Part 11 (2/2)

You wont lose em. Look at the thermometer if you dont believe me. If its above forty youre safe.

I look, and try to feel rea.s.sured. But I am not quite easy in my mind until next morning when, running out before breakfast, I make the rounds and find everything untouched.

But a few days later the alarm comes again. There is no wind this time, and, what is worse, an ominous silence falls at dusk over the orchard and meadow. Why is everything so still? I ask myself. Oh, of coursethe katydids arent talkingand the crickets, and all the other whirr-y things. Ah! That means business! My poor garden!

Jonathan! I call, as I feel rather than see his shape whirling noiselessly in at the big gate after his ride up from the station. Help me cover my nasturtiums. Therell be frost to-night.

Maybe, says Jonathans voice.

Not maybe at allsurely. Listen to the katydids!

You mean, listen to the absence of katydids.

Very well. The point is, I want newspapers.

No. The point is, I am to bring newspapers.

Exactly.

And tuck up your nasturtiums for the night in your peculiarly ridiculous fas.h.i.+on

I know it looks ridiculous, but really its sensible. There may be weeks of summer after this.

And so the nasturtiums are tucked up, cozily hidden under the big layers of sheets, whose corners we fasten down with stones. To be sure, the garden _is_ rather a funny sight, with these pale shapes sprawling over its beds. But it pays. For in the morning, though over in the vegetable garden the squash leaves and lima beans are blackened and limp, my nasturtiums are still pert and crisp. I pull off the papers, wondering what the pa.s.sers-by have thought, and lo! my gay garden, good for perhaps two weeks more!

But a day arrives when even newspaper coddling is of no avail. Sometimes it is in late September, sometimes not until October, but when it comes there is no resisting.

The sun goes down, leaving a clear sky paling to green at the horizon. A still cold falls upon the world, and I feel that it is the end. Shears in hand, I cut everything I cannasturtiums down to the ground,leaves, buds, and all,feathery sprays of cosmos, asters by the armful. Those last bouquets that I bring into the house are always the most beautiful, for I do not have to save buds for later cutting. There will, alas, be no later cutting.

So I fill my bowls and vases, and next morning I go out, well knowing what I shall see. It is a beautiful sight, too, if one can forget its meaning.

The whole golden-green world of autumn has been touched with silver. In the low-lying swamp beyond the orchard it is almost like a light snowfall.

The meadows rising beyond the barns are silvered over wherever the long tree-shadows still lie. And in my garden, too, where the shadows linger, every leaf is frosted, but as soon as the sun warms them through, leaf and twig turn dark and droop to the ground. It is the end.

Except, indeed, for my brave marigolds and calendulas and little b.u.t.ton asters. It is for this reason that I have given them s.p.a.ce all summer, nipping them back when they tried to blossom early, for they seem a bit crude compared with the other flowers. But now that frost is here, my feelings warm to them. I cannot criticize their color and texture, so grateful am I to them for not giving up. And when last nights cuttings have faded, I shall be very glad of a glowing ma.s.s of marigold beside my fireplace, and of the yellow stars of calendula, like embodied suns.h.i.+ne, on my dining-table.

Well, then, the frost has come! And after the first pang of realization, I find that, curiously enough, the worst is over. Since it has come, let it come! And nowhurrah for the garden house-cleaning! The garden is deadthe garden of yesterday! Long live the gardenthe garden of to-morrow! For suddenly my mind has leaped ahead to spring.

I can hardly wait for breakfast to be over, before I am out in working clothes, pulling up thingsnot weeds now, but flowers, or what were flowers. Nasturtiums, asters, cosmos, snapdragon, stock, late-blooming cornflowersup they all come, all the annuals, and the biennials that have had their season. I fling them together in piles, and soon have small haystacks all along my gra.s.s paths, andthere I am! Down again to the good brown earth!

It is with positive satisfaction that I stand and survey my beds, great bare patches of earth, glorified here and there by low clumps of calendula and great bushes of marigold. Now, then! I can do anything! I can dig, and fertilize, and transplant. Best of all, I can plan and plan! The crisp wind stings my cheeks, but as I work I feel the sun hot on the back of my neck. I get the smell of the earth as I turn it over, mingled with the pungent tang of marigold blossoms, very pleasant out of doors, though almost too strong for the house except near a fireplace. I believe the most characteristic fall odors are to me this of marigold, mingled with the fragrance of apples piled in the orchard, the good smell of earth newly turned up, and the flavor of burning leaves, borne now and then on the wind, from the outdoor house-cleaning of the world.

There is perhaps no season of all the garden year that brings more real delight to the gardener, no time so stimulating to the imagination. This year in the garden has been good, but next year shall be better. All the failures, or near-failures, shall of course be turned into successes, and the successes shall be bettered. Last year there were not quite enough hollyhocks, but next year there shall be such glories! There are seedlings that I have been saving, over on the edge of the phlox. I dash across to look them upyes, here they are, splendid little fellows, leaves only a bit crumpled by the frost. I dig them up carefully, keeping earth packed about their roots, and one by one I convey them across and set them out in a beautiful row where I want them to grow next year. Their place is beside the old stone-flagged path, and I picture them rising tall against the side of the woodshed, whose barrenness I have besides more than half covered with honeysuckle.

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