Part 12 (2/2)
It is of no use. I cannot hold her long. I sometimes think she was nicer when she had no garden of her own. Perhaps she thinks I was nicer when I had none.
But there is another kind of garden mannersa kind that subtly soothes, cheers, perhaps inebriates. It is the manner of the friend who may, indeed, have a garden, but who looks at mine with the eye of adoption, temporarily at least. She walks down its paths, singling out this or that for notice. She suggests, she even criticizes, tenderly, as one who tells you an even _more_ becoming way to arrange your little daughters hair.
She offers you roots and seeds and seedlings from her garden, andlast touch of flatteryshe begs seeds and seedlings from yours.
For garden purposes, give me the manners of this third cla.s.s. And, indeed, not for garden purposes alone. They are useful as applied to many thingschildren, particularly, and houses.
Undoubtedly the demand that I make upon my friends is a form of vanity, yet I cannot seem to feel ashamed of it. I admit at once that not the least part of my pleasure in my flowers is the attention they get from others. Moreover, it is not only from friends that I seek this, but from every pa.s.ser-by along my country road. There are gardens and gardens.
Some, set about with hedges tall and thick, offer the delights of exclusiveness and solitude. But exclusiveness and solitude are easily had on a Connecticut farm, and my garden will none of them; it flings forth its appeal to every wayfarer. And I like it. I like my garden to get notice. As people drive by I hope they enjoy my phlox. I furtively glance to see if they have an eye for the foxglove. I wonder if the calendulas are so tall that they hide the asters. And if, as I bend over my weeding, an automobile whirling past lets fly an appreciative phraselovely flowers wonderful yellow of garden there,my ears are quick to receive it and I forgive the eddies of gasolene and dust that are also left by the vanis.h.i.+ng visitant.
About few things can one be so brazen in ones enjoyment of recognition.
Ones house, ones clothes, ones work, ones children, all these demand a certain modesty of demeanor, however the inner spirit may puff. Not so ones garden. I fancy this is because, while I have a strong sense of owners.h.i.+p in it, I also have a strong sense of stewards.h.i.+p. As owner I must be modest, but as steward I may admire as openly as I will. Did I make my phlox? Did I fas.h.i.+on my asters? Am I the artificer of my fringed larkspur? Nay, truly, I am but their caretaker, and may glory in them as well as another, only with the added touch of joy that I, even I, have given them their opportunity. Like Paul I plant, like Apollos I water, but before the power that giveth the increase I stand back and wonder.
But it is not alone the results of my stewards.h.i.+p that give me joy. Its very processes are good. Delight in the earth is a primitive instinct.
Digging is naturally pleasant, hoeing is pleasant, raking is pleasant, and then there is the weeding. For I am not the only one who sows seeds in my garden. One of my friends remarked cheerfully that he had planted twenty-seven different vegetables in his garden, and the Lord had planted two hundred and twenty-seven other kinds of things.
This is where the weeding comes in. Now a good deal has been said about the labor of weeding, but little about the gratifications of weeding. I dont mean weeding with a hoe. I mean yanking up, with movements suited to the occasion, each individual growing thing that doesnt belong. Surely I am not the only one to have felt the pleasure of this. They come up so nicely, and leave such soft earth behind! And intellect is needed, too, for each weed demands its own way of handling: the adherent plantain needing a slow, firm, drawing motion, but very satisfactory when it comes; the evasive clover requiring that all its sprawling runners shall be gathered up in one gentle, tactful pull; the tender shepherds purse coming easily on a straight twitch; the tough ragweed that yields to almost any kind of jerk. Even witch-gra.s.s, the bane of the farmer, has its rewarding side, when one really does get out its handful of wicked-looking, crawly, white tubers.
Weeding is most fun when the weeds are not too small. Yes, from the aspect of a sport there is something to be said for letting weeds grow. Pulling out little tender ones is poor work compared with the satisfaction of hauling up a spreading treelet of ragweed or a far-flaunting wild buckwheat. You seem to get so much for your effort, and it stirs up the ground so, and no other weeds have grown under the shade of the big one, so its departure leaves a good bit of empty brown earth.
Surely, weeding is good fun. If faults could be yanked out of children in the same entertaining way, the orphan asylums would soon be emptied through the craze for adoption as a major sport.
One of the pleasantest mornings of my life was spent weeding, in the rain, a long-neglected corner of my garden, while a young friend stood around the edges and explained the current political situation to me, and carted away armfuls of green stuff as I handed them out to him. The rain drizzled, and the air was fragrant with the smell of wet earth and bruised stems. Ideally, of course, weeds should never reach this state of sportive rankness. But most of my friends admit, under pressure, that there are corners where such things do happen.
Naturally, all this is a.s.suming that one is ones own gardener. There may be pleasure in having a garden kept up by a real gardener, but that always seems to me a little like having a doll and letting somebody else dress and undress it. My garden must never grow so big that I cannot take care of itand neglect itmyself.
In saying this, however, I dont count rocks. When it comes to rocks, I call in Jonathan. And it often comes to rocks.
For mine is a Connecticut garden. Now in the beginning Connecticut was composed entirely of rocks. Then the little earth gnomes, fearing that no one would ever come there to give them sport, sprinkled a little earth amongst the rocks, partly covered some, wholly covered others, and then hid to see what the gardeners would do about it. And ever since the gardeners have been patiently, or impatiently, tucking in their seeds and plants in the thimblefuls of earth left by the gnomes. They have been picking out the rocks, or blowing them up, or burying them, or working around them; and every winter the little gnomes gather and push up a new lot from the dark storehouses of the underworld. In the spring the gardeners begin again, and the little gnomes hold their sides with still laughter to watch the work go on.
Rocks? my friends say. Do you mind the rocks? But they are a special beauty! Why, I have a rock in my garden that I have treated
Very well, I interrupt rudely. _A rock_ is all very well. If I had _a rock_ in my garden I could treat it, too. But how about a garden that is all rocks?
Ohwhychoose another spot.
Whereupon I reply, You dont know Connecticut.
Ever since I began having a garden I have had my troubles with the rocks, but the worst time came when, in a mood of enthusiastic and absolutely unintelligent optimism, I decided to have a bit of smooth gra.s.s in the middle of my garden. I wanted it very much. The place was too restless; you couldnt sit down anywhere. I felt that I had to have a clear green spot where I could take a chair and a book. I selected the spot, marked it off with string, and began to loosen up the earth for a late summer planting of gra.s.s seed. Calendulas and poppies and cornflowers had bloomed there before, self-sown and able to look out for themselves, so I had never investigated the depths of the bed to see what the little gnomes had prepared for me. Now I found out. The spading-fork gave a familiar dull clink as it struck rock. I felt about for the edge; it was a big one. I got the crowbar and dropped it, in testing prods; it was a _very_ big one, and only four inches below the surface. Gra.s.s would never grow there in a dry season. I moved to another part. Another rock, big too! I prodded all over the allotted s.p.a.ce, and found six big fellows lurking just below the top of the soil. Evidently it was a case for calling in Jonathan.
He came, grumbling a little, as a man should, but very efficient, armed with two crowbars and equipped with a natural genius for manipulating rocks. He made a few well-placed remarks about queer people who choose to have gra.s.s where flowers would grow, and flowers where gra.s.s would grow, also about Connecticut being intended for a quarry and not for a garden anyhow. But all this was only the necessary accompaniment of the crowbar-play. Soon, under the insistent and canny urgency of the bars, a big rock began to heave its shoulder into sight above the soil. I hovered about, chucking in stones and earth underneath, placing little rocks under the bar for fulcrums, pulling them out again when they were no longer needed, standing guard over the flowers in the rest of the garden, with repeated warnings. Please, Jonathan, dont step back any farther; youll trample the forget-me-nots! _Could_ you manage to roll this fellow out along that path and not across the mangled bodies of the marigolds?
Jonathan grumbled a little about being expected to pick a half-ton pebble out of the garden with his fingers, or lead it out with a string.
Oh, well, of course, if you _cant_ do it Ill have to let the marigolds go this year. But you do such wonderful things with a crowbar, I thought you could probably just guide it a little. And Jonathan responds n.o.bly to the flattery of this remark, and does indeed guide the huge thing, eases it along the narrow path, grazes the marigolds but leaves them unhurt, until at last, with a careful arrangement of stone fulcrums and a skillful twist of the bars, the great rock makes its last response and lunges heavily past the last flower bed on to the gra.s.s beyond.
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