES TRANSPLANTING 47

wall. Indeed, I was thinking about many things
when I noticed that one of the bluebirds that had
perhaps been watching my movements flew into the
house with a worm in his mouth.

“It is the male bird,” I thought, “taking food
to his mate. The nest must be finished. Perhaps
she has laid an egg and is now snuggling it under
her wing.” Shortly the male bird flew out of the
house and darted away. I remained quite still,
and, in about three minutes, he returned with an-
other morsel in his mouth. Then I felt convinced
that at least one egg had been laid, and that the lit-
tle wife was having her evening meal.

CHAPTER VII

MAKING THE SEED AND FLOWER BEDS

NOW that the farmers have begun to plough,
and the neighbours and Timothy have de-
cided that the frost has disappeared, Little Joseph
is making ready tO' sow the seeds he has bought.
This making ready seems to play a very large part
in gardening. First of all, with Timothy’s help,
he has made what he calls a seed-bed. This is
some distance from the garden, and is only a place
where seeds are to be sown and allowed to grow
for a little while. For just as soon as the plants
have become the right size, they are taken away
from the seed-bed and transplanted into the real
garden. From Miss Wiseman, Joseph learned
that a seed-bed is a very wise thing for every boy
and girl to have who thinks of making a garden.

In this bed, seeds can be planted in April which
later will send up more plants, perhaps, than we
shall need in the garden. Half the number would
have cost considerable if we had had to buy them
from the nurserymen.

Joseph has chosen for his seed-bed the place

MAKING SEED AND FLOWER BEDS 49

where Aunt Amanda used to keep her chickens.
The soil there is very rich, and Timothy, who has
turned it over to about the depth of a foot, has
found it fine and free from stones. In the morn-
ing there is usually sun over this place, while later
in the day the shade covers it completely. For
these reasons it ought to suit flowers of different
kinds. If Joseph had not been so lucky as to have
this strip of rich earth at the Six Spruces, he would
have been obliged to make it rich through artificial
means.

Before Joseph and I came to live here and have
a garden of our own, we never used the word
manure. We did not regard it as a polite word.
But we find that all gardeners talk about manure
and the wonderful effect it has in making flowers
grow, quite as freely as they speak of the flowers
themselves. Arrangements have to be made for
securing manure before flower-beds can be properly
made. This year Miss Wiseman has sent us sev-
eral wheelbarrows full from her pile back of the
stable. Mr. Hayden also said to Joseph: “You
just carry away from my place anything you wish,
from the manure pile to the peaches growing under
glass, only do it, my boy, when those gardeners of
mine are asleep.”

Now it would be very difficult for Joseph to
catch Mr. Hayden’s gardeners asleep. Their eyes
are too sharp, too accustomed to spying out the
pranks of Ben and Harry. For that reason, he

50 MAKING SEED AND FLOWER BEDS

has not ventured to go over there for manure.
Miss Wiseman, however, thinks of everything long
in advance, and often sends things she knows it
would be difficult for us to get this first year.

Not very much manure was needed to prepare
the soil of the seed-bed, the earth there being so
rich; but it is astonishing to see the quantity that
Timothy is now using since he has begun making
the flower-beds.

As I have said before, the triangle was our great-
aunt’s favourite bit of lawn, also that this year it
has been rolled and reseeded by Timothy. Even
now, it has begun to look like a large, green carpet.
We have decided to have no paths through it, but
to make the flower-beds just where we wish and
later walk to them over the grass. We both think
it will look prettier if it has no gravel walks. Jo-
seph expects to sow his seeds and set his plants so
thickly that very little of the brown earth of the
beds will be seen, and we hope to make the flowers
look as if they grew right up in the grass.

I wish I could describe exactly the places where
the beds are being made. As the flowers come up
and show their colours, I shall know more about
them. There is one bed in which I am especially
interested. It is near the point of the triangle,
just above where the soil is moist, and, although it
partly follows the outline of the point, it is more
curved. It is almost the shape of the moon in its
first quarter. This bed, the outline of which was

MAKING SEED AND FLOWER BEDS 51

designed by Miss Wiseman, makes one forget the
sharpness of the point and appears to give the
whole triangle a better shape for a garden.

She first drove pointed stakes in the ground in
the exact shape she wished the bed to be, and then
she and Timothy, with Joseph’s help, passed a line
around the stakes, so that when Timothy began to
take out the sods there would be no mistake about
where he should put his spade. Miss Wiseman
said it made her feel young again to drive stakes
in the ground and to pass the line around them.
When I tried it, it gave me such a pain in my back
that I felt very old.

After Miss Wiseman had finished her work,
she said that, as far as the eye was concerned, we
had changed the shape of the triangle as satisfactor-
ily as that of the Piazza of Venice had been changed
by the Campanile. Neither Joseph nor I knew
what she was talking about, so she explained that,
before the old bell tower of Venice fell, very few
people had noticed that the wonderful cathedral
of St. Mark’s stood on the bias, since the position
of the tower had been such as to make the piazza
appear a perfect rectangle. When the tower fell,
alas, no one could help seeing that the piazza was
not a perfect rectangle, and that the beautiful cathe-
dral stood painfully out of line. Miss Wiseman
loves Venice. If it were not an impossible place
for a large garden, she would live there.

From her telling us this story about the bell

52 MAKING SEED AND FLOWER BEDS

tower, and from the way the triangle appears to
have lost its point by means of the new flower-bed,
Little Joseph and I have learned that another im-
portant matter in gardening is the outline of things.

After Timothy had lifted out the sods of the
curved bed, he dug down and threw out the earth
to the depth of two feet. He then filled the whole
bed half way up with manure, after which he alter-
nated a layer of earth with one of manure, until
it was filled level with the ground. Even after
all this was done, he went to the woods and brought
back a quantity of rich, black earth to put on as a
top-dressing. This made the bed higher than the
grass of the triangle, which, however, did not mat-
ter, since it would sink as the manure packed down.

I suppose all our other flower-beds will be made
in this same way. Miss Wiseman has told Joseph
over and over again that it is useless to try and
grow fine flowers unless the soil is properly pre-
pared. Perhaps some of his seeds would come up
if he had just planted them in the unenriched soil,
and perhaps they would also bear flowers; but it is
not likely that these flowers would be large and
strong and do themselves justice. Miss Wiseman
says that no boy or girl would try to raise a kitten
or a puppy without giving it proper care and food.
Flowers, too, must be cared for and fed. Their
diet, we have now found, is rich soil, water and
sunshine, and it is the duty of gardeners to provide
the first two of these. The good sunshine visits

PLATE VI. — A BORDER OF NARCISSUS POETICUS

MAKING SEED AND FLOWER BEDS 53

them without coaxing. Since I have heard Miss
Wiseman talk so much about feeding plants, it
would make me sad to feel I had sown seeds in poor
soil. I should think I was starving the flowers.

A little way In front of the wall where the vines
are to be planted, we are to have a long, narrow
bed for tall flowers; and a number of smaller beds
are to be made on the side of the triangle near the
south veranda. Already, Joseph and Timothy
have spent two days talking about and making these
beds, and so I have not yet staked out the place for
my roses. Joseph is to have nothing to do with
the roses. They are to be under my care alone.

Just as soon as this work of making the seed-bed
and those of the triangle Is finished, Joseph will
sow his seeds, for at last the spring really seems to
be here.

At our neighbours’ places beautiful tulips, daf-
fodils and narcissi are now in bloom Instead of the
snowdrops, the Siberian squills and the crocuses that
came in March. Miss Wiseman has a border of
narcissus poeticus which appears to me most lovely.
Whenever Joseph sees them, his sorrow Is renewed
that we have no spring flowers from bulbs at the
Six Spruces. He does not intend to be without
them another spring, and therefore Is now saving
some of his garden money to buy bulbs this coming
autumn.

He has found out that gardeners must know how
to take time by the forelock. Following their

54. MAKING SEED AND FLOWER BEDS

methods, he has bought and planted many bulbs of
Japanese anemones. These bulbs are often set out
in the spring, and by the time September is here
they come into bloom, lasting until frost. No doubt
we shall then find them very lovely, since by that
time flowers will be growing scarce in all gardens.
Joseph has planted these bulbs somewhat at random
about the triangle. The greater number, however,
follow in groups the irregular line of the wood-
border. Indeed, we are told that these Japanese
anemones have a look not unlike some wild flowers.
They were not difficult to plant in the soft loam
of the wood-border. With a stick Joseph made a
hole about six inches deep, dropped in and covered
each one over with earth. He did this shortly
after a rain.

We are much pleased at seeing our yellow bells
so generously in bloom. They are something of a
solace to Joseph’s disappointment at having no
spring flowers. In the woods also, just back of
the fifteen hepaticas, windflowers, bloodroots and
Dutchman’s-breeches are in bloom. These latter
are high up in the woods among rocks.

Nothing seems to disturb these little wild flowers.
They live quite by themselves in the woods and
manage things in their own way. No' gardener
makes their beds; no one feeds them with manure
and fertilising powders. From year to year they
come up in the same places, wearing the same deli-
cate and timid look of spring. Sometimes I have

MAKING SEED AND FLOWER BEDS 55

wondered if in the woods there was not a sprite
who listened, for the footsteps of spring and who
slipped about and whispered to the buds to hasten
and open their petals.

CHAPTER VIII

PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED
LL Joseph’s work at gardening is not out-of

doors. He has to do a great deal of study-
ing in, “An Ambitious Boy’s Garden,” read many
catalogues and talk with our neighbours and Tim-
othy before starting actual labour in the open.
Then there is Mrs. Keith, who likes to know just
what Joseph is about. Not that she ever wishes
to hinder him ; sometimes she gives him ideas that
are important; but usually she tells him whether
our great-aunt would have approved of his plans.
Little Queenie Perth laughs at Joseph when he
talks about his flowers. She says the butterflies
in her garden look prettier than his seed packages.
He is delighted to hear and learn whatever ex-
perienced gardeners will tell him; for Joseph is not
likely to be over-wise this first year of garden-build-
ing.

This week Joseph has learned to divide flowers
into three classes: annuals, perennials, and bien-
nials. He tells me that now he understands their

PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED 57

differences perfectly, although formerly he thought
that in their way of growth they were all alike.

Annual flowers are those that come up from the
seed and bloom the first year; they last for that
year only. Their seeds, in fact, have to be sown
every season so long as they are desired. Sweet
alyssum, mignonette and nasturtiums are among the
annuals. Perennial plants are those that, once hav-
ing had their seeds sown, last from year to^ year.
Usually they begin to bloom in their second season,
after which, when they have ripened their seeds,
they die down to the ground. Their roots, how-
ever, still live in the earth and are ready the next
spring to send up new plants. Often they reseed
themselves, so that groups of such plants gradually
increase in size. Perennials are hardy individuals,
and for this reason Joseph, thinks he will have many
of them in his garden, as he likes tO' see the same
flowers year after year in the same place. He
would soon grow to expect them, and, if they did
not disappoint him after the long winter, he would
have the same pleasure in seeing them that he would
if a friend had returned from a long journey. They
would, he thinks, be more like the wild flowers in
the woods, keeping to their own places and bloom-
ing at the same time each year. When once they
have become established, it is not necessary tO' keep
sowing them over and over again. On the whole,
I can see that Joseph has already a strong partiality
for perennials.

58 PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED

The biennial plants have ways of growing differ-
ent from either the annuals or the perennials. Like
the perennials^ they do not bloom until the second
year, but, having once formed and ripened their
seeds, they die completely. Although they must
be watered and cared for during two seasons, they
bloom but once, after which it is as if they had
never been.

Joseph thinks that since we have no^ gardener but
Timothy, the biennials would be a great deal of
trouble for him to look after, with the reward of
their blooming but once in two years, and so it is
not likely that he will plant many of them.

Happily, it is now time to* sow seeds. Joseph
is busy putting perennials and some annuals in the
seed-bed. There they will start and grow into lit-
tle plants, which later he can set in their permanent
places in the garden. This morning is warm, and
the rain which lasted until breakfast-time has put
the soil in good condition for planting, so he has
taken out of the closet some of his precious seed
packages. The perennials that he is sowing to-day
are hollyhocks, columbines and oriental poppies.
He wishes to have these in abundance and knows
definitely where to place them. Of course he will
have other perennials, and some perhaps that will
bloom this year. In fact, it was Miss Wiseman
who advised him to sow only these three.

A great many young plants are growing at her
place that she cannot use, so later she will give a

PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED 59

number of them to Little Joseph. She says that
it is sometimes wiser for beginners in gardening
to buy a few plants from nurserymen rather than
to raise all they require from seeds.

Among the annuals in his basket of seed pack-
ages, Joseph has to-day mignonette, sweet alyssum,
nasturtiums, candytuft, Shirley poppies and phlox
Drummondi. The phlox, however, is the only one
that he will put in the seed-bed. The others will
all be sown at once on the triangle, since they like
to stay where they are first planted.

Joseph had hardly started towards the seed-bed
before Queenie Perth came flitting across the front
lawn, asking very loudly for Master Joseph,

“I want Master Joseph this minute,” she said.

I told her that he had gone to the seed-bed,
where he was probably very busy.

“Then I will go there, too,” she replied.

Queenie appeared to have something in one of
her hands which she kept closed tightly. I went
out with her to the seed-bed, since she did not know
the way, and there was Little Joseph making fur-
rows in the earth with a pointed stick.

“I have something,” Queenie said. “Guess!”

Joseph went right on making the furrows. “A
doll,” he answered after a while.

“Something harder to get than a doll,” Queenie
told him.

Joseph still went on making the furrows.

60 PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED

“Stop that and guess,” Queenie exclaimed,
stamping her tiny foot.

“You have caught a butterfly,” Joseph said, no-
ticing her closed hand.

“I have a bird’s egg,” she told him in great
triumph, showing it to us in the palm of her hand.

Joseph then stopped making the furrows and
looked at the egg. It was small and of delicate
cream colour, flecked all over with brown.

“Where did you get it?” Joseph asked.

“I took it,” she answered, “from a little house
by Auntie’s barn. It was full of sticks, but I
pulled them all out, and then I put my hand in and
got the egg.”

“I believe it is a wren’s egg,” Joseph said sol-
emnly, remembering how these birds in our own
house had barricaded the door with sticks. “You
should not have taken it.”

“Oh, birds are everywhere,” Queenie replied.
“They are in the air and in the trees, and some are
in the shutters of my window. They wake me up
every morning chirping so loudly. I never took a
butterfly’s egg,” she said further.

“Butterflies come out from a chrysalis,” Joseph
said reprovingly, and then he went on making fur-
rows for the columbine seeds.

Just as soon as he tore open the packages of
seeds, Queenie wished to help him drop them in the
earth, and, after some coaxing, Joseph gave her a
few, showing her how to hold them. He went

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PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED

along just behind her, drawing the earth over those
she had planted. Queenie’s fingers are so slight
and delicate that she handled the seeds even better
than Joseph. She was careful, besides, not to
waste them as she took them from the package, and
not to drop them in the wrong places. Joseph had
several colours of columbines and planted each in
a furrow by itself. When this was done he placed
labels at the ends of the furrows telling all about
the seeds. When transplanting time came they
would be of great help to him.

The seeds of the hollyhocks were larger than
those of the columbines, but even these Queenie
handled with the utmost care. She helped Joseph
so skilfully that he had almost forgiven her for
taking the wren’s egg, when he suddenly remem-
bered to ask her what she was going to do with it.

“Nothing,” she said, and threw it on the ground.

It broke, of course, and inside there was a tiny
bird, an ugly-looking object.

“You ought to be ashamed,” exclaimed Joseph.
But Queenie did not mind at all, as long as he let
her help him with the seeds.

Just then Mrs. Keith came to the seed-bed, and,
when we told her that Queenie had taken the egg
and then broken it for fun, she was shocked.

“It is a wren’s egg,” she said. “I have seen
them many times.”

“How could you if you did not steal them?”
Queenie asked.

62 PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED

“I have seen wren’s eggs that were stolen by bad
boys,” Mrs. Keith answered, “but this is the first
one I ever saw taken by a little girl.”

Then she took Queenie away with her to the
house to tell her how very wrong it was to steal
birds’ eggs and to beg her never to do it again as
long as she lived. Mrs. Keith always keeps a jar
full of cookies in the pantry. Queenie is very
fond of her.

Joseph went on sowing. He next put in the
oriental poppies and then the phloxes. These
phlox Drummondi are annuals. I watched Joseph
plant them, and saw that the furrow he had made
was not more than an eighth of an inch deep.

After planting these seeds, Joseph concluded he
would do no more until the morrow. He had still
to water them thoroughly with the rose-sprayer.
Water falling on them heavily as from a hose
would have greatly disturbed their position in the
earth. It was growing late in the afternoon, and
we were both eager to know what Queenie and
Mrs. Keith were doing; so, after the watering was
attended to, we went back to the house.

We found Queenie sitting on the back veranda
between Timothy and Mrs. Keith. She was listen-
ing to a story that they were together telling her,
and of which she said she did not believe a word.
But Joseph knew it was a true story and very beau-
tiful.

It was of a caterpillar that spun about itself a

PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED 63

little house, or silken chrysalis, and lay coiled in-
side, resting during the whole winter. It neither
saw its friends nor ate nor drank such food as
Queenie knew about. Many people might have
believed this crawler of the earth was quite dead.
After a while the door of the chrysalis opened, and
out of it appeared not the caterpillar, but a beauti-
ful butterfly whose name was painted beauty. Per-
haps the butterfly had been given this name on ac-
count of the exquisite rose colour on the* hind part
of its fore wings and the dark, eye-like spots on its
posterior wings. The upper surface of the butter-
fly’s wings is nearly black, with marks of orange
and white, and it has long feelers which appear to
point the direction in which it shall fly. It is a
butterfly that does no harm in the world, but just
flitters around, loving and caressing the flowers.
In the autumn, it seems to like the* purple asters
very much and sometimes carries the golden dust
from one flower to another. The painted beauty,
Mrs. Keith said, was always beautiful and good.

“Perhaps it will come to our garden this sum-
mer,” Joseph said.

“I will catch it, then,” Queenie told him, and in-
deed we both knew that at home she had a butterfly-
net.

CHAPTER IX

JOSEPH CONTINUES SOWING SEEDS
HE weather has lately favoured Joseph’s gar-

1 den greatly. Although he was disappointed
that he could not sow more seeds the day Queenie
Perth came with the wren’s egg, the morrow proved
equally fine for such work. There was a mist in
the air, which kept the soil moist; yet rain, which
might have washed the seeds from the ground, held
steadily oft. Again Joseph started from the house
with his basket of seed packages, this time in the
direction of the triangle.

He took out first his packages of nasturtium
seeds. These were annuals, and he had two kinds
of them, climbing and dwarf nasturtiums. He
soon decided to sow the first kind in the very nar-
row bed by the wall, where the vines were to be
planted. Here these seeds took up but little room.
Joseph put them about an inch deep in the ground.
In this spot the sun could find them easily, and the
sun and nasturtiums are very fond of each other.

It was with more difficulty that he made up his
mind where to sow the dwarf nasturtiums; but,

JOSEPH SOWING SEEDS

after a while, he had a happy thought about them.
They like sun as well as the climbing ones, and
they also like rocks. So he brought several stones
from the woods and placed them on the ground in
front of the wall, very near where he had planted
the other nasturtiums.

“They can grow here,” he said to me, “and it
will look better to have the two kinds together than
to have them in different places about the triangle.”
The dwarf ones, he had learned, would begin to
bloom earlier than the others; but, as they grew
at the base of the climbing ones, it would appear
as if all had begun to flower at once. Gardeners,
Joseph had read in “An Ambitious Boy’s Garden,”
have often to play little games of deception with
their plants.

Since the nasturtiums were planted at the end
of the wall that comes up near the house, it will
be easy for me to step out and gather their flowers
whenever I choose. I like to see these bright
flowers arranged in green glass dishes for the din-
ing-room. There is something very clean and
cheery about their look. They are among the
flowers that appear as if they were always smiling.
Besides, Mrs. Keith says that the leaves of the
dwarf nasturtiums make a spicy salad.

In our mind’s eye, we could both see just how
these plants would look when they were in full
bloom, yet on this April day the wall, the ground
and the stones appeared scarcely different after the

JOSEPH SOWING SEEDS

seeds were planted. There were only the small
label-sticks in the ground to let a stranger know
about the gay beauties we were expecting later.

The sweet alyssum and the mignonette Joseph
sowed in several places. He used them wherever
he wished flowers to form borders for beds. The
alyssum seeds he put in furrows about half an inch
deep, while the mignonette was not planted as far
down.

I felt pleased that we were to have these two
flowers in plenty in our garden. They are both
fragrant, and I think that a sweet-smelling flower
is better than one with no scent. They are also
both attractive in bouquets. Often I tell Joseph
that I shall work hardest in the garden when pick-
ing tim.e comes.

Next Joseph sowed the candytuft, putting it in
the ground to about the same depth that he did the
mignonette. He had only white candytuft, and,
while in several places he planted it for edgings to
the borders of beds, in another spot he sowed so
much that it will form a fine mass by itself. Never-
theless, he did not use all of the seed that he had,
for, in order to have it stay with us until frost, he
would have to keep on sowing it about every two
weeks.

“Dear me,” I said, “will you have to do that with
all the seed that you have planted?”

“Oh, no,” he answered, “the mignonette and

JOSEPH SOWING SEEDS

candytuft are the only ones so far that will have to
be sown in succession.”

Joseph’s knowledge about seeds shows how often
he has read “An Ambitious Boy’s Garden.”

Finally Joseph planted the Shirley poppies. It
seemed to me that he had more of their seeds than
of all the others put together. He sowed them
rather thinly and only sprinkled the earth over
them. He has learned that they would not wish
to push themselves up from the bottom of a fur-
row, no matter how shallow. He planted them in
many places, but especially in the circular bed that
cuts off the point of the triangle. The soil in this
bed is not at all boggy, as one might suppose from
being so near the moist corner. As I have already
said, it was prepared in the regular way by Tim-
othy, and its soil is fine and light.

I shall love these poppies when they bloom.
Once I saw them last year, and they seemed to me
like cups made by fairies out of tissue paper. But
truly we shall have to wait a long time for them to
bloom.

The mist that has hung over the garden has
gradually cleared and the day has suddenly turned
as chilly as if it were early October instead of April.
I hardly like to mention such a disagreeable word
as frost to Little Joseph. He perhaps has thought
about it himself, for he told Mrs. Keith that, when
he had time, he would make a cheese-cloth cover
for his seed-bed; but that to-night he intended to

JOSEPH SOWING SEEDS

spread newspapers over it if Mrs. Keith thought
there was danger of frost. Mrs. Keith is more
weather-wise than any one else at Nestly.

Poor Joseph j I hardly see when he is to find time
to make a cheese-cloth cover for his seed-bed, let
alone covering the many seeds he has planted in
the triangle. At this season of the year there is
something to do every day in the garden, and, if
he works all the time, I am afraid he will grow
dull, like Jack who had no play. But Joseph could
never be really dull. He is the kind of boy that
likes to be busy every minute. It is only the ‘^sand-
man’’ who makes him forget there are things to be
done.

After seed-planting, all gardeners must be on the
watch against burning sun, heavy rains and high
winds which are likely to harm the tender sprout-
ing plants. Even if Joseph cannot find time this
year to make the cheese-cloth cover, it is something
that can be done in the house next winter. With
its aid, he would have a better chance of success
and might even start his seeds earlier out-of-doors.

At Nestly Heights and at Miss Wiseman’s,
many seeds are started each season under glass, and
not until all danger of frost is past are the young,
well-grown plants set out-of-doors. Since Joseph
never expects to have glass houses at the Six
Spruces, he must contrive in other ways to give his
seeds an early start But then he is more ambitious
even than the boy of his book. He hears of few

JOSEPH SOWING SEEDS

things that he thinks will not be possible for him
to do after a while. In gardening, there is a great
deal of “after a while,” especially during the first
season.

Mr. Hayden likes to come and walk about the
Six Spruces with us, and we have both become so
keen in observing his ways that we can tell whether
it is the northeast wind or the west wind that is
blowing about him. Naturally we care for him
most when he is like the west wind. When he is
in one of his northeasters, as Joseph says, he finds
fault with everything that we have done and talks
a great deal about Aunt Amanda, and how she
would have disliked seeing the triangle cut up with
flower-beds.

Little Joseph had sown the last of the poppy
seeds when Mr. Hayden came to-day. I was. then
urging him to come into the house and rest, for he
really looked tired, although that is something, he
says, which boys do not talk about as much as girls.
We noticed at once that the west wind was blow-
ing about Mr. Hayden even if in the garden it was
northeast.

“Planting seeds?” he asked, “or blue roses?
Well, you beat my man at the flower show this
year and I will give you a hundred-dollar bill.”

Then he slapped Joseph on the back so hard
that he felt as if the wind had turned to a hurricane.
Mr. Hayden came to tell us that he had punished
both Ben and Harry for the sake of discipline ; and

JOSEPH SOWING SEEDS

to remind us that he had another son away at col-
lege who was a remarkably fine lad.

^‘He is a blue rose,” said Mr. Hayden, “and
no mistake. How about pansies ?” he next asked.
“Have you any about the Spruces?”

We told him that we had never thought of
pansies.

“Well, they are my favourite flowers,” he said;
“you had better get some plants from my gar-
deners. I never feel comfortable in a garden with-
out pansies. They make me understand the na-
ture of all the other plants. They not only have
petals, you know,” he went on, “they have faces.
I have seen ever so many pansies that looked like
old ladies, and old men, too, for that matter,
although usually they look more like hickory nuts.
Once I saw a white pansy with pink tips that looked
like a young girl. Not your sister,” he said to
Joseph with another hurricane slap, “she is like a
rose.”

I saw Joseph look at me very critically; but I
hardlv think brothers ever notice that their sisters
look like roses.

Lately I had read about carpeting rose-beds with
pansies, and I had seen them so planted at a beau-
tiful place where we had visited. But I did not
like the idea. Pansies have such a different look
and character from roses that the two seem to me
out of harm.ony. I should never choose them as a

JOSEPH SOWING SEEDS

carpet for my rose-bed, I would rather see the bare
earth.

Mr. Hayden was as merry as a little wind that
makes the leaves dance, and often called me White
Rose. He said that he had a great secret up his
sleeve which, however, he had no intention of tell-
ing. Joseph, of course, thought that he was going
to send us a number of pansy plants, while I thought
it more likely he would send a white rose, one of
the kind that would climb over the wall. But
neither of us ventured to ask him to change his
mind and to tell us what the secret might be.

Before he went home, he said that one of the
sorrows of his life was that he could not have a
talk with Aunt Amanda. This made Joseph and
me wonder if the wind had changed.

CHAPTER X

FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT

For three days in succession now, we have been
on long tramps in the woods. This is because
Mr. Hayden’s son Percy is home for the Easter hol-
idays and seems to find more pleasure walking about
the woods than he does in his father’s gardens.
The fact that he was coming shortly is the great
secret Mr. Hayden had up his sleeve. Joseph and
I call this son “Mr. Percy,” for when we say “Mr.
Hayden” we mean the father. He has taken a
great fancy to Little Joseph, but insists that I go
with them on their tramps. He knows a great
deal about ferns and flowers, but not in an impor-
tant, book-like way. Some people always speak
about flowers as if they were reading in a cata-
logue.

“Why, here are fiddleheads,” he said the first
day we went into the woods together.

We looked, and saw a number of green, stick-
like things with curled-over ends standing up in a
clump together. They were covered with a thick
white wool that probably kept them warm in these

PLATE VIII. — FIDDLEHEADS

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FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT 7S

uncertain spring days. Hepaticas were: close by
and bloodroots and dog’s-tooth violets were not
far away.

“Why not transplant a few of them in the moist
point of your triangle?” Mr. Percy asked. “They
will unfold into tall, strong fernSj and if we take
them now they are almost sure to live. I have
found the early spring a better time for transplant-
ing ferns than the autumn. Their fronds are not
unfolded now, so there is no danger of their break-
mg.

This seemed a splendid idea, as we were much
in need of tall, green plants at the moist corner.
Mr. Percy and Joseph then set to work to take up
the fiddleheads. I had a basket with me, a trowel
and a newspaper, as I thought I might find some
wild flowers for transplanting. The trowel proved
very light for taking up the firm, interwoven roots
of the fiddleheads, which I thought must have been
making roots in this spot for a great many years.

Mr. Percy told us that, as the days grew warm,
the woolly covering of the fiddleheads would turn
a brownish yellow and gradually fall away. He
showed us also its “heart of Osmond,” which is
really the buds for years to come, and lies at the
crown of the brush-like root-stock. This part of
the fern, he said, tasted very much like raw cab-
bage. But to gather it, the plant itself would have
to be destroyed, and neither Joseph nor I care
enough ■ about eating raw cabbage to make us do

74 FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT

such a thing. It is only the young crosiers, or un-
folding fronds, that Mr. Percy called fiddleheads.
He said the plant itself was a brake — the cinnamon-
fern. In talking to himself, however, he called it
Osmiinda cinnamomea.

I do not remember all that Mr. Percy said, be-
cause I was so eager to see if he and Joseph would
succeed in getting its large root-stock up from the
ground without hurting the fiddleheads. The curi-
ous look that these latter have in the woods I shall
never forget, and, now that we are to plant them in
the garden, I shall be able to watch them unfold
and to learn for myself about their fronds. In
speaking of ferns, Mr. Percy said, we must say
fronds instead of leaves.

He and Joseph had a hard time getting the two
ferns they chose to transplant loosened from the
earth. They dug around them in square blocks
with the trowel, and then gradually worked them
free from the rest of the root-stock, which was
altogether too large to carry away. Their work
would have been easier if they had had a spade.
When at length they were in my basket, Mr. Percy
carried it. It was indeed quite heavy.

Before we had gone much farther, we found the
maidenhair fern. This fern was well known to
both Joseph and me, but neither of us would have
recognised it as we saw it then, had it not been for
Mr. Percy. Its crosiers were beginning tO' uncoil
in their curious way, and parts of them were cov-

PLATE IX. — WINDFLOWERS

FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT 75

ered with a bluish bloom, such as we see on grapes.
The little parts that would later open out and be
green were then dull red. Neither of us doubted
that Mr. Percy was right, and that some day this
strange little bunch of sprigs would turn, into our
own beautiful maidenhair fern. It then looked
much less like it than a baby looks like a man.

Joseph thought it very wonderful that Mr. Percy
should be able to tell what all the little sprigs and
tiny green things were going to be when once they
were full grown. We thought he must have wan-
dered many times in the woods and observed
sharply the things he saw. He quickly set himself
about taking up the maidenhairs, since he said they
also would thrive in our home garden. Their root-
stocks were not as hard to handle as those of the
fiddleheads. They were more slender and wiry,
and stayed nearer the surface of the earth. Soon
we had five of them in the basket.

“They will make a showing this year,’’ Mr.
Percy said, “and, every year after, the clumps will
grow larger and more beautiful.”

There were hepaticas and windflowers where
these maidenhair ferns were uncoiling. The wind-
flowers were now in full bloom in our own wood-
border, not far from the place where Joseph had
planted the hepaticas. They looked so frail and
delicate that I felt quite afraid to walk among them.

“This year,” Mr. Percy said, “the season is back-
ward. It is now the twenty-fourth of April, and I

76 FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT

have often found these ferns as well grown ten or
twelve days earlier.”

I was thinking it time to go home, when Mr.
Percy said that, as long as we were out for ferns
to-day, we might try to find the lady-fern and take
it along with us. There was still room in the bas-
ket, although its heaviness had increased.

“The lady-fern.!” I exclaimed. “Is it one that
ladies like especially?”

“Well, perhaps not the ladies of to-day,” Mr.
Percy answered, “because they have learned to like
so many kinds of ferns. The truth is that the fern
itself is a lady. In ancient times, it was called
female fern, which has not so poetic a sound. The
folk of long ago believed that the seeds it bore
could make people invisible. Imagine,” Mr. Percy
continued, “how amusing it would be if I should
put some of this mystic seed in my shoes, or in my
pockets. You would still hear me walking about
and talking, but you would not be able to see me.
I might drop in at the Six Spruces at any time of
the day and find out all your secrets.”

“That, of course, is a fairy tale,” said Joseph,
who is something of an authority about sprites and
witches.

“It may be that now,” Mr. Percy answered, “but
truly, in the days when it was called female fern,
it was believed to have this and many other curious
powers.”

“I hope we are going to find it,” I said.

FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT

we are sure to do that if we keep our eyes
open,” Mr. Percy replied, “It grows in most
places about here that are moist and shady. Here
it is now 1”

I thought it less interesting than the fiddleheads
—perhaps because it was not covered with a warm
wool. Its stalks were deep wine colour, and the
uncoiling fronds were light, yellowish green. They
grew up from the root-stock in tufts that were large
and circular. I could imagine better how they
would look when unfolded than I could the fiddle-
heads.

“You will both think this is an old acquaintance
when you see it uncoiled in your garden,” Mr.
Percy told us. “In fact, you must have seen the
lady-fern again and again before now. Sometimes
it wanders out from the woodlands, or swamps to
live along the roadways. I have even found it in
our stony back-pasture. This year, however, you
will really become its friend.”

All the time that Mr. Percy was talking, he was
working steadily to get its large root-stock up from
the ground. I began to think that ferns had a
much stronger way of fastening themselves in the
earth than was known to either wild or cultivated
flowers. When he had taken up several lady-ferns,
we turned in the direction of home, Mr. Percy say-
ing that later he would take us where fronds un-
coiled beside some lovely wake-robins. Once only
we stopped on the way to watch a red-headed wood-

78 FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT

pecker going up the side of a tree. Every second
or two he stuck his long bill into its bark to get
some insect ; and he must have had a feast if, every
time he pecked, he secured prey. He hopped along
at a lively pace, appearing not to notice that we
were watching him. What he did at other times
I had no idea, but, unlike the wrens and the robins,
he was not carrying his finds home to a little mate
on the nest. Everything he found, he ate him-
self.

The spring air and the long walk had tired me
by the time we reached the Six Spruces. This was
not so, however, with Joseph, who was as enthusias-
tic as when we first started, and had now, he said,
to plant the ferns. Mr. Percy advised him to put
the maidenhairs on the slight slope of the coppice
where it is shady, yet somewhat open, and where
they might be seen from the triangle. The fiddle-
heads they planted near the point of the moist
corner, and the lady-ferns they placed in a group at
the side.

“All of these ferns do splendidly under cultiva-
tion,” Mr. Percy said. “But they will now require
a daily watering, especially if the earth should
become dry.”

We felt it very encouraging that something we
had planted would now grow and unfold at the Six
Spruces as soon as it would in the woods.

After Mr. Percy had gone back to Nestly
Heights, Joseph and I wondered how it was that

PLATE X. — ""fronds UNCOILED BESIDE SOME LOVELY WAKE-ROBINS""

FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT 79

he cared so much to go out into the woods with us
for fqrns and help transplant them, when at his
place there were such beautiful and rare ferns in
one of the glass houses. We thought it must be
because he liked to tell us all the interesting things
he knew about the wild plants of the woods.

“We should not have known the plants were
ferns if it had not been for him,” I said.

“Nor should we have seen that woodpecker,” Jo-
seph replied.

Then we both wondered why it was that he did
not act a day older than ourselves, and if he would
come again.

CHAPTER XI

MY ROSARIUM

S yet I have said nothing about my rose gar-

ix den, except that in it I intend expending most
of my energy, and, incidentally, my money. Of
the former, I have as much as most girls, while of
the latter my bank holds but twenty-five dollars.
Yet, with the roses that have been given me by
Mr. Hayden, and with all that I shall learn later
about budding and striking cuttings, I may perhaps,
in two or three seasons, have a beautiful rosarium.
There are no flowers I love as much as roses. I
love them enough to have always a thought for
them, never tire of watching them, and even regard
as nothing the trouble I shall probably have in keep-
ing their insect pests away. It is because I love
them so dearly that I feel I can make them grow.

For some time Joseph and I could not decide
where the rosarium should be placed. Then sud-
denly a thought occurred to me. It should be near
the middle of the triangle, over by the side that
borders the wood; and the various beds for the
roses should spread out from the rustic seat that

MY ROSARIUM

is placed there, as if they were the sticks In a fan.
Imagine how delightful it will be to rest on this
seat, and to feast our eyes on the whole rose garden.
Besides, if I have it in this place, it will not inter-
fere with Joseph’s hardy-flower beds. The roses
will be quite by themselves, a condition they greatly
desire. Over this spot the air circulates freely,
another point about which roses are particular. An
abundance of sunshine will there visit them, and
yet they will be shut off from too much wind by the
wood-border. A better spot for growing roses,
Miss Wiseman says, could hardly be found ready
made; for in this way she invariably speaks of the
triangle and the bordering coppice. She had to
plant many trees and flowering shrubs about her
own rose garden, to act as wind-breaks, since roses
do not like rough breezes.

The long and narrow beds, arranged like the
sticks of a fan, have already been prepared by Tim-
othy, in exactly the same way as the other beds were
made. From time to time, however, the roses will
need more fertilising than Joseph’s hardy flowers.
Mr. Hayden says they are the most greedy feeders
of all plants, which seems an ugly expression in con-
nection with roses, although quite true. I have
noticed that, whenever Miss Wiseman and her
gardener, Mr. Bradley, talk about the roses they
expect to send to the flower show this year, the
conversation begins and ends with a criticism of
various kinds of fertilisers.

MY ROSARIUM

Joseph has started a manure heap, not far from
the seed-bed behind Aunt Amanda’s old chicken-
house. It cannot be seen from any part of the
triangle, although we have become such garden
enthusiasts that its ugliness would be condoned, in
view of the beauty and strength our flowers are
likely to receive.

The neighbours have said quite generally that
it is too bad I could not have planted the hybrid
perpetual and hardy roses that Mr. Hayden has
given me in the late autumn, instead of in the mid-
dle of April. Still they were moved and trans-
planted with so much care that I am hoping they
will know nothing about it. It was surprising so
many agreed that the season was excellent for plant-
ing monthly roses ; for, when one starts a garden in
spring, it seems as if the greater number of things
should have been attended to in the autumn.

Those who have watched roses know that the
so-called hybrid perpetual and hardy roses bloom
with the great army of roses in June and July, send-
ing out occasionally a few flowers in the autumn.
The monthly or ever-blooming roses continue open-
ing their flowers throughout the growing season,
sometimes until overcome by frost. When plant-
ing, it is best to keep these two classes separate, as
in the late autumn the monthlies require much
heavier winter covering than those which are hardy.

Had I chosen roses exclusively from the cata-
logues and from what I remember about them, I

PLATE XI. — A ROSE FANTASY

MY ROSARIUM

think I should have had in my rosarium only
monthlies of either white or red. I can imagine
that a rose fan made of these two colours might be
very beautiful from June until October. But there
might have been unexpected disappointments which
I am spared by having had so many hardy roses
given tO' me.

Those that Mr. Hayden contributed to the fan,
all of which, he said, were roses of the highest char-
acter, were red, pink, and white, with one yellow
rose called Soleil d^Or. This name was very ap-
pealing. Among the red roses were Ulrich Brun-
ner, Marshall P. Wilder, Prince Camille de Rohan,
and Victor Verdier. The pink ones were named
Mrs. R. G. S. Crawford, Mrs. John Laing, Baron-
ess Rothschild, Clio, Madame Gabriel Luiget, and
Paul Neyron.

The one white rose was called Frau Karl
Druschki, a name I thought given it by a very
stupid gardener, although Joseph said it was more
likely the flower received its name from a very
clever individual, since it had become celebrated
for its beauty. In “An Ambitious Boy’s Garden,”
there is not a word about roses, so I suppose Joseph
heard this either at Miss Wiseman’s or at Nestly
Heights.

I decided to plant the red roses in the middle
beds of the fan, keeping each kind by itself. The
white were in the beds on either side, then came

MY ROSARIUM

single beds of yellow, while the end beds on each
side of the fan were left for pink roses.

Near where they all taper down into a semi-
circle, another bed following this outline was made
for the monthly roses on which I had spent my
money. Among them I had but three kinds, the
Killarney, the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria and the
Perle des Jardins. Their colours were pink, white
and light yellow.

This was the arrangement I had intended for
my rosarium. But for this year, at least, it was
beset by a difficulty. The labels marking the roses
that Mr. Hayden gave me read merely red, pink,
white, or yellow. Now there are ever so many
shades of red, some of which look well with pink,
while others do not. Perhaps if I had consulted
one of Joseph’s catalogues, or a book on roses, I
might have found out more about their particular
shades, and then have planted them accordingly.
But it happened that the roses came late in the
afternoon, while Timothy was at the Six Spruces,
and the best thing to do was to get them planted
as soon as possible. They had not a very inspiring
look. Evidently, they had been clipped back by the
gardener at Nestly Heights, and, not having begun
to send out their new leaves, were just sticks and
thorns.

Still, it was a great thing to see so many little
rose-bushes actually planted in a formal, pretty de-
sign, and to feel that it was indeed my own rosa-

MY ROSARIUM

rium. As the roses begin opening, I can watch
them carefully and learn all the particular little
points which make each one different from another.
Some of them also may die, and then I shall have
to find out the cause; others may grow too high,
over-reaching their neighbours, and I shall thus
learn where best to transplant them in the autumn.
After studying and caring many years for them,
I may become a Rosarian, or an authority on roses.
Once Joseph heard of a great lady in England
whose chief pride was that of being a Rosarian.

Besides the monthly roses, I bought three
crimson ramblers for Joseph, and two other climb-
ers, which are called Wichuraianas. The ramblers
he has planted by the wall dividing us from Nestly
Heights; the Wichuraianas, on the contrary, have
been set out by the moist corner of the triangle,
where the ground rises in a little bank. These lat-
ter bear small, sweetly-scented, white roses, and
their foliage is vividly green and glossy. They
will either climb over arches that Joseph may make
some day, or run along on the ground. They be-
gin to bloom after the crimson ramblers have faded.

In buying the monthly roses for the base of the
fan garden and the climbers for Joseph, I have
spent nearly all of my twenty-five dollars. But
there are nearly forty roses in the bed, large, strong
plants. Miss Wiseman says there is no* economy
in buying poor stock. I, at least, am content. As
soon as the roses begin to bloom, they will give me

MY ROSARIUM

more pleasure than the money could have done if
otherwise expended. Even now, I like to watch
the bushes, although they are only bare sticks stand-
ing above the bare earth.

If ever I write a story. It will be about a rose.
The rose is so romantic. It has had its petals
sprinkled over the dishes at feasts of Caesars, and
has been worn near the hearts of queens. Its
fatherland is said to be in the northwestern part
of Asia. At least the rose from which the first
perfume was made grew there, and its sweet scent
has held sway with kings. I can never quite like
people who are indifferent to roses. There is such
a grace about them, and yet a sprightly air, as if
they wished to speak. Roses never nod their heads.
They hold them high. They are themselves
queens.

All this time that I have been telling about my
rose garden, Joseph has been away playing with
Queenie Perth. It sounds odd to speak of Joseph
playing with a little girl, as usually he is so grave,
and spends his time working In the garden. But
he likes Queenie, although he knows she Is spoiled
and often naughty. She can make him quite forget
his seriousness when she herself is in one of her
funny moods.

I see Joseph now returning by the circle in front
of the house. No doubt he has been reminded by
the twilight that It is the poetical time of the day
which we give to changing clothes. But no, he has

PLATE XII. — I MAY BECOME A ROSARIAN

MY ROSARIUM

not come on by the circle. He has crossed over
and gone in among the six spruces. I will join
him there before Mrs. Keith catches sight of either
of us. I must tell him that Mr. Percy has been
here again, and he probably wishes to tell me about
Queenie Perth.

CHAPTER XII

PLANTING BEFORE THE WALL

During this plantmg-time Joseph has not
neglected to provide decorations for our
wall, in spite of the many other things that have
needed attention. Some fine day, he tells me, this
wall of ours will be entirely covered with foliage,
owing to the little, straggly things he has lately set
out by its side. Besides the climbing nasturtiums
and the crimson ramblers, he has planted a number
of Virginia creepers, two honeysuckles and a
clematis paniculata. With the exception of the
nasturtiums, these are all perennial vines which
will keep on living from year to year. There are,
of course, such beautiful annual vines as the Japa-
nese morning-glory, the moonflower, Japanese
gourd, passion-flower, and others, which Joseph
might have sown, and which perhaps would have
astonished us by their abundant growth during this
one season. He crossed them off from his list,
however, thinking it best to have vines that need
not be renewed every year, even if they make him
wait longer before he sees them well grown.

PLANTING BEFORE THE WALL 89

As far as he can, Joseph Is making his garden of
plants that know pretty well how to take care of
themselves. He wishes them, as I have already
said, to be like the wild flowers In the woods, which
return each year in definite seasons.

It was not for their flowers that Joseph planted
so many Virginia creepers along the wall, since
these are insignificant, but for the leaves of the
vines, which, from the time they unfold in the
spring until they turn a brilliant crimson in the au-
tumn, are always beautiful. These Virginia creep-
ers, therefore, will form the foliage of the wall,
while the nasturtiums, the clematis and the honey-
suckles will give it flowers.

Mr. Percy advised Joseph to plant the native
Virginia creepers, and together they found the
vines by the edge of a near-by wood. Afterwards,
Timothy went with wheelbarrow and spade and
took them up. Had we bought them at the nur-
sery, we could have had no better specimens than
these which were found growing wild. Joseph had
often seen poison-ivy In the woods before he came
to the Six Spruces to live, and he thought he was
being urged to transplant It to our wall; but Mr.
Percy, by opening a miniature leaf, soon showed
him that, though the two vines resembled each
other, the Virginia creeper has five leaflets, while
the poison-ivy has but three.

We were discussing this point of difference be-
tween the two vines, when Queenie Perth surprised

90 PLANTING BEFORE THE WALL

us by saying : “I know poison-ivy has three leaflets
because ivy has three letters in its name. It can
never poison me or Rosamond. We stay too far
away from it.”

Rosamond is Queenle’s doll. In some ways
Queenie is wiser than one would expect, while in
others she is more babyish than she should be for a
girl nearly nine years old. What she had said this
time about the three leaflets of poison-ivy had quite
fixed the fact in my mind. As yet, I have never
gone through a season in the country without being
severely poisoned.

As our vines grow old and sturdy, Joseph plans
to put up poles by the side of the wall, on which
they may twine skyward. These, I think, he
especially wishes for the clematis paniculata, with
its masses of sweet-smelling, white flowers. The
idea seems attractive to me also, as the stupid
straight line of the wall will then be broken. But
this is one of the unfinished things in our imagined
garden when all the seeds and plants that we have
set out are grown.

Mr. Percy knows quite as much about vines as
he does about ferns. He was delighted to see
that the creepers he had suggested transplanting so
soon showed signs of having taken good root. He
said the form of the rose garden was an inspiration.
It suited the triangle better, he thought, than if it
had been circular, square or even long and narrow.
Perhaps it is because he has no sisters that he did

PLANTING BEFORE THE WALL 91

not know until we told him that it was in the shape
of a fan. He then said: “Why, yes, to be sure.”
That very evening he sent me a little fan from
Japan covered with pink and red blossoms. They
are not roses. Perhaps they are peach blossoms.
The fan is unusually pretty, and I really think my
rose garden will have somewhat the same appear-
ance.

We are sorry that the Easter holiday is over, for
Mr. Percy has gone back to college. When he
next returns, however, it will be for the long sum-
mer, when he will be of great help to us in beauti-
fying the Six Spruces. He never speaks as his
father does about our Aunt Amanda. We are sure
he wishes us to make the old house look as if it
peeped up among flowers. He is not content
that we should have a garden only about the tri-
angle. He wishes us to make wide borders across
the front and along the sides of the house and to
plant them mostly with scarlet geraniums. As the
house is painted buff, he would especially like the
effect of these flowers against it. Perhaps we shall
try to carry out his wishes next year; but already
we have planned to do quite as much as it will be
possible for one small boy to take care of. Later
Timothy will be coming only once or twice a week.
The rose garden I shall look after myself.

The work of gardening, we find, is not all over
when the planting is completed. There are then

92 PLANTING BEFORE THE WALL

worms, spiders and beetles to be overcome, and
watering to attend to during dry weather.

We are learning to have a respect for even toads
and garter-snakes, since they eat many of the harm-
ful insects which make their way into gardens.
Formerly I shuddered at the sight of these crea-
tures, and even now I cannot regard them with
much peace of mind. But, after all, the great de-
sire when one has a garden is for perfect flowers,
and, in order tO' secure them, such disagreeable
things as snakes, toads and manure piles must be
encouraged.

The wrens that live in one of the bird-houses
have become so accustomed to seeing Joseph and
me about the Six Spruces that they no longer mind
our presence. They also are friendly with Mrs.
Keith. In the morning, evening, and many times
during the day the male bird passes swiftly across
our back veranda, perches himself on a bit of
cornice near its roof, and, lifting his head high in
the air, sings us his sudden and spirited song. It
is a song that I cannot imitate. Yet the bird gives
me every chance to learn his lay, repeating it over
and over again. A most happy creature he seems,
not letting the thought that he will soon be the
father of five or six hungry fledglings weigh heav-
ily upon his soft brown shoulders.

The grackles, on the contrary, which made their
nest in the old pine tree near the moist point of the
triangle, never come near the house, and sing only

PLANTING BEFORE THE WALL 93

in squeaky voices. Joseph has found out they are
likely to eat a great many grubs that might do harm
to the flowers; and that on occasions they eat the
eggs of other birds. This is a trait not to be re-
spected in the grackles. Yet I like to watch the
male birds in their metallic-looking black coats. I
have noticed that they are often iridescent like
coals and of a remarkable shiningness. Timothy
has warned us strongly against these birds, saying
that they do no good to the farmers’ corn. Still,
there are so few farms near us in Nestly that Joseph
may some time have to give the grackles some
grains in payment for the grubs they destroy.

We have found that, even with the best inten-
tions, there come moments of real discouragement
in gardening. Except for the general air of tidi-
ness about the Six Spruces and the triangle, and the
fine symmetry of the flower-beds, there is really,
so far, little to be seen for all the work that has
been done. Were it not for the fact that Hope
whispers to us, and we believe the seeds are sprout-
ing and the little plants growing, we should hardly
have the courage to go on. The cold, wet days
that come after the middle of spring especially
dampen the spirits.

When this discouragement falls upon me, I tell
Little Joseph it is time for us to go to the woods
and see what is blossoming there in Nature’s world
of wild flowers. Somehow, I cannot think the
flowers that live in a garden and have to be sown

94 PLANTING BEFORE THE WALL

and watered are as real as those that come up with-
out any assistance from man.

In our woods, the leaves are now well unfolded.
The hepatlcas, bloodroots and anemones have
ceased blooming, and even the few little yellow
violets that we found are making their seeds. Two
spring orchids are aglow with their enchanting
flowers. They grow in a secluded, deep part of
the wood near where we hear a whippoorwill.
This bird often lives in the hidden haunts of
orchids, and seekers of these flowers sometimes find
them by following his melancholy notes, in much
the same way that men hunting tigers locate them
by the cry of the peacock.

This year for the first time we saw wild ginger.
Mr. Percy showed it to us the day before he went
back to college. Its leaves are rounded and appear
like velvet. They cover the ground in great mats.
But the flower of wild ginger does not like to be
seen. It prefers to hide its head in the earth, and
lies under the leaves closely hidden in its dress of
green marked with purple. Joseph and I should
have missed seeing it altogether had not Mr. Percy
slipped his hand under the plant and lifted the
flower up to our sight.

He said that wild ginger would be a delightful
plant for our wood-border, since it likes the shade
so well. As soon as its seeds were sown, we deter-
mined to have Timothy take it up in large blocks
and transplant it for us, just behind the hepaticas

PLATE XIII. — WILD GINGER

(

PLANTING BEFORE THE WALL 95

and higher on the slope. Some day the woods
may have a thick, green carpet of its soft leaves
from early spring until late in the autumn. We
hardly could expect to find another ground cover
for the coppice, which, like the brave, sturdy hepat-
icas, holds its green leaves throughout the winter.

Whenever we transplant wild flowers, Mr. Percy
says we must be sure to take enough of them to
establish what he calls a “permanent colony.’’ Just
one or two wildlings set in or near a garden have a
frightened, not-at-home look, while numbers of one
kind together usually retain their wild charm.

Mr. Percy told us, moreover, that transplanting
wild flowers was something he had long wished to
do himself; but that there was little opportunity
for experimenting at such a formal place as Nestly
Heights. Naturally, Little Joseph and I were glad
to let him do whatever he wished In our wood-
border. In fact, we grew quite used to his help,
and now miss him sadly since he has gone away.
In the rose garden, however, I shall manage things
quite after my own mind. There not even Little
Joseph is to be allowed to pull a weed.

CHAPTER XIII

JOSEPH COMPLETES THE PLANTING OF THE

GARDEN

NOW that May has been here for a fortnight,
I recall how busy Joseph has been setting
out numbers of perennials that he bought from the
nursery of Nestly, and others which were given him
by Miss Wiseman and Mr. Hayden, who have been
dividing some of their old, well-grown plants. He
has made an effort to complete the planting of his
garden, with which, however, he seems never to
be quite finished.

Almost every day Joseph hears that some seeds
that he has already sown should be planted again
now, and also later on, in order that throughout
the season he may have their flowers in succession.
He knew, before starting his garden, that farmers
did this with peas and other vegetables, but he did
not realise that the same thing was to be done with
flowers. Here is another difference between wild
flowers and those in a garden. When the former
have bloomed and sown their seeds, their work is
over for the entire season. Mother Nature allows

JOSEPH PLANTING THE GARDEN 97

them then tO' rest snugly. But gardeners have
learned to sow and resow the seeds of cultivated
flowersj that they may not pass out of sight with
their natural season of blooming.

Joseph hears that there are little tricks of nip-
ping off flowers before they form seeds^ and, by so
doing, keeping the plants blooming longer than
their natural season, for, above all, a plant desires
to make seeds. The flower which is seen and be-
loved by people is really only a means of making
the more important seeds, which then, the plant con-
trives to sow in order that its existence may be con-
tinued from year to year. It seems a little melan-
choly to me to keep the plants longing to make and
sow their seed until, perhaps, they are caught by the
frost without their object in life having been ac-
complished. Still, a garden whose flowers had
early ceased to bloom would not be pretty. In fact,
it is gardeners now who attend to the reappearance
of plants year after year, by sowing the seed, and
Joseph finds he must follow their ways, although
at times he may think them unnatural and heart-
less.

The most important perennials that Joseph
bought, or had given to him, were phloxes, golden
glow, larkspurs, irises, and chrysanthemums. In
addition to those he already had, and with his an-
nuals, the garden will be started very well.

I cannot describe every place in the triangle that
he has planted. He has placed each plant where

98 JOSEPH PLANTING THE GARDEN

he thought it was likely to appear to the best ad-
vantage. This is something which every one who
starts a garden must think out for himself. The
important points that Joseph has tried to remember
have been the colours of the flowers, the heights
to which the plants were apt to grow, and the neces-
sity to set them in places that gave them the right
exposure. Some plants are sun-loving, others de-
light in shade; many have a bold, brilliant look,
while others are shy and modest. When planting,
therefore, Joseph has thought of the character and
habit of the plants rather than the appearance of
the little green things themselves when he set them
in the soil.

It is too bad that we have no peonies in our gar-
den this season. They, however, start with the
first warm breath of spring, and so do be:st when
planted in the early autumn. As soon as that time
comes we shall get roots of large plants, which then
perhaps will give us great, toppling blooms the fol-
lowing spring. I hope to persuade Joseph to buy
only white peonies, although I know the dark crim-
son ones open earlier, and the double pink ones are
very beautiful. Still, the white ones are my favour-
ites.

In a garden near our old home, Joseph and I used
to go early each spring to see the peony buds after
they had worked their way up through the earth.
They always had the round, shining look of little
balls, until later when they burst into great white

PLATE XIV. — TWO SPRING ORCHIDS

JOSEPH PLANTING THE GARDEN 99

flowers. In that old garden, I remember the plants
had not been disturbed for years, but had grown
very large, reappearing regularly with the spring.

Over at Miss Wiseman’s, the peonies are planted
at the ends of several borders. I wish ours to be
set in a bed by themselves, not far from the wall,
near the point of the triangle. This year, how-
ever, we will use it for annuals or other plants that
can be easily transplanted when the time comes for
putting in the peony roots.

Both Miss Wiseman and Mr. Hayden have
given us columbines which will soon begin to bloom.
Those that Joseph sowed in the seed-bed will not
bloom until next year, since they are perennials.
We shall save a space for them near the others, be-
cause, as with peonies, I think they look best when
kept by themselves. But Miss Wiseman has them
in the same border as her peonies, poppies, phloxes
and other kinds of flowers.

Perhaps I am wrong in some of the ideas I put
into Joseph’s head. I do, however, much prefer
to see flowers of the same kind kept closely together
to having them scattered about among those of a
different air. Near them, flowers that bloom
earlier or later can be grown. At least, we intend
to plant our garden after this idea. If it then
turns out a failure, we will give in and follow our
neighbours. Mr. Hayden thinks we are very bold,
and, perhaps, a little ungrateful, not to allow his'
landscape gardener to keep us, as he says, in the

100 JOSEPH PLANTING THE GARDEN

straight and narrow path; but, if we did so, the
fun of making our own garden would be spoiled
for Joseph and me.

At Nestly Heights, not one of the family ever
sows a seed or ventures to pick a flower; even the
birds are shy about building their nests there.

About the triangle, these gay creatures appear
more at home every day. The wrens, the blue-
birds and the grackles, which came first of all, have
now been joined by m.any friends, while robins,
song-sparrows and chippies have come in great
numbers. Almost every day we find a nest not
seen before. Naturally, the builders make a great
fuss and appear to be in actual terror as we draw
near to examine their work; but, when they see
that we go away, leaving everything undisturbed
as soon as our interest is satisfied, they settle down
quietly again. The next time we visit them, they
appear less frightened.

On all sides we have heard that no garden should
be without phloxes. Joseph, therefore, bought
three dozen plants before he knew that others were
to be given him. They are very easily cultivated,
and, as they can be separated at the end of three
years into three times the original number, we
think them a good investment. Phloxes come into
full bloom about the beginning or middle of July,
when many other flowers have had their day and
are busy making seed. Miss Wiseman says her
garden at this time is fairly aglow with them. In

PLATE XV,

BLUE FLOWERS THAT SHOULD BLOOM FOR US SOON

JOSEPH PLANTING THE GARDEN 101

fact, phloxes have been very much cultivated of
late, and many new varieties of them have become
known. It is quite bewildering to read all their
colours on Joseph’s labels. I rather think we shall
have them in every shade and combination of colour
except yellow. As yet I have not heard of a yellow
phlox. The prospect of such a medley of colours
is bewildering, and the only suggestion I was able
to give Joseph about them was to put them in
ground where there would be nothing else to flower
while they monopolised attention.

As I look at them set here and there about the
triangle, I think that their stiff stalks and prim lit-
tle leaves are decidedly ugly. Surely, they should
bear beautiful heads of bloom to make up for this
defect.

Our ideas about the larkspurs were more definite.
I especially love these flowers. Joseph bought
only plants that would bear blue flowers, and he
planted them in among the meadow-rues which he
and Mr. Percy took from the woods. The flower
of the meadow-rue is so insignificant as scarcely to
be seen by people who are not botanists, while its
foliage is exquisitely shaped and of a bright, beau-
tiful green. The larkspurs raising their spikes of
fantastic blue flowers among it will be most lovely.
Mr. Percy helped Joseph transplant the meadow-
rue ; and, so far, not one of the number has shown
the slightest sign of dying. The work was much

102 JOSEPH PLANTING THE GARDEN

the same as that of bringing the ferns to the moist
point.

I love blue flowers, and invariably urge Joseph
to buy them to the exclusion of red and pink ones.
I cannot tell why this should be so. Roses are my
greatest favourites, and they are never blue.

The first blue flowers to bloom for us will be
the irises. Joseph bought German and Japanese
varieties, since both bear beautiful flowers, and the
Japanese begin to bloom just as the Germans are
fading. We chose them also because they are
hardy, needing neither care nor winter covering,
nor was an especial bed prepared for them. Joseph
simply put their long roots deeply in the turf at the
moist point of the triangle. They are plants that
dislike dry weather and dry soil. We did not have
many this spring; but irises increase very rapidly,
and in September, which really is the best time for
planting them, he will add to the number.

Once, when driving along a road in May, Joseph
and I stopped beside a moist meadow completely
covered with wild blue flags. The dusk was gath-
ering. Among the tall leaves Joseph imagined
that he saw a little gnome blowing out his cheeks
to keep the moths away. The coat he wore was
made* of leaves, although not those of the irises.
I could not see the little fellow myself, even though
Joseph pointed him out walking through the
meadow, and showed me the butterflies circling

PLATE XVI. — BLOWING OUT HIS CHEEKS AND BREATH TO KEEP THE

MOTHS away’"

‘I .

V/*,

JOSEPH PLANTING THE GARDEN 103

about his head. Often we have both been re-
minded of that meadow.

The cultivated irises will bear larger flowers,
and have a more complex form than the wild blue
flags. If they make the moist point of the triangle
half as pretty as the meadow, perhaps Joseph’s
gnome will find them out.

The golden glow was set in front of the wall at
the very end ; farther down, in fact, than the holly-
hocks. The former grow so high, and are so viv-
idly yellow, that I think they should be looked at
from a distance.

Then there are the little plants of hardy chrys-
anthemums that Joseph has set out. These are
most important, since they give us flowers last of
all. During the summer, they will appear as foliage
plants, because we will keep their buds nipped off
to prevent their blooming early. The leaves of
chrysanthemums are a soft, ashen green, and there-
fore look well as a background for other flowers.

The number of plants that Joseph has already
set out about the triangle is wonderful to me. I
feel sure his back must ache. But, in spite of all
the work that he has done, I have thought of other
flowers for which I am pining. Heliotrope is one
of them ; but as yet I have said nothing about it to
Little Joseph.

CHAPTER XIV,

MAY TIME

For the last few days Joseph and I have done
little in the garden. We have been medi-
tating and watching things grow. Besides^ we have
seen a great deal of our neighbours and their gar-
dens.

May in the country is surely as lovely as June.
The roses have not yet bloomed; but a wealth of
other flowers have let out their petals. At Miss
Wiseman’s, the hardy border is a lively sight with
irises, columbines, azaleas, rhododendrons, and the
prettiest little phlox Drummondi edging it all
about. It is the early crop of this phlox that shows
in May: the main one will not come on until July.
As we see it at Miss Wiseman’s, lying a mass of
bloom on the ground, its colour is a clear and bril-
liant magenta. It has bewitched Joseph, who tells
me he intends to have a quantity of it next year
about the borders at the Six Spruces. It not only
comes up readily from seed, but resows itself abun-
dantly. Indeed, it is not at all difficult to grow.

104

MAY TIME

105

We already have a small quantity of phlox
Drummond!, it being one of the annuals Joseph
sowed In the seed-bed. The plants that we have
raised, however, are very meagre In comparison to
those at Miss Wiseman’s. Yet I am glad our
plants are white or yellow, instead of magenta.

Since Joseph and I have learned a little about
raising flowers, we have developed a gift for crit-
icising gardens that are old and highly cultivated.
Already I have whispered tO' Joseph that I do not
think Miss Wiseman Is very sensitive concerning
the colours in her garden. I should never be con-
tent to have the magenta phlox Drummond! border-
ing beds of pink azaleas, nor should I plant it in
front of red columbines. In fact, there are not
many places In a garden where bright magenta
would please me at all.

I notice but few border plants of yellow In our
friends’ gardens, and, therefore, if our seedlings of
yellow phlox Drummondl turn out a success, I shall
urge Joseph to keep to that colour to the exclusion
of white, magenta or dark red. At Nestly Heights
this phlox Is showing magenta the same as at Miss
Wiseman’s. No doubt fashionable gardeners like
the brilliancy of this colour.

Mr. Percy has been home for over Sunday. I
was telling him how beautifully I thought this little
annual phlox spread itself about the garden beds
like bands of ribbon.

106

MAY TIME

“But you would prefer blue ribbon?” he com-
mented.

I replied that this phlox did not come in that
colour.

“Then have quaker-ladies,” said Mr. Percy.
“Even now, it is perhaps not too late to secure
them.”

He urged us to go with him tO' a moist meadow
some distance back of the Six Spruces, where great
patches of the ground were turned blue by tiny
flowers with yellow eyes, their small leaves clinging
as closely to the ground as moss.

“These are quaker-ladies, or bluets,” said Mr.
Percy. “Can you not see what a lovely band of
blue they would make about your flower-beds ?”

“But would they live,” Joseph asked, “if we
transplanted them now, when in flower?”

“If we did it cleverly enough,” Mr. Percy an-
swered.

Later in the day, we returned to the place with
Timothy and all necessary implements. We then
moved the quaker-ladies in long, narrow blocks
of earth. Their roots did not extend very far
down, and I felt sure that the little ladies knew
nothing at all about this being their moving day.
Fortunately, Joseph had made no plans for a
border-plant about the bed near the point of the
triangle ; so there we set the blocks of quaker-
ladies, which formed a band of soft blue about the
whole. We gave them a long, gentle spraying,

MAY TIME

107

and, as they never once drooped their heads, we
concluded that they at least would live throughout
the season. Timothy had to return again to the
meadow before we had enough plants to complete
the border.

Next year, perhaps early in May, Mr. Percy
says, they will reappear in their sprightly fashion
in the border. This season is slightly backward.
Joseph and I felt that we had done a good day^s
work to secure a permanent and beautiful blue plant
for the crescent-shaped bed.

“It is a border,” Joseph reminded me, “that
they have neither at Miss Wiseman’s nor at Nestly
Heights.” This thought pleased him immensely.

Mr. Percy never seems to be afraid to handle
or to discuss wild flowers. He takes less interest
in the cultivated ones. One day he told us some^-
thing interesting about trailing arbutus, which has
vanished from this neighbourhood because people
have picked it so ruthlessly. “Many books and
magazines,” he said, “state that it is very difficult
to transplant this flower and that a permanent col-
ony of it has nowhere been found in cultivation.
I wish the people who hold this opinion might see
the wild-flower garden of a friend of mine who' has
a large and important colony of trailing arbutus
transplanted from the open country. It showed
not the slightest reluctance to live, because it was
taken up in large blocks of considerable depth.

108

MAY TIME

Wild flowers,” Mr. Percy continued, “are truly
eager to grow’.”

He then told us about two Jacks-in-the-pulpit
which he himself had taken up from the woods in
May, not very carefully, and which later he planted
in a poor and clayey soil, quite different from that
of the rich, loamy wood. He had transplanted
them in defiance of all recognised conditions.

“Yet they are still living,” he said, “and the lady
Jack has borne fruit every year.”

Naturally, Mr. Percy had transplanted a lord
and a lady Jack, as the green-striped and the purple-
striped Jacks are respectively called. If he had
transplanted two lords, or two ladies, then there
would have been no fruit, since fertilisation could
not have taken place.

After this conversation, Joseph thought that it
would be a good idea for him to transplant a num-
ber of lords and ladies to our wood-border, where
the soil and the shade would suit them exactly. But
he planned to do it late in the autumn, since for
him they might not be willing to go against all their
traditions as they had for Mr. Percy. I think the
spirit of the w’oodlands is really in Jacks-in-the-
pulpit.

Before this spring, I had never realised how
exquisitely lovely were daffodils and jonquils and
also narcissi. They have all passed bloom now, but
at our neighbours’ there has been, until lately, a
wonderful showing of them. The especial names

PLATE XVIII. — THE WILD BLUE FLAG

MAY TIME

109

of these bulbs are all now jotted down In Joseph’s
note-book, to be again deeply considered when It
comes time for autumn planting.

Among other things that Joseph has attended to
recently has been the setting out in the garden of
the little plants that he raised In the boxes under
the camera plates. The baby’s breath has now be-
come neat-looking little plants, which have been
thinned out and set In the soil twelve Inches apart.
I have never seen this plant In bloom, so I shall still
have to wait a while to know much more about It.
In the catalogue we read that Its flowers would be
white, or rosy, and that the plants would be nearly
covered with them.

The ten-weeks stocks are now also' set out In the
garden, looking slim and dignified with a space of
twelve Inches between them. We expect these
flowers to be w^hlte, pink and purple. The white
ones should bear double blossoms. I feel sure
we shall be satisfied with these stocks, for they
already have a vigorous look, and I like the soft
shade of their foliage. As their name implies, they
will last In bloom a long time.

The cardinal-flowers have been slower In start-
ing than the others, and even now are not large
enough to transplant.

It has proved quite a success sowing these seeds
In the boxes indoors, for the plants are surely now
better grown than if we had waited until May to
put them In open ground. The experiment was

110

MAY TIME

also fun for Little Joseph. In fact, I think he
cares more for these plants than for any others
in the garden. He feels they are more his own,
since he has taken care of them so long and watched
their leaves forming from the time they first ap-
peared above the earth. In observing them, he
has learned something about the building of a plant,
and found out some of the ways of the plant world
more accurately even than by reading “An Am-
bitious Boy’s Garden.”

We have no Weigelia shrubs at the Six Spruces;
but at nearly all the other places about, the pink
varieties are coming Into bloom, appearing like
heavy, coloured clouds. Especially at Miss Wise-
man’s, I think they will be very beautiful, because
there the shrubs are all old and large. Nestly
Heights Is a new place.

At the edge of our wood-border the dogwood Is
in bloom, giving the appearance of gay company.
And to our surprise one of the wild dogwood trees
Is sending out flowers of salmon, pink. They are not
merely pinkish from fading, as many white blos-
soms become, but are really pink and have been so
since the day they unfolded. Timothy tells us
that our Aunt Amanda took an interest in this tree
and felt proud of It, because It was the only one of
the kind she had seen or heard about in this part of
the country.

Our three lilac bushes are also in bloom. When
Mr. Hayden came to see us on Sunday, he said, not

PLATE XIX. — PINK DeCWOOD

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MAY TIME

111

in the way of a spring zephyr, but like the wind
before a squall :

“Now I know where I am. The scent of those
three lilacs makes me feel the presence of your
Aunt Amanda. Take me into the parlour, please,
and let me sit on the haircloth sofa.”

We took him into the parlour, where he was
surprised to find the favourite sofa covered up with
brocade.

“Dear me,” he said, “there is nothing in this
world so sure as change ! Are you not afraid the
light streaming in at those windows will fade the
carpet?”

I answered that the carpet was already faded,
and that we liked the air and sunshine.

“What about flies?” he asked. “Your Aunt
Amanda never let one come within her walls.”

I did notice then that there were a number of
flies about, and felt it was perhaps a sign of poor
housekeeping.

Afterwards, Mrs. Keith brought in tea, of which
Mr. Hayden drank two cups, saying it was excel-
lent. He still continued to tease us about the
changes we had made at the Six Spruces.

I asked him if he had heard Joseph play his vio-
lin; for this is something my brother can do even
better than plant a garden. Mr. Hayden an-
swered :

“Dear me, music in this house on Sunday!”

Then Joseph played as he does on Sunday after-

11^

MAY TIME

noons, when he chooses only pieces which fit the
mood of the day. Mr. Hayden was less brusque
while Joseph played than I had ever seen him. He
praised him heartily, saying that long ago when he
was a boy he used to play the cornet ; but that finance
and the strenuous life had made him forget the
way of It.

He loved music, he said, almost as much as he
loved flowers..

CHAPTER XV

ABOUT WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS

ONE of the fortunate things about garden flow-
ers is that when once they have unfolded,
they last long enough for us to know them well.
The cultivated flowers make considerably longer
visits than the wild ones from which they are de-
veloped. Our irises, that is, the German ones, are
still in bloom, looking finer every day ; but the wild
blue flags which they so much resemble are now
quite faded.

This also I have noticed with columbines. It
was about the first of May when we began to find
the wild ones deep in the shadow of the woods
and nodding over high rocks. A little later those
which Miss Wiseman gave us began to bloom in
the triangle. Now the wild ones are making seeds,
but those of the garden are astonishing us every
day by the added flowers they unfold, and by their
lovely colours and their fantastic shapes. It seems
to me that these cultivated columbines have learned
every trick of variety. I can scarcely think of a
colour in which they do not appear. There is a

114 WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS

double white one tinged with pink, like the inside
of a shell; another is blue, with a paler, almost
white centre. This one is flatter in shape and
larger around than most of the others. I can
hardly tell which of these columbines I like best,
they are all so pretty.

Hybridization, a long word at the tip of gar-
deners’ tongues, which means the crossing of plants
and production of new varieties, has had a great
triumph with columbines. In gardens they have
become vigorous plants, standing up straight to a
height of three or four feet. No doubt, in pro-
ducing so many forms and colours of columbines,
gardeners have thought that they were greatly out-
stripping those that dwell in the woods. But as I
recall the wild one with its red and yellow bell nod-
ding from its wire-like stalk, I love it best of all.
Still, it would not be as showy in a garden as the
cultivated varieties. It does not like the full blast
of the sun and the mixed company of the great
world. It prefers to stay in the peaceful, shady
woods, where the ruby-throated humming-bird may
find it and sip of its nectar.

Some time ago Mr. Percy and Little Joseph
transplanted a number of wild columbines, or rock-
bells, as Queenie calls them, to our wood-border.
Mr. Percy recognised them long before they had
opened their leaves, when to Joseph and me they
looked as if they might turn out to be ferns. He
then chose small, young plants for taking up, as

PLATE XX. — COLUMBINES

WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS 11 o

the older ones have long, thick roots, which make
the success of transplanting them somewhat doubt-
ful. That day they brought about twenty colum-
bines to the wood-border. If next year we get
twenty more, and those that we have sow a few
seeds, we shall have a colony as enchanting as the
one Mr. Percy told us about. The columbines
there have not been disturbed for years, he says,
and they are now a sight for a king.

Another wild flower that we have transplanted
is called false Solomon’s-seal, or wild spikenard. It
blooms in the woods at the same time as the colum-
bine. Its stalk is long, with large leaves coming
out from it on either side, and at the very end there
is a great, pointed bunch holding myriads of fine,
sweet-smelling white flowers. The stalk of false
Solomon’s-seal always leans over a little, instead
of standing up straight.

We have planted it where the wood-border slopes
slightly, so that it now appears as though leaning
over towards the bank. Here, Mr. Percy says, it
will be very beautiful when once it is well estab-
lished. It will, moreover, need no further care.

This reminds me of another difference between
wild and cultivated flowers which neither Joseph
nor I can understand. The wild ones are visited
by bugs and beetles and insects of many kinds,
which harm them but slightly. In a garden, how-
ever, these insects become pests, biting and molest-
ing the plants, and greatly interfering with the hap-

116 WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS

piness of a gardener. Joseph has engaged in a
war with insects which wdll keep him from idling
the whole summer. No matter how persistently he
labours, however, there is no surety that he will
come off the victor. Bugs and worms have most
horrid ways. They gnaw" under the skin of young
plants and greedily eat and stuff themselves with
the sweet sap. Sometimes no one knows they are
there until the leaves begin to turn yellow and grad-
ually fall to the ground.

This yellow colour of the leaves of a plant dying
from the effect of insects is to me one of the un-
sightly things in a garden. Perhaps I feel so about
it because it indicates sickness. Every day I look
over my rose-bushes for the little green crawlers
that think they evade me by being just the colour of
the leaves. That they might not find life too merry
in the rosarium, Timothy sprayed the bushes very
early in the season wdth a solution of whale-oil
soap.

We w"elcome lady-bugs in our garden, since they
go about eating many harmful mites. But between
us we have only seen four lady-bugs this season,
and, although Joseph may have them as well as
the toads and garter-snakes for aides-de-camp, I
hardly think they will be able to keep the insect
army at bay. The spraying that Timothy gave
them about the fifteenth of this month with a kero-
sene emulsion may prove the greatest hindrance to
their advance.

WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS 117

Since coming to live at the Six Spruces, I have
learned to face wasps and bees boldly. They do
not, it seems, like people who are afraid of them,
and wreak their anger by leaving a painful sting.
This fact, Mr. Percy told us, was first taught by
an American naturalist. Nevertheless, it took me
some time to wear a smiling face in front of bees ;
and only because I was sure that Mr. Percy knew
the truth, was I able to do it at all. But now I
have quite ceased to fear them, and do not in the
least mind their buzzing around me. Now I can,
without screaming, let a bee or a wasp walk over
my bare hand.

Yesterday at Nestly Heights we were standing
by a large bed of azalea mollis. It was in full
bloom, and surrounded by bees. I stooped to find
the label of these shrubs, running my hand in under
them and over the ground, until the telltale stick
was found. I neither minded the buzzing bees,
nor did they me, although I fancy they were some-
what disgusted that the flowers on my hat were
without nectar. They soon learned their mistake,
however, and forsook the artificial ones, my hands
and shoulders as well, for the more hospitable
golden funnels of the azalea.

Until this year Joseph and I had never seen
azalea mollis. It is a Japanese azalea bearing
astonishingly brilliant flowers. They are lemon
yellow, bright, vivid scarlet, deep orange and every
colour that can be seen in a soaring flame. At

118 WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS

Nestly Heights, many of these shrubs are set in
a large bed near the gateway. Nothing, I think,
could be more effective, now that they are several
years old and have grown tall and stocky.

When autumn comes, the best time for trans-
planting azaleas, Joseph and I intend to buy a few
to set out at the Six Spruces. In fact, Joseph has
in his note-book that he will then buy azaleas,
mountain-laurel and rhododendrons.

The mountain-laurel, the small laurel called
lambkill and the wild azalea we shall probably
set in or near the wood-border; but we shall use
the rhododendrons as ornamental shrubs. Mr.
Percy tells us that we can get many of these plants
from the woods and hillsides about here. They
occur in hidden and out-of-the-way places, but not
too far for us to drive to. The wild pink azalea
is as lovely as any that grows, and no rhododen-
dron, Mr. Percy thinks, could be more beautiful
than our wild native one.

But the Japanese azalea mollis must have a place
by itself at the Six Spruces, as it has at Nestly
Heights. “Must we send to Japan for it,’^ I asked
Mr. Percy, “or to the nursery?” Then he laughed.

“Over our southern mountains,” he said, “there
is an azalea growing that is very like azalea mollis.
The natives call it the flame azalea, although its
botanical name is azalea lutea. 'A botanist named
Bartram, who was searching the Appalachian
mountains for rare flowers, first saw it when it was

WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS 119

In full bloom, and said it appeared as If the moun-
tain sides were on fire. “You and I cannot go to
the south to get It,^’ Mr. Percy continued; “its
haunt is too far away; but I have often wondered
that American nurserymen did not know more
about this native beauty.”

Joseph listened to Mr. Percy as if he wore tell-
ing a fairy story. He later asked him many ques-
tions about the botanist Bartram. He said he knew
that many great men had set out to find new
land or the north pole, but that he had never heard
before of their making explorations after rare
flowers.

“Then, when we have time,” Mr. Percy replied,
“I shall have to tell you about a number that have
done that very thing, even to risking their lives.”

I was pleased for a double reason to think that
some day we should have rhododendrons and
laurels at the Six Spruces. I love their flowers and
their glossy, evergreen leaves. As winter ap-
proaches, Joseph and I shall not leave Nestly, as
do most of our neighbours. The Six Spruces is
our home for all the year. Therefore, I tell him,
we must pay attention to the plants that do not
shed their leaves in the winter. Happily, the
spruce trees are alv/ays green. If we could keep
glossy, green leaves about us in the winter it would
not seem so dreary. I do not mean that the coun-
try is dreary when there is snow on the ground, and
glistening icicles hang from the boughs of trees.

1^0 WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS

Then the outside world is like Jack Frost’s home.
But days come in winter when there is no' snow on
the ground, or only sad little patches of it slowly
melting, and then the bare earth and the dead leaves
appear most melancholy. It Is for such times that
we must try to grow shrubs and plants that cling
to their leaves. As well as I can remember, we
have now only the six spruces and the hepaticas
snuggling In the wood-border to look green
throughout the year. There Is, besides, the old
pine near the point of the triangle. In which the
grackles built their nest.

Still, It Is difficult to plan for, or even to think
of, winter In this month of May. Many of the
plants that have not bloomed are getting ready to
bloom. Although no buds may be In sight, one
can tell their intention by their lively. Important
look. Joseph’s seedlings have grown apace this
month, and he Is much Interested in them. On my
roses I also see many small green buds.

The white dogwood blossoms In the wood-border
have turned to brownish pink. They are dying.
All over the country now, the leaves are fully un-
folded, having lost the delicate, crinkled look they
had In late April. We are no longer able to see
the framework of the trees and the landscape In the
distance. The foliage Is growing dense, shutting
out inquiring eyes. Still, the leaves have not been
here long enough to become weather-worn or have
their freshness soiled by dust.

WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS 121

Our Aunt Amanda’s three lilacs have bloomed,
shed their sweetness, and now are showing rust on
their flowers. To me this is a distressing sight.
I wish they would hurry and die completely. But
I notice this rust also on the lilac blossoms at Miss
Wiseman’s and at Nestly Heights, so I have con-
cluded that to turn rusty when dying must be their
habit.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LAST MAY DAYS

HERE Is a time in the late afternoon, just when

i It Is passing Into the twilight, that Joseph
and I especially love to walk In the garden. Then
It seems as If we could see things more clearly than
In the sunshine. The fragrance of the garden at
this time Is also very sweet. We can look about
sharply at the plants that we have tried to make
grow, and wonder If they have done quite as well
for us as they would have done In another garden.
The failures do not always discourage us, because
we will know better how to grapple with them an-
other year. Apple blossoms and the pink dog-
wood of the wood-border have begun to drop their
petals, and In many ways we are reminded that
these are the last days of May.

In one thing we have been most fortunate. The
season has been exceptionally fine for growing
things. There has been too much humidity for
the comfort of human beings ; but this is something
that particularly suits the plant world. Even the
weeds have seized the opportunity to grow as never

122

PLATE XXI. — "apple BLOSSOMS HAVE BEGUN TO DROP THEIR PETALS’"

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THE LAST MAY DAYS

123

before. Had we allowed them the privilege, the
dandelions would have taken possession of the
triangle, and now, should they catch us napping,
they would come back in full force.

“Cut them down before they have gone to seed,”
Mr. Hayden tells us.

But who can know, Joseph asks, when a dande-
lion is going to seed ? They are very quick in their
movements, and make their balls of fluff-tipped
seeds while one is thinking about getting a scythe.
Joseph goes about, however, with a broad-bladed
knife, and stoops and cuts them out of the turf as
he passes along. He does this very much as the
Italian women do who gather them in early spring.
When we began to combat dandelions, I thought
we had right on our side. Joseph and Timothy
said they w^ere weeds to be banished in spite of the
backaches which I believe still visit Joseph,
although he denies the imputation stoutly. I then
for the first time began to take notice of these
downtrodden plants. I saw they were truly beau-
tiful, either in bloom or in fruit; and that they
were more cheery and dainty than some of our
garden flowers. Dandelions are roguish, besides,
sticking their yellow heads up unexpectedly in the
pathways. Still, authority says they are weeds, and
correct gardening demands that we clear them away
from the triangle, even if w^e had not another
flower there to take their places.

Besides the dandelions, the tiny flowers of point-

124

THE LAST MAY DAYS

ed blue-eyed grass are now seen in abundance. At
first I thought they faded and died on being picked,
a habit different from that of quaker-ladies, which
remain fresh in the house for a long time. Now,
however, I have found out that while pointed blue-
eyed grass closes its petals with the first shock of
being picked and placed in water, it is likely toi open
them again the next day at about noon.

At Miss Wiseman’s and at Nestly Heights the
dark crimson peonies are now in full bloom, while
the double pink ones have colour showing about
their buds. As yet the white ones about here have
not opened. I wonder if Joseph and I are quite
wise in choosing only white peonies for our autumn
planting. The bursting pink ones at Miss Wise-
man’s are surely lovely. If they had fragrance
one might almost imagine them a race of giant
roses. Perhaps this autumn we can buy a few
pink ones, as well as the white, and put them in
the long, border-like bed somewhere behind the
columbines-

Next autumn, next year! Joseph and I contin-
ually talk about these coming times. It seems as
if we thought little of the things we have done so
far, because we expect the plants to be so' much
larger and finer later on, and because there is
always more planting in the wind.

Nevertheless, during these last days of May the
triangle looks very pretty. The grass is kept so
closely cropped by Timothy that it has lost its

PLATE XXII. — POINTED BLUE-EYED GRASS

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THE LAST MAY DAYS

125

coarse, ragged appearance, and begins to look like
the velvet swaths at Nestly Heights. The colum-
bines, the annual phlox, the irises, and the wild
flowers of the wood-border, with the shrubs and the
swelling rosebuds, keep us in a state of expectancy.
Everything that we have planted has the notion of
blooming well fixed in its head. The little quaker-
ladies have, it is true, lost their blue blossoms, but
their small leaves still cling like moss about the
crescent bed. Mr. Percy was right in thinking
that we could transplant them successfully.

So far, I have said very little about the moist
point of the triangle, except that the grackles held
carnival there ; and that it was there we had planted
the irises through the grass. This is one of the
places from which we have great expectations.

The seeds of the cardinal-flowers that Joseph
sowed early in the window-boxes, and which were
so slow in showing themselves that we thought they
were dead, have now this last of May been trans-
planted to this moist bit of ground. After they
once started in the boxes, they grew well. Finally,
Joseph had nearly fifty seedlings. He planted them
wherever he chose in the point of the triangle, about
six inches apart. It will be August before they
can be expected to bloom, so we shall have another
long spell of waiting for them. So far, I do not
think their green stalks inspiring. They have a
weedy look as they lift themselves up through the
grass. Still, I must wait and see their flowers be-

126

THE LAST MAY DAYS

fore condemning their stalks. As Joseph says, in
a garden there is always something for which one
must wait.

We have planned to have quantities of forget-
me-nots near the cardinal-flowers. In the wild-
flower world, these two always bloom at the same
time, and seem to like being together, in moist, even
swampy places. We are hoping that we have
placed them where it will be wet enough for their
taste.

For some time now we have had no rain, and
our neighbours are beginning to talk about a
drought. Should one really come, the work of
gardening will be more arduous, since considerable
watering will have to be done. We are fortunate
in having in the moist corner by themselves most of
the plants that love water. There Timothy can
give the irises, the brakes, the cardinal seedlings
and the forget-me-nots a good soaking, all at the
same time. Not but what the other plants would
all have to be watered, should a hard drought set-
tle upon us, but they would not require it as often.

This is another thing that wild flowers seem to
know how to manage better than those in a garden.
They hold up their heads wonderfully in times
either of drought or too much rain. No elves or
sprites go through the woods and marshes with
hose and watering cans, yet unmindful of adverse
conditions, they bloom and bloom until they are
ready to make their seeds. This and the fact that

THE LAST MAY DAYS

12*7

they are not so dependent on manure as garden
flowers make me in a way partial to them. A
little leaf-mould stirred in about their base is all
they require while being transplanted.

Over at Nestly Heights, Joseph and I have no-
ticed that no attention is paid to wild-flower gar-
dening, and very little even to hardy garden flow-
ers. The gardeners there like what they call
bedding-out plants, interspersed with palms and
ferns which have a sub-tropical air, and which have
been kept over the winter in a glass house built
especially for them. Early this spring Nestly
Heights had a wonderful show of large, green
plants and many intertwining beds of pansies and
cyclamen. Some of the pansy beds'^ were all yel-
low, others were all purple. Many of the cyclamen
were solidly white, and again there were hundreds
of clear magenta. These beds of cyclamen were
nearly all bordered with a stiff-looking little plant,
which reminded me of the old-fashioned hen-and-
chickens. Whenever a leaf turned yellow or one
of the plants became sickly, it was taken out by
a gardener and another was set in its place. The
supply of them seemed to be inexhaustible. And
truly they were planted in a way to give the grounds
a royal appearance.

Gladioli, cannas and dahlias, so-called bedding-
out plants, are very popular and appear now in
many gardens. This year Joseph and I have none
of them. We hear that their roots have to be

128

THE LAST MAY DAYS

lifted in the autumn and taken care of over the
winter. If we were not just beginning our garden
at the Six Spruces, I should advise Joseph to have
a few gladioli, for in August they are among the
loveliest of garden flowers. In fact, it is a great
disappointment to me not to have them. The
cannas are very decorative, especially about a for-
mal place like Nestly Heights. But it is their
great leaves that I like to see waving with the
breezes.

I have never especially liked dahlias, although
Mr. Hayden and Miss Wiseman regard this as an
instance of bad taste. Over their dahlias and the
new varieties of gladioli they have more rivalry
than about almost any other flowers. When Mr.
Hayden urged us to plant dahlias, cannas and
gladioli, I reminded him that the triangle was really
a child’s garden, with Little Joseph as its head
gardener; and that, for this year, we wished to
plant only hardy flowers which would grow freely.

He answered that, for a child’s garden, my rose
fan had quite a grown-up look. But then I begin
to feel grown up, and have to be careful some days
not to let Joseph know how much of a child he
seems to me. Between thirteen and seventeen there
is a very great difference. Joseph, however, is not
at all like many boys. When he goes to school
next winter, he will, perhaps, grow more like Ben
and Harry.

Little Joseph is very thoughtful. Mrs. Keith

THE LAST MAY DAYS

129

says lie is like our mother, and that it is because of
her he can play the violin so well. Lately, how-
ever, he has sadly neglected his music. There has
been so much to do in the garden that he has been
tired when evening came, and scarcely able to keep
his eyes open through dinner. Like all gardeners,
he awakes early in the morning, and often has done
considerable weeding before breakfast. The
weeds sleep less than Joseph, and no place is sacred
to them. If unwatched for a day or twO', I believe
they would grow up and choke our flowers.

When Timothy prepared the soil for the flower-
beds, making it light and rich, we little thought
how well it would suit the weeds. It is a mystery
where they come from. No seeds of them have
been sown, yet they crop up more lustily than did
the seeds in Jo-seplfs window-boxes which he
watered and urged so strongly tO' grow.

Timothy still believes, however, that weeds are
the spice of a garden: that without them all else
there would be tame and tasteless. Perhaps it is
flattering that our garden has the desire to be so
highly spiced. In any case, I have found it neces-
sary to buy a pair of rubber gloves that I may help
Joseph with weeding. Mrs. Keith, who' adheres
to the ways of old England, where she was born,
has bought me, besides, some frocks of blue:-jean.
They may be useful now that June is near, when
I shall be struggling to become a Rosarian.

CHAPTER XVII

THE OPENING DAY FOR ROSES
0-DAY three roses are open. The calendar

1 shows us that June is here. Indeed, the sum-
mer has begun, with its heat, its sultriness, and its
flowers. Behind us is the young month of May,
and the time of our sowing and planting.

We fear somewhat that the dry weather will
continue, and that dust and a dreary look will settle
on the trees and flowers. Naturally, the drought
will not be allowed to touch my rose fan, which
happily can be supplied with water artificially.
There, at least, I can defy any mischievousness of
the season.

The three roses that are open in the fan to-day
are Frau Karl Druschki, Clio, and Marshall P.
Wilder. They are in advance of many others
merely by a day, or even a few hours. The
rosarium, indeed, shows a profusion of buds burst-
ing and partly ready to show themselves as full-
bloom flowers.

The Frau Karl Druschki is a rose such as I have
never even dreamed of before. It is pure white,

130

THE OPENING DAY FOR ROSES 131

and very beautiful. I am to have many such roses,
I can readily see, from the number of buds on the
bushes. Even Mrs. Keith has now forgiven this
rose for bearing its ugly name. She says it is the
only one that has ever shared the place in her heart
with the blush-roses of our Aunt Amanda. Joseph
and I are beginning to have a suspicion that it was
Mrs. Keith, and not Aunt Amanda, who kept the
blush-rose bush watered and fertilised from year to
year.

The Clio rose that has opened is more rounded
than the Frau Karl Druschki. From the number
of buds I notice that these bushes alsoi are about
to bear a profusion of roses. The catalogues de-
scribe them as very prolific, an expression which
Little Joseph and I often use when speaking of a
plant covered with buds or flowers. I like the
colour of the Clio rose. It is faint pink, or pinkish
flesh colour, becoming a trifle darker in the centre.
Its outer petals are almost white. It will perhaps
appear like a white rose among those of stronger
pink, although by the side of the Druschki its white-
ness is open to question. Happily, the Clios are
all planted together at one of the tips of the fan,
where they should be able to hold their own patch
of colour.

The other rose in bloom to-day is Marshall P.
Wilder. It is of a symmetrical, round shape and
of a red so bright that I think sometimes it is car-
mine, or perhaps cherry red. What pleases me

1S2 THE OPENING DAY FOR ROSES

most about this rose is its fragrance. There never
was such a sweet scent, I think, as that of a rose,
and this one wafts it out most generously.

Joseph and I are beginning to know these three
roses. But it is not only the bloom which one must
regard and remember in order to become a Ro^
sarian. There are, besides, stems and foliage to
look at carefully. The main plan of the leaves
and leaflets of roses is the same ; but in their size,
gloss, roughness or smoothness, and in their colour,
they vary very much. Of the three roses that are
open to-day, I think the Clio has the handsomest
foliage; yet the rose itself is not nearly so beautiful
as the Frau Karl Druschki, nor has it the charm
of the Marshall P. Wilder.

Joseph and I have wmndered why this rose was
named after Mr. Wilder. Once, when I was quite
small, I heard him declaim and tell some funny
stories. But there is nothing funny or like Mr.
Wilder about the Clio rose. It is not likely either
that Frau Karl Druschki, should we e,ver see her,
would remind us in the least of our marble-like,
wonderful rose. It truly seems a shame not to
give pretty names to roses. The Japanese call their
chrysanthemums by such names as “Moonlit-
Wave,” “Ten - Thousand - Times - Sprinkled-with-
Gold,” and “The-Pink-of-Dawn.” Mr. Percy
would have called the Druschki rose “Awakened-
Snow,” but neither Joseph nor I quite understand
the name.

PLATE XXIII. — JUNE ROSES

THE OPENING DAY EOR ROSES 1S3

Yesterday Joseph spent part of the day at Nestly
Heights with Ben and Harry. He played tennis
and afterwards shot at a target. At the former,
he was rather badly beaten, because he had not
practised nearly as much as the other boys. At the
target-shooting, on the contrary, he won almost
every time. Now, Joseph is the kind of a boy
who does not like to be beaten at anything. He
therefore came home wondering if he could not
have a tennis- court at the Six Spruces. There is,
he says, room enough for several ; but it is the mak-
ing of it this year that would be a nuisance.

Then it passed quickly through my mind that
perhaps Joseph was beginning to lament he had not
made a, tennis court instead of a garden. Later in
the day my doubts were set at rest by his saying that
he had jotted the tennis court down in his note-book
among the things to be thought of for next year.
“The garden,’’ he added, “is all we can possibly
attend to now,”

Sometimes I have thought it strange that more
American children do not love gardening- — that is,
enough to plant gardens and to work in them every
day. I do not mean merely to have the little beds
for flowers that children call their own; but real,
vital gardens after the fashion of those cared for
by English children. It is true that a number of
boys and girls in Nestly have gardens, but they all
begin and end with the sowing of a few annual
seeds. These children have told us themselves that

134 THE OPENING DAY FOR ROSES

they do not know the difference between annual and
perennial flowers.

Little Joseph’s garden is one of which a man
might be proud. It is his way tO' do things well
when his interest is awakened. Miss Wiseman
says he is a born gardener ; and, as he is an owner
of the Six Spruces, nothing could be wiser for him
than to make the old place attractive. The fame
of his work has begun to spread around the neigh-
bourhood. Several people have asked if they might
not come to see his garden. Naturally, this pleases
him. He feels he cannot do tooi much work in it,
nor keep it half tidy enough.

The oriental poppies which Joseph bought at the
nursery are now making themselves seen about the
triangle.

“Very much seen,” Mr. Percy says, perhaps be-
cause they are so large, and so altogether different
from our other flowers.

All of our oriental poppies have turned out to be
as red as possible, although we have seen pink ones
at Miss Wiseman’s. Perhaps next season some of
those that Joseph sowed in the seed-bed will bear
paler blossoms. 1 am astonished whenever I look
at these poppies, and cannot convince myself that
I quite approve of them in our garden. They are
too gorgeous for the triangle. Nestly Heights
would suit them better.

I can fancy them in a fairy story, in which there
are fields of ferns overhung by a green mist; where

THE OPENING DAY FOR ROSES 135

a fairy with butterfly’s wings would dance and twirl
her skirts about before stopping to rest under one
of these great flowers. Such stalks and leaves would
naturally appear very large to the little fairy, who
probably would never see the serious black shadow
in their centres, since the flowers would be upheld
so high over her head. I can also picture these
poppies reflected by electric lights in pools of deep
water. I can think of them with oriental people,
and see them often in dreams. I continue to mar-
vel at their beauty, but I do regret their presence
in the triangle.

Joseph fairly adores them. He is prouder of
the oriental poppies than of any other flowers that
so far have bloomed at the Six Spruces. Their
bigness and their redness have made a great impres-
sion on him. He is pleased also that he planted
them in the long, narrow bed in front of the wall,
and at the back of the crescent bed. He believes
his treatment of them to be quite modern, and that
they give these beds much the same appearance as
that of Miss Wiseman’s hardy border. But, alas !
Miss Wiseman has her oriental poppies behind pink
peonies, which to me seems most strange. The
only place I enjoy looking at them at all is in our
own crescent bed, where they are near the green
brakes, and near both the blue and the yellow
irises. How fortunate it is, I have whispered to
myself, that they are far away from my roses. It
would be too bad to hurt Joseph’s feelings by let-

136 THE OPENING DAY FOR ROSES

ting him know that I am out of sympathy with his
flaunting beauties. Besides, these ideas of mine
about oriental poppies are, I am sure, not popular.
Nearly all the places about here show them scat-
tered among other hardy flowers. In “An Am-
bitious Boy’s Garden,” they are spoken of as
“Great Wonders.”

With May, the dogwood blossoms of the wood-
border passed away, the wild columbines ceased to
bloom, and the cultivated ones of the garden no
longer put out new flowers. The German irises
faded from our sight, and their places have been
supplied by the Japanese, which indeed are ex-
quisite. One clump of these irises is now showing
yellow blooms.

Mignonette and nasturtiums are beginning to
open in our garden. For both of them we have
an especial fondness, since Joseph sowed the seeds
out-of-doors in just the place where he wished them
to come up, without having had first to plant them
in the seed-bed. Of course, as these seedlings grew
Joseph thinned them out, that they might not over-
crowd each other. He spaced the mignonette
about twelve inches by twelve, the dwarf nastur-
tiums twelve inches by ten, and the climbing nas-
turtiums that are lifting themselves up on the wall,
about twelve inches by thirty. These plants are
large and require more room in which to spread out
than the other two.

June has also opened for us the blossoms of the

THE OPENING DAY FOR ROSES ISl

spireas. They are large shrubs, having flourished
several years under Miss Wiseman’s care. For-
tunately, the transplanting set them back but
slightly. The name bridal-wreath, commonly
given, is pretty for these shrubs, prettier far than
the scientific one of spirea Van Houttei, It is,
however, necessary to heed the scientific names of
plants, since often many varieties of the same
species are cultivated. Common and fanciful
names, gardeners tell us, lead to confusion, while
the use of scientific names saves one from misunder-
standing.

Joseph and I, therefore, are trying tO' fasten the
scientific names of some shrubs and plants in our
memories, along with a number of the special ex-
pressions we hear used by our gardener friends. A
few of these latter are “globular form,” “gross
feeder,” “prolific bloomer,” “very showy, and
rapid grower.” The last phrase, we notice, is an
especial favourite.

While I am writing, more roses in the fan are
opening. I shall go and sit on the rustic seat and
try tO' see if they move slowly or quickly in unclasp-
ing their sepals and disclosing their soft, fresh
petals. In the very heart of one there may be a
worm. If so, I must seek him out and put him to
destruction. Also there may be little green crawl-
ers on the rose-leaves, which I must find some way
of annihilating. Rose petals are much too sweet
eating for worms.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN
HERE is a strange, little comedy going on at

1 the Six Spruces. No bells have been rung
announcing it; no cards inviting one to the play
have been issued. Joseph and I, nevertheless, are
its spectators. It is a comedy played by three
actors, two chipping sparrows and a starling.

I.ong ago Joseph and I knew that a pair of
chipping sparrows had built a nest in one of Aunt
Amanda’s yellow bell shrubs. It was a small, del-
icate-looking nest, lined very neatly with horsehair.
Further than this we knew nothing, except that the
female chippy sat on the nest in all patience, await-
ing, we supposed, the time when tiny birds would
peep their heads out from the eggs. Finally the
young were hatched; for we saw the two chippies
busy about the triangle searching for food.

What we did not know, however, was that star-
lings sometimes lay their eggs in other birds’ nests ;
and that one had played this mean trick on the chip-
pies. They, poor things, were brooding over and

138

THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN 139

raising a strong young bird to which they were in
no way related.

Now the starling, though still young, has grown
larger than either Mother or Father Chippy. Their
own children have had to learn to feed themselves,
as the intruders demands have been sO' loud and so
persistent that the parent birds have had all they
could do to satisfy the strange fledgling. Its appe-
tite is enormous. From morning until evening it
implores the chippies for food. Poor little things 1
they are at their wits’ ends to account for its queer
ways. Surely no young chippy was ever so stout
and so emphatic as this bird.

The funny part of it all is that the starling ap-
pears to make the chippies do whatever 'it pleases.
It hops about after them on the turf of the triangle,
all the time calling to them, and reminding them
of its appetite. Sometimes both of the chippies are
feeding it at the same time. What can be their
opinion, Joseph and I wonder, of this bold young
bird that they have raised in their own nest? From
day to day, they go on devoting themselves to the
hearty creature, which before long will fly off in
search of other starlings, forgetting forever its.
chippy foster-parents.

I think it is more a tragedy than a comedy. The
chippies have a great burden on their shoulders
which they were never meant tO' bear ; and the star-
ling, if it knew the truth, would surely be ashamed
that its mother did not build her own nest, and

140 THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN

hatch out her young. Even if she had wished to
shirk her duty, Joseph says, she might have laid
her egg in the nest of a larger bird than little
Mother Chippy. For a bird of good size, the task
of bringing up the starling might not have been
so arduous.

Here now is Joseph wishing to tell me that the
starling has just chased the two chippies behind the
nasturtium vines of the wall, and is there scolding
them very loudly. Perhaps they will be glad when
it is old enough to fly away and leave them in peace.

As long as we lived in our old home, neither
Joseph nor I had any idea how much and how
often birds feed their young. We observed that,
as soon as the robins had hatched their eggs, the
male bird flew away from the nest, returning in
from three toi five minutes with a worm in his
mouth. This he divided between four open-
mouthed, begging offspring. Then away again
he flew, to return in about the same length of time,
ready to do the feeding over again. So these birds
kept on throughout the day. Joseph has watched
them by the hour, and now believes with Professor
Treadwell, who has gained his knowledge through
experimenting with young robins in captivity, that
each bird eats sixty-eight earthworms daily, or
forty-one per cent, more than its own weight. If
laid end to end, the Professor asserts, the length of
these worms would be about fourteen feet.

The robin’s nest is not a tidy little house, care-

THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN 141

fully lined with horsehair, like the chipping spar-
rows. It is made of sticks plastered together with
mud. How clever are the birds! The robins
knew undoubtedly that they could get plenty of
twigs and earth about here to construct their nest,
while the chippies perhaps spied out our old horse,
and noticed where the hairs had dropped from his
tail.

So far, I have written nothing about one striking
bit of beauty near the triangle. This is our
morning-glory vine. Joseph sowed Its seeds In
May, although he had formerly crossed off all an-
nual vines from his list; and since then we have
been delighted with the rapidity of its growth. The
flowers that are unfolding show us many colours
from white to crimson, and then on to purple. The
sight of morning-glories is not new to me, yet I
have never before looked at them closely enough
to see their full beauty. In shape they are quite
perfect, and of a texture so fine as to be almost
transparent. I am particularly pleased that we
have these vines.

Yet on seeing them Miss Wiseman exclaimed:
“Beware of those morning-glories.’*

Joseph and I wondered what she could mean.

“They are weeds,” Miss Wiseman explained.

“Weeds?” Little Joseph and I said together.

“They are indeed,” Miss Wiseman continued,
“and weeds of such determined growth that It Is
sometimes difficult to get rid of them. I have

14^ THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN

known farmers who had a greater dread of
morning-glories than of dandelions. They are
vines that resow themselves, and if you fail to keep
an eye on them they might even choke your ram-
bler rose near by, or your clematis paniculata.”

“But they are so beautiful,” I said.

“Weeds!” Miss Wiseman replied, and I felt
that for her the matter was ended.

Afterwards, Joseph and I put our heads together
and decided that we would certainly keep our eyes
open enough to prevent the morning-glories from
choking anything at the Six Spruces ; and that next
year we would sow quantities of them in a vacant
pasture back of the barn. There they may grow
as much and as fast as they please. Nothing will
be near enough for them to choke, except other
weeds which are ugly. A field completely filled
with morning-glory weeds would be, I think, most
lovely. Indeed, those that we have this first season
of our gardening have helped wonderfully to fill
up the bare places.

I do not like bare earth showing in a garden.
In most cases I think plants should be set closely
enough together to hide it from view. Sometimes
this is a wise arrangement, because they also hold
moisture better than when the sun is allowed to play
around them, touching and baking the soil at their
base.

One garden in Nestly Joseph and I dislike es-
pecially. It is about the size of our triangle.

THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN 14S

although of a different shape. The greater part
of it, however, has been laid out in flower-beds, in-
tersected by paths of gravel. Not a spear of grass
is to be seen. Now, wherever the planting has
been insufficient^ — -another term we have learned
from our neighbours — only the bare hard earth is
visible. In many places in this garden it appears
that the planting has been insufficient. Joseph says
he would sow morning-glory seeds, in spite of their
being weeds, for this one season at least, rather
than look at such unattractive beds of earth.

Whenever we see this garden, Joseph and I are
pleased that we left the triangle in turf, making
the beds only where they were needed. It would
please me best to plant flowers through the grass,
as Miss Wiseman had her snowdrops and other
early spring flowers, and as we have done with the
flowers at the point of the triangle. In some cases
this is not a wise plan, because, after Timothy has
cut the grass, which he must do frequently in sum-
mer, Joseph has to get down on his knees and use
the sickle all around the base of the flowers. The
free use of the lawn-mower is prevented by suich
planting, and, although the sickle cuts the grass
well, it consumes a great deal of Joseph’s time.

We are learning this year, however, that bare
earth can be sufficiently hidden by having border
plants about the beds, and the plants in them set
closely enough together. In the rosarium, I should
have liked the ground quite covered with ferns.

144 THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN

But ferns, alas ! have very large roots, which would
interfere with the nourishment of the roses. Be-
sides, as I have written, these whimsical beauties
thrive best when growing by themselves.

Many roses in the fan are now blooming. They
are perfuming the air and the house as well, since
each morning I have cut several with which to fill
vases in the library. The form of the fan is said
to be a success by our neighbours, who seem equally
sure that the roses have done remarkably well.
Naturally, I could not have had as large a rosarium
this year if it had not been for the many strong
plants which were given me by Mr. Hayden.

The ever-blooming or monthly roses which I
bought at the nursery, and which form the semi-
circular base of the fan, are not opening with the
lavish zest of the hardy perpetuals. Still, their
period of bloom will continue from month to
month, while those that are known as June roses
will only give an incidental flower now and then
after their great festival is over.

Among these so-called hardy perpetual roses, I
notice especially the Soleil d’Or, or golden sun.
Thus far, just one has opened. The outer petals
are pale yellow, but the smaller, crinkled ones of
the centre are a vivid yellow pink. It is like the
sun saying “good-bye.” The buds on this bush
look small, and some of the foliage is wilted. I
do hope it is not going to die. Mr. Hayden’s
gardener tells him that these roses are not the

Photograph by Alice Boughton

THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN 145

easiest of all to grow successfully. So I suppose
I shall pet and coax mine more than the others,
and I may even give them a taste of something they
like. As I told Joseph long ago, I feel sure I can
make roses grow because I love them so' much. It
would be most grievous not to see the Soleil d’Or
thriving. With the exception of the Marechal
Neil, I think it is the prettiest of all yellow roses.
The Persian yellow ones at Miss Wiseman’s are
not a shade that is attractive to me; and I do not
like their scent. I am glad we have none of them.

This year. May w^as such a warm and friendly
month that few roses were frost-bitten or damaged.
The gardeners, therefore, are saying that the little
insect called the aphis has not had its usual chance
to develop as a major pest. They seem to think
that, when roses are perfectly healthy and vigorous,
the aphis does not torment them so much, since it
likes only the taste of sap that is tainted with dis-
ease. I am, therefore, making an effort to keep
my roses well. Then, if the aphis comes in force,
it will have to be dealt with in some radical, now-
unknown-to-me manner.

Every girl or boy who has a garden will learn
sooner or later to dread the aphis. It is a mite
that, when only a day old, begins sticking its beak
through the rind of plants and sucking their sap.
Then gardeners resort to putting on destroying
powders, syringing or sprinkling with tobacco^

146 THE COMEDY OF THE GARDEN

water, only to find in the end that the aphis remains
master of the situation.

“Remember,” Miss Wiseman says, “that the
aphis is a leech. It sucks bad blood. Prevent its
coming by keeping your roses in good health.”

CHAPTER XIX

A DAY OF PLAY

Mr. PERCY is now home from college for the
long vacation. He comes very often to the
Six Spruces, helping us in many ways about the
garden. Yesterday he said that Joseph and I took
our triangle much too' seriously, and that we must
cease working so hard that we forget how to play.

“After all,” he said, “a garden is a place in
which first to play and afterwards to work.”

Joseph looked at him in amazement. I also
thought something must be the matter with him.
Could he, we wondered, have forgotten that the
weeds were growing faster than I can write the
fact down; that there were yellow leaves to be
picked off ; that our eyes had tO' be kept sharpened
for insect pests ; and that it was again time to- sow
the candytuft? Indeed, we felt that to-day Mr.
Percy was in a most frivolous mood.

“Those brakes we planted,” he exclaimed, “I
wonder if I could jump over their tops.”

“I should like to play ball with those poppies,”

147

148

A DAY OF PLAY

answered Joseph, turning suddenly playful him-
self.

Just then Queenie Perth appeared. She had her
butterfly net with her, and, darting across the tri-
angle, chased a painted beauty in and out among
the roses. Mr. Percy, Joseph and I were after
her in a second ; for, if the butterfly had given her
a chance, Queenie would have used her net, with-
out thinking of the harm she might* do to the roses.
Joseph was the one who caught her, and dragged
her out of the rose fan. She was as hard to catch
as a humming-bird.

Queenie was annoyed at being captured herself
before she had the butterfly.

“I will break the roses while you are asleep,” she
said to Joseph.

He smiled wisely, knowing well that the ‘‘sand-
man” calls for Queenie some time before he comes
to the Six Spruces.

Happily, she next saw twO' tiny red butterflies,
specked with black, playing tag with each other
over the open turf of the triangle. At once she
began to chase them, Joseph with her, using his
hat as a net. These tiny butterflies, however, are
clever. They continued their game so high in the
air that she could not reach them, and, when they
did swoop downward, it seemed as If It were only
to' tease her. Mr. Percy and I thought that both
she and Joseph would make themselves dizzy twirl-

A DAY OF PLAY

149

ing about after these butterflies. Before long, they
gave up the game and began chasing each other.

Mr. Percy and I walked about a little, and at
length sat down on the seat overlooking the rose
fan. When Mr. Percy is away, I think of much
that I wish to say to him, of questions that I have
to ask, and interesting things to relate ; but, when
he is here, they all seem to go very quickly out of
my head. Although the roses were before us, each
one blooming or showing swollen buds, I could re-
member nothing to say about them. I even forgot
to ask why the Soleil d’Or rose, which I love so
much, had always a few crinkled leaves in its centre,
as if an insect had eaten it. I did not ask him why
he supposed Joseph had wished to play ball with the
great oriental poppies.

After a while he asked me if I ever felt lonely at
the Six Spruces with only Little Joseph as a play-
fellow. I answered, “No, because I am always too
busy to feel lonely.” Then we sat still for a long
time without saying a single word.

A little red squirrel came to the edge of the wood-
border and nibbled at something he held in his paw.
A robin hopped along in front of us with a fat
fledgling by its side. Joseph fell down while chas-
ing Queenie, and she promptly sat on him ; the two
chippies, pursued by the scolding starling, crossed
the lawn while Mr. Percy and I sat watching.
Almost anything might have happened without my
thinking of a ’word to say. At length he took a

150

A DAY OF PLAY

note out of his pocket and gave it to me. It was
from his mother, asking us there the coming Sat-
urday afternoon to see the roses.

“But we have already seen them,” I said. “We
were looking at them only yesterday.”

“Oh,” Mr. Percy said, “that is only a way
mother has of getting the people together. I be-
lieve it is to be a garden party, or something of the
sort.”

I said I would tell Joseph.

“You must surely come, though,” Mr. Percy
continued, adding that, if we remained away, he
would think we would do less for him than for his
father.

I cannot remember then how it slipped out, but
I told Mr. Percy we thought his father very like
the wind. I was sorry the instant I said it, and felt
sure that Joseph would have known better. The
words, however, were spoken ; there was no calling
them back.

I never heard Mr. Percy laugh so much before.
Usually he is quiet, and a little grave. He seemed
not in the least offended, however, that we had
amused ourselves with this thought. When at
length he stopped laughing, there seemed to be
more things for each of us to talk about. He asked
a great many questions about our lives before we
came to the Six Spruces, and wished to know if we
had found it hard leaving all our old friends, and
coming where every one was strange to us. He

A DAY OF PLAY

151

was surprised that, at our old home, we had had no
garden.

“Then I think you have done wonders here,’’ he
said. “Nestly Heights and Miss Wiseman will
have to look out, or you will have the sanest garden
of the three.”

I did not quite understand then what he meant.
As far as I know, all gardens are sane.

“Anyway,” he continued, “you will have the
most Individual garden, because you are not led
by gardeners to do' a lot of unnatural things.”

I thought Mr. Percy little knew the trick Tim-
othy Pennell had of getting his own way In all that
he did at the Six Spruces. Then, as I was begin-
ning to tell him some of the many things that came
tumbling into my head, we heard loud shrieks from
Queenie Perth. W e ran to the moist point of the
triangle and found that, In her eagerness to catch
a butterfly which had alighted on one of the Irises,
she had fallen into a soft, spongy place where her
shoes had become covered with mud. During the
night a slight rain had fallen and the place was
wetter than usual. Joseph took tufts of grass and
wiped oft her shoes. In a few moments she was
as happy and smiling as ever.

Her loud crying, however, had brought Mrs.
Keith from the house. As Joseph and I saw her
coming towards us, we knew something important
was to happen, for on her head she had her best

152

A DAY OF PLAY

cap. It was one made of real lace and a velvet
bow.

“I thought for once you four children were hav-
ing a good play instead of worrying about weeds
and flower-seeds,” she said.

I hardly dared look at Mr. Percy. It seemed
too bad for him to hear his father called the wind,
and himself a child.

“You must come to the house now,” Mrs. Keith
said. “I will make Miss Queenie tidy in a min-
ute, and there is something waiting for us all.”

We hastened back then, hardly stopping to no^
tice the pretty baby’s breath on the way. Mr.
Percy sat Queenie on his shoulder, running with
her across the triangle. Joseph crept up to me.

“Do you suppose,” he asked, “that Mrs. Keith
is going to give us something tO' eat?”

“Yes,” I answered. The best cap could mean
nothing else.

We found that she had set a table within the
circle of the six spruces, that there were chairs
around it, and that all we had to do was to sit down
and wait for whatever was to be brought from the
house. This turned out to be strawberry-short-
cake, since June is the month for strawberries as
well as roses.

Within the six spruces, where we were having
our picnic, it was quite like a summer-house. The
carpet was of fragrant needle-shaped leaves, and

A DAY OF PLAY

15S

several large cones were lying about. Besides, it
was cool and shady in there.

“This is a good way to keep you children out of
the broiling sun,’’ Mrs. Keith said, and again I
hardly dared to look at Mr. Percy. “But,” she
continued, “as long as I was here with your Aunt
Amanda, I never set foot within these six trees.”

Joseph and I hoped she would do it soon again,
and that she would call us for strawberry-shortcake
every time. We never expect, however, to man-
age Mrs. Keith, although we sometimes try to per-
suade Timothy Pennell of our wisdom. Mrs.
Keith, we know, has an idea of bringing us up to
do credit to our great-aunt’s memory. Usually,
however, she is very kind and, now that the blush-
rose bush is in bloom, we have the courage to ask
for anything.

Joseph was very merry at the picnic, and so was
Mr. Percy. Queenie paid strict attention to the
shortcake.

“There is not a flower in here,” said Mrs. Keith,
“nor a butterfly for you children to wonder about.”

“There is a strawberry,” said Queenie, before
she had finished speaking.

“My children,” Mrs. Keith said to Mr. Percy,
and it was Joseph and me that she meant, “are
working with the flowers all day and dreaming
about them all night. Now, if I had my life to
live over again, I would study the great trees.”

15^

A DAY OF PLAY

“They are flowers grown up,” said Queenie, who
had about finished her strawberries.

“You will never grow up to look like a tree,”
Mr. Percy told her. “You will always be a
flower.”

“I shall be a lady,” said Queenie in a way that
made us all laugh.

Before we had quite finished, Mr. Hayden burst
into the summer-house. He had come up the long
drive outlined by spruces, where the bridal-wreath
is in bloom.

“I declare,” he said, “it is an ill wind that blows
nobody any good. Company drove me away from
Nestly Heights, and here I stumble in on a party.”

I had never seen Mr. Hayden more like the
wind than at that moment. I wondered if Mr.
Percy also noticed it. The trees appeared to wave
a little more, now that he had come.

He said that the shortcake was better than any
he had had at Nestly Heights, which so pleased
Mrs. Keith she cut him another slice.

“Been talking to my boy about roses or wall-
climbers?” he asked me.

I told him, “Neither.”

“Then it must have been about — ^about— well,”
he said, “I will tell you as soon as I finish eating
this shortcake.”

PLATE XXV. — "the LONG DRIVE OUTLINED BY SPRUCES WHERE THE BRIDAL-

WREATH IS IN BLOOM"^

CHAPTER XX

THE GARDEN GIVES ITS REWARD

A GOOD deal of the spring and early summer
work of sowing and transplanting that Joseph
had attended tO', is now beginning tO' reward him
plenteously. Since the first of June, the sweet peas
have been a delight to us both. They are bloom-
ing radiantly, showing large flowers, brilliant and
sweet. Every day I pick enough to fill several
large bowls for the library, besides having others
to give away. It seems a little strange that we
should have had such good fortune with these
flowers. In planting them Joseph merely fol-
lowed the directions of Miss Wiseman’s gardener,
and the seeds were also given him by her.

Yet Miss Wiseman says: “My sweet peas have
not done well this year.” And Mr. Hayden tells
us: “The sweet peas at the Heights are hardly
worth looking at this season.”

No one seems to know the reason of their failure
at these places, and all are astonished that Joseph’s
seeds have done so' well. Mr. Hayden declares
that, in a few years, no one will go to the Heights

155

156 GARDEN GIVES ITS REWARD

to look at his flowers at all, because those about the
triangle will be so much finer. Joseph is very
proud of having better sweet peas than any others
in the neighbourhood, although his success must be
only an accident.

Every m.orning, while the dew is still on them,
he picks a large bunch to carry over to Miss Wise-
man. Some mornings this bunch is all white; on
other days, it is solidly pink, green, or perhaps pur-
ple. On the morning of the Fourth of July, which
is now near, he will take three bunches, red, white
and blue, tied into one. Miss Wiseman always
invites a number of people to dine with her on that
day, and she likes to have the national colours on
the table. Timothy Pennell says he does not know
of another plant that sends out flowers of these
three, distinct colours with which to celebrate the
Fourth. Perhaps I omitted to say that, in early
June, Joseph again planted sweet peas along the
side of the trellis, opposite to that on which he put
them in March. We are thus hoping to have them
with us for some time to come.

Joseph and I are glad we bought larkspurs
{delphiniums) and planted them among the fern-
like meadow-rues. They are now beginning to
bloom, and the effect that we anticipated is being
more than realised. As I have already related, we
chose only blue larkspurs, which now, as they lift
their star-shaped flowers above the surrounding
green, remind me somewhat of the sea. This

WE LIKE TO OBSERVE THESE LARKSPURS

I - •

GARDEN GIVES ITS REWARD 157

thought, however, Joseph cannot understand. He
says that the sea, with its high waves and flying
spray, seems to him very far away from our tri-
angle. When he is in the garden with the ferns
and flowers, I think he quite forgets that the earth
has oceans and mountains.

Our larkspurs have shot up as high as three or
four feet, and overlook the garden. All of the
flowers of each stalk do not burst into bloom at the
same time. Those at the tip-top open first, and
then those lower down unfold. By the time the
last ones are blooming, the ones that came out first
have fallen, leaving their queer-shaped, upright
seed-pods to tell where once they were.

We like to observe these larkspurs. I think I
should know them now, no matter in what country
I saw them or under what conditions. They have
been given their names, we hear, on account of the
way the flowers extend at the back into a long spur,
like the hind claw or spur at the back of some
larks’ feet.

The only birds called larks that Joseph and I
know anything about in this part of the country
do not come into the garden — at least we have not
seen them about the triangle. They stay in the
meadows at a distance from the Six Spruces, and
build their nests on the ground. They are called
meadow-larks, although they are really not larks
at all.

Joseph found out about their nests one day when

158 GARDEN GIVES ITS REWARD

he was crossing the meadow between Miss Wise-
man’s place and Nestly Heights. He was walk-
ing along without especially noticing anything,
when suddenly, as if from under his foot, a meadow-
lark flew up in the air. He stooped at once to
search for the nest, since he knew his passing had
frightened the female bird and made her leave her
home and eggs. Even so, it was several minutes
before he located the nest; for it was sunken in
the turf and then hidden by a clump of grass lean-
ing over it like a roof. Five white eggs were with-
in, flecked with reddish brown and purple. Joseph
would never have seen the nest at all had not the
bird told its whereabouts by her quick, upward
flight. She could hardly help being frightened
when Joseph’s heavy shoe was so near covering her,
and no doubt her heart beat painfully.

Such larks as these are the only ones we know,
so it w^as rather a disappointment to hear from Mr.
Percy that they were not larks after the true order.
They are strong, fine birds, and we are now able
to tell them readily from all others by their yellow
breasts, marked strikingly with a black crescent.
Joseph can even imitate their clear, sharp note.
Mr. Percy says they are saying: “Spring o’ the
y-e-a-r. Spring o’ the y-e-a-r.” It seems odd he
should have noticed this, for one day I read that
these were exactly the words they sang.

Unless we wish to save the first crop of seed.
Miss Wiseman says that, as soon as our larkspurs

GARDEN GIVES ITS REWARD 159

have borne flowers, we must cut down their stalks
to the ground, so that others may come up and
take their places. I feel sorry their present blooms
must pass, but, as this happens with all flowers, it
surely will be a wise thing to get rid of their stalks.
The tall sticks bearing seed-pods are not a bit
pretty. Joseph thinks he will cut down most
of ours in order to have more flowers, but will
leave others to mature seeds. These seeds he will
gather, dry thoroughly, and afterwards sow in the
seed-bed. From Miss Wiseman also he has heard
that this is a better way to manage with larkspur
seeds than to save them over the winter and sow
them in the spring.

I seldom say anything to Joseph about seeds.
He alone attends to such matters. At first, the
idea of keeping plants from going to seed seemed
strange to me, as I had thought that the very ob-
ject of a plant’s existence was to make seed. When
they are allowed tO' do this early in the season, they
regard their work as done, and therefore cease
blooming; but when they are prevented from going
to seed, they know it quite well, and so keep on try-
ing to accomplish their object by sending out new
flowers.

In every way must we be alive to take the best
care of our larkspurs. They will live ten years
in a garden, and every year send up stalks of more
abundant flow'ers. As yet, no pest has attacked
our plants. We notice, nevertheless, that Miss

160 GARDEN GIVES ITS REWARD

Wiseman has put ashes about the base of hers as
a hindrance to a little white worm which, she says,
delights in chewing their roots. This, of course,
kills the plants.

Another strange thing in gardening is that a
white worm, with a mouth too tiny for one to see,
can cause the death of a beautiful larkspur four feet
in height.

Not far from the larkspurs at Miss Wiseman’s,
there are lovely early lilies in bloom. I do not
know that they have any English name other than
lilies. Mr. Bradley invariably refers to the va-
riety as Ulium candidum, or candidums for short.
I think he does this so that no one will make a mis-
take and imagine they are another kind of lily
which he expects to bloom later. These beautiful
fragrant candidums would be hardy in a garden
like ours, and Joseph is almost as disappointed
that we have none of them as he was about the
early snowdrops and crocuses. Like these spring
flowers, however, they come up from bulbs which
it is best to plant in the autumn. Indeed, in his
note-book, Joseph has already written about lily
bulbs and when and how to plant them.

For myself, I prefer not to see them planted so
near larkspurs and phloxes as they are at Miss
Wiseman’s. They have an expression so differ-
ent that I think they should be kept by themselves
in some green nook. This thought, however, I

PLATE XXVII. — PHLOX DRUMMONDI

/ .

■ I

GARDEN GIVES ITS REWARD 161

am reserving until the day that Joseph starts out
to plant lily bulbs about the triangle.

As I look at the ferns and brakes at the moist
point of the garden, it seems as if the world was
quite different, when we took them from the woods,
from what it is now, when so many plants are un-
folded. Then it was spring. Now that summer
is here, we remember those spring days, feeling
that we did not half know their loveliness. There
was something sweet in watching the tender twigs
growing. But bursting buds and the unfolding
flowers were the best of all. Now, almost every-
thing is well grown. Even our wood-border has
a dense look with its large, solidly green leaves.
The little spring flowers that bloomed so peacefully
there have been pushed quite out of sight by the
larger, bolder plants that came with summer.

We have had little rain, and the dust has sO' cov-
ered the trees as to take away their freshness. As
yet, this dusty look has not touched our garden.
Joseph and Timothy have been faithful in keeping
things well w^atered.

The sweet alyssum, candytuft, mignonette and
the phlox Drummondi have been saved from going
to seed by having their flowers nipped off as soon
as they began to fade. In consequence, they are
all still blooming cheerfully. Of course, this re-
quires a great deal of work. It is, however, work
that both Joseph and I like. We do it towards
twilight, when the sun has ceased sending upon

162 GARDEN GIVES ITS REWARD

us its burning rays. Sometimes Mr. Percy comes
and helps us ; but we never allow Timothy Pennell
to spend his time over anything so simple.

Mr. Hayden has taken both Ben and Ha-rry away
to the mountains. At Nestly Heights there are
now left only Mr. Percy and his mother. We
have missed the visits of Mr. Hayden very much,
as he always has surprises and secrets up his sleeves
for us. Joseph hopes he will soon come back,
bringing a strong northeast wind with him from
the mountains, for we are sadly in need of rain.
But I have always noticed that Mr. Hayden talks
about our Aunt Amanda whenever he is in one of
his northeast moods.

Before Ben and Harry left for the mountains,
Joseph grew fond of them. He found that, al-
though they neither understand nor love flowers,
the3r are extremely wise about catching fish. They
know every good stream near Nestly, the names of
the different fish, and the kind of bait each prefers.
Little Joseph frequently left the garden to go with
them, and every time he returned he seemed to
think them finer boys than before. They now
stand very high in his esteem.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DROUGHT

Ever since Joseph and I began our garden, we
have thought of the sun and the clouds as our
helpers. But now we no longer know what to be-
lieve about them, since suddenly they have turned
most unfriendly. The July sun, instead of merely
warming the soil and coaxing the plants to grow,
has become a fiery enemy. Its touch scorches and
burns. The clouds no longer send kind rains, but
pass and repass each other on a sky so clearly blue
that it looks as if they had forgotten the needs of
the earth.

“The drought has begun,” Timothy Pennell
told us.

“The drought is upon us,” say the gardeners at
Nestly Heights and at Miss Wiseman’s; while
Joseph and I gaze at each other and wonder what
we are to do. A sadly withered look is to be no^
ticed about many of our vines and plants : even
the shrubs are showing their need of a good, long
drink of rain-water.

Of course, every evening at twilight Joseph or

163

164

THE DROUGHT

Timothy plays the hose on the near-by spots of the
triangle, and takes buckets of water on a wheel-
barrow to the beds farther away. Otherwise,
many of our plants must already have died. It is
even necessary to water the grass, to keep the little
blades from turning yellow.

I have been especially careful to keep the roses
well watered, even though many of them have
passed the height of their bloom. The Clios are
still showing great profusion of flowers. They
seem determined to have more of their blossoms in
the fan than any offered by their neighbours. These
Clio roses, as I mentioned before, were a very deli-
cate pink when they first opened. Now, however,
they have faded almost to white. Joseph thinks
that this has been done by the fiery sun; but Mr.
Percy, who I am sure knows best, says it is the
habit of Clio roses to become pale as they grow old.
I had never before thought of a rose growing old.
I had noticed their fading and dying, but it seems
strange to think that they do so because they are
growing old. Roses always seem young to me,
while pansies, I think, have an old look.

I am almost sorry I planted so many Clio' roses
near those of deeper hue. j^nother year I shall
put them in a bed by themselves, away from the
fan. Now, when looking over the rosarium, it
is difficult not to give them too much attention, and
to notice too little the more beautiful monthly
roses.

THE DROUGHT

165

Joseph’s crimson ramblers along the wall are
blooming. They have not grown very high this
first year, although we are pleased tO' see them well
covered with buds. We have kept them watered
that they might not feel the drought ; nevertheless,
I cannot help thinking that they know all about it.
Plants are not easily fooled. They have a look
which plainly says: “You can water us as much
as you like, but you cannot make us forget this
severe drought.”

We wonder how long the drought is going to
last, and wake each morning only to see the sky
more intensely blue than it was the day before, and
to find the sun more burning. Joseph says that
such a thing as a drought was never mentioned in
“An Ambitious Boy’s Garden,” yet surely no one
could have a garden many seasons without having
to contend with one. In this part of the country,
Mr. Hayden says, a drought comes, almost as- reg-
ularly as the aphis. It is one of the things that
gardeners have to endure with patience. After all,
I tell Joseph, it is much better than if we had had
a flood washing all the plants away. If the clouds
sent us toO’ much rain, we should be quite helpless ;
while we can combat a drought by artificial water-
ing. Still, it is no end of a nuisance. The most
discouraging part of it all is to hear our neighbours
say that the drought has just begun. “If it would
only end to-morrow!” Joseph and I exclaim each
evening. Then on the morrow we rove about,

166

THE DROUGHT

noticing where and what we shall have to water
in the twilight.

When watering our plants, we have learned not
to give them just a little sprinkling and then to
move on to the next. Instead, we have divided
our garden into three sections, which we water in
turn, giving each a thorough soaking. We try to
have the water get way down into the earth, about
the plants’ roots, as it is then likely to keep them
moist for some hours. A light sprinkling, such as
Queenie Perth gives her flowers, does them hardly
any good. It dries quickly, and helps the sun to
bake the soil harder about the roots.

A new garden feels the drought more than an
old one like Miss Wiseman’s. There the shrubs
and plants which have been growing for years form
such thick masses of growth that they hold the
moisture much longer than a garden where plants
are fewer and not so well grown. Almost every
day Miss Wiseman comes to the Six Spruces and
says : “Now, children, don’t be discouraged about
this drought. Keep your plants alive this year,
and next season they themselves will be able to help
you.”

I like the thought that, later on, the plants will
help us; because, now while they are young and
scarcely at home in the garden, we are caring for
them. It gives one a feeling of intimacy with the
flowers, as though they understood one a little.

Some of our plants have borne but few flowers

THE DROUGHT

167

this year. Still, these few have told us that the
plants had taken root, and that they are content
with us. Sometimes we are almost as happy over
a few flowers as if we had a hundred, feeling con-
vinced that, as the plants grow old, they will bloom
more abundantly.

Joseph and I have the same desire about the Six
Spruces that Mr. Hayden has about Nestly
Heights. This is the wish to have it appear as
beautiful as possible, or, as Mr. Hayden says, to
have it give a good account of itself.

Besides watering the garden these dry days,
Joseph and I are busy keeping the soil about our
plants well stirred and loose. Usually, Joseph
rakes about them, but, in places where he cannot
reach easily, I take the trowel or a little pick, and
stir up the earth very lightly, being careful not to
go down deep enough to touch any of the roots.
This loose earth acts as a mulch and keeps them
from feeling the drought as much as they otherwise
would.

Lately I have almost lived in my blue-jean
frocks, there having been so much to do in the
garden. Sometimes it is very hot. The sun pours
down and its heat burns me as much almost as if I
were a plant. I can run into the house, though, or
to the shade of the wood-border when I am weary,
while the poor plants must always stay in their
places. Joseph is like a sunflower. The heat

168

THE DROUGHT

seems to disturb him very little, but every day he
turns a trifle browner.

We can never be too glad that we have the wood-
border on one side of our garden, and that the point
of the triangle is naturally moist. Although ferns
and irises feel the drought more than many other
plants ours are still holding themselves up and look-
ing well. Unless we have rain soon, however, we
must water them more freely. This will be some^
what awkward, as they are in the part of the gar-
den to which water has to be carried in buckets.

Aunt Amanda had but one hydrant at the back
of the house, and the hose from it will not reach
all over the garden. In the future, Joseph and I
plan to put in another hydrant farther down the
triangle, to do away with the labour of carrying
water. Just when this “future” will be I do not
know, but I hope before another season when there
is a long drought.

Joseph’s ten-weeks stocks have bloomed early.
They come from the seeds that he started in one
of the window-boxes early in March, and now, in
the long bed by the wall, are showing us masses of
pink, purple, yellow and white. We do not know
how they like the drought. We try simply not to
mention it in their presence.

It means a good deal of work to sow annual seeds
each year, tO' watch that they grow well, thin them
cut, sometimes transplant them, and generally look
after their comfort until they bloom. But, when

THE DROUGHT

169

all is done, they send out their flowers abundantly,
as well in a new garden as in one centuries old.
Our stocks, Joseph says, are quite as fine as Miss
Wiseman’s, and much better grown than the few
at Nestly Heights. For this reason I like annuals.
Those that we have planted this year have bloomed
as well as they ever will, because it is the only year
that they will bloom at all. The first frost will kill
them.

Our perennials have also done well, we are told ;
but they have always made us remember that this
is their first season, and that we must not expect to
find out how gloriously they really can bloom until
next year, or even the year after.

Every season we will plant ten-weeks stocks.
This much is decided. I like the soft, pretty col-
ours of their flowers, and the way they hold their
stalks erect. At twilight, when we are working
about them, they send out a fragrance more notice-
able than under the burning sun. It seems as if
they wished to let us know their gratitude for giv-
ing them drink in this dry weather.

It must have been in a moment of inspiration
that Joseph planted these stocks where he did, be-
cause, if they had been put along the border, as he
first planned, they would have grown up and hid-
den the plants behind them. Fortunately, he set
them well back in the bed, three rows of them,
which sometimes break the straight line and form
clumps. It was no doubt accidental that they came

170

THE DROUGHT

up in just this way. The effect, nevertheless, is
lovely. We have so many of them that I have
picked them to give away and to make bouquets for
the house.

I am also giving away a great many nasturtiums.
These vines have grown and bloomed splendidly.
Joseph and I count them also among the annuals
that we will have each year as long as we have a
garden. I love the soft green of their leaves and
the many gay colours of their flowers. Every time
I look at them, I see combinations of red and yel-
low which I had never before noticed.

As Mrs. Keith anticipated, she sometimes picks
the leaves of the dwarf nasturtiums and prepares
them as a salad, or else mixes them with other
greens. In fact, eating these fresh salads from
our flower garden makes us wonder if we would
not like to have a vegetable garden at the Six
Spruces.

Most children, Mrs. Keith tells us, would have
thought about planting peas and com before they
troubled themselves about flowers.

PLATE XXVIII. — NASTURTIUMS

CHAPTER XXII

OUR PHLOXES AND HELIOTROPE

IT still seems curious to me that Little Joseph is
the only boy in Nestly who owns a large gar-
den and who really loves to work in it. I notice
that there is room for gardens about the homes of
most other boys, even though some of them might
have to be small. Boys, I think, do not know the
real pleasure there is in gardening, nor the many
delightful things they might learn about Nature
when working so close to the soil. Of course, it is
right for boys to play ball and tennis, and to enjoy
themselves in the open. Still, they cannot do these
things every hour of the long summer. In the
time they waste they might almost make and tend
a small garden. It is true that few boys of Jo^
seph’s age have as large a place as the Six Spruces
to roam over; but, even so, I do- not think they
take advantage of the ground they have at hand.

Girls also are very slow at making gardens, and
this astonishes me more than the lack of interest
among boys. Indeed, Queenie Perth and I are the
only ones in Nestly who work in our own gardens.

171

17^ OUR PHLOXES AND HELIOTROPE

Queenle’s garden is very different from my ro-
sarium. It is merely a small patch of ground on
which her aunt allows her to sow seeds, and this
Queenie declares she does so the butterflies will
come and stay near her. Nevertheless, her little
garden is pretty, although, should I relate all the
colours she has there crowded together, it would
sound like a description of Joseph’s coat. I do' not,
of course, mean any coat belonging to Little Joseph.

Queenie thought nothing of stealing the wren’s
egg and then breaking it. Yet she will never pick
one of the flowers that grow in her own garden.
She says it hurts them. We have both noticed that,
as soon as Queenie begins to understand about a
flower, to sow its seeds, and water and care for it
herself, she begins to love it very dearly, almost as
well, in fact, as she does the butterflies. To the
flowers in her aunt’s garden, or to those on our
triangle, she pays small attention, appearing even
not to see them. This, I think, is because they
are not her own, and have given her no trouble.

She told Little Joseph that she loved the sweet-
williams in her garden best of all, because one day
she saw three yellow butterflies visiting them at the
same time. She never misses seeing a pretty but-
terfly, and I have also watched her playing with
large, bright-coloured beetles in her hand.

Our phloxes made Queenie open her eyes when
she came last to see us. She called them flower
butterflies, and I agreed with her that these plants,

OUR PHLOXES AND HELIOTROPE 173

which now are blooming in several places about
the triangle, have done more to cheer up the Six
Spruces than any others we have had. When Jo-
seph planted them, I had no idea how beautiful
their colours would look in bold masses. Besides,
the clusters of flowers are large and very brilliant.
Mr. Percy is likewise enchanted with our phloxes.
He tells us that we can keep them in flower until
nearly the time of frost, by clipping off their heads
after they have passed their first bloom. At pres-
ent, it makes me shudder to think of clipping them.

Although these phloxes grow very tall, they do
not require to be held up by stakes. This is an-
other of their good points. So far, I have never
seen mere stalks that were things of beauty in a
garden. Those of the phloxes have a way of
standing up erect by themselves, and, although I
still think them plain and prim, all is overlooked
now that they are so gloriously crowned with blos-
soms.

While I wonder why more girls and boys in this
country do not have gardens, as is general with the
children in England, it would cause me greater
astonishment to hear of a child’s garden without
phloxes. We have found them very simple to
grow, and from now on they will increase, so that
at the end of three seasons, when we shall have to
divide their roots, we shall likely have three times
as many to set out as are now in the garden. Then
Mr. Hayden would at least be right in saying that.

174 OUR PHLOXES AND HELIOTROPE

if our Aunt Amanda returned, she would not know
the Six Spruces for her old home.

Although Joseph and I watch the garden closely,
there are sometimes things going on there that we
know nothing about. This morning, while I was
picking off a few dead leaves in the rose fan, I spied
a chippy bird’s nest closely tucked in one of the
bushes. It was quite empty. In fact, this nest
had been made, the eggs laid, and the young fed
and taught to fly, all without our knowledge. We
do not remember even to have seen the chippies
about the rosarium. I do not mean that there
have not been many chipping sparrows at the Six
Spruces. They are as numerous here as robins.
But we have noticed none that awaked our sus-
picions concerning the nest in the rosarium.

These birds must have managed their building
and housekeeping very cleverly. Every day I have
been among the roses, but no mother bird flew out
in wild alarm, nor did I hear her mate calling to
her. Perhaps they were wdse enough to know that
Joseph and I would do them no harm, and there-
fore they made no sign at our coming and going.
They must have brought the horsehair, with which
the nest was lined, from near our barn; yet Joseph
did not notice them about there. He is astonished
that a whole family has been raised on the triangle
without his knowledge. We cannot imagine what
will happen next.

Sometimes we wonder what goes on in our gar-

OUR PHLOXES AND HELIOTROPE 175

den at night when the stars are keeping watch. We
know that moths come out then which are not here
in the day; and perhaps some little animal comes
to the edge of the wood-border, and looks at our
flowers with his bright eyes. In the mornings we
find our garden glistening with dew which no one
sees forming; and twice in the soft earth I have
noticed footprints that were unknown tO' me.

The most dreadful thing in the world to hear at
night is a screech-owl, to be awakened by its moan-
ing, piercing cries, and to- be obliged tO' listen to it
until near dawn. Lately Mr. Percy told us that,
although these birds make such a melancholy noise
at night, they should be welcome because they eat
mice and help to keep the heliotrope from being de^
voured by cutworms.

These hateful cutworms come out at night. In
the daytime, like screech-owls, they hide themselves
away. It would be hopeless, therefore, for Joseph
and me to try to pick them from the heliotrope
leaves which suit their appetites so well. The
screech-owl knows their ways, and in the night,
when they are having a good feast, this sharp-eyed
bird catches and eats them, and all to the benefit of
our heliotrope.

I wonder if I have written before about the helio-
trope-bed. It is one of the smaller beds of the tri-
angle in which, in May, we set three do'zen plants
bought from the nursery. We kept their buds
nipped off until they were well rooted, and since

176 OUR PHLOXES AND HELIOTROPE

then the bed has been a mass of deliciously scented
flowers. The border plant used for this bed was
sweet alyssum, which, since Joseph has sown it in
succession, has kept constantly in bloom. Nearly
every one that comes to the Six Spruces admires
this bed of flowers. At Miss Wiseman’s and at
Nestly Heights, there is no especial place devoted
to heliotrope, a few of them being merely set in
here and there among other plants. No one, there-
fore, can get the great wafts of fragrance from
them that we do from our flowers, nor do they ap-
pear so conspicuously beautiful. Sadly enough,
this heliotrope-bed has been rather an extravagance
for Joseph and me. We had to buy the plants, and
they will endure but for this one season. As soon
as frost comes we must bid them good-bye.

Mrs. Keith knows an excellent way of keeping
heliotrope fresh in the house. Before we pick it
we carry to the bed a small pail of hot water, in
which the stems are plunged as soon as they are cut.
Later, the flowers are arranged in the house, where
I fill the bowls and vases with the same water. By
treating heliotrope in this way we have had it re-
main fresh four and five days.

This morning, when Timothy came to cut the
lawns and trim around the flower-beds, he said that
he felt rain would be along in about twenty-four
hours. Mrs. Keith did not agree with him; so
now Joseph and I are waiting to find out which of
them is right in the matter. We hope it will be

PLATE XXIX. — COSMOS

OUR PHLOXES AND HELIOTROPE 177

Timothy. To us the sky still looks very blue, while
the sun is bright and intense.

The spruces and evergreens are feeling this heat.
They have now a dark, rusty look, while the en-
chanting spring growth, which so enlivened them,
has turned the same colour as the rest of the trees.
It is only by looking sharply that we can tell how
much each spray has grown this year. However,
we think little of evergreens in mid-summer. Only
when winter comes, and they are still green, do we
turn to them in gratitude.

The cosmos that Joseph sowed in the seed-bed
the very last of April, and transplanted later to the
long bed in front of the wall, is now blooming quite
lustily. The colours of the flowers are pink or
white. In staking these plants Joseph exercised
his ingenuity, hiding the supports so' skilfully
among the stalks of feathery foliage that they are
seen but little.

It is amazing to me that these plants should have
grown so high in such a short time. Many of them
are taller than I. If we are to keep them with us
until frost we must prevent them from making
seeds. I like these cosmos flowers. They have
a clean, cheerful look, something like the daisies
that bloom in the field. ^

I once thought that flowers had nothing to attend
to in life, but I now find that they have a great deal
with which to concern themselves. First of all,
they have to adapt themselves to the soil where

178 OUR PHLOXES AND HELIOTROPE

people plant them. And to have the right kind
of soil for flowers is something that few boys or
girls think enough about. They have to grow,
even when the clouds are unkind and send no rain.
They have to heal up many wounds which are made
by gnawing insects; and they have to open their
flowers. There are also seeds to ripen, that they
may be scattered over the ground. But in our
garden, plants must be very sharp to get ahead of
Little Joseph when he wishes to interrupt this good
intention.

I often feel sorry for them. Surely, they must
be discouraged when flower after flower is cut off
and no seed has been made. They cannot know
that Joseph is luring them on to bloom until Jack
Frost steps into the garden.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE END OF THE DROUGHT

L ast night the rain came. This morning it is
falling in torrents. If it continues long it
may overwhelm everything in the garden. Joseph
and I can only stand by the window and watch as it
descends violently on our flowers. Besides being
drenched, the cosmos are being tossed about until
Joseph wonders if their stakes will hold firmly in
the ground; the nasturtiums have wisely tucked
their flowers under their leaves, so that few of them
are in sight. The border plants are deluged up
to their heads In water, while the vines on the wall
have a limp, retreating look. I scarcely have ven-
tured to look towards the rose fan. But the
phloxes are standing the storm remarkably well.
They seem to say: “Come on, good rain, we have
been without you long enough not to criticise youir
roughness now that you have come.’*

It is not only that the rain is falling heavily this
morning, but the wind is howling over the garden
as I have never heard it before. Even our house
trembles now and then in response to its batterings.

179

180 THE END OF THE DROUGHT

This, however, does not alarm Joseph and me. It
has stood here too long and weathered too many
gales to topple over now. But by the wood-border
we hear crack ! crack ! and know that the limbs of
trees are falling.

“Have they stinjck the hepaticas?” Joseph asks.
“Do you think the wild gingers are Injured?”

I cannot answer. It Is alarming to think what
such a storm as this can do.

One curious thing Is the way the storm appears
to have taken the colours out of the garden. The
yellow popples, which have been like flecks of gold,
look grey and dull.

“Will It last long?” Joseph asks anxiously, and
I answer, “I do not know.”

The poor birds ! where have they gone? There
is not a sign of one anywhere. The bird-houses
are swinging from the trees as never before, so- 1 do
not think they are inside. Probably they have
hidden themselves somewhere under the leaves of
the trees.

“The only birds that would feel at home In our
garden now,” Joseph says, “would be water fowls.”

We left the window to take breakfast, during
which time the wind howled piteously In the chim-
ney. Perhaps we should have noticed It less had
it not been for the garden.

“Timothy Pennell was right,” Joseph said to
Mrs. Keith. “The rain is here In less than twenty-
four hours.”

THE END OF THE DROUGHT 181

“It will be gone soon/’ she stated. “It is too
heavy to last long.”

This was encouraging news, although just at
that moment it was coming down harder than ever.
Then lightning sped through the sky and a great
roll of thunder passed overhead. I have never
liked lightning, not that I am afraid of its striking
me, but it makes my head feel as though a tight
band were drawn about it.

“If it is as sharp as that this evening,” Joseph
said, “we must try tO' photograph it.”

“The lightning?” I asked. I felt indeed more
like taking refuge in the dark closet.

“It is stupid to be afraid of lightning,” Joseph
said. “Mr. Percy has told me how to photograph
it when it comes in the evening. I am sure, if you
once try to do it, you will never be afraid of it
again.”

“It has struck near-by,” Mrs. Keith called
sharply, as again another roll of thunder followed
the lightning. “It has struck one of the spruces !”
she cried, having gone to a front window to look
out.

Joseph and I did not know what to do. We
would rather the storm had devoured the whole
garden than to have had it harm one of the six
spruces. But what Mrs. Keith said was true,
although we could not see then how much damage
had been done. We wondered if the storm had
had the special intention of killing one of our

182 THE END OF THE DROUGHT

spruces, for immediately after the work was done
it began to subside and the sky to clear. A tiny
bit of blue appeared overhead, and gradually spread
until it occupied a considerable space in the sky.
Instead of falling as one solid sheet, the rain now
came gently. We could almost count the drops.
The wind also calmed down and blew lightly, as
if, having had its mad fun, it was ready to assist
things in getting dry again.

But the striking of one of our spruces had so de-
pressed Little Joseph and me that we found it hard
to rejoice in the clearing of the storm,.

“Perhaps the damage will not prove so serious
after all,” Mrs. Keith said. “Timothy is a splen-
did hand at doctoring trees. Once that old locust
tree near the gate was struck; but he managed to
keep it alive, although since then it has never been
as beautiful as before.”

Almost before she had finished speaking, we
noticed Joseph running across the front lawn to the
six spruces. He had slipped out without our see-
ing him go. We called him, but he did not hear.
When he came back, he said that the trunk of the
tree had been burst open, just as if something inside
of it had exploded. He was sure it could not live.
Mrs. Keith urged again that we must not despair
until after we had heard what Timothy had tO' say
on the subject.

Joseph then changed his clothes, for even his
short run out-of-doors had soaked him completely.

THE END OF THE DROUGHT 183

and at once began to read in “An Ambitious Boy’s
Garden.” I think he was trying to forget about
the poor spruce. I rearranged the flowers In the
house, clipping their stems and giving them fresh
water, a thing, in fact, I do every morning. At
length I looked out at the garden, Joseph being still
deep in his book.

The first things that caught my eyes were the
yellow popples, the ones that grow on the highest
part of the slope towards the woods. They were
not in the least Injured by the storm. Instead,
their golden cups gleamed as high and bright as
ever. It seemed as If they were climbing towards
the sun. I looked long at these poppies, recalling
how abundantly Joseph had scattered their seeds
when we were still fearful of frosts; how busy he
was at one time thinning them out, so that only
the strongest plants should be retained; and how,
as they grew and bloomed, they changed the whole
look of the places about them. Great drops of
water were still lingering on their leaves and flow-
ers.

It seems as if these California poppies had
wished to bloom themselves to death. How they
will look after they have gone to seed, I do not
know. Surely, Joseph will not have to buy poppy
seed another spring. I can see that their pods
hold it in plenty. He will gather from them all
he has need of, while they will very likely assist
him by resowing themselves. Next spring Joseph

184 THE END OF THE DROUGHT

will merely have to rake and soften the surface
of the ground where they have been to give them
a chance to come up.

From these yellow poppies I glanced towards
the Shirley poppies lower down the triangle, near
the moist point. In spite of the rain, they also'
were holding themselves up fairly well. Yet, as
I looked at them closer, I saw that havoc had been
made among their flowers. The ground beneath
them was strewn with their tissue-like petals. Only
the blooms that had barely opened were left to
show their colours. These Shirley poppies began
blooming before the yellow ones. Yet I do not
think that Joseph sprinkled their seeds any earlier
in the season. Probably it is their habit to be
quicker in what they do.

Joseph has the greatest fancy for Shirley pop-
pies, as I think every one must who has a garden.
At first his disappointment was keen, because it
seemed useless to cut them for house bouquets.
They wilted at once. Now, however, we have
learned from Miss Wiseman the right way to
gather them, that they may hold up their heads
for at least two days. We take a large bucket of
hot water to the bed, as we do when picking helio-
trope, and plunge the stems into it deeply as they
are cut. Usually we let them remain in this water
for about an hour, or until they are thoroughly
soaked. After that I arrange them in tall vases.
We pick only the flowers that have newly opened,

V K

PLATE XXX

THEIR GOLDEN CUPS GLEAMED AS BRIGHTLY AS EVER'

THE END OF THE DROUGHT 185

and usually do it early in the morning while the
dew is still on them.

When these beautiful Shirley poppies have fin-
ished blooming, Joseph intends to pull them up, and
to plant in their places some of the late asters that
are now growing in the seed-bed. In gardening, I
notice, one has not only to do* the spring planting,
but, after certain flowers have bloomed, they must
be taken up, that their places may be filled with
others.

The rain played sad tricks with the cosmos, the
golden glow and the hollyhocks. It may be that
Joseph will be able to lift them up from the ground,
where they now lie prostrate, and to tie them again
to their stakes. I need not have had sO’ much fear
about my rosarium. The bushes have stood the
gale splendidly. And the heliotrope, although
considerably flattened, is already beginning to raise
itself, looking wonderfully fresh and sweet.

In some way of its own, the wind must have
taken hold of the climbing nasturtiums and torn,
them down from the wall, while the other vines
have been disturbed but little. Truly, the storm
has shown originality, in leaving some things and
destroying others. The prim phloxes appear as
smiling as formerly, while one of our great spruces
will probably die.

On the whole, I thought it fortunate that not
more damage had been done by the storm in the
garden. I did not venture along the wood-border,

186 THE END OF THE DROUGHT

since there it was still extremely wet, but I returned
to the house to cheer Little Joseph.

He was not reading ‘‘An Ambitious Boy’s Gar-
den,” as when I went out; but entertaining Mr.
Hayden, who had returned early in the morning
from the mountains, and who' then had hastened
to the Six Spruces, he said, to hear how we had
stood the gale. It did seem remarkable that he
should have come back with such rain and wind.
All the time he had been away there had scarcely
been breeze enough in the garden tO' toss a dead
leaf, while with his return there had come a hurri-
cane. Joseph and I began to think there was some
reason outside of our joke in having thought Mr.
Hayden so like the wind.

He and his boys had enjoyed themselves in the
mountains, he said, but he was glad to be home
again. Joseph had told him about the spruce tree
before I came in from the garden.

“The whole character of Nestly will change,”
he said, “if one of those spruces falls. You had
better let me talk with your man Timothy about
what can be done.”

Just why Mr. Hayden had wished to do so,
neither Joseph nor I understood. He is, however,
a man whom it would be impossible to refuse any-
thing.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE FALL OF ONE OF THE SPRUCES

Although offered all sorts of rewards by
Mr. Hayden, Timothy could do nothing to
save the sixth spruce tree. The gardeners from
Nestly Heights came to look at it, and also Mr.
Bradley from Miss Wiseman’s. They all talked
together, and then together they shook their heads.
The stroke of lightning had entered at the base of
the tree, and had then run up the stem and burst
it open. The 'wound was too great to heal. This
has been our first grief at the Six Spruces. Even
Mr. Hayden did not venture to speak of our Aunt
Amanda. As yet the tree has not fallen, but some
day, when Joseph and I are away, Timothy is going
to take it down.

Our garden cheerfully rebounded after the storm,
and the birds returned in great numbers, appearing
hungrier and more active in catching worms than
before. Even the screech-owl made his moaning
noise from the wood-border in the evening, to as-
sure us perchance that he had not been drowned.
The foxgloves in the garden are still very lovely.

187

188 FALL OF ONE OF THE SPRUCES

They began to bloom In June, and now in late July
they still hang abundantly with their drooped bells.
It was Joseph’s intention to have no biennials in
the garden, since the greater number of them must
be taken care of for two years before blooming,
dying directly afterwards. Foxgloves, however,
are hardy biennials, and although they do not bloom
until the second year of their growth, they then
are considerate enough to sow their seeds for an-
other year.

We should have had no foxgloves this year had
it not been for Miss Wiseman. She gave us a
number of plants that were raised from seed last
year, which therefore were ready to send out their
first summer blooms for us at the Six Spruces. They
were a trifle slow in getting started, perhaps on ac-
count of their spring transplanting ; but when once
under way, they grew well, and since then have
delighted us with their blossoms.

Our flowers are mostly pale lavender, although
a few of them are white. The plants stand about
three feet high. We have them placed not far
from the larkspurs, where there is an abundance of
green. Every time I look at them I think them
prettier than before.

“We must always have them in the garden,” Jo-
seph says, “now that we have become acquainted
with them.”

To keep them with us he will first let them seed
themselves in their own way. This means that we

THE FOXGLOVES ARE STILL LOVELY'

FALL OF ONE OF THE SPRUCES 189

must not pick their stalks of bloom for the sake
of having flowers in the house. In the spring,
when the little plants appear, he will transplant
them to some place where they can grow as strong
as they please. Having sown their seeds in the
autumn, they will bloom a little even this first year,
although the plants will not be very tall. Then,
about the last of September, Joseph will again take
them up, and put them in the places where he
wishes them to appear at their best the following
summer. When he sets the young plants out to
grow, he will put them about six inches apart in a
trench made rich by having had a layer of manure
placed under the soil, and he will keep the earth
about the roots quite moist.

We have no canterbury-bells in our garden.
They also are hardy biennials, and quite enchant-
ing. We have admired them at Miss Wiseman’s
and at Nestly Heights. Next spring Joseph will
probably put a few of their seeds in the bed, and
afterwards treat them in the same way that he does
the foxgloves. It will not be much more trouble,
he says, for him to raise both foxgloves and can-
terbury-bells than it would be to grow one or the
other of them alone.

There is about these flowers a sweet, old-fashioned
air that we like to see in our garden. I tell Joseph
we must never try to make things appear as formal
here as they do at Nestly Heights.

To-day we are going to Mr. Hayden’s for

190 FALL OF ONE OF THE SPRUCES

luncheon, after which I suppose I shall walk in the
garden with Mr. Hayden and Mr. Percy, while
Joseph plays tennis with Ben and Harry. Mrs.
Hayden is very kind when we are there, and is
especially fond of Joseph; but she is a delicate
woman, and seldom walks farther with us than the
first terrace.

I was most surprised when I saw Joseph ready
to go. He had on a very silky necktie, of a red as
bright as it possibly could be. When he saw my
eyes fastened on it, he said that Queenie Perth had
knitted it for him and that she had brought it over
early in the morning. It was beautifully made.
I do not think I could have done it so well. Long
Joseph and I found out that Queenie has a
great deal in her head besides chasing butterflies.
She is a very helpful and wise little girl. Some-
times she says things that sound quite like her aunt,
but this is undoubtedly because she has been with
Miss Wiseman constantly, and had few playmates.
This summer she has grown a good deal, and is
much stronger than she was when we came to live
at the Six Spruces.

As I supposed we would, after we had had lunch-
eon we began our walk about the garden. Besides
white, there are only yellow pansies at Nestly
Heights. I have never before seen so many white
pansies as were there to-day. Mr. Hayden says
this is a new notion of his up-to-date gardener, and
that it does not please him at all. He prefers to

FALL OF ONE OF THE SPRUCES 191

see pansies of nearly every colour under the sun.
I rather liked the idea myself of using pansies of
the same colour for border plants. The yellow
borders are very effective, while the white ones
have a pure, lovely air of their own. Pansies are
Infinitely prettier, to my taste, when planted In this
way than when used to carpet rose-beds, a treat-
ment about which much has been written. The
plants are kept blooming prollfically by having their
flowers picked off every morning. This must be
a great work when one has so many hundreds of
them as there are at Nestly Heights.

At the Six Spruces, we have had but few pansies,
the ones given us by Mr. Hayden. Next year,
however, I should like Joseph to plant a border of
yellow ones In front of the flame-coloured azalea.
This would make a lively spring spot by the tri-
angle.

In the house at Nestly Heights, white pansies
were arranged In low bowls of white porcelain, and
yellow ones were in yellow bowls. I also saw tube-
roses and the waxen bells of Adam’s-needles
placed In white dishes. Mrs. Hayden told me
that she liked to see flowers better than the porce-
lains which held them, and therefore she tried to
have the bowls as Inconspicuous as possible. When
I told this to Joseph he liked the idea.

We have no tuberoses In our garden. These
plants seem especially designed for Nestly Heights.
Dahlias, cannas, salvia and gladioli are also seen

19^ FALL OF ONE OF THE SPRUCES

there in numbers, while we have none of them. I
admire the gladioli very much. The flowers of
the improved varieties are large, velvety, and occur
in almost every colour. But these plants require
a great deal of care, while Joseph’s idea is to^ have
a hardy garden that will to some extent be able to
care for itself. Some time in the spring perhaps
we shall try to set out a large bed of salvia in front
of the house. It looks cheerful in the autumn,
when other flowers have died. The salvia at
Nestly Heights to-day almost outshone Joseph’s
necktie.

Mr. Hayden showed me his flowers with a great
deal of pride. He said he took a book about them
away with him to the mountains, and he had learned
so many scientific names that on his return he quite
amazed his son Percy. We have noticed often
that Mr. Percy is very quiet whenever his father
begins to talk about flowers. At Nestly Heights
the gardeners had so completely removed all traces
of any damage done by the great storm that one
might think it had never been.

“How odd It Is,” I said to Mr. Percy, “that three
gardens can be so different as this one. Miss Wise-
man’s, and Joseph’s. They are all made with
flowers and many of the same shrubs.”

“I should choose Joseph’s,” Mr. Percy replied
promptly, and I thought this a very great compli-
ment.

“It is freer,” he continued, “and more natural.”

FALL OF ONE OF THE SPRUCES 193

I was thinking that I would remember to tell
Joseph what he said, when a lady-bug flew on my
hand.

“Do not kill It,” Mr. Percy said quickly, al-
though In truth I had not thought of doing so.
They do no harm themselves, while they eat up
some of the miserable mites that annoy roses.
When we passed a rose-bush I put the lady-bug off
on It to do as much eating of this kind as it desired.

Mr. Percy next pointed out to me a large white-
oak tree. The day before, the men had taken off
one of Its limbs, badly broken by the storm. The
tree proved to^ be somewhat hollow, and within they
had found a nest of flying squirrels. Unfortu-
nately, they had tO' be routed, as the broken part
was to be filled and sealed. Mr. Percy, however,
had found them another home In the hollow of an
old tree at the back of the place. It would be use-
less, he said, for us to try to see them. Like the
screech-owl, they are nocturnal In their habits, only
coming out In the night. This I regretted, as
neither Joseph nor I have ever seen flying squirrels.

It was rather late when we left Nestly Heights,
Joseph having stayed so long to play tennis. He
had no time to walk In the garden, nor did he seem
to care much. In fact, I have often wondered
whether Joseph would be fond of flowers If he had
not to do the gardening himself.

On the way home we had to stop a few minutes
at Miss Wiseman’s, so that Queenle might see how

194* FALL OF ONE OF THE SPRUCES

well the knitted necktie became Joseph. There was
much to talk about, and the twilight was not far off,
when we went through our front gate. Long
shadows from the trees then lay over the lawn and
stretched across the driveway. They were not so
deep, however, but that we could see the gap among
the spruce trees. We said nothing, knowing that
Timothy had done his work.

CHAPTER XXV

OUR GOLDEN GLOW AND HOLLYHOCKS

WHEN the frost was out of the ground in the
springs one of the first things that Joseph
did was to spend two dollars in buying twenty
roots of golden glow. He planted them at the
back of the long bed of the triangle in front of the
wall, and paid little attention tO' them, until sud-
denly in the middle of July they startled us by
crowning themselves with double golden heads,
flaunted high in triumph* We had noticed before
this how tall they were growing, and Joseph even
had staked them to keep the wind from blowing
them over. Still, I had thought little about them.
They were hiding nothing but the wall as they
grew in their tall greenness, and I thought they
had been planted for this purpose. Indeed, I had
quite forgotten they were golden glows until they
showed it to me in terms unmistakable. Now
they are fully repaying Joseph for his expenditure
and labour.

Golden glows are delightful, I think, when
looked at from a distance. They then make every-

195

196 GOLDEN GLOW AND HOLLYHOCKS

thing near them appear sunny. As I go close to
them, however, I care less for them. There is
something a trifle coarse about their flowers. I
do not wish to gather them to take into the house,
although their flowers last well in water throughout
a week. Almost every place in Nestly has golden
glows. Even the very poor have them somewhere
about their homes. I think people like them be-
cause they appear so cheery, and surely no one could
feel long dreary while looking at their masses of
yellow.

Joseph had heard that golden glow roots should
be divided every other year. They increase so rap-
idly that people soon have more roots than they
wish to take care of themselves. The surplus they
give away, which accounts, perhaps, for the abun-
dance of golden glow about Nestly.

Yellow is always a beautiful colour in a garden,
gleaming brighter than any other. It calls people
to look at it. I do not know just why, but Joseph
always seems a little miffed when I talk much about
yellow.

To-day, while he was looking at the smoke-tree
that Miss Wiseman gave us, to see how nearly
ready it was to flower, he spied a nest in which four
baby catbirds were holding open their mouths in
expectation of their parents’ return. We then
knew why we had so often heard the catbird’s alarm
cry about the garden. This cry the bird gives in
imitation of a cat, and is not its real song at all.

GOLDEN GLOW AND HOLLYHOCKS 197

Long ago, Mr. Percy explained the mattter to us.
We heard a bird singing one day, and he told us
to stand and listen. We could scarcely believe it
was a catbird, yet we saw him plainly at the tip-top
of the smoke-tree. The song was lively and bril-
liant, full of quirks and strange notes, so rapid and
varied that I cannot describe how it goes, although
Joseph has learned to imitate it quite successfully.

Any boy or girl who sees a catbird should not
rest until his true song has been heard. It is an
injustice to think he can sing no better than his
sharp, unpleasant cry would indicate. The day we
had the great storm we heard these birds contin-
ually crying like cats. Their cry, however, is not
a mew ; Mr. Percy says the sound to him is more
like zeay! zeay!

The catbirds are as familiar with our garden as
the robins, wrens and other birds. Often one
perches on our great-aunt’s blush-rose bush and
gives us a twilight concert lasting nearly an hour.
We have always thought that this particular cat-
bird was the one whose nest we found some time
ago in one of the lilacs by the stable. It had in it
six eggs of a clear, greenish blue.

The birds of our garden spend their days feed-
ing their young, as soon as they are out of the shell.
Consequently, the number of worms and insects
they consume is considerable. As these creatures
never have very charitable designs on our plants,
we are more than pleased to have the birds devour

198 GOLDEN GLOW AND HOLLYHOCKS

them. Joseph would like to take one of the young
catbirds to bring up in the house, if it did not seem
so cruel to deprive it of its free life in the open.
Besides, the parent birds might take alarm at such
a case of kidnapping and not return to live near us
another spring.

Mr. Percy believes that catbirds become great
thieves near a fruit garden ; but as we have only a
few old apple-trees at the Six Spruces, this has not
changed our desire to have them remain our neigh-
bours.

The hollyhocks that Joseph bought are all single
ones, and since about the middle of this month they
have been doing their best to show us their varied
colours. We have them white, pink and crimson,
and a few that seem undecided whether tO' be pink
or yellow. They, therefore, have taken both col-
ours, and now appear in something like the tint of
apricots. I do not think that our hollyhocks have
bloomed as well as those at Miss Wiseman’s, per-
haps because they are younger plants. Ours are
scarcely taller than Little Joseph, while few men
are as tall as those in her garden. Joseph took
care to plant them at the very back of the long
bed, where he thought they w’ould grow tall enough
to look over the wall. As soon as their seeds are
ripe he will gather them., that they may dry thor-
oughly and be ready for him to sow in the seed-bed.
Perhaps by October the seedlings will be large
enough to transplant to the places on the triangle

PLATE XXXIII. — ' HE KNOWS WITHOUT BEING TOLD JUST HOW

TO HANDLE A PLANT”

Photograph by Alice Boughton

GOLDEN GLOW AND HOLLYHOCKS 199

where he wishes them to bloom next year. These
young plants will be somewhat tender the first win-
ter of their lives, so he will cover their roots over
late in the autumn, to keep them from being nipped
by Jack Frost.

How much there is to think about in a garden I
I listen in amazement to the many things Joseph
tells me, and cease to wonder that the neighbours
think him a bright boy. He has not learned all
that he knows from “An Ambitious Boy’s Garden.”
I think Miss Wiseman and Mr. Percy have helped
him more than all the books and catalogues he has
read. This is because they have observed little
details for themselves when watching flowers.
They know their individual habits, and do not have
to follow such set rules as are laid down for begin-
ners in gardening. Mrs. Keith says she never has
learned a rule about planting a flower in her life,
but that she can make them grow because she has
“a way with her.” This is true about some people.
Flowers grow for Little Joseph, and the triangle
this year has astonished every one. Some boys,
on the contrary, have little success when they make
their first gardens. Sometimes I think there is
witchcraft in Joseph’s fingers. He knows, with-
out being told, just how to handle a plant and how
deep to set it in the soil. He knows often, how to
prune it, and how to gather and sow its seeds. I
fear I am not by nature half so expert a gardener
as Little Joseph, but, apart from the rosarium, my

goo GOLDEN GLOW AND HOLLYHOCKS

work is mostly to help, and to cut and arrange the
flowers for the house.

This morning, wTen I went with my basket and
clipping-shears down by the hollyhocks, I saw that
several of the silken flowers were fairly covered
with large spider-webs. The weaving was with-
out a break, and of a symmetry more wonderful
than the work of most men. How did the spiders
know how to weave so beautifully? I wondered.
Just then Queenie Perth came to answer the ques-
tion as best she could.

“They know how to spin that way,” she said,
“just as you know how to go to sleep. No one has
to show them.”

This seemed quite true. The spiders that had
made these webs were very ugly. We did not dis-
turb them, since neither Queenie nor I knew
whether they were harmful to the hollyhocks.

In the rose fan I later spent an hour picking off
bugs. No matter how exquisite a nest or web these
creatures might make, I still should remain their
enemy. It is a mystery to me why these bugs exist.
I know no good that they do, and they greatly harm
the roses. In the very heart of a Perle des Jardins
I found one munching. It may be that their pur-
pose is to test the patience of rose-growers, the way
potato-bugs try the vigilance of farmers. I would
give up eating potatoes sooner than wrestle with
these bugs, while no pest will ever be able to make
me forsake my roses.

GOLDEN GLOW AND HOLLYHOCKS 201

The fan is no longer aglow with roses, even the
Clios having shed most of their flowers. Here and
there, however, a lovely monthly rose is unfolding.
Only yesterday I gave Timothy Pennell a large
bunch to take home to his son. The only ones
that Mrs. Keith will ever pick to give away are
those from Aunt Amanda’s bush. She says all her
old friends know those roses belong to the Six
Spruces.

We still call our place the Six Spruces, although
there are now but five. Yet the fallen tree lived
its life among the others, and it would seem wrong
to stop counting it now, just because that dreadful
stroke of lightning prevented it from staying
longer. Some day, I suppose, all the trees will die
and their places be taken by others.

I am glad that we have a mignonette, lemon
verbena and maidenhair fern in our garden. When
I arrange the roses, I put little sprigs of these
among them, and I always choose a sweet-smelling
green for flowers that have no fragrance. Mr.
Hayden seldom comes here without picking a bit
of lemon verbena for his buttonhole. Some days
he returns with an old piece looking much dried
and dead, and exchanges it for a fresh bit. He
says that whenever he really wishes a thing he
comes to the Six Spruces. Now, both Joseph and
I know that there is an abundance of lemon verbena
planted at Nestly Heights, but we suppose Mr.
Hayden has never discovered its whereabouts. The

^02 GOLDEN GLOW AND HOLLYHOCKS

gardens there are so large and so many kinds of
flowers are planted in them, that it is rather con-
fusing.

I cannot imagine either Joseph or me not know-
ing where our flowers are planted, whether they are
looking vigorous, whether their blooms are at their
height or fading, and all about them. I think we
could walk to any one of them with our eyes shut.
So, even though our garden is small and new, we
know it intimately, and in this feeling there is surely
more pleasure than in having to ask a gardener the
way to the lemon verbena, and to ask whether it is
permissible to pick a few sprigs.

In time, perhaps, our garden will grow large,
and we shall have many kinds of plants that we
have not now. I hope, however, that we shall
never lose sight of our dear favourites which have
helped to make our first year’s garden so beautiful.

CHAPTER XXVI

WATER GARDENS AND OTHER THINGS

There is one kind of a garden that interests
Joseph and me as onlookers. This is a
water garden, or, more plainly, a small pond with
lilies floating on its surface, and numbers of water-
loving plants thriving about its edges. At Nestly
Heights there are two such water gardens. Hap-
pily for Mr. Hayden, the ponds were formed
naturally, and he had but to make them beautiful
by planting appropriate flowers in and about them.
Here, however, there is no pond, and to make one
at the moist point of the triangle would be too
costly an undertaking for Joseph and me.

Mr. Hayden is fond of his water gardens. He
can even relate the scientific names of the pink,
blue and yellow lilies which float on their surfaces,
not far from the wonderful lotus, making ready
to bloom. Except for the different colours of these
water-lilies, they appear just like the sweet white
one, which is known to every boy and girl. Yet
they are different from the common pond-lily in
not being hardy. When Joseph and I peered down

203

WATER GARDENS, ETC.

into the water of the ponds, we saw that their
roots were set in large tubs, which have to be taken
up before cold weather and housed over the win-
ter. They are among the rare garden treasures
that Joseph and I know we shall never have.

About the borders of these ponds, I have noticed
other plants that are not rare, but which appear
very beautiful by the side of the mirror-like water.
One of these plants growing in great masses is the
pickerel-weed. It is a common wild flower, for
Mr. Percy and Joseph saw it by numbers of ditches
and little streams one day when they were taking
a walk in the open country. Countless irises grow
by these ponds; and after their bloom has passed,
the effect of their tall, sword-like leaves reflected
in the water is most enchanting. High along one
of the banks the Wichuraiana rose has spread itself
into a sheet of bloom. It reminds me of our own
rose-weed at the point of the triangle, for the
Wichuraianas, like the morning-glories, have fallen
into the ways of bad weeds. Many large clumps
of showy grasses near these ponds help to make
them among the most attractive spots of Nestly
Heights.

After looking long at these water gardens, I
hinted to Joseph that perhaps next year we could
make the moist point of our triangle more conspic-
uous than it has been this season. If we had not
only a few, but quantities of irises there, it would
be an improvement, and we should have more

PLATE XXXIV. — PINIs BLUE AND YELLOW LILIES FLOAT ON THE SURFACE'

WATER GARDENS, ETC.

205

ferns another season than just the few that Mr.
Percy transplanted for us. 1 also' should like to
see there several clumps of the tall, feathery-
looking grass called eulalia japonica, or Japanese
plume grass. As autumn draws near, this grass
appears at its best, and the plumes sometimes stay
on all winter, if not planted where too high winds
will attack them. Already we have one such clump
of grass in our garden, but I should like to see sev-
eral about the place. As yet, I have not found out
how much money these additions would require,
nor even whether, as Joseph says, they would be
practical. Next year, however, as I shall not have
to spend so much capital on roses, I may put it all
into plants for the moist point of our garden. This
was the spot where things kept freshest during the
long drought. One day, perhaps, we may find
that there is a tiny spring lurking somewhere under
the ground.

Even now at the moist point we are expecting a
brilliant show of cardinal-flowers. These are the
plants that Joseph watched and waited for at least
six or seven weeks before they peeped up through
the soil of the window-box. After that, they grew
quickly, vying with each other for space. Since
the day that Joseph set them out in the garden,
however, we have thought little about them, until
now that they are almost ready to bloom. Noth-
ing about them appeared in the least unusual to
Joseph or me until yesterday, when Mr. Percy, who

206

WATER GARDENS, ETC.

was here to ask about them^ exclaimed : “I declare !
you have managed to turn them into annuals !”

We knew then that he was amazed that Little
Joseph had succeeded in making them bloom this
first year, which, as perennials, they are not in the
habit of doing. Perhaps this change in their ways
was effected because Joseph sowed the seeds early in
the season. Although, so far, only one flower has
peeped out, I can see that it is of as beautiful a red
as there is in the whole world. Mr. Percy says
that it will last in bloom a month.

We have all been m.uch pleased with Joseph’s
successful planting, and are enthusiastic about the
cardinal-flowers. Later, we are going to a moist
meadow not far away to take up some of the wild
plants and see whether there is any difference be-
tween them and those that Joseph has grown. The
real home of cardinal-flowers is in wild places. Mr.
Percy says he has never seen them so beautiful in
any garden as they are by the side of a certain
stream he knows, and whence they spread out into
the meadow.

On the ground about their base there are also'
many wild forget-me-nots, blooming at the same
time and trying to get as near the stream as possi-
ble. Sometimes they grow even in the stream,
where there is quite a little current running over
them.

For several weeks now, none of us has been much
in the woods or meadows. I was glad, therefore,

WATER GARDENS, ETC. ^07

to hear Mr. Percy plan some tramps which we shall
soon take. He has ideas also about transplanting
more ferns to the Six Spruces, although this cannot
be done until the late autumn.

Judging from the many things that Joseph has
set down in his note-book to do' this autumn, I begin
to think that July and August must be the real play-
times of a garden. In these months we have
chiefly to look after the plants that are blooming,
while in the spring and autumn preparations must
be made for following seasons. I do not mean
that Joseph has ever found time to dream and idle
over the garden, but at present such work as weed-
ing and staking plants is somewhat less arduous
than heretofore. Once I was almost bold enough
to feel that Joseph had conquered the weeds. I
mentioned it under my breath, fearing they might
hear and again start up their mischievous pranks.

The season, we are told by our neighbours, has
been a kind one in the way of insect pests. They
have not been so annoying as to cause discourage^
ment, nor have they been especially numerous. Jo-
seph has, nevertheless, been continually on the
watch against them, keeping the plants well
sprayed, while about the base of many he has put
wood ashes. We think also that having so many
birds about the triangle has helped to keep the
pests under control. Next year we may have even
more birds, since the little ones that have been
raised and have spent their youth here, will per-

208

WATER GARDENS, ETC.

haps return in the spring, after their winter migra-
tion, to settle down and make nests for themselves.

Something that we have found out about the
phoebe-birds makes us think we can do without them
at the Six Spruces. We did not even know their
names when they began building under the roof of
our back veranda, until Mrs. Keith said: “Those
miserable phoebes are here again.” Joseph and I
would not let their nest be disturbed. Our ham-
mock was swung near, and it was interesting to
have the young raised where we could look at
them each day.

These phoebe-birds belong to a class called fly-
catchers. Their habit is to perch themselves some-
where, as on the top of a roof or a clothes-pole, to
fly off suddenly after some insect passing innocently
in the air, and to return again directly to their for-
mer perch. This they accomplish with great quick-
ness, and wdth an aim so sure that few insects escape
them. It pleased us to watch them for long times
together, and we were delighted with their quaint
cry of phcehee! phcehee!

One day, when the young in the nest were well
grown and continually stretched up their brownish
grey heads for food, I was lying in the hammock
reading. Over the garden all was peace. Joseph
was at Nestly Heights, playing tennis with Ben and
Harry.

Suddenly my hands began to smart and itch un-
cgmfortably. When Mrs. Keith came out, she

PLATE XXXV. — COUNTLESS IRISES

WATER GARDENS, ETC.

^09

found that myriads of tiny insects, or, in fact, bird-
lice, were crawling up and down the side of the
house, and had even extended their walk along the
hammock. They all came from the spongy, moss-
like nest of the phcebe-birds. For them, the day
at once became one of woe. Mrs. Keith would not
tolerate having their nest under the roof another
minute. She insisted that the young ones be turned
out to take care care of themselves, and the nest
burned. Mrs. Keith never loses time when she
makes up her mind to do a thing. Therefore, she
would not wait for Joseph’s return, but herself
poked down the nest, dropped the fledglings out on
the lawn, and then turned the hose on the side of
the house.

Th ere was no end of alarm and crying among
the parent birds. They had watched Mrs. Keith
bring the step-ladder out on to the veranda, and,
from then on, they never stopped their lamenta-
tions. Fortunately, the young birds appeared quite
strong when dispossessed. They flapped their
wings as though they knew the time had come for
them to practise flying. Often they tumbled over
when they tried to walk, but one of the older birds
would give them a push in the way of encourage-
ment. The whole family started across the tri-
angle, and, before Joseph returned, they had nearly
reached its moist point. They seemed tO' have the
idea of getting under the shelter of the coppice. I
felt sure that the little ones were exceedingly weary;

£10

WATER GARDENS, ETC.

yet the vigilant parents would not let them rest
until they were housed somewhere far away from
Mrs. Keith.

Joseph could hardly realise the disgrace into which
they had fallen, although Mrs. Keith stated the
facts of the case to him very plainly. I was thank-
ful we had no cats, which might find these young
birds dainty morsels of food before they had
learned to keep themselves well up in the air.

At Nestly Heights, Joseph had beaten both Ben
and Harry at tennis, and had been asked the day
following to play in a set with Mr. Percy. This
he regarded as showing advancement on his part.
For the time being, he had much more to say about
tennis than about the ousting of the phoebe-birds
from their home. He seemed not even to have
noticed which flowers were blooming particularly
well at Nestly Heights. Indeed, throughout the
evening he wore the air of a conquering hero.

CHAPTER XXVII

EARLY AUGUST DAYS

IT Is August. The annuals that Joseph sowed
early are having their main crop of flowers,
while many of the perennials have grown tall and
important-looking. My monthly roses are bloom-
ing a little less freely than they did in July. It
may be perhaps that they do not like these sultry
days and cool nights. August, happily, is the time
to enjoy things in a garden without doing very
much work. Joseph has been playing every day
lately in the tennis tournament. I believe he is
growing to like this sport almost as much as gardenr
ing, although he says he has only been playing to
let Ben and Harry see that once in a while he can
beat them. He has, besides, read much less in
“An Ambitious Boy’s Garden” than formerly, al-
though this does not surprise me, as I should think
he might be able to repeat it from beginning to end.

But, while Joseph has been playing tennis, Tim-
othy has shown great devotion to the garden. He
has weeded it often, and kept the borders trimmed
neatly. He is making up his mind, he says, about

211

S12 EARLY AUGUST DAYS

what Is to be done here later. Mr. Percy, llke^
wise, is thinking about what we should do this
autumn to make our garden beautiful next year.
For myself, I like simply to enjoy August without
thinking of work for either this autumn or next
spring.

At the moist point of our triangle, the cardinal-
flowers are now well in bloom, and this Is enough
beauty for one day. Yesterday a turned-out phoebe-
blrd sat on the stalk of a flaming red flower, slight-
ly tipped over by the bird’s small weight. I think
the fledgling had been making an unsuccessful at-
tempt to catch Insects in the air, as the mother was
near-by, talking to it In a way that sounded like
scolding.

In this part of the garden some glorious rose-
mallows are now blooming. They remind me
more of hollyhocks than they do of roses. Mr.
Percy gave us their roots and planted them for us
himself, some time after he and Joseph had set out
the ferns. For a while, we almost forgot them,
although I saw that they were growing to be un-
usually large plants, with leaves of an attractive
green. But neither Joseph nor I had any idea of
the gorgeous flowers that would burst out in August
from their large buds. Some of these flowers are
white with a crimson ring at their base, which has
given them the name of ‘‘crimson-eye.” The
others are a pure, brilliant pink. Mr. Percy had
been watching for the day when they would open,

PLATE XXXVI. — ROSE-MALLOWS

EARLY AUGUST DAYS

21S

and, had this not happened too early In the morn-
ing for any one to be about, I think he would have
been here to greet their first unfolding.

“You will have them every year now,” he told
us, “without further trouble. They are perennials,
and very hardy. Besides, they seem to have taken
well to this moist, rich soil. You would be sur-
prised, I know,” he continued, “if I should tell you
that they are wild flowers.”

Joseph asked if this were a joke.

“Not at all,” Mr. Percy answered. “They are
as much wild flowers as hepaticas and spring-
beauties, and grow in swampy, marsh-like places,
instead of In the woods. Sometimes I have found
them in such wet meadows that It was impossible
to reach them without rubber boots. My father,”
Mr. Percy went on, “is very proud of the rose'-
mallows at Nestly Heights. He has them set, you
know, about the ponds. He praises the gardeners
as though they were as responsible for the beauty
of the mallows as they are for the blue colour of
our most petted hydrangeas. Some day I will take
him to a swamp miles from here, where they grow
twice as large as with us. Many of them there are
eight feet tall.”

Joseph glanced at me. He must have been won-
dering what Mr. Hayden would say when shown
some of his favourites thriving In a neglected
swamp. The fact that rose-mallows are wild
flowers makes Joseph and me like them better than

£14

EARLY AUGUST DAYS

ever. We have more confidence in them, feeling
that they can never disappoint us.

I picked one of the flowers and-some large leaves
to put in water in the house. We wishedbto look at
it even after the dusk had fallen. But, alas! the
leaves very quickly withered, and the flower
drooped. Before twilight came, it had lost its
attractiveness.

“Next time,” Mr. Percy said, “pick large buds
just beginning to show colour and put them in
water. I believe they will then open and remain
fresh.”

I tried this the next day, and it was as Mr.
Percy anticipated. The flowerssthat opened in the
house were hardly as large as those that remained
on the plants; but still they were not small, and
held themselves up firmly for several days. These
rose-mallow blossoms are usually as large as, and
sometimes larger than, hollyhocks.

Another wild flower that is now blooming in
many gardens is called Oswego tea. Miss Wise-
man has it at her place in great, important masses,
which look very handsome. She told us it was a
wild flower that gardeners had found desirable to
cultivate ; although, as far as she knew, it appeared
no different in her garden, where it had been
watered and cared for, from in various nooks of the
woods. She liked the rich red of the flowers,
which harmonised with the foliage of her Japanese
maples.

EARLY AUGUST DAYS

215

Oswego tea has been in bloom at Miss Wise-
man’s since July; but only while speaking about
our rose-mallows did Joseph find out that it also
was a wildling which had fallen under the eye of
gardeners. It belongs to the mint family, and
increases almost as rapidly as the little, common
mint, which many people transplant from wayside
brooks. In fact, the foliage of Oswego tea has
something of the same spicy fragrance.

I asked Joseph if he expected tO' plant it at the
Six Spruces next season.

He answered that perhaps he would put some
of it near the tall brakes, which he wishes to have
look as if they were just stepping out of the cop-
pice.

I felt sure, then, that Joseph had been pleased
with the plant, and already planned to have it in
our garden. It ought to feel at home among our
other wild flowers.

The morning-glory vine is still bearing flowers,
and Joseph and I are in love with it, despite the
alarm cry that, if we sow it another year among
our perennial vines, it will rise up and choke them
to death.

“That is a dreadful tale,” Joseph commented,
“to hear so often about anything so lovely.”

Joseph loves morning-glories, but his dislike to
petunias is very great. He does not wish one of
them at the Six Spruces.

“Do you not think the shape of a morning-glory

£16

EARLY AUGUST DAYS

and that of a single petunia are much alike?” I
asked him, for fun.

“Yes,” he answered; “but, aside from the shape,
they are quite different.”

“Some of the petunias at Miss Wiseman’s,” I
said, “are beautifully coloured. She has them of
lavender and pink as delicate as our morning-
glories.”

“It Is not their colour,” Joseph replied, “that
makes them so ugly.”

“What is it, then?” I asked.

“It is because they are themselves.”

“They are very easy to raise,” I persisted.
“People just sow them in the spring and then let
them grow.”

“I know,” Joseph assented. “They are an-
nuals.”

“Nearly every one about here has them,” I said.

“Do you like them?” Joseph asked suddenly.

“Oh, no,” I confessed, and added that I was just
trying to find out why he disliked them so much.

“Well, It is their smell I do not like,” he said at
length, “and their sticky feeling.”

vSo, after all, Joseph had his reason for disliking
petunias.

When Queenie Perth came to see us last she
wore a hat covered with petunia flowers, on which
were perched three yellow butterflies. She had
taken the artificial flowers off her hat, she told us,
because the butterflies had found out that they were

PLATE XXXVII. — A PETTED HYDRANGEA

EARLY AUGUST BAYS

not real. Her Auntie had given her permission to
pick as many petunias as she wished.

“You know they do not matter,” she said with
something of Joseph’s contempt for them. “I do
not bother to pick them. I cut them with the
sickle.”

We began to understand why it was that Queenie
had sometimes such large bunches of golden glow,
phloxes and petunias about her. The portulaca
flowers, however, that are blooming in her own
garden she never picks. Occasionally we see her
gathering their tiny seeds, which are like grains
of silver. Wherever there was space, Queenie
must have sown them in her garden. She seems to
admire these small flowers of red, white and purple
almost as much as do the butterflies. It was from
her that Joseph learned about them, and no doubt
he will sow some at the Six Spruces when March or
April returns, and the farmers believe the frost has
slipped out of the ground.

One of the young catbirds raised in the smoke-
tree has met with a tragic death. It was killed on
the triangle by a hideous, yellow cat which we had
never seen before in this neighbourhood. We did
not know where the cat came from, or what at-
tracted it. Perhaps it heard the young bird trying
to imitate its cry.

When Mrs. Keith reached the triangle, the yel-
low creature had the bird in its mouth, and was
making for the wall as fast as it could. Mrs.

218

EAULY AUGUST DAYS

Keith struck it with a broom she had in her hand,
at which it dropped the poor bird and sprang over
the wall for its life. The bird was still warm,
and for an instant Mrs. Keith thought she could
feel its heart beating.

‘'Never again will I allow a cat to come on this
place,'’ she said later to Joseph and me. “Your
Aunt Amanda never had one here.”

“But the cat did not ask your permission to
come,” Joseph replied, “and probably it never
will.”

Then we all thought it was a great pity Mrs.
Keith had not struck it harder with the broom.

CHAPTER XXVIII

LITTLE JOSEPH WINS THE TOURNAMENT
OSEPH has just won the tennis tournament,

^ playing against several boys that were consid-
erably larger than he. In the beginning, hardly any
one thought he had a show of winning, Ben and
Harry least of all. He kept on, however, steadily
holding his own, until in the end there was no one
left whom he had not beaten.

When it was over, every one shook his hand and
said how well he had played. He was more em-
barrassed at this than he had been uneasy over the
last set, which had been so excitingly close.

“So the honours are yours, Master Joseph,”
Miss Wiseman said; and Mr. Hayden shook his
hand as he does when he is most like the merry
west wind.

“If I were a few years younger,” he said, “I
would tackle you myself. Those boys of mine are
too idle to play against such muscle.” With this,
he gave Joseph’s arm a squeeze.

Mr. Percy did not play in the tournament. He
told Joseph that he was delighted he had won, and

219

2^0 JOSEPH WINS TOURNAMENT

that it was just what he had expected. Queenle
pinned a flower in Joseph’s buttonhole, and said
that she would give him one of her tamed butter-
flies. We had no idea until then that Queenie had
been doing such a funny thing as taming butterflies,
and thought it must be rather uncertain work.

Mrs. Keith, who had gone to see the finals of
the tournament, desired, when it was over, to take
Joseph home at once. As she expressed it, she
feared he would have his head turned. But when
we were again at the Six Spruces with Little Joseph,
it was as though nothing wonderful had happened.
He took Up “An Ambitious Boy’s Garden” and
began to read it most seriously. Later he said to
me : “Next year we must not forget tO' have sweet-
williams. We skipped them this year, because
there was so much else to think about, and so many
other plants for which to spend money.”

I was delighted to hear Joseph talking again in
his sensible way about the garden. When I had
seen him on the tennis court giving back-handed
strokes, while every one clapped loudly, my heart
for a moment stood still — not because I thought
he would miss the ball, but because I feared that,
like Ben and Harry, he would grow to love tennis
better than gardening. Now I know this fear
was foolish. I believe Joseph will continue to care
for the garden above all else.

Miss Wiseman sent him such a beautiful bunch
of gladioli that he promptly decided to have them

JOSEPH WINS TOURNAMENT 221

in the garden next year, even though they are a bit
more troublesome than plain annuals and hardy
perennials.

I ran to the rose fan, and there three Kaiserin
Augusta Victorias, white and waxen, were ready
for me to cut and put in the silver cup that Joseph
had brought home from the tournament.

“We must take the very best care of that cup,”
he said. “You know it is not mine to keep unless
I win the tournament for twO' more years in suc-
cession.”

I said we could do no better than to let it hold
such lovely roses. Joseph was not convinced. I
saw him look at me dubiously while I was putting
in the water.

The possibility of burglars breaking into the Six
Spruces and taking the cup away next troubled Jo^
seph, although before this he had never thought
of their coming. He wondered if we had not
better carry the cup upstairs every night, and put
it where Aunt Amanda kept her silver.

“You had better play with it as much as possible
while you have it,” Mrs. Keith advised. “Likely
enough, it will go home with some other boy next
year.”

Joseph looked long at the cup, then turned it
around and ran his fingers over its smooth surface.
I believe he was making up his mind to keep it for-
ever.

During the days following the tournament, Jo-

222 JOSEPH WINS TOURNAMENT

seph attended strictly to the garden. He weeded,
sprayed and cultivated the soil around the base of
many plants. He repaired some of his tools that
had become broken during the summer, and gener-
ally tidied things up a bit. He also set himself
about cutting worms’ nests out of a tree at the edge
of the wood-border.

At Nestly Heights they have a pair of clipping-
shears to do this work which are fastened at the
end of a very long handle. A man can stand on
the ground and yet reach with this tool the high
branches of a tree-. But Joseph has no such shears,
nor do I believe he would have used them if he had.
In the trees, he is like a squirrel. He finds delight
in crawling out to the tip-ends of the branches
where the worms have made their nests. I have
seen him lying flat down on a branch while he
pulled his pruning-shears from his pocket. Again,
I have watched him sit in a position just like a
squirrel cracking nuts. These worms’ nests once
unfastened, Joseph makes a bonfire of them, as the
surest way to keep the insects from crawling to
other parts of the garden. This pleases him almost
as much as clipping the nests from the trees. It
gives him an all-over-good feeling, as though he
had made way with something very wicked.

Although Joseph sowed no asters this May, we
are not without them in our garden. In June,
when Miss Wiseman was transplanting the aster
seedlings that had come up in hex bed, she gave

JOSEPH WINS TOURNAMENT nS

us quite a number to set out for ourselves. We
planted some of them in front of the phloxes think-
ing they would be gone before the asters began to
bloom. In this we were mistaken. The phloxes
are still showing bright heads of bloom, while
the asters have flowered earlier than we expected.
Now, in mid- August, these asters, with the wonder-
ful gladioli, are the most noticeable flowers in Miss
Wiseman’s garden.

I am gathering our asters for bouquets in the
house. They come in many gay colours, and re-
main fresh almost a week. We have, besides, some
late-flowering, branching ones which later on we
expect to bear snow-white blooms. At present, I
can see only their snug, shining buds.

The asters are favourites with a miserable little
creature called the blue-aphis, which eats the under
part of their roots. Joseph has worked in wood
ashes abcfut their base as a cure for the disease the
blue-aphis produces, and he sprayed them with
tobacco-water just before the buds appeared.
Throughout the dry weather, also, they have been
kept well watered.

Other lasting flowers lovelier to me than the
asters are our ten-weeks stocks. Already I have re-
lated how pleased we were with the white ones.
Next year we will sow no Other colours, except,
perchance, a number of yellow ones. Somehow,
we have an especial affection for the flowers that
we selected from the catalogues before even a leaf

^^4 JOSEPH WINS TOURNAMENT

appeared on the trees. Many times Joseph has
said to me: “We were lucky in choosing those
ten-weeks stocks.”

At Nestly Heights these flowers are quite ig-
nored by the gardeners. I was rather glad of this,
for it enabled us to send Mrs. Hayden a bouquet
of something she had not herself.

The phloxes have been the most triumphant flow-
ers this August. They have amazed us by bearing
many heads of bloom, in various colours. Usually
I do not like magenta flowers, but phloxes of this
colour are quite lovely. I have even seen them
mingled with others of a strange, pinky brick
shade, and yet they appeared to harmonise. If,
however, I had seen these, two colours side by si.de
in other flowers, or in a lady’s gown, they would
perhaps have distressed me.

Joseph thinks the mist we have had so much of
this August may have blended the phloxes’ colours
together. He says they are very grateful plants,
and that, once well started, they need but little care,
and will send out numbers of bright flowers. Our
garden is aglow with them. Chipping-birds and
sparrows trip in and out among them, and some
fat robins that have not been long out of the nest
never fly far away.

These robins remind me of a strange story told
us by Queenie Perth, one which we have found to
be quite true. Last week she came here and asked
Joseph why he had not been to see her Auntie’s

PLATE XXXVIII. — ‘’“'miss ’WISEMAN^’s NARROW PATH WITH THE HEDGE ON
ONE SIDE AND THE FLOWERING SHRUBS ON THE OTHER'"

JOSEPH WINS TOURNAMENT

white robin. “You will know it,” she said, “by
its red breast, although its other feathers are
white.”

Joseph paid little attention, thinking Queenie
was teasing. He would not even mention the
words “white robin” for fear of being caught in a
trap. Then one day Miss Wiseman said to me:
“It is too bad you did not step in earlier. The
white robin has just been about.”

I asked if it were really true that there was a
white robin in the world.

“Quite true,” Miss Wiseman answered, “and he
lives here on my place. We have all seen him
many times. Last year,” she told me further, “we
had a robin here with a white feather in his tail.
How he happened to have this one white feather, I
do not know ; but it gave him quite an air of distinc-
tion. Perhaps he stayed around here all winter
in the evergreen plants, but I never saw him after
November, when the hardy chrysanthemums were
blooming. One day this summer, I think in late
June, this entirely white robin came hopping aver
my lawn. His breast is brick red, and in every
way he is like other robins except for his white
feathers. Percy Hayden calls him an albino,”
Miss Wiseman continued. “I call him a freak.”

Later, when we walked along Miss Wiseman’s
narrow path with the privet hedge on one side and
the flowering shrubs on the other, I myself saw the
white robin. He was picking up grubs among the

^26 JOSEPH WINS TOURNAMENT

shrubbery, not in the least disturbed by our near-
ness. I should have known him for a robin any-
where, in spite of his whiteness.

I asked Miss Wiseman if she thought him the
same bird that she saw last year with the one white
feather.

“It is possible,’” she answered, “and there mgy
be something wrong with the colouring matter of
his feathers. Again, I have thought that the one
of last year was the parent of this bird. At least,
there is no doubt about his being, white. You must
ask Master Joseph to come' here and tell us the
reason.”

CHAPTER XXIX

THE RETURN HOME

For nearly a fortnight^ Joseph and I had been
away from the Six Spruces, staying In the
place where we lived before coming to Nestly. We
used to think it a pretty place when our home was
there; but now everything seems changed. We
could scarcely believe we had lived happily there
for so long. Of course, then we had not the Six
Spruces to care for, and we knew nothing at all
about the real joy of gardening.

We were so glad to get back last evening! As
we drove through the gate, we thought the spruces
were waving a welcome. Mrs. Keith said it had
not seemed like living while we had been away, and
even the birds chirped and acted as If they were
glad to see us again. Mr. Percy met us at the
station, and drove with us to the house. In every
room there were flowers.

‘‘Now do not think,’’ said Mrs. Keith, “that I
have ventured tO' pick them all from the garden.
They came from Miss Wiseman and Nestly
Heights.”

^28

THE RETURN HOME

It had been Joseph’s wish to return home at dusk.
I think he dreaded seeing the garden first under the
full light of the sun. Then nothing can be hid-
den. At dusk, however, as we glanced over the
triangle, all appeared much as when we went away.
We were able tO' sleep in peace. Indeed, little had
changed at the Six Spruces. The flowers and mes-
sages from our neighbours made it seem gay and
good to be home again. Mr. Percy stayed with
us for dinner this first day of our return, and then
went quickly away. I think he noticed that the
“sandman” was already troubling Joseph’s eyelids.
We both slept early and well.

I do not know at what hour in the morning Jo-
seph awoke. It must have been fairly early, as,
when I was in the garden at eight o’clock, he was
there looking as if he had been pulling weeds for
hours. The dew was still on the grass, the scent
of early morning was over everything, and the
birds had not finished their chatterings. The gar-
den never looked more lovely, yet it was changed.
I saw this clearly. I do not mean that it was ap-
parent because a few weeds had taken advantage
of Joseph’s absence, or because the bugs had eaten
many rose-leaves. I saw it, perhaps, because Au-
gust had passed on to September.

Almost all the plants that we had left in bloom
were still sending out flowers. The nasturtiums,
both dwarf and climbing, appeared to be outdoing
themselves, the phloxes were merrily showing their

THE RETURN HOME

229

colours, and asters were coming into fuller bloom.
Neither mignonette nor heliotrope had thought of
drooping; roses were blooming in the fan. Car-
dinal-flowers and rose-mallows shone from the
moist point of the triangle. Still, the garden had
a different appearance from what it had had in
August.

“It must be because the hydrangeas are in
bloom,’’ Joseph said when I spoke with him about
it.

“Oh, but I have already thought of them,” I
said. “I was surprised to see how well they looked
near the phloxes, almost touching the golden glows
as they do.” It was. not because they were bloom-
ing that the garden was different.

“Do you think things are beginning to have a
tired look?” Joseph asked.

“No, indeed,” I answered. “Timothy has kept
everything wonderfully fresh.”

“Then the change must be in the air that has
breathed upon the flowers,” Joseph said.

This perhaps was true. It had ripened some
of the leaves of the Virginia creeper on the wall,
where already they shone crimson or red, while here
and there I noticed yellow or golden leaves melting
into brown. Surely, the finger of autumn had
touched our garden.

“It cannot always be summer,” Joseph reminded
me. “I suppose autumn has come. I shall soon
have to go to school.”

230

THE RETURN HOME

This thought was not pleasant. Joseph away
nearly all day at school, and Mr. Percy back at
college! The garden showed wisdom in getting
ready to die when those who attended it should be
away.

When we came to Nestly, last March, it was too
late in the season for Joseph to begin going to
school. He had, therefore, been free to make, and
to work in, the garden. His long holiday had been
one of sheer delight, with hardly an idle moment.
In another month I shall be left alone with the
fading flowers. When Mrs. Keith called to us,
I was feeling rather desolate.

We had not finished breakfast when Queenie
Perth ran in. Her arms were laden with asters,
with which she pelted Joseph and me, throwing
the remainder into Mrs. Keith’s lap, to save herself
from a reproof about making the room untidy.

“I am to stay,” she said, “until Auntie comes for
me, which perhaps will be never, because Mr. Brad-
ley is talking with her.”

We had before heard Queenie lament that she
had to wait very long for Miss Wiseman whenever
she began talking with her gardener.

“You went away,” Queenie told Joseph, “before
the butterfly I promised you was tame, and, when
it grew tame, it died.”

“Poor creature!” Joseph exclaimed. “You
must have led it an awful life.”

“You are mistaken,” Queenie said solemnly. “It

PLATE XXXIX. — HYDRANGEAS AND PHLOXES

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THE RETURN HOME

S81

lived in my room, where there are many flowers and
two lumps of sugar. There was no wind there to
toss it about, and the rain could not get in to wet
its wings. It liked living there very much. It
often sat on my head and on my hands. It was
not a bit afraid of me.”

“Then why did it die?” Joseph asked.

“Because it was stupid,” Queenie answered. “It
got into the mucilage-pot.”

This, indeed, was a more humiliating death for
the tame butterfly than either Joseph or I had an-
ticipated. When we asked her if she intended to
tame another one, she said: “No, anyway not
until I have finished reading a beautiful story about
some butterflies that in the winter fly off to the
South to live.”

“Do you mean that butterflies migrate like
birds?” Joseph asked.

Queenie nodded her head. “Some of them do,”
she added; “not all. Jack Frost kills many butter-
flies,” and she waved her hands around as though
the air was full of them.

“Which ones migrate?” Joseph asked, seeking
information.

“The milkweed butterflies,” Queenie answered
promptly. “They are the only ones that fly down
to North or South Carolina, or some warm State
of the Gulf, to spend the winter. Hundreds and
hundreds of them go together. I think their
wings must be tired by the time they get there.”

£32

THE RETURN HOME

From Queenie’s voice we were sure that she
knew quite well what she was relating. Often she
is mischievous, but, when serious, she is much more
accurate than most little girls.

We went back to the garden to wait for Miss
Wiseman and to look more closely at the hy-
drangeas. Besides small ones in the garden, we
have also the large tree-like hydrangeas which Miss
Wiseman gave us with the other shrubs. They
follow the lower curve of the circle in front of the
house, and are also in bloom. The small ones we
bought ourselves, to fill up some of the bare places
at the back of certain flovi^ers. There is something
very generous about these large bunches of hy-
drangeas. Perhaps they wish to be lavish with
their bloom because the autumn will so soon rob
us of other things.

“It is truly hydrangea-time,’’ Miss Wiseman said
when she found us in the garden. “I hardly know
what I should do without these shrubs at this season
of the year.”

We showed her the ones she had given us in
front of the house. Although she had noticed their
beauty as she drove in the gate, she had not remem-
bered that it was she who sent them. Miss Wise-
man gives away a great many things, but she never
torments people by pointing them out as her gifts.
Mr. Percy does not do this, either. He even asks
Joseph about the rose-mallows, the ferns and other
things that he has himself planted for us, as If he

THE RETURN HOME

233

had done nothing towards their welfare. We have
one neighbour, however, whose name I will not
mention, who always spies out and praises the
plants he has given us. One day he said to Joseph :
“That pansy I gave you is the best-looking flower
in the garden.”

This somehow made Joseph wish he had never
given him the pansy.

Besides the hydrangeas, the clematis paniculata
leaning on our wall has opened many of its cream-
white flowers for September. They scent the air
with their fragrance, and are soft and fleecy to look
upon. Although our vine Is young and just begin-
ning to show what It can do, its growth has been
remarkable for this one year. At Nestly Heights
the clematis vines form arbours, climb over trellises,
and appear like heavy clouds of bloom. Beside
many humble cottages In Nestly this vine is now
turning everything to beauty and fragrance. It
seems to be the bride of September, as the spirea
was the bride of June.

“How fortunate It Is,” I said to Joseph one day,
“that all flowers do not open in the same month,
last in bloom the same length of time, and then
perish together. Nature has arranged her flowers
so that they are never monotonous. They give
pleasure, give surprises and cause deep regret when
they are no more.”

In early spring came the little shy blossoms, bare-
ly daring to open for fear of the cold. Then with

234

THE RETURN HOME

each month the flowers grew more assured and con-
fident, until, in June, it seemed as if they knew
something about their own beauty. Later in the
summer, they became bold in gorgeousness, while
now In September they are toning down again and
wearing an air more modest, more like that of
spring. This may be caused by fear — the fear of
being caught by Jack Frost.

When Joseph and I were returning to the Six
Spruces, we looked out of the train windows most
of the way. We passed fields of goldenrod, and,
when we ran through narrow, secluded places, wild
asters hemmed us in on both sides. Their colours
were white, lilac and purple. These, I thought,
were the right colours for autumn, looking well
with the distant rods of gold and the leaves over-
head tipped with browns, crimson and yellow.

But nowhere In all this medley of wild autumn
flowers did I see pink, the pink of the dogwood,
the azaleas, and Aunt Amanda’s blush-rose. This
is the colour of spring and early summer. I was
glad that It did not occur through these au^tumn
fields. It would have appeared too fragile against
the masses of gold and purple.

While I was thinking about the colours of the
seasons. Miss Wiseman was saying with some em-
phasis :

“You come to me. Master Joseph, and read me a
chapter or two from that note-book of yours before

PLATE XL. — THE TAMED BUTTERFLY

THE RETURN HOME

235

buying any bulbs or plants to set out here this
autumn.”

Together then they walked out of my hearing.
Queenie and I were left alone to talk about butter-
flies and the white robin.

CHAPTER XXX

SEPTEMBER DAYS

NG ago, in the spring, Joseph decided to

i— / have only the climbing nasturtiums and the
much-slandered morning-glories as annual vines
against the wall. He wished to have perennial
vines, that they might take permanent hold and not
require to be resown every season. In this decision
he was wise. Our wall has been fairly well cov-
ered this first season, and has shown its possibilities
for beauty when the vines are older.

The crimson ramblers did not begin to bloom
until July, after the principal flowering of the rose
fan was over. I like these crimson ramblers better
than those of other colours. At Nestly Heights
there are some famous yellow ramblers, but Joseph
believes they are not as hardy as the crimson ones.

We were fortunate in choosing the honeysuckles
and the clematis paniculata to send out strong wafts
of fragrance. The nasturtiums are still blooming
as freely as they did earlier in the season. Though
they are annuals, I hope Joseph will always sow
them somewhere about the garden. I have found

236

SEPTEMBER DAYS

2BT

that they do just what is expected of them. They
grow and bloom, always looking cheery and fresh.
So far, I have not noticed that insects molest them
especially; and, except that we had to show them
once in a while the direction in which we wished
them to climb, they have required little care.

In September one begins to think as much about
the foliage of plants as about their flowers. For
this reason, we can never be too glad Mr. Percy
helped plant our Virginia creepers. Now their
leaves are more brilliantly red and crimson each
day, while among them gleam many bunches of
small, blue berries. They are the colour of Con-
cord grapes, with a soft, mist-like down over them.
The vines we transplanted must have been quite
old, for they have grown as though wise in the way
of it. The Virginia creepers, bought from the
nursery, that Miss Wiseman set out last spring,
have made much less growth.

“If you put any more vines on that wall,” Mr.
Hayden said to. me, “my boy will have to go around
by the gate.”

I replied that Mr. Percy always came in that
way.

“Well,” he said, “it is a stupid thing to do, when
such a wall as that divides the two places. In my
day a young man would have scaled any wall rather
than quietly walk in at the front gate.”

For some reason Mr. Hayden thinks it very
romantic to climb over walls.

238

SEPTEMBER DAYS

Now that September has come, Joseph and I no-
tice that our garden is ripening. It reminds me of
an apple blossom that has unfolded and dropped
its petals, that the fruit may form; and which
finally has grown larger and riper, until it also falls
to the ground. Many of our flowers’ petals have
fallen, while their places are taken by brown seed-
pods, varied in shape and eager to scatter their
holdings over the ground.

In cases where Joseph has not cut off the stalks
to keep the plants from going to seed, the birds
have found them out and are now having a high
feast. Joseph has had to be lively himself to col-
lect as many seeds as he wished to put by for drying
and sowing. But, perhaps, because we give the
birds this autumn festival, they will wish to return
to us next year.

To-day I was surprised to see Joseph with a
large package of seeds, dropping them awkwardly
and rather carelessly over the ground. This he was
doing near the spot where the Shirley poppies had
been so enchanting. I had already noticed that he
and Timothy had been busy there working over the
soil.

“What are you sowing?” I asked.

“Shirley poppies,” he answered. “You said you
could never have too many of them.”

“But before, you sowed them in the spring.”

“We can have them earlier next year by putting
in the seeds now,” Joseph replied. “Miss Wise-

PLATE XLI. — ‘’‘’JOSEPH WITH A LARGE PACKAGE OF SEEDS DROPPING THEM
AWKWARDLY OVER THE GROUND^"

Photograph by Alice Botighton

SEPTEMBER DAYS

239

man says that these probably will be well sprouted
before frost comes, and therefore ready to bloom
at least three weeks sooner than we had them this
season.”

“Three weeks is nearly a month,” I reminded
him, wondering then if Joseph had found a way to
cause these July flowers to open in June,

In our garden at this moment the larkspurs were
having a second blooming, rather scattered and in-
different in comparison with the showing they had
made much earlier. The phloxes were still gay,
and a few of the monthly roses of the fan were as
lovely as ever. Mignonette still bloomed, delight-
ing in its cool, shady place, while here and there a
rose-mallow was to be seen. The heliotrope-bed
held many flowers. Before we owned a garden I
had thought this a delicate flower, living mostly in
conservatories. It now seems to me almost as
hardy for beds and borders as crimson geraniums.

So far, the asters in our garden have not suc-
cumbed to the horrid creatures that eat their roots ;
perhaps because Joseph has been so vigilant with
wood ashes. The cosmos look as though they
cared not a bit that the season is waning. Yet,
when we come directly from Miss Wiseman’s, our
triangle has a meagre look. This is because it is
dahlia month in her garden, and Miss Wiseman
herself is a specialist in these flowers. They are
blooming now in such numbers that no other flow-
ers except the great, toppling heads of white hy^

SEPTEMBER DAYS

drangeas are to be seen. They appear In every
bed and border, they raise themselves from hidden
places, and the vases in the house are full of them.

These dahlias of Miss Wiseman are Indeed won-
derful to look upon. They are not like the rigid,
prim flowers that Joseph and I called dahlias be-
fore we came to live at the Six Spruces. There are
both single and double ones, the latter looking like
rosettes, with their texture as soft as velvet. I
think the dahlias of a crimson so deep that It Is
almost purple are the most beautiful, although
there are yellow ones that are nearly as lovely.

“I can scarcely realise that you have not a dahlia
In your garden,” Miss Wiseman said to me. “In
September they are my joy and glory. With them
I shall beat Mr. Hayden at the show this year.”

Miss Wiseman was radiant. I could see that
this meant a great deal to her.

“Perhaps Joseph thought dahlias were trouble-
some,” I said. I remembered that their roots have
to be taken up and stored over the winter. They
will not live In the ground, as do hardy perennials.

“Trouble!” exclaimed Miss Wiseman. “You
talk of trouble before such a flower as this,” and
she lifted the head of a single, velvety beauty which
drooped by Its own weight.

“It is like a chrysanthemum,” she said.

Miss Wiseman was truly excited over her suc-
cess with dahlias: never before had they done so
well in her garden.

SEPTEMBER DAYS

241

Yet, In relating their wonder and beauty to Jo^
seph, I was somehow not enthusiastic.

“Shall we make the effort and have them next
year?” he asked. “It seems that every one expects
to see them in a garden in September.”

“Not for my pleasure,” I answered, and Joseph
questioned no further. Perhaps he thought that,
despite their astonishing beauty, at the bottom of
my heart I had the same feeling about dahlias that
he had concerning petunias.

Yet, when Miss Wiseman had asked me if hers
were not beautiful, and this and that one an especial
beauty, I had answered “Yes.” They have a
beauty which I can see and admire, but it is one that
I do not feel. I could never love dahlias.

“If we have more asters next September, great
quantities of them, as many as Miss Wiseman has
of dahlias, I think our September garden will be
attractive enough,” I said to Joseph. For an in-
stant he looked troubled ; then he confessed frankly :

“There is a beetle, besides the blue-aphis, that
bothers the asters and eats their roots.”

“What will you do about it?” I asked, feeling
sure that he would overcome it in some way.

“Oh,” he said, “it must be taken off by hand. I
have mixed some kerosene, gasoline and benzine
in a can, and, when I go about, I tap each plant
until the beetles fall into the mixture. They die
quickly then, you may be sure. Perhaps I shall
have to go after them twice a day as long as they

SEPTEMBER DAYS

^42

appear. But this may not be for more than a' week
or ten days.”

Joseph seemed quite resigned to the work before
him. I was also enlightened about the queer smell
that had permeated our back hall of late. It was
there that Little Joseph had made his mixture.

It is his patience and wise persistence in our
garden that has made the neighbours say pleasant
things about the way we have beautified the Six
Spruces. Miss Wiseman has told us that the place
is beginning to be talked about in Nestly, and even
loved as it was long ago, before our great-aunt
grew old and severe in her ways. For, when Aunt
Amanda was young, she was fond of people, and
the Six Spruces was the gayest place in this part of
the country.

Sometimes we have tried tO' find out from Mrs.
Keith why it was that our great-aunt had changed
so much that, when she died, she loved no one, and
had only the blush-rose bush and the lemon verbena
in her garden.

Mrs. Keith invariably answers: “It is a long
story, my dears, and this perhaps is not the most
proper time to tell it.”

She is very particular about doing things at
exactly the right time.

For some days a haze has hung over the garden.
It has made us notice the flowers less, and think
more of the form of the trees, and of the colours
that are tipping the still green foliage. The birds

SEPTEMBER DAYS

have a proud look, as though, their families having
been raised and well started in life, they had noth-
ing further to concern themselves about until the
time arrives tO' fly southward. How simple is this
long journey of theirs! They have no trunks to
pack, no affairs to set in order, they even take no
road maps. They simply join a gay company of
their friends and relatives, and fly off, leaving their
farewell notes in the air.

“Our garden will be a much less happy place
without the birds,” Joseph said this morning.
“Timothy Pennell thinks that sometimes the same
birds return to the same houses year after year if
they have been well suited and left unmolested.”

“Surely, we have fulfilled those conditions,” I
said, and at that moment Joseph looked out the
window and saw the yellow cat that had killed the
young catbird.

She was flat on the grass, moving along very
slowly. Her eyes were terrible. They appeared
so sleepy, yet so intense. W e looked about to see
what she was planning to kill, when suddenly, from
where we did not know, Mrs. Keith descended upon
her. That time the broom fell across her back
with no light stroke, not once but several times.
When we saw the last of her yellow tail slipping
over the wall, we all felt sure she would not again
visit the Six Spruces.

CHAPTER XXXI

GETTING READY FOR BULB-PLANTING

SOME flowers have come Into our garden this
September that remind me of the spring days
when bloodroot awoke in the woods, and narcissi
bloomed in Miss Wiseman’s border. These are
the Japanese anemones, the bulbs of which Joseph
planted in early spring. They are frail and deli-
cate, and look like early flowers. It seems as
though they had made a mistake in blooming so
near the time of frost. Frost is just a little way
behind the flowers of spring, while it approaches
these of September. Maybe for this reason, this
autumn month reminds me of May. Little Joseph
does not see this at all, and says that the fact is not
mentioned in “An Ambitious Boy’s Garden.”
Long ago I found out that Joseph sees only what
actually exists In a garden, while Queenie and I
often are conscious of other things that, though
just as real to us, are more difficult to explain.

“Jack Frost will come soon,” Queenie said to me
lately.

I asked her how she knew.

244

PLATE XLII. — WICHURAIANAS OVER ARCHES

READY FOR BULB-PLANTING ^45

“I know his ways,’’ she answered.

Yet the day was not cold. There was merely
the same little bite in the air that the frost left when
passing away in late April. The mist hanging over
things now keeps us from seeing their outlines
sharply, and in this September reminds me again
of the early spring.

Joseph has ordered the bulbs that he intends to
plant between now and the time when the ground
freezes too hard to make such work possible. He
has also bought twelve white peony roots, in order
that the bed of peonies we have dreamed about
may become a reality. Four double pink ones, as
well, are to be set in the triangle proper. The
large bed for the peonies has been prepared by
Timothy in the usual way, since we wish to give
them every chance to flourish next spring. At least
a foot and a half of the soil has been dug over and
a layer of well-rotted manure been put at the bot-
tom of the bed. We have remembered that
peonies like full sunlight.

Already Joseph has planted a hundred Spanish
irises, all supposed to have yellow flowers next
season; he also has set out fifty English irises,
named Mont Blanc, perhaps because they are so
white. These he expects to bloom after the Span-
ish ones have faded. If these plants do half as
well as Joseph anticipates, we shall have a wonder-
ful showing of irises next spring, and for very
little money. The hundred Spanish irises cost but

S46 READY FOR BULB-PLANTING

a dollar, and the fifty English ones were only a little
more than double the price.

Joseph planted these irises in September, be-
cause he wishes their foliage to grow before the
winter begins. He says that in November he will
cover them over quite heavily with straw, since they
are not absolutely hardy, as are the German and
Japanese irises which we planted last spring. But
under warm covering he thinks they will rest in
comfort.

With the exception of the peonies and irises,
Joseph will probably wait until October, or even
November, before putting in the rest of his bulbs.
It is well, however, to. have the above number out
of the way before the real autumn planting begins.
The irises were set deep in rich soil, their roots
being rather long and eager for room. Joseph
planted them all by the moist point of the triangle
in irregular groups. I love irises, and have en-
couraged him to set out so many in our garden.
Even when the flowers are gone, I like to see their
sword-like leaves sharp and distinct among the sur-
rounding greens.

Joseph has bought besides yellow crocuses;
snowdrops, of both the small and the large varie-
ties; Siberian squills, which pleased us so much at
Miss Wiseman’s last spring; the lovely narcissus
poeticus ; double yellow daffodils, yellow tulips, and
those that bloom later called parrot-tulips. With
these latter, we were both so enchanted last spring

READY FOR BULB-PLANTING Ml

that, for a while, we thought we would plant no
other tulips. In the end, however, we chose from
the catalogue the solid yellow ones for earlier
blooming.

We bought no hyacinths. We do not care for
them as much as for the other spring flowers, and
they cost more. In this instance, Joseph and I con-
sidered ourselves fortunate in having our taste
correspond with our pocket-book.

After Joseph had made out his list of bulbs from
the catalogue, he took it to show to Miss Wiseman
before actually sending the orders to the nursery-
men.

“Master Joseph,’’ she said, “you have shown
good taste as well as economy.”

The order was then sent in. Now that the
bulbs have arrived, Joseph looks at them several
times a day with the same air of mysterious wis^
dom and admiration that he had for the seed pack-
ages last March. He is as serious about his bulb-
planting as I was in starting my rosarium.

It is, however, because Joseph has been seri-
ous regarding the garden that he has made it
a success this first year. If he had continually put
it aside for other things, instead of attending to it
each day, planting and transplanting when the hour
was ripe, the garden must have suffered and worn
a melancholy, unkempt look. Nothing is more
distressing than to see a neglected garden. Some-

g48 READY FOR BULB-PLANTING

thing must be wrong with the one who planted It,
or he would not let his early work so gO' to waste.

Joseph watches and waits until the seeds he sows
or the flowers he plants require his aid. Then
they find him ready. Mrs. Keith declares, her
treatment of the yellow cat was kind in comparison
to what Joseph has given to the pests of the gar-
den. They would never have ventured within its
limits had they known about his spraying, his mix-
tures and the way he handles wood ashes. In
killing these creatures, Joseph seems to find a sort
of pleasure which I am not sure is always good for
him. But then it would be wrong to allow them
to devour our flowers.

To-day Joseph and I have been again tO’ Nestly
Heights. The drive up to the house is most lovely.
In places it appears almost as if we were in a dense
wood, one where everything is tidy and where
flowers and shrubs bloom as nowhere else. In the
real woods, the flowers and shrubs are now dying.
No gardeners, of course, are there, as at Nestly
Heights, to remove flowers that have passed their
bloom, to pick off unattractive seed-pods, and to
scatter about odd and brilliant plants. Large
banana leaves were waving with the breezes as we
drove along, and many cannas held aloft either red
or yellow flowers.

“There must be something grand about owning
a place like Nestly Heights,” Joseph said, while
the same feeling crept over me that I had when he

PLATE XLIII. — THE DRIVE UP TO NESTLY HEIGHTS

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READY FOR BULB-PLANTING 249

won the tennis tournament. This time it was not
the dread that he would forsake the garden for
athletics, but I wondered if, when he became a
man, with affairs of his own, he would grow very
rich and dissatisfied with the Six Spruces. I have
heard Mr. Hayden say that, when he was Joseph’s
age, the only garden he knew about was one in
which turnips and cabbages grew. The thought
of Joseph’s growing to be a man was overwhelm-
ing. I had never concerned myself about it be-
fore.

^ Mr. Percy came in when we reached the house,
and Ben and Harry tumbled about Joseph, both
talking to him at the same time. Mrs. Hayden
was sitting on the veranda in a little corner away
from the wind.

“It is useless for me to play I love the autumn,”
she said. “I cannot forget how near it is to real
winter.”

There is something very delicate about Mrs.
Hayden. She Is like a white lily that has begun
to fade. It would not seem natural for her to
help Joseph, to stake out flower beds and pass the
line around, as Miss Wiseman did. But, although
she Is so quiet and moves around so little, every
one loves her dearly.

This day Mr. Hayden was not a bit like the
wind, or even like a little breeze. He had gout
in his foot, and it pained him severely.

^50 READY FOR BULB-PLANTING

“My boy must show you around to-day,” he
said.

I looked for Little Joseph, but already he was
on the tennis court, so Mr. Percy and I started
down the long walk that leads tO' the glass houses.

“We will not bother to go into them all,” he
said, “but in this one I will pick you such a bouquet
as you should always have.”

We stepped into a part of the house where roses
grew and where they were all pink, perfect and
waxy, while at their base, hanging over the raised
beds, were quantities and quantities of heliotrope.
In this warm house it grew prolifically, more like a
vine, in fact, than the upright plants in our bed at
the Six Spruces.

“Do not pick it,” I said. “It will only wilt,
since we have not hot water in which to put it.”

“But it goes so well with the roses,” Mr. Percy
replied, “and the two together go so well with you.”

It was not a bouquet that he gave me, but an
armful of flowers, pink roses and heliotrope. As
we were leaving the house, we passed the head
gardener. I saw him give Mr. Percy a very severe
look.

“If they had been mayflowers on some wooded
bank, or columbines,” Mr. Percy said, “I should
not have dared to pick so many, even for you. Miss
Amanda. The wildlings need protection. But
gardeners exist for the purpose of giving us pink
roses and heliotrope.”

READY FOR BULB-PLANTING S51

I thought that perhaps he would be scolded for
the reckless picking he had done, quite as much
as if he were Ben or Harry.

We talked about his going back to college and
how near the time was when Joseph would have
to go to school.

“I shall run back for Thanksgiving,” he said,
“and then, you know, I shall be down again at
Christmas-time.”

“But,” I said, “there will then be no garden at
the Six Spruces for you to come and see.”

“I may drop In then,” he replied, “just to see
you and Little Joseph.”

“We shall be shut up In the library,” I told him,
“but. If there Is a log fire, it may not seem dull.”

“No,” he said, “it will not seem at all dull to
me.”

As usual, It was hard work getting Joseph to
realise that the time had come to stop playing ten-
nis. I was eager to reach home before my flowers
faded. He came at length, and we hastened along,
as it had begun to sprinkle slightly.

“That will be my last game of tennis for some
time,” Little Joseph said later. “From now on,
until the garden Is made ready for winter, I shall
have as much work here every day as I can man-
age.”

So again I was made sure that Joseph would not
forsake the garden.

CHAPTER XXXII

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

HE hardy chrysanthemums have come with Oc-

1 tober. They are the ones we planted along
the upper end of the wall before the nasturtiums
are reached, which, as I must have mentioned be-
fore, were brought to us by Timothy Pennell.
When he set the little plants out, I suppose he saw,
in his mind’s eye, as he says, how beautiful they
would one day look in our garden. A few of
them are white, but more are purplish crimson.
They are like autumn itself, and seem as much a
part of it as the changed leaves and the white frost
which wishes to come and which yet holds back
a while.

Yesterday, at Miss Wiseman’s, we saw some of
the most wonderful chrysanthemums that ever un-
folded. They grew in one of the glass houses at
Nestly Heights, and were like solid balls of white
or yellow petals. One had petals of deep wine
colour, lined with yellow. I cannot write down
half the wonder or the beauty of these flowers.
Miss Wiseman said Mr. Hayden had sent them

PLATE XLIV. — CHRYSANTHEMUMS IN THE GLASS HOUSE
AT NESTLY HEIGHTS

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

^53

just to let her see what could be done at Nestly
Heights, because she had beaten every one of his
dahlia exhibits at the show. They were more
marvellous than I had thought chrysanthemums
could be, but they were no more like the hardy ones
In our garden than If they had borne a different
name.

Ours are to love and make bouquets with; but
the great hot-house chrysanthemums are to admire
from afar. I wonder that these flowers should
know how to dress in autumn colours when they
have been raised in the warmth as much as were
the pink roses and heliotrope Mr. Percy picked for
me. How do they find out there is a chill In the
air, and that the leaves have turned red, crimson,
yellow and bronze ? Do they send out white flow-
ers, I wonder, because they are forerunners of the
snow ? Perhaps no more than did the sweet alyssum
of our garden. Chrysanthemums invariably give
me this thought. These great ones never seem
young to me. I Imagine they have lived long and
have conquered much.

We shall never have chrysanthemums of this
kind at the Six Spruces, unless some day Joseph
grows very rich and hires skilled gardeners to work
for him, while he looks on and smiles. But every
year, and In Increased numbers, I hope we shall
have the kind that Timothy brought us.

They are flowers that never tire me. They seem
to wish to help me say good-bye to- summer and

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

^54

the garden, and yet to do it without complaining.
They are free and fearless, and remind me of birds
that have lived outside of a cage.

In the spring, when Timothy was dividing his
own chrysanthemums, he brought these to the Six
Spruces. He set them out, putting three or four
sprouts together, and since then they have been
scarcely any trouble. In early July, and again dur-
ing the first week of September, Joseph dug in
about the roots of each plant a small trowelful of
manure, because chrysanthemums, like roses, need
a very rich soil. Then he kept the new shoots and
the buds pinched back until September, sO' that they
should grow bushy and not bloom before the au-
tumn call for them came clearly.

Next spring, when these plants begin to sprout,
we shall divide them as Timothy did his this last
season. Looking into the future, therefore, I see
an increased number of these late visitors at the
Six Spruces. We have learned that they do best
when planted in rich soil where the sun. can linger
upon them. Also, they like a wall. Some day,
when we make our wide border about the house,
we may plant them against its sunny side. During
the long weeks before they bloom their foliage is
always pretty, the leaves being a soft, ashen green.
I like them much better than the phloxes, which
are so prim before they bloom and become so un-
attractive after their heads are cut off.

While I was thinking of our chrysanthemums.

PLATE XLV,

THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS THAT TIMOTHY BROUGHT US

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

^55

and noticing the strange scent they waft to the nos-
trils, It began to rain, In a way that made me know
It was no mere garden sprinkling. We have been
rather suspicious of rains since the great storm that
ended In taking away our spruce tree. This rain
appeared one that would really soak the ground,
and was In the right quarter, Mrs. Keith said, to
last two or three days. As long as It remains a
sensible autumn rain, without wild gusts of wind,
Joseph and I shall be content. He needs some
time Indoors to think seriously about where he will
plant the bulbs, and to settle In his mind several
other matters. While he thinks, reads and makes
notes In his book, the rain will be doing much
towards preparing the soil. But Mrs. Keith has
suggested that I bestir myself In the linen closet,
and plan about curtains to hang up for the winter.
This Is different work from that In my rosarium
and roving about the garden helping Joseph. I
suppose I shall mind It less when the flowers are
actually dead, or sleeping under the snow.

From the wood-border the trees are waving
branches all golden or scarlet. The sumacs grow-
ing by the roadways are flaming red, while over
our wall the Vrginia creepers have become more
deeply hued each day. The rain now Is preying
on these colours. It Is taking from them their
sparkle, blending them all together. From the
library window, we see the leaves falling. They

256

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

do it gently, almost without ceasing, as though they
were snowflakes.

“I shall plant all of the yellow crocuses in the
circle in front of the house,” Joseph said, as though
to break the monotony of the rain. “Then, when
people drive in the front gate next spring, they will
be as surprised as we were the day we went to Miss
Wiseman’s and saw the snowdrops in bloom.”

“Do you think we should have curtains in the
library?” I asked.

“I was speaking about the crocuses,” he re-
minded.

“But Mrs. Keith says I must think about the
house now,” I told him, “and curtains are impor-
tant.”

“Then you had better have them,” Joseph made
answer.

A bird flew close to the window, as though trying
to get in. Indeed, he knocked himself against the
pane.

“Perhaps this storm will grow wilder,” Joseph
said, and then returned to the subject of bulbs.

“Did you know,” he asked first, “that Timothy
sowed a great deal of grass-seed here on September
twentieth, and that, before doing so, he took up
many weeds and later rolled down the new seeds ?
They have probably taken root, and will have a
fine start before cold weather. So, you see, a good
lawn is already prepared for the bulbs to be set in.”

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

. ^57

“I suppose you will put them In with the English
bulb-planter,” I said, “so as not to hurt the lawn.”

“Naturally,” Joseph replied. “Planting bulbs
In that way Is scarcely any work at all. I can
manage to slip In about three dozen every half
hour. I shall plant them below the grass-roots,
probably between three and four inches deep, and.
In places where they are apt to be touched by ma-
nure, I shall put about them a handful of sand.”

“So that Is the reason Timothy dumped that pile
of sand by the side of the wood-border path,” I
said, and Joseph nodded assent.

“It was In the autumn,” I then reminded him,
“that we were to buy our weeping willow tree.
You said It should be set out at this time.”

“Let us go after It now,” Joseph exclaimed
eagerly. “We can drive to the nursery right
away.”

“The rain?” I said.

“It Is only softening the ground for autumn
work.”

Mrs. Keith’s nephew, who works In the stable,
harnessed our horse tO' the old rockaway wagon In
which Aunt Amanda used to drive, while Joseph
and I ran for our raincoats and galoshes. The
curtains were down on every side of the wagon.
Inside, it was as dry and comfortable as In a little
house. When Mrs. Keith caught sight of us, we
were settled on the front seat covered with the
waterproof sheet, and Joseph was driving.

258

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

“Your Aunt Amanda would never have allowed
you to go out in this rain,” she called after we had
started. We, however, were off, and it would have
been foolish to turn back then.

The nursery is quite three miles from the Six
Spruces, and we found it necessary to drive slowly,
the roads were so muddy. Once there, we left the
rockaway and tramped up and down the rows of
young trees. It was “great fun,” as Miss Wise-
man tells us American girls enjoy saying; but in
another way it was unwise for us to have come to
the nursery. Before this, Joseph had sent his or-
ders by post, and, when the things came, we were
delighted. Here in the nursery, however, we saw
so many beautiful shrubs and plants that we wished
for them all sorely, although we should never in
our sound senses have dreamed of ordering them
by post. For an instant, I even felt that perhaps
I should prefer having some other tree than the
weeping willow.

Joseph would not listen to such a whim. “You
have always wished for a weeping willow,” he said,
“and now is your chance to pick out a good one.”

Then we walked in a little grove of these trees,
and at length decided on one with a straight stem
that was fairly well grown.

“Shall we go back now?” Joseph asked, thinking
to avoid temptation.

My eye, however, had been caught by another
grove of trees with leaves like stars, turned tO' most

CHRYSANTHEMUMS ^59

brilliant shades of red and yellow. I inquired
their name.

“Oh, they are sweet-gum trees,” the nurseryman
said, adding under his great moustache, '‘'‘Liquidam-
har styracifluaJ^

“They are beautiful!” Joseph exclaimed en-
thusiastically. “We have nothing at all like them
at the Six Spruces.”

“They grow well and rather quickly,” the nur-
seryman urged.

“How much would one cost?” I asked boldly,
for, after all, this was the vital question.

“Well,” came the answer, “I would let you have
that large one there for eight dollars.”

“We will take it,” I said promptly, and then
wondered why I had done so. Joseph never uttered
a word.

The nurseryman marked a tag with our name,
and said he would bring it and the weeping willow
over and plant them for us as soon as the rain
ceased. He wished, he said, to show us his
Hercules’-clubs, aralia spinosa, fine shrubs for orna-
mental planting; but Joseph already had me by the
arm, and we were running as fast as we could
towards the rockaway.

“Eight dollars!” Joseph exclaimed, when we
were once inside. “It is more than we have ever
paid for any one thing before.”

“But it is less,” I said, “than a new winter hat

260

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

for me would cost, and the tree will live as long as
we do.”

The wheels then were going farther down in the
mud than w^hen we had started out.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE AUTUMN WORK

This week, when it is nearing October fifteenth,
Joseph has again been busy transplanting
perennials that have come up from the seeds sown
in the bed last spring to the places where they are
to remain permanently. This has not only required
activity on his part, but a good deal of thinking and
imagination. He has to keep continually before
him the picture of the garden as it will look when
these plants are in bloom, and also how they will
appear when they have grown old. By planting
them now, he hopes to have them rooted before the
ground freezes, when they may rest undisturbed
until the time comes to make an early start in the
spring. With these added to the perennials we
planted early, much ground that was bare will be
covered and flowers will decorate the triangle in
bolder masses than heretofore.

As Timothy says, our garden stock is all young.
This means that none of our hardy roots is large
enough to require dividing and resetting at this
time of year, which is often necessary in older gar-

261

^62

THE AUTUMN WORK

dens. Miss Wiseman has now many men at work
doing this for her. Yesterday I noticed that, be-
fore setting the plants, the men often put a spade-
ful of manure In the bottom of the holes. In fact,
each man. In addition to his tools, had a wheelbar-
row full of this stuff somewhere near. Much rich-
ness of soil Is necessary to make flowers large and
strong; and who would wish to save manure at the
expense of having small and puny flowers? Miss
Wiseman would give us some of the perennials she
has divided this autumn, but Joseph thinks we have
a sufficient start, and wishes to let our garden
Increase Itself. From now on, he Is going to be
very careful about taking In new plants. He pre-
fers to have many of a few kinds well massed than
to have a few strange, lonely ones here and there.

We are delighted, however, with some plants
that Miss Wiseman has given us, particularly the
lilles-of-the-valley. We had not thought of them
until Miss Wiseman sent us a large quantity of the
pips to set out. The bed for these flowers, and
that for the white peonies, are In fact the only new
ones we have made this autumn.

We planted these lilies between the rosarium and
the wood-border. There the lilies will have the
shade they require, and we can see them from the
garden seat as well as the roses. When Timothy
prepared their bed he first dug out the soil for about
two feet, put at the bottom some old manure, and
filled the hole up with rich, fine earth, through which

PLATE XLVI. — THE MEN AT WORK

THE AUTUMN WORK

some leaf-mould from the woods had been mixed.
After it had thus been made ready, I helped Joseph
set out the pips, as the roots are called. I shall
have an especial love for this bed of flowers, as I
have for those of the roses and heliotrope. It is
too bad that we shall have to wait until May to see
them in bloom.

Without telling me a thing about it, Joseph has
kept a piece of news in his head about lilies-of-the^
valley.

^‘They are wild flowers,” he said casually, as we ,
were planting them.

I thought he must be talking about something
else.

“Oh, I do not mean that we shall ever find them
growing wild, near here,” he explained, “but in
parts of the southern mountains of the United
States they are as much wild flowers as rhododen-
drons and azaleas are wild shrubs. They spread
themselves over the hillsides and fill the air with
fragrance when they are in bloom.”

I asked him how he had found this out.

“One day, when Mr. Percy was reading a maga-
zine article,” he answered, “lilies-of-the-valley were
referred to as not being natives of this country.
Mr. Percy then ran his finger over the text and said
it was all a mistake, because he had seen them him-
self growing wild in the higher Alleghanies.”

“Let us hope they will grow here as if they were

264*

THE AUTUMN WORK

wild,” I said, knowing Mr. Percy must be right in
the matter.

“And bloom like mad,” Joseph added.

Miss Wiseman also offered us bulbs of other
lilies, called respectively liliiim candidum^ auratum^
and album. They will bear several fine lilies on
each stalk. We noticed them in bloom this sum-
mer, but we have lost our desire for them. Al-
though they are hardy, they look as if they have
just stepped out of a hot-house. So we said we
would not take them now, but that, when our gar-
den was older and w^e knew its needs better, we
might find a place just suited to them. Joseph said
perhaps we would have an inspiration about them
during the winter, and then we could plant them
in the spring, after the frost had left the ground.

“Spoken like the wise boy you are!” Miss Wise-
man replied simply.

This week he has continued to plant the snow-
drops through the turf of the triangle. They are
such dear little flowers, and will come up so early,
that we wish to keep them as near us as possible,
right in the heart of the garden. They are not for
the whole world to see, as are the gay crocuses scat-
tered through the front lawn. The Siberian squills
are strewn about somewhat at random. Joseph is
playing that they are wild flowers coming up of
their own accord.

More thought, however, had to be given to the
planting of the tulip bulbs. Now they are set as

THE AUTUMN WORK

^65

a ring about the bed where the heliotrope Is planted,
and In the space formerly occupied by sweet
alyssum. They have also been used as border plants
to the long bed In front of the wall. When they
have bloomed and faded, other border plants that
are not likely to disturb the bulbs will have to take
their places.

Joseph has no Intention of taking up his bulbs,
after their foliage has turned yellow, storing them
over the summer, only to replant them again in
the autumn. His plan Is to cut off their leaves
when they are dead, and to follow the old-fashioned
way of letting the bulbs remain In the ground to
ripen and to Increase. At the end of three years,
he will perhaps dig them all up and have their bed
made over and enriched, although at present this
seems a long way off.

Joseph has planted the narcissi near the crescent
bed at the end of the triangle. They are not in
the bed, but behind It In the grass. There the turf
Is not cropped close and turned Into lawn until after
June, when the foliage of the bulbs will have died.
It Is quite necessary to think of the foliage of bulbs
when planting them, and to arrange that It need
not be cut down until Its strength and life have re-
turned to the bulb. Should the foliage of narcissi
or tulips be cut off while fresh and green, their bulbs
would greatly suffer.

The daffodils have been planted in the grass in

266

THE AUTUMN WORK

the same section of the garden, where we hope they
will live and Increase for many years.

I was glad when Joseph had completed his bulb-
planting, and had hung his useful implement up In
the tool closet. Some days he looked very tired,
although he would never acknowledge to weariness
of any sort.

Little Joseph goes to school now, and all the
work that he has done this month has been either
before going or after his return. At half after
eight every morning the carriage from Nestly
Heights stops here for him, and he drives away
with Ben and Harry. His school began two days
after Mr. Percy went back to college. The gar-
den then seemed to me more lonely than If all the
birds and flowers had left. Now I am growing
used to their absence. I take music lessons each
week, and Mrs. Keith has made up her mind to
teach me many things about the house. Then
there are my roses.

About the tenth of this month I set In the fan
a few hardy perpetuals that were sent to me by Mr.
Percy. They had been cut back so that they had
no especial appearance to recommend them, and
they were not tagged. I shall have to wait pa-
tiently to learn their habits until June returns and
they send forth their petals. Manure has beemdug
in about the base of the rose-bushes, and any dead-
wood that may have formed has been carefully cut
out. With the exception of cutting back my roses,

THE AUTUMN WORK

267

there is not much to be done to them until late in
November, when a heavy winter covering will be
spread over the ever-blooming ones. Timothy is
raking the fallen leaves in piles, not to burn as bon-
fires, however, but to use in forming protection for
tender roots.

Mr. Hayden will send one of his gardeners to
help me cut back the roses this year, for, being so
inexperienced in this work, I fear I might trim
them either too much or too little. Miss Wiseman
advises me to follow her rule, in which case she
says “all will be well.”

In November she cuts her hardy roses back to
about two feet in height, and the monthly or ever-
blooming ones she trims down to about a foot.
Some day I shall perhaps see for myself how wise
it is to cut back roses in the late autumn ; but now
it seems to me a rather cruel thing to do, when all
summer they have been striving so bravely to grow.

I wonder what would really have happened to
Aunt Amanda’s blush-rose bush if, during all the
years gone by, it had been under the care of Mr.
Hayden’s gardener. The roses might have been
larger, but surely they could have smelt no sweeter,
and perhaps the bush would not have lived so' long.

I have other thoughts about roses, which I shall
not write down, however, until I have watched the
rose fan for several more seasons. In fact, I may
only let them be known after I have become as

S68 THE AUTUMN WORK

famous for my roses as Miss Wiseman is for her
dahlias.

All this time Joseph and I have not forgotten to
watch the shrub that Timothy Pennell had given
us and planted in the wood-border- — the queer one
that he said would only bloom when other flowers
had fallen. It is in bloom now, covered with small
yellow flowers, very frail and straggly. They give
a curious appearance to the dying leaves about, and,
for an instant, I thought they, too, were dying, hav-
ing turned yellow in so doing. On looking closer,
1 saw that they were quite as much alive as were
the yellow bells that covered the shrubs in April.
Spring came among our shrubs in yellow and now
the witch-hazel wears the same colour as autumn
departs.

Nothing could have pleased Timothy more than
the way this shrub behaved and bloomed in its
new home.

“It is a fine one,’^ he said, “a real fine one, and
as lively as a cricket.’’

Of late Timothy has been in the clutches of the
farmers. He is away in the fields loading wagons
with corn and pumpkins, and tying the stalks in
stacks which stand like an army in waiting through
the fields. The autumn mist hangs over them,
turned in the distance to purple, while the ground
becomes rich with the leaves that once the trees
upheld.

PLATE XLVII. — TIMOTHY HAS BEEN IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE FARMERS

CHAPTER XXXIV

DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING
AST night a frost intensely white spread itself

over our garden. It was whiter even than
the last of the cannas that faced it so unflinchingly
and were killed by its touch. The few remaining
heliotrope flowers grew black at its coming, and the
cheery nasturtiums that had hidden themselves be-
neath their leaves from former frosts quite gave in
to this white visitor. Indeed, how should any of
these survive when even the hardy chrysanthemums
lie dying?

In the rosarium, the monthly roses have been
covered for the winter with manure, leaves and
cedar branches over all. They have had also warm
cloaks of straw wrapped around them. No ves-
tige of their former stateliness remains. They
look like queer little pigmies playing at being as
important as the cornstalks in the fields. The
hardy perpetual roses have been covered more
lightly ; mulched, in fact, with coarse litter.

All of Joseph’s young perennials have been cov-
ered, many of them with cedar boughs to keep the

269

270 DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING

wind from scattering the warm^ dried leaves spread
over them like a blanket. Everywhere about the
triangle, and extending to the wood-border, there
has been a clearing up and a making ready for
winter. Neatness prevails in our garden. To me
it looks quite dead.

Joseph persists it is only sleeping, which, of
course, I know is true. Yet this sleep of the plant
world is very different from that of people. When
the “sandman” calls for Joseph, he merely closes
his eyes and his body loses its sprightliness. I can
see him and feel him just the same as if he were
awake. But when the garden sleeps, it fairly
vanishes from sight. It is almost as if it had never
been. The tops of the hardy perennials have been
cut off and taken away as rubbish. Still, Joseph
reminds me that they are not dead but sleeping.

I think I should like to peer deep into the earth
and look at the roots of the plants while they are
sleeping. I wonder if they have the same appear-
ance then as when upholding their stalks of flowers.
Wonderful happenings must gO' on in the soil where
they live, or various roots looking more or less
alike would never be able to send up so many flow-
ers of different shapes and colours.

If any of our perennials fail to come up next
spring, I shall believe that they have taken cold
in the earth and been unable to live. The sensa-
tions of a plant when it is cold must be truly dread-
ful, as they cannot call out for aid or in any way

DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING

2T1

help themselves. We must be more than careful
that they are covered over and kept warm and
snug.

The trees of the coppice now appear to me as
dead as the garden, although they also are merely
resting. Iheir leaves have fallen aimlessly in
many places, and we see again their frameworks as
distinctly as in early spring. Yet with this differ-
ence : in spring, even during raw and chilly weather,
there shone upon the twigs and branches of the
trees a glimmer of life, a slight hint of colour.
Now they appear to grow more sombre every day.
Grey and dull brown have taken the places of pink
and yellow. The few stray leaves that still cling
to the branches look as if only waiting their turn to
fly off with the next passing wind.

At the point of the triangle, too, all is dead, but
there is still a fluffy look from the tall grasses and
straggly sticks that have not died down to the
ground. It presents a contrast to the extreme neat-
ness of the flower beds. Nothing has been covered
over except the Spanish and the English iris bulbs,
and even the roughness of this litter gives here an
appearance of life.

“Do not tidy up things at the moist point,” I said
to Joseph, “until it has the still, dead look of the
rest of the garden.”

Again he corrected me and said that the garden
was only sleeping.

Since the leaves have fallen, we see clearly many

DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING

birds’ nests. But they are empty, their usefulness
being long since past. I feel a little desolate about
these nests. They tell so plainly that the birds
have gone, and that there is a long wait before their
return. One black individual remains that claims
November for his own. The crow fits in with the
sombre day and its spirit. When sky and trees
are grey, he takes to flight, rising, as it were, from
nowhere. He is the blackest note in the landscape
as he flies off, perchance to help Timothy in the
cornfield, for crows delight in feasting on the far-
mer’s corn and seek the left-over ears which occa-
sionally stand out from the stacks. Poor crea-
tures! the kernels in such ears are hard and dry.
Who but a miser would begrudge them their meal ?

Joseph insists, however, that crows are cowards
and have not the highest standard of morals. But
I have only heard of one really wicked crow, while
those I now see about quite cheer me. I do not
agree with people who think they make this
time of the year more dreary. They give a life
and a sound to its greyness.

The wicked crow I know about stole and prob-
ably devoured a young chicken. It happened in
the spring when chickens are tender and at the
age to make good broilers. Timothy Pennell’s
son had raised a number for the market, regarding
them with pride and expectations. One day from
the window he saw a crow sweep down from the
broad sky, and take back in the air with him one

DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING m

of these chickens. His father was working out-
side, but had not seen the occurrence. Tim-
othy’s son, quickly opening the window, called
loudly to his father: “The crow has a chicken,
the crow has a chicken !”

Unfortunately, Timothy had his poor ear turned
in the direction of his son’s voice and thought the
words were : “The horse is a-ki eking, the horse is
a-ki eking 1”

So, instead of running to the house for his gun,
he started as fast as he could go towards the barn,
in order that his feeble old horse might be dis-
ciplined. In the meantime, the crow and its prey
passed out of sight. At first, it had flown rather
slowly and stopped once to rest in a tree. Prob-
ably it was unused to carrying such a large bird as
the chicken.

Timothy’s son is lame and could not himself run
quickly after the crow. Since this happened,
neither he nor his father has had any good words
to say for crows, nor in fact has Little Joseph. I
think myself the chicken came to a tragic end ; but,
if it had stayed with Timothy’s son, it would soon
have had its head chopped off, so the difference was
not so great after all.

Queenie Perth no longer talks about her garden
or the butterflies. “There is nothing to say now
about it,” she explains. And this is true, since,
with the exception of a few sweet-williams, all her
flowers were annuals, living for one season only.

274 DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING

They are now completely dead. When spring re-
turns, she will sow the same seeds over again, and
have another garden identical with the one of this
year. Now her hands are idle, as far as garden
work is concerned. She has done no autumn plant-
ing, nor was there any need for her to cover over
anything.

“Auntie does those things in her garden,”
Queenie says; “mine is for Rosamond and the but-
terflies.”

We have noticed that, whenever Queenie wishes
to take no trouble or to do a thing in a childish
way, she invariably says she does it to suit her doll
Rosamond. Every morning now she goes to
school with a little bag of books under her arm;
and, from the way her brow is puckered, she must
be thinking seriously of many things.

It is not likely that any one about the Six Spruces
will forget Joseph’s dislike of dandelions and the
feeling of pride he had in thinking he had ban-
ished them from the triangle. Yet, as I walked
about to-day, a gay, golden head nodded to me
amid the greyness of the garden. I stooped to
scan it closely. It was a dandelion blossom as
fresh and undaunted as if it were May instead of
November, the rosette of its leaves appearing per-
fect. I found it near the moist point, where Jo-
seph has not been as vigilant as in other places.

I was pleased with the welcome of this little
dandelion. Its bloom cheered the whole garden,

DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING S75

and made the thought of winter seem less long,
while spring drew nearer. I guarded Its where-
abouts with secrecy, expecting to count the many
days It stayed In bloom, and to see if It would suc-
C( ^d In makli g Its ball of seeds before the first snow
f^ d. I had lot, however, taken Saturday Into ac-
co mt, the da) that Joseph has no school.

vVe were at breakfast that morning when he
said: “Just think, I found one of those pert little
dandelions In bloom.’’

“What did you do with It?” I asked.

“Do with it?” he queried. “I took It up and
destroyed it, of course.”

So perished the last flower of our garden, and
for no better reason than because men call it a
weed.

“Do you realise,” I asked, to change the melan-
choly subject of dandelions, “that it will soon be
Thanksgiving, and Mr. Percy will be home
again r

“I hai^e a composition to write before then,”
Joseph answered In an extremely doleful way.

“That Is nothing,” I said. “You just begin — ”

“It Is the beginning of a composition that I de-
test,” Joseph said savagely. “After that, It Is not
so bad.”

I remembered that compositions are hard to be-
gin, and sometimes hard to end, but that the mid-
dle parts give no trouble.

“Just like our garden,” I said. “In spring It

Ti6 DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING

was hard and almost discouraging to begin; then
came the middle, easy time, and at the end it grew
hard again and dreary. Only,^’ I continued, ‘^you
can put a cheerful ending on any composition, while
it is difficult to have lively thoughts about a garden
that is- — ”

“Sleeping,’^ Joseph interrupted, knowing the
ugly word I was about to utter. “I could write
the composition about our garden,’’ he said
eagerly. “Such a beginning as that would not be
hard, because there is so much to say. Probably
I could not get the composition all on one sheet of
paper. Besides,” he added, “there is not another
boy in the school who could write a composition
about a garden. No one else there has ever made
one, and only a few boys even know the names of
the flowers. I think I will begin this evening.”

Joseph was then as ready to begin his composi-
tion as he had formerly been fearful of the under-
taking. He had simply settled on a subject that
he knew something about, and one which filled him
with enthusiasm. I knew that, once he was fairly
started on his work, his observations would be
quaint and different from those of the catalogues
and garden books. Joseph can express himself as
well as most boys. Suddenly, I looked at him
with an awakened interest. Would the day ever
come for Joseph to write a better book than “An
Ambitious Boy’s Garden” ?

CHAPTER XXXy

THE SNOW

SINCE our garden has bloomed its best, and
now rests sleeping, and since there is no
longer any work there for either Joseph or me to
do, we have turned to the spruces for greenness, and
to the woods in their silent gauntness. We are not
content tO' live apart from Nature, even though she
wears the cloak of winter.

The snow began in the night. Joseph and I
awoke to see the outside world changed from grey-
ness to the black and white of December. The
flakes continued to fall silently throughout the
morning, each one making the whiteness more com-
plete and spotless. The trees rose darkly above it,
while a solitary crow, the last perchance of his fel-
lows, flew directly across the triangle as though
intent on leaving it and its whiteness as far behind
him as possible.

“Now you children will learn something about
life in the country,’’ Mrs. Keith assured us. “Win-
ter is the real time to test the patience.”

Timothy Pennell, who has changed his occupa-

277

THE SNOW

tion of gardening for the less Imaginative one of
taking care of the furnace, stamped the snow from
his boots and said stoutly: “Now we are in for a
good long spell of rough weather.*’

He said this so buoyantly that It seemed as if he
were quite pleased with the prospect.

Joseph’s one idea when he saw the snow was to
get out Into It, to make It Into snowballs, and to fire
them at the clothes-posts for lack of any more vital
objects. He arranged that, later, our horse should
be harnessed to Aunt Amanda’s old sleigh, and
ransacked the garret for robes and bells. He was
joyous and alive to the pleasure of the snow, and I
wondered he did not fret and fume at being shut
up In school while the earth wore this wonderful
white covering.

I felt more timid with the snow. It gleamed so
white and was so cold. As soon as Joseph had
gone to school with Ben and Harry, I returned to
the house, keeping my eyes away from the win-
dows. With the snow had come a restlessness. I
could not read or think of my music, but wandered
from room to room. Mrs. Keith came and said
she would teach me how to make mince pies. I
was only spared this ordeal by the ringing of the
front door bell and the blustery appearance of Mr.
Hayden. He wore a great fur coat and a fur
cap, and to his beard the snow was clinging.

“A day like this makes me feel young again,” he

THE SNOW 279

saidj *‘but you. Miss Amanda, look as pale as a

lily;*

I told him I was a little afraid of the snow.

“You mean you do not like to have Joseph away
at school and my boy off at college;* he said, draw-
ing a newspaper out of his pocket. From this he
shortly began to read. I found out that Mr. Percy
had made a speech som.ewhere, and that every word
of it was printed in the paper.

“That is the kind of a son to have,** said Mr.
Hayden. “One of these days he is sure to set the
world on fire,**

Just why Mr. Hayden should be eager for him
to do such a terrible thing I could not imagine ; but
I agreed with him that he was the very best kind of
a son.

“Ben and Harry,** he continued, “will grow up
like me and, when they get old, they will have
gout** '

It seemed too bad to predict such a future for
these jolly boys.; but, nevertheless, I said that Mr.
Hayden was right.

“Now, Joseph,** he said, “is a rare combination.
He can make a garden and play the violin as well
as my son Percy, and he can beat those other boys
of mine at tennis.**

This time there was, of course, no doubt about
my agreeing with Mr. Hayden.

Then Mrs. Keith came in with some mincemeat

280

THE SNOW

for us to taste. In despair at Mr. Hayden’s visit,
she had proceeded to make the pies alone.

“Mincemeat and a snowstorm,” Mr. Hayden
exclaimed. “Nothing could be better,” and he
settled down to tell the real object of his visit.

He had decided, he said, not to leave Nestly
Heights for town before January, and it therefore
rested with him and with me to give every one a
surprise for Christmas. “You remember,” he
added, “that my boy Percy will be home the day
before.”

“It must be a secret,” Mr. Hayden said im-
pressively, “between you and me. I will lure all
the neighbours to Nestly Heights on Christmas eve,
and then I shall come out of the chimney dressed
as Santa Claus.”

One of the rooms at Nestly Heights has a chim-
ney so large that Mr. Hayden could be hidden in
it behind some evergreen boughs. We planned
that he should wear the fur coat he then had on,
and that Mrs. Keith should find a white beard
for him. I said that I would make him a large
bag to hold some of the presents he had to give
away.

Then we talked for a long time about what he
would give Miss Wiseman and Queenie and Mrs.
Keith, whom he thought would be difficult to please.
He told me that he already had something for Mrs.
Hayden, and for some one else whom he knew.

THE SNOW

^81

and that it was easy enough to find things for those
boys of his.

“I will give one a tennis racket,” he said, “and
the other a football.”

Then he told me as a very great secret that he
intended to give his son Percy and Little Joseph
the best presents of all, although what they were
he was careful not to mention. The third secret
Mr. Hayden told me was that he was having the
Christmas tree made.

“Yes,” he said, “it is to be an artificial tree; one
that can fold up and be put away so as to be ready
for all other Christmases to come. I do not ap-
prove,” he continued, “of cutting down our splen-
did evergreens for Christmas trees. They are be-
coming scarcer every year. It is a barbarous cus-
tom to chop down a beautiful tree that it may give
a few hours’ pleasure. My son Percy does not
approve of this custom, either. He would be
shocked if I should have a real evergreen tree at
Nestly Heights on Christmas eve, and I should no
longer be able to preach to people about the preser-
vation of our evergreens. Yes,” he said again, “I
am having my tree made. There is too much fun
in preaching to have to give it up.”

Mr. Hayden was certainly in excellent spirits. I
promised to keep all his secrets and to help him as
much as I could to bring about his Christmas sur-
prises.

“Not a word of this to Little Joseph,” he said

282

THE SNOW

before he went away, “nor to Queenie, nor to my
son Percy when he comes home. Not a word !”

I smiled at Mr. Hayden then, for already I knew
the surprise Mr. Percy had planned to give his
father at Christmas.

“Not a word to anybody!” and Mr. Hayden
blew out of the door with a great puff of snow.

I was glad when I heard the bells ringing and
saw the sleigh turn in at the Six Spruces bringing
Little Joseph back from school. His cheeks were
red, and he was full of gaiety.

“Our vacation has begun,” he cried. “Just
think: vacation, snow and Christmas!” Little
Joseph was happy.

Then we looked across the circle and saw
Queenie Perth trudging through the snow. At
first, it seemed impossible it could be she. We
wondered how it happened that Miss Wiseman had
let her come out in such deep snow. Long before
Joseph reached her, we heard her laughing.

“I slipped out to feel the snow for myself,” she
said. “Auntie was whispering secrets about Christ-
mas that I could not hear.”

She was well bundled up, and as eager to playj
in the snow as Joseph. They pelted each other
with snowballs, and at length they decided to build
a great snow man and to stand him by the spruces.
Fortunately, Timothy showed them the way he used
to make one when he was a boy. Otherwise, they

THE SNOW

^83

would never have succeeded in building a man so
large and so steady.

Miss Wiseman’s sleigh and merry bells came
through the gate long before the man was com-
pleted.

“It was no use trying to keep Quieenie away from
the snow,” she said. “I made believe I did not
see her putting on her rubber boots ; but all the time
I knew that she was here playing with Master
Joseph.”

Miss Wiseman was completely wrapped up in
furs, and, for the first time, I was impressed with
the fact that she was a very great lady. She
seemed no longer so decided and boyish as when
she had worn a short skirt and tramped and worked
in the garden with Little Joseph. Still, she had
perhaps changed no more than he. His overalls
were hung up in the closet. Even when I looked
at myself, I thought my appearance had changed
somewhat with the putting away of blue jeans and
rubber gloves. I did hope, however, that Mr.
Percy would not be a bit different when he came
home for Christmas.

“So we have only to enjoy the snow and get
ready for Christmas, Master Joseph,” Miss Wise-
man said. “Like all people who work well, we
much appreciate our play spell.”

Master Joseph at that moment looked as if he
were doing so. Since the garden had gone to sleep,
not even the shadow of a weed had crossed his

£84*

THE SNOW

brow. And well might It sleep under such a soft,
white coverlet. No' Insects could annoy It now ; no
weeds would overcrowd the flowers. I do not be-
lieve that Joseph had forgotten the garden. In
his sensible way, he was content to let It sleep.

“On Christmas,” Queenle shouted, “I am going
to have a new doll and a new butterfly net, and
enough candy to make me sick for a week!”

Joseph asked her how she knew.

“Oh,” she answered, “Auntie finds out what I
wish, and then tells Santa Claus.”

There was a mischievous twinkle In Queenle’s
eyes. It was one of the moments when no one
could tell whether she was serious or not.

Before the sun went down, we all had a drive
with our own horse In Aunt Amanda’s old sleigh.
Two days more would bring us Christmas eve and
the party at Nestly Heights. The same time would
bring Mr. Percy back again, and almost tooi soon
I thought our first Christmas at the Six Spruces
would slip over our heads. Mrs. Keith has de-
clared that so far we have done nothing to disgrace
our great-aunt.

While our garden sleeps, Joseph and I are thank-
ful that here In Nestly we found so faithful a
helper as Timothy Pennell and such good neigh-
bours as Miss Wiseman and Mr. Hayden of Nestly
Heights. We do not believe that there Is another
little , girl so whimsical and so^ wise as Queenle
Perth, nor another who has tamed a butterfly ; but.

THE SNOW

^85

if there should be one anywhere, I think the flowers
themselves would wish to grow and look at her.
When at length Mr. Percy is through college, we
hope he will always live near our garden, for with-
out him it will seem as strange as when the birds are
gone and the black crow flies off alone.

I cannot write now about the day when Little
Joseph will have become a man, nor shall I spend
time wondering if he will then care for and work
in the garden. I know that I, who am nearly
grown, will love it forever.

THE END

INDEX TO FLOWERS

A PAGE

AdamVneedles 191

Alyssum, Sweet. 57, 59, 66, 161

Anemone, Japanese 54,244

Annuals 56,168,211

Aphis 145

“ Blue 223

Apple Blossoms. 122

Aralia Spinosa 259

Arbutus, Trailing 107

Asters 222, 229, 239

“ Wild 234

Azaleas 118

Azalea Lutea. 118

“ Mollis 117,118,191

Baby’s Breath 17, 109, 152

Banana Leaves 248

Beauty, Painted. ..... .63, 148

Bedding-out Plants 127

Biennials 56, 188

Bird-houses 5

Black Birds 7

Bloodroot 54,73

Bluebirds 6, 20, 47

Blue-eyed Grass, Pointed. 124

Blue Flags, Wild 102,113

Bluets 106

Blush-rose Bush. . .10, 13, 131

Brakes 126,161

Bridal-wreaths 34, 137

Bulb-planter 25,257

Bulbs 245,265

Butterfly, Migration 231

“ Milkweed 231

C PAGE

Candytuft 59, 66, 147, 161

Cannas 128, 191 248

Canterbury-bells

Ca^'dinal-flowers. .17, 109, 125,
205, 212, 229

Catbirds 196,217

Cherry-trees 1 1

Chipping Sparrows 100,

138, 174

Chrysanthemums .... .97, 103,
225,251,269

Cinnamon Ferr. 74

Clematis Paniculata.88i, 90, 233
Clio .... .83, 130, 131, 164, 201

Columbines 58,99,113

“ Wild 113,136

Correspondence 17

Cosmos 177, 179, 185, 239

Crawford, Mrs. R. G. S. . 83

Creepers, V irginia 88, 89,

229, 237, 255
Crimson Ramblers. 85, 165, 236

Crocuses 24, 40, 246, 264

Crows 272,277

Currant-bushes lo, ii

Cutworms 175

Cyclamen 127

Daffodils 108, 246, 265

Dahlias .. .3, 127, 128, 191, 240

Dandelions 123, 274

Delphiniums 156

Deutzia 34> 36, 38

Dog’s-tooth Violets 73

287

INDEX TO FLOWERS

288

PAGE

Dogwood 110,136

“ Red-twigged. 34, 36, 38

‘‘ Pink no

Druschki, Frau Karl.. .83, 130
Dutchman’s-breeches .... 54

Eulalia Japonica 205

Everblooming Roses 82

Evergreen Shrubs 177

Ferns 72, 161, 168

“ Cinnamon 74,78

“ Lady 76, 78

“ Maidenhair 74,78

Fiddleheads 72,78

Forget-me-nots 126, 206

Foxgloves 187

Geraniums 91, 239

Ginger, Wild 94

Gladioli ... 127, 128, 191,

220, 222

Golden Bell 34, 103

Golden Glow 97, 195, 229

Goldenrod 234

Grackles 7,92

Grapevine 10

Grasses, Ornamental.. 204, 271
Grass Seed • • 14, 256

Hardy Roses 82

Heliotrope 103,175,229,

250, 269

Hen-and-chickens 127

Hepaticas 8, 41, 73

Hercules’-clubs 259

Hollyhocks .. .58, 103, 198, 200
Honeysuckle Vines. . . .88, 236
Humming - bird. Ruby-

throated 1 14

Hyacinths 247

Hybrid Perpetual Roses. 82

Hydrangeas 34, 36, 229,

232, 240

I PAGE

Insects .... .116, 145, 223, 241
Insecticides. .116, 145,223, 241
Iris . .97, 102, 104, 126, i^, 204

“ English 245,271

“ German.. 102, 1 13, 136, 246

“ Japanese 102, 136, 246

“ Mont Blanc 245

“ Spanish ...245,271

Ivy, Poison 89

Jacks-in-the-pulpit 108

Japanese Anemones.. . .54, 244

‘‘ Azalea 117

“ Gourd 88

“ Iris 102, 136, 246

“ Maples 214

“ Morning-glory . 88

“ Plume Grass... 205

108

Jonquils

Kai serin Augusta Victo-
ria 84, 221

Kerosene Emulsion 116

Killarney Rose 84

Lady-bugs 116,193

Lady-fern 76, 78

Laing, Mrs. John 83

Lambkill 178

Larkspurs 97, loi, 156,

158, 239

Laurel, Mountain 118

Lawns 10, 14

Leaf-mould 127

Lemon Verbena i O’, 201

Lilacs 35, no, 121

Lilies II

Lilies-of-the-valley 262

Lilium Album 264

“ Auratum 264

“ Candidum 160, 264

Lily, Common Pond 203

Liquidambar Styraciflua. 259

Lotus Lily 203

Luizet, Madame Gabriel. 83

INDEX TO FLOWERS

289

M PAGE

Maidenhair Fern. . .74, 78, 201

Manure 49, 82, 262

Maples, Japanese 214

Marechal Neil. 145

Marshall P. Wilder. . .83, 130,

131

Meadow-larks I57

Meadow-rue loi, 156

Mignonette 57, 59, 66, 136,

161, 201, 229

Monthly Roses 82

Moonflower 88

Morning-glory .. .141, 215, 236
“ Japanese.. 88

Narcissus Poeticus. . . .53, 108,

246, 265

Nasturtiums 57, 59, 65, 88,

136, 170, 269
“ Climbing ..65,228,

236

Dwarf 65,228

Neyron, Paul 83

Orchids 94

Oriental Poppies .. .58,62, 134
Osmunda Cinnamomea . . 74

Oswego Tea 214

Owl, Screech 175, 187

Painted Beauty 63, 148

Pansies 3, 70, 127, 190

Passion-flower 88

Peonies 98,124,245

Perennials .. .-.56, 97, 169, 21 1,

261, 269

Perennial Vines 236

Perle des Jardins 84, 200

Petunias 15,215

Phlox 97, 100, 172, 223,

224, 228, 239
“ Drummondi ... .59, 62,

104, 161

Phoebe-birds 208, 212

Pickerel-weed 204

PAGE

Poison-ivy 89

Poppies, California 183

“ Oriental, .... 58, 62

“ Shirley.. .59,67, 183,

185, 238

“ Yellow 180, 183

Portulaca 217

Prince Camille de Rohan. 83
Pussy-willows 23

Quaker-ladies 106, 124

Ramblers, Crimson 85,88

Red-headed Woodpecker, 77

Rhododendrons 104,118

Rhus Cotinus 34

Robins 100, 140

“ White 225

Rosarium 80

Rose-beds . . . i 81

Rose Bugs 200

Rose-bush, Blush.. .10, 13, 13 1

Rose-mallow 212,229

Roses 144, 164, 250

“ Climbing 85

“ Everblooming ..82, 144,

267

“ Hardy. .82, 144, 266, 269

“ Hybrid Perpetual.. 82,

144, 269

Monthly ...82,144,211,
267, 269

Rothschild, Baroness. ... 83

Salvia 191, 192

Seeds 159

Seed-bed 48

Screech-owl 175, 187

Shirley Poppies.. . .59, 67, 183,

185, 238

Shrubs, Evergreen 177

Siberian Squills 24, 40,

245, 264

Smoke-bush 34, 36, 196

290

INDEX TO FLOWERS

PAGE

Snowdrops 24,246,264

Soleil d’Or 83, 144, 149

Solomon’s-seal, False. .. . 115

Song-sparrows 100

Sowing Annual Seeds. .58, 64
“ Perennial Seeds. 58

Spikenard, Wild..., 115

Spirea ii, 36, 137

“ Van Houttei 137

Spraying Outfit ii

Spruce Trees 181

Squirrels, Flying. ....... 193

Starling 138

Stocks, Ten-weeks. . . .17, 109,
168, 169, 223

Sweet-gum Tree 259

Sweet Pea Trellis 30,32

Sweet Peas 27, 37, 155

Sweet-williams . . 172, 220, 273
Syringa, Sweet 34> 3^

Ten-weeks Stocks 17, 109,

168, 169, 223

Tobacco-water 223

Tool Closet 19

Tools II

Triangle, Map of the

facing I

Tuberoses 191

Tulips 53,246,264

“ Parrot 246

Ulrich Brunner 83

V PAGE

Victor Verdier 83

Vines 215,236

Violets, Dog’s-tooth 73

“ Yellow 94

Virginia Creepers 88, 89,

229, 237, 255

Wake-robin 77

Walks, Grass — See map.

“ ' Gravelled — See map.

Watering 126, 164, 168

Water-lilies 203

Weeds .8, 129, 141, 207

Weeping Willow 13,257

Weigelia no

Whippoorwill 94

Wichuraiana Rose 85,204

Willows 12

“ Pussy 23

Windflowers 54,75

Window-boxes. . . 16

Witch-hazel -45, 268

Wood - border. Making

the 106, 107, 108

Woodpecker, Red-headed. 77

Worms’ Nests 222

Wrens 20,92

Wren’s Egg 61

Yellow Bell Shrubs. .. .11, 34>

36, 54

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