SEASON I Winter

"Now is the winter of my discontent."

I

I have not had charge of my garden very long; and I am not sure that I should have undertaken such a charge had there been anyone else to do it. But there was no one else, and it so obviously needed doing.

Of course there was the gardener—I shall have to allude to him occasionally—but just now I will only mention the fact that his greatest admirer could not have accused him of taking care of the garden.

Then there was his Reverence; he was by way of being in charge of everything, me included, I suppose, and of course nominally[Pg 4] it was so. He had the parish and the church, and the rectory and his family, and the men-servants and the maid-servants, a horse and a pony and the garden! He managed most things well, I will say, and the kitchen garden gave some account of itself, but in the flower garden desolation cried aloud.

I was moved one day to say I thought it disgraceful. "There are no flowers anywhere; nothing but some semi-red geraniums and some poverty-stricken calceolarias and scraggy lobelias. We have none of those nice high blue things, what do you call them? or those yellow round things with red fringes, like daisies, which are not daisies; we have no sweet-Williams even, though they are the sort of flowers that grow in every cottage garden!"

There was a twinkle in his Reverence's eye.

"You seem to know a good deal about flowers, Mary; I can't even follow your descriptions. I try my best with the carrots and onions. You must acknowledge you have vegetables."

"Oh, vegetables!" I cried with a tone of contempt.

[Pg 5]

"Yes, vegetables! You don't seem to despise them at dinner."

"No, but vegetables! Anyone can buy vegetables."

"Anyone can buy flowers, I suppose, if they have the money to spend."

"They can't buy the look of flowers in the garden," I argued; "that is what one wants; not a few cut things on the table."

"Well, I spend," began his Reverence, and then paused, and looked through a little drawer of his table that contained account-books.

An idea struck me. I waited eagerly for his next words.

"Let me see," continued his Reverence, running his eye down long rows of figures. "Ah! here is one of last year's bills for seeds, etc. Just on ten pounds, you see, and half of that certainly was for the flower garden. There were new rose trees."

"They are mostly dead. Griggs said it was the frost," I interpolated.

"And some azaleas, I remember."

"They don't flower."

[Pg 6]

"And bulbs."

"Oh! Griggs buried them with a vengeance."

"Well, anyway, five pounds at least was—"

"Was wasted, sir; that is what happened to that five pounds. Now, look here."

His Reverence looked.

"Give me that five pounds."

"That particular one?"

"Of course not. Five pounds, and I will see if I can't get some flowers into the garden. Five pounds! Why, my goodness, what a lot of things one ought to get with five pounds. Seeds are so cheap, sixpence a packet I have heard; and then one takes one's own seeds after the first year. Come, sir, five pounds down and every penny shall go on the garden."

"Dear me! but according to you five pounds is a great deal too much. I can't say that it has produced very fine results under Griggs's management; but at sixpence a packet!"

"No, sir, it is not too much really," I said gravely. "I shall have to buy a heap[Pg 7] of things besides seeds, I expect. But you shall see what I will do with it. I want that garden to be full of flowers."

His Reverence looked out of the study window. It was a bleak, windy day towards the end of November. A few brown, unhappy-looking leaves still hung on the trees; but most of them, released at last, danced riotously across the small grass plot in front of the old red brick house, until they found a damp resting-place beneath the shrubbery. The border in front looked unutterably dreary with one or two clumps of frost-bitten dahlias and some scrubby little chrysanthemums.

"Full of flowers!" The eye of faith was needed indeed.

"I don't mean before Christmas," I added, following his Reverence's eye. "But there are things that come out in the spring, you know, and perhaps they ought to be put in now. Is it a bargain?"

"Yes, Mary, it shall be a bargain. Here is the fiver. Don't waste it, but make the best of that garden. You had better consult old Griggs about bulbs and such-like. There[Pg 8] ought to be some. I don't think the few snowdrops I saw can represent all I bought."

"They never came up. I know they didn't. I believe he planted them topsy-turvy. I suppose there is a right side up to bulbs, and if so, Griggs would certainly choose the wrong. It's his nature. Can't we get rid of him, sir? Isn't there any post besides that of gardener which he might fill?"

His Reverence will not always take my words of wisdom seriously.

"What, more posts! Why, he is clerk and grave-digger and bell-ringer! Would you like me to retire in his favour?"

"I am speaking seriously, Father. If anything is to be made of this garden it can't be done whilst that old idiot remains here."

"I fear he must remain here. I have inherited him. His position is as firm as mine."

"Not as gardener!"

"No; but he can't live on his other earnings. No, Mary, put your best foot foremost and make something of old Griggs and the garden and the five pounds. And now take this bulb catalogue. I have not[Pg 9] had time to look it through, and perhaps it may not be too late to get some things in for the spring. But don't spend all the five pounds on bulbs," he shouted after me as I left the study.

And so I plunged into gardening, a very Ignoramus of the Ignorami, and what is herein set down will be written for the edification, instruction, warning and encouragement of others belonging to that somewhat large species.
I

I opened the bright-coloured catalogue. Oh! what fascination lurks in the pages of a bulb catalogue. The thick, highly-glazed leaves turn with a rich revelation on both sides. It scarcely needs the brilliant illustrations to lift the imagination into visions of gorgeous beauty. Parterres of amazing tulips, sheets of golden daffodils, groups of graceful, nodding narcissus, the heavy, sweet scent of hyacinths comes from that glorious bloom "excellent for pot culture";[Pg 10] and here in more quiet letters grow the early crocus—yellow, white, blue and mixed—and snowdrops. Ah! snowdrops, coming so early, bringing the promise of all the rich glory that is to follow. And scillas, aconites, chionodoxa or "Glory of the Snow"!

What were all those lovely, to me half unheard-of names that could be had for two shillings and sixpence, three shillings or four shillings and sixpence a hundred? They bloomed in February and March, they were hardy and throve in any soil. Oh! how they throve in the pages of that catalogue.

And anemones! My mind rushed to the joys of the Riviera, revealed in occasional wooden boxes, mostly smashed, sent by friends from that land of sunshine, and whose contents, when revived, spoke of a wealth of colour forever to be associated with the name of anemone. To grow them myself, rapture! "Plant in October or November." It was still November; they must be ordered at once, "double," "mixed," "single," "fulgens"; they were "dazzling," "effective," "brilliant," and began to flower in March.

[Pg 11]

I was plunged into a happy dream of month succeeding month, bringing each with it its own glory of radiant bloom, very much after the manner of Walter Crane's picture-books. Life was going to be well worth living.

So now to make my first list and secure all this treasure for the coming beautiful flower-laden year.

I made a list; and then, mindful of the limited nature of even five pounds and all that would be required of it, I made up a long row of figures. This gave me an ugly jar.

Flowers should be given freely and graciously, not bought and sold, to everyone by everyone for the promotion of beauty and happiness upon earth. Any good Government should see to this. But present arrangements being so defective, I had to remodel my list considerably. I cheered up with the thought, however, that bulbs were not annuals, but on their own account, so I had heard, grew and multiplied quietly in the earth.

[Pg 12]

What could have become of those planted by Griggs last year? Did worms eat bulbs?
I

I wandered round the garden, seeing possibilities and refusing to be depressed by the sadness of sodden grass, straggling rose branches bare of beauty, heavy earth that closed in dejected plants, weeds or what not; I saw them all with new eyes and scanned them closely. Did they mean flowers? Down in their hearts could those poor draggled, tangled specimens dream of radiant blooms turned to the sun? I had not studied my garden before; there were prisoners in it. Care and attention, the right food and freedom, should bring new beauties to light. I had grumbled and growled for over two years at the hopelessness of it, and at the dearth of flowers for house decoration. Now all was to be changed; the garden was to be beautiful! I thought of that catalogue.

Griggs was digging in the kitchen garden;[Pg 13] not hard, not deep, still, no one could say he was unemployed. He was himself very muddy, and gave one the idea of working with all parts of his person except his brains. My former interviews with him had been short if not sweet; but there was no open quarrel.

He paused as I stood near him, wiping his spade with his hands, kicking at the clods of earth round him as though they were troublesome.

"Is that for potatoes?" I asked, wishing to show not only interest but knowledge.

He tilted his cap to one side and viewed the bare expanse of upturned earth.

"Oi 'ad taters in 'ere last; thought oi'd dig it a bit. Diggin' allays comes in 'andy."

"Oh, yes;" and then I made a fresh start. "I wanted to know about those bulbs you planted last autumn. Did they come up?"

This was evidently an awkward question.

"Bulbs! Oh, there wur a few wot the Rector give me some toime back lars year. They didn't come to much. Never knows with bulbs, you don't!"

[Pg 14]

"Oh! but bulbs ought to come up."

"Some on 'em do, some times. Don't 'old myself with them furrin koinds."

"What, not with Dutch bulbs? Why, they grow the best kind in Holland."

"Maybe they do; over there. P'haps this soil didn't soute 'em. Wot I found diggin' the beds I put in them two round beds on the lawn. They wasn't no great quantity. Most on 'em perished loike, it 'pears to me."

"Perhaps you did not put them in right," I ventured. "How deep should you plant them?"

Oh! how ignorant I was. I did not feel even sure that I knew the right side up of a bulb.

Griggs gave a hoarse chuckle.

"They don't need to go fur in; 'bout so fur," and he made a movement that might indicate an inch or a yard; "but there's lots o' contrairy things that may 'appen to bulbs same as to most things. En'mies is wot there is in gardins, all along o' the curse."

[Pg 15]

Griggs was clerk; he never forgot that post of vantage. He looked at me as he said the word "curse." I wondered if his mind had made the connection between Eve and her daughter. But to return to the bulbs. Were worms the enemies in this particular case?

I knew they buried cities and raised rocks, and were our best diggers and fertilisers, because I had once read Darwin on the subject; but were they the enemies of bulbs?

"I am going to take the garden in hand a bit," I said after a pause. "I think it needs it."

"Well, I could do wi' a bit o' elp," and he wiped more mud from his spade to his hands, and from his hands to his trousers, and then back again, until I wondered what his wife did with him when she got him home. "But I reckon a boy 'ud be more 'andy loike. There's a lot o' talk," he added, half to himself.

I remembered with a feeling of pain how our old cook and factotum had received the[Pg 16] news that I was taking cooking lessons in much the same spirit; but my newly-found energy was not going to be suppressed by Griggs.

"I am going to order some more bulbs," I began.

"Ah! you might do that. The gardin needs things puttin' into it, that's what it needs."

I looked at him sternly. "And things taken out of it too. I never knew such a place for weeds."

"No more didn't I. It's fearful bad soil for weeds; but maybe if there warn't so much room for 'em they'd get sort of crowded out."

"You have been here a good many years," I said, not without an afterthought.

"Yes; that's wot I 'ave been. I come first in ole Mr Wood's time; 'e was a 'and at roses, 'e was; somethin' loike we 'ad the place then, me an' 'im. Then Mr 'Erbert took it, that's when ole Woods, 'is father as 'twere, doied. But 'e didn't stay long; went fur a missunairy 'e did to them furrin[Pg 17] parts and never come back, 'e didn't neither. Then come Mr Cooper, ten years, no, 'levin, he was 'ere and never did a bit to the gardin; took no interes', no cuttin's, no seeds, no manure, no nothink. That's 'ow the weeds overmastered us."

"But at least you might have dug up the weeds."

"Allays callin' me away for some'ot, they was. The Bath chair for 'is sister as lived with 'im, allays some'ot. Talk o' gardinin'! The weeds just come."

Then his tone brightened a bit; the Bath chair had been an unpleasing retrospect.

"But if the Rector looks to spend a bit, we might get some good stuff in." A pause, and a searching look at the setting sun. "I must be going. Got a bit to see to up at my place. Can't never git round with these short days."

Griggs collected his implements and with fine independence walked off, giving me a backward nod and a "Good evenin', miss. We could do wi' a few bulbs and such loike."

I was to divide Griggs's time with his[Pg 18] Reverence, but Griggs seemed quite able to dispose of it himself.
I

I opened a strong wooden box with much interest and examined the result of my first venture in bulbs. Brown paper bags full of little seeds in which were carefully packed the firm dry brown roots, big and little, round and oblong. How wonderful that these "dead bones" should be capable of springing up into the glories of sight and smell foretold by my catalogue. This withered brown ball a hyacinth! unfolding, unfolding, until green tips, broadening leaves, and at last a massive crown of flowers appear. And the magician's wand to work this transformation? Just the good old brown earth, the common rain, and the wonderful work-a-day sun.

I was soon busy in the garden depositing my various bulbs in heaps where I intended them to be buried.

[Pg 19]

I called Griggs and requested suitable tools for the work.

"I am going to plant daffodils under these trees," I said; "and I want you to take that bag of crocuses and put them in all over the grass in front. Put them anywhere and everywhere, like the daisies grow."

"What! front of the Rector's winder?"

"Yes; all over."

"'Ow many 'ave you got 'ere?"

"Three hundred; but they don't take long planting."

"'Ope not! I've got a good bit else to to do; can't fiddle faddle over them."

"Put them in the right side up. I want them to grow," I called after his retreating figure. Then I eyed my pile of bulbs.

Of course I did know the right side up of a bulb; of course everybody did; and if anyone was likely to make a mistake it was surely Griggs, so it was clearly no use asking him. Nice brown thing, why had you not given just one little green sprout as the crocuses and snowdrops had done, so that there could be no mistake? And[Pg 20] what would happen if they were planted topsy-turvy? Could they send up shoots from anywhere they chose? or would the perversity of such a position be too much for their budding vitality? I did not wish to try the experiment; my daffodils must make their appearance next March. I ranged them out in broad circles under one or two trees, in patches at the corner of projecting borders, and walked away to see the effect from different points; the effect, not of brown specks, but of sheets of gold that were to be.

His Reverence found me with my head on one side taking in the future from the drawing-room windows.

"You seem very busy, Mary."

"I am. You see, it is a great thing to place them where they can stay. I like permanent things. It will be lovely, won't it, to see that golden patch under the mulberry tree and another at the corner there; and then under the chestnut just a sheet of white?"

"Oh, lovely! And what kind of sheet or[Pg 21] wet blanket is old Griggs preparing for my eyes in front?"

"Oh, the old owl! I must run and see he is doing as I told him. You might be useful, sir, for a bit, mightn't you? and begin popping in those daffodils under that tree exactly as I have arranged them. I will be back directly."

His Reverence loved walking round with a tall spud prodding up weeds, but it was a new idea to set him to work in other ways. I left him for some time and came back with a heated face.

"Just imagine! Oh, really, sir, we can't go on with that—that—unutterable idiot! He won't do as he is told. What do you think he was doing? I told him to plant all that front piece of grass with crocuses, you know—told him as plainly as I could speak—and there he was burying my crocuses, by handfuls I think, in the border."

"Oh, well, he doesn't understand your ideas, you see, Mary; he has not seen them carried out yet."

"Oh, but he did understand, only he said[Pg 22] it would take longer to plant them in the grass and they would come up better in the border. 'I want that for tulips,' I said, and stood over him while he unburied all he had done. Then he said, 'Can't stand cuttin' up the grass like this; better put 'em straight 'long that shady border there, give a bit o' colour to it.' 'I want them here, in the grass,' I said. 'And how 'bout my mowing? I shall cut 'em to pieces.' That was a bright idea, he thought. 'You don't begin mowing until after the crocuses are well over; that won't hurt.' And now I have spread them all over the lawn myself and left him to put them in. He can't make any further mistake I hope."

His Reverence was laughing. Old Griggs amused him much more than he did me.

"How many have you done?" I asked, and I looked at the still unburied bulbs. "Why, sir—"

"I have done two, Mary, really; but look at this pile of plantains! Oh, these horrid things! you must clear the garden of them."

"I can't," I said sternly. "There is too much else to do. What we want is colour,[Pg 23] flowers everywhere. The plantains are green so they don't disturb the harmony. But you may take them up if you like."

"Colour! harmony! If you talk to old Griggs like that he will think you are mad. And, Mary, you bought all these bulbs? Remember there is the spring and summer to be reckoned with. How much has gone?"

"Two pounds. It ought to have been twenty. Seeds are cheaper, you know. I must do a lot with seeds, I find. But bulbs go on, that is the comfort of them. They will be there for always!"

"Well, I won't interfere. Don't bully my old Griggs." And his Reverence walked off.

I proceeded, yes, I will confess it, carefully to open up one of the bulbs he had planted. Yes, there it was, it had its point upward. Oh! I hoped he really knew. And so all the others were placed snugly in their narrow beds, and patted down with a kind of blessing. "Wake up soon and be glorious, brilliant, effective."

[Pg 24]
T

There were hours of deep dejection after all my planting was done. It was December, and so much ought to have been done in November, October, and even September. In fact, I ought to have begun nine months ago. And those nine months could not be caught up for another year, depressing thought! Wallflowers, polyanthus, forget-me-nots, sweet-Williams, all the dear, simple things of which I wanted masses, instead of the one or two stalky bushes that grew down a long herbaceous border, all these should have begun their career, it appeared, last February or March if I wanted them to flower next spring. I must wait. I had not set out on my gardening experience to learn patience, it is always being rubbed into one; but I warn you, O brother or sister Ignoramus! that of all stocks you will need patience the most.

My garden was now a white world. Snow buried everything: hopes and depressions were equally hidden. A fine time for castle-building, for hurrying through the seasons and imagining how many treasures ought to be,[Pg 25] might be, should be hidden beneath that cold, pure coverlid and warmly, snugly nestling in Mother Earth's brown bosom. What energy must be at work, what pushing, struggling, expanding of little points of life downwards, upwards, until they burst into resurrection with little green hands folded as in thanksgiving.

In the meantime I turned to books, on gardening, of course. My new "fad," as the Others called it, having announced itself in plenty of time for Christmas, my pile of gifts presented a most learned appearance. This was my first taste of that fascinating literature. His Reverence had handed over to me a brown-clad work on gardening—somewhat ancient I must say—at the beginning of my enterprise. I had scanned it critically and compared it to an ordinary cookery-book in which recipes are given, and unless you are already familiar with the art you are continually faced with difficulties. The cookery-books tell one to "make a white sauce of flour, butter and milk," but how? Wherein lies the mystery of that delicately-flavoured, creamy substance or that lumpy[Pg 26] kind of paste? Just so my regular handbook to gardening. For example:—

"They vary very much in habit, but should be of easy cultivation. The compost required is rich, deep and moist. Any sourness in the soil will be fatal to flowering. When planting supply liberally with manure, and occasionally mulch in dry weather."

But what did it all mean? How test the soil and the sourness which would be fatal to flourishing? The proof of the pudding would be in the eating, but how prevent any tragic consequences?

But these other books, this literature on gardening! They are generally better than the garden itself. Practical they are not, but why ask it of them? They are the seductive catalogue turned into finest art. One wanders with some sweet, madonna-like lady of smooth fair hair, mild eyes and broad-brimmed hat, or with a courtly parson of the old school, in a garden where the sun always shines. Green stretches of lawn (no plantains), trees grouped from their infancy to adorn and shade and be the [Pg 27]necessary background to masses of flowering shrubs. Through rockeries, ferneries, nut-groves, copses we wander as in a fairy dream. Borders laid out to catch the sun, sheltered by old red brick walls where fruit ripens in luscious clusters. Rose gardens, sunk gardens, water gardens lead on to copses where all wild things of beauty are met together to entrance the eye. Broad walks between herbaceous borders, containing every flower loved from the time of Eve; sheltered patches where seedlings thrive, a nursery of carefully-reared young. And in this heaven of gardening land gardeners galore flit to and fro, ever doing their master's behest, and manure and water, and time and money may be considerations but are not anxieties. I ought to have begun years ago; seven, nine, fifteen, and even twenty-five years are talked of but as yesterday. I felt out of it in every sense. My garden lay out there in the cold, grey mist; it had been neglected, it held no rippling stream, no nut-grove, it ran upward into no copse or land of pine and bracken and heather. It had a hedge one side and a sloping field[Pg 28] the other. The straight kitchen garden was bounded by no red brick wall, and the birds from the convenient hedges ate all the fruit, unless gooseberries and currants were so plentiful that we also were allowed a share. Griggs talked of an 'urbrageous' border. But what a border! Evening primroses, the common yellow marigold, a few clusters of golden-rod, and other weed-like flowers that persist in growing of themselves, with Griggs, five pounds a year and an Ignoramus to work it!

Oh! why had I so cheerfully undertaken such an apparently hopeless task?

But my honour was now at stake. I had said I would have flowers on five pounds a year, and I could not draw back. Let me clear away the mists that had arisen. After all, that tree down there was a pink chestnut, and beneath it lay my sheet of snowdrops and blue scillas. Before it burst into beauty they would have done their share of rejoicing the eye. At that corner, where the field sloped so prettily downwards, daffodils were hidden, and under the clump just over the fence more and more daffodils. A row of[Pg 29] stately limes, dismally bare now, carried the eye down to the next field. There, where it was always shady, I pictured future ferns and early wild-flowers, and maybe groups of foxgloves.

I turned again to my gardening books. I too would have a garden "to love," to "work in"; if not a "Gloucestershire garden," or a "German garden," or a "Surrey" one, still a garden. Months with me, also, should be a successive revelation of flowers; though I knew not a Latin name I would become learned in the sweet, simple, old-fashioned flowers that cottagers loved, and though I could not fit poetry on to every plant, I would have a posy for the study table right through the year.

That was my dream!
T

The first, the very first produce of the opening year in my garden was a winter aconite.

The little dead-looking roots had been planted in a sunny shrubbery border and had quickly thrust up[Pg 30] their golden crowns, circled with the tender green collar. Have you ever noticed how a winter aconite springs from its bed? Its ways are most original. The sturdy little stem comes up like a hoop; at one end is the root, at the other the blossom, with its green collar drooped carefully over the yellow centre. Gradually it raises itself, shakes off the loosened mould—you may help it here if you like—lays back its collar and opens its golden eye.

I picked every one I could find. It seemed sinful, but occasionally pride overcomes the most modest of us.

"There," I cried, "my garden is beginning already. Just look at them! Are they not lovely?"

"What, buttercups?" asked one of the Others.

"No, oh, ignorant one! they are not buttercups. They are winter aconite; note the difference."

"Let's look!" and the brown little fist of one of the youngest of the Others was thrust forth.

[Pg 31]

"All that fuss about those! You wait a minute!"

He ran off, returning shortly with quite a big bunch of my yellow treasures in his hand.

"Where did you get them? Jim, you bad boy! you must not pick my flowers," I exclaimed.

"Your flowers! and you hadn't an idea that they grew there. These are from my garden, and no one has given me a fiver to raise them with. Come, Mary, I shall cry halves. You had better square me!"

"Oh, Jim, where did you find them?" was all I could gasp.

I did square Jim, but it was in "kind," and then he showed me much winter aconite hidden away in an unfrequented shrubbery, where his quick little eyes had spied it. I thought of moving it to where it would show. Everything with me was for show in those early days; but these surprises hold their own delight, and I learnt to encourage them.

I suffered many things at the hands of the Others for spending five pounds on winter aconite when already the garden held[Pg 32] "such heaps "—that was their way of putting it.

I began to hope that more surprises of such sort might be in store for me. It is wonderful how one may avoid seeing what is really just under one's nose. The Others might laugh, but I doubt if they even knew winter aconite as the yellow buttercup-looking thing before that morning.

Another yellow flower tried to relieve the monotony of that dead season of the year. Struggling up the front of the house, through the virginian creeper and old Gloire de Dijon rose, were the bare branches of a yellow jasmine. From the end of December on through January and February it did its poor best to strike a note of colour in the gloom. But why was it not more successful? Judging from its performance, I had formed the meanest opinion of its capabilities, until one bright day in January my eye had been caught by a mass of yellow—I say advisedly a mass—thrown over the rickety porch of old Master Lovell's abode. Yellow jasmine! yes, there was no mistake about it,[Pg 33] but the bare greenish stems were covered with the brilliant little star-flowers, shining and rejoicing as in the full tide of summer. I thought of my bare straggling specimen and stopped to ask for the recipe for such blossoming. Old Lovell and old Griggs had both lived in Fairleigh all their lives, and there was an old-timed and well-ripened feud between the pair.

"A purty sight I calls that," said old Lovell, surveying his porch, "an' yourn ain't loike it, ain't it? Ah! and that's not much of a surprise to me. Ever see that old Griggs up at th' Rectory working away wi' his shears? Lor' bless you, he's a 'edging and ditching variety of gardener, that's wot I calls 'im. Clip it all, that's 'is motive, autumn and spring, one with another, an' all alike, and then you 'spects winter blooming things to pay your trouble! But they don't see it, they don't."

"Oh! it's the clipping, is it? Well, then, how do you manage yours? It is quite beautiful." I always dealt out my praise largely in return for information.

[Pg 34]

"Leaves it to Natur', I do. You wants a show? 'Ave it then and leave interfering with Natur'. She knows 'er biz'ness."

I did not feel quite convinced of this axiom; gardening seemed to be a continual assistance or interference with Nature in her most natural moods. So I said dubiously,

"Yellow jasmine should never be cut at all, then?"

"Look you 'ere, miss, at them buds all up the stem. If I cuts the stem wot becomes of them buds, eh?"

Unanswerable old Lovell! But as I looked at the thick matted trailings that covered his porch, it dawned on me that perhaps a judicious pruning out of old wood at the right season would help and not hinder the yellow show.

"Does it bloom on the new wood?" I asked with a thought most laudable in an Ignoramus.

"Blooms! why, it blooms all over. Look at it!" And having sounded the depth of old Lovell's knowledge, I left him with more words of praise.

So that was it! And my yellow jasmine[Pg 35] might be blooming like that if left alone, or better, if rightly handled; and doubtless the poverty-stricken appearance of the white jasmine, the small and occasional flowers of the clematis, were due to the same cause. Here was a new and important department of my work suddenly opened up. I determined Nature should have a free hand until I could assist her properly. Until I knew the how, when and why of the clipping process, the edict should go forth to old Griggs, "Don't touch the shears."

On examining my own decapitated climbers I found that Griggs had indeed been hedging and ditching in the brutal way in which the keepers of our country lanes perform their task. It had often grieved my spirit to see the beautiful tangle late autumn produces in the hedges ruthlessly snipped and snapped by the old men, told off by some of the mysterious workings of the many councils under which we now groan, to do their deed of evil. That it ever recovers, that spring again clothes the hedges brilliantly, that the wild[Pg 36] rose riots, the wild clematis flings itself, the honeysuckle twines, all again within the space of six or eight months, is an ever-recurring miracle. But my creepers and climbers did not so recover; their hardy brethren in the hedges outstripped them. Griggs impartially clipped the face of the house in the autumn when ivy is trimmed, and, now that I noticed it, the results overpowered me with wrath. How extraordinary that people should let such things go on, should live apathetically one side of the wall when flowers were being massacred on the other; should have streamers of yellow glory within their reach in December and January, and should sit placidly by the fire when the iron jaws were at work and never shout to the destroyer, "Hold!" Well, it was no use carrying every tale of woe to his Reverence or the Others. Jim was fully informed, and being, as I have often noticed, a person of immense resource, he very shortly afterwards whispered to me that the "old guffoon" would have great difficulty in finding his shears again. If I[Pg 37] would obtain proper advice on the point it was a department, he thought, peculiarly suited to his abilities. I might grow giddy on a ladder, but as the navy was to be his profession he thought the opportunity one to be taken.

There was nothing to cut of the yellow jasmine; it must grow first, and then the older stems might be judiciously trimmed after its flowering time is over. A year to wait for that, to Jim's disgust, but toward the end of February we cautiously trimmed the Japanese variety of "old man's beard," called by the learned "clematis flamulata." It grew on the verandah, and one of the Others had driven Griggs off when he approached with his shears. She said he looked like murder, and whether it was right or not it should not be done. I had to give her chapter and verse for it that this variety of clematis ought to have a very mild treatment, a sort of disentanglement, and thus help it to long streamers before she would allow Jim and me and a modest pair of scissors to do[Pg 38] ever so little work. Jim sighed for the shears, and I had to warn him against the first evidence of the murderous spirit of old Griggs.
I

In one garden book of the most precious description I read of "hellebore." Now I am writing for Ignoramuses. Do you know what "hellebore" is? No! of course not, nor did I, but it was spoken of as forming "a complete garden full of flowers in the months of February and March," so of course I wanted it. Out-door flowers are scarce in February, but I learned as time went on that most flowers announced for an early appearance generally arrive a month late, at least it is so with me.

None of the Others, not even his Reverence, had heard of hellebore. It continued to haunt me for some time. February was near and I sighed for that "complete garden."

[Pg 39]
I

I was encouraging my snowdrops with welcoming smiles as they pierced through the damp grass, and dreaming of hellebore, for the name attracted me strongly, when his Reverence's Young Man joined me. He has not much to do with the garden, though he often strayed into it—very often, in fact—so he ought to be mentioned. As my book is about my garden, only the people who either help or hinder there need be introduced. His Reverence's Young Man was really his curate. Our parish was not a large one, but very scattered, and a little distant hamlet with a tiny chapel necessitated a Young Man. He was a great favourite with his Reverence, who would often walk about with him, leaning on his arm, and this had caused old Master Lovell, the village wit, to call him his Young Man. Of course he had to see his Reverence occasionally, and if he did not find him in the study he generally looked for him in the garden.

"What is growing here?" he asked.

"Look!" I answered.

[Pg 40]

"Grass? It is grass, isn't it?"

"It is a comfort to find some people, and clever people withal, even more ignorant than I am. Snowdrops and scillas."

"Oh! I see, you are making progress, at least, I beg pardon, they are. I positively see some white."

"Now can you tell me what are hellebores?"

"Ask another!"

"That is worthy of Jim. You don't know?"

"But wait a bit, I have heard of them, I really have. Isn't it deadly nightshade, or something like that?"

I shook my head.

"It is worse to know wrong than not at all."

"But if you don't know, how do you know I am wrong?"

"Because they form a complete garden in February and March—there!"

"A complete garden! How wonderful. Doesn't anyone know? Doesn't Griggs?"

"I haven't asked him, of course he wouldn't know. Here he is, we will see what he says. Griggs, do you know what flower is called hellebore?"

[Pg 41]

Griggs had no spade and no mud handy; he was very much nonplussed.

"El-bore!—did you say? Whoi, el-bore? Don't seem to have 'eeurd of 'em before; not by that name leastways. You never can tell in these days; lot o' noo-fangled words they call 'em. Oi might know it right 'nuff if you could show me. Dessay it's a furriner. I must be goin'."

He wandered down the garden. There was not much I could give him to do, but I knew from my gardening books that he should be trimming trees, or marking those to come down, or cutting stakes, and lots of other useful things. I possessed no woods, or groves, or copses, however, so I gave Griggs over unreservedly to his Reverence, and he dug and banked up celery.

"Shall I write and ask my mother?" said the Young Man. "She is quite a gardener, you know; and when they divide up roots—as they do, don't they?—she would send you some, I am sure. Geraniums and fuchsias and—and lilies. They always divide them up, don't they? and throw away half."

[Pg 42]

"I don't think they throw away half, not always. But would she really? It would be awfully kind; and I might send her things when I had anything to send. Only I don't want geraniums; I can't bear them, and old Griggs has filled our one and only frame with nothing else. They seem to me a most unnecessary flower."

I spoke in my ignorance, and I learnt the use of geraniums later on.

His Reverence's Young Man never smiled when I spoke of sending things back to his mother; perhaps he did inside him, for she had a lovely garden and half a dozen gardeners, but still was chief there. I was overcome when I paid her a visit and remembered my offer; but again I spoke in my ignorance and thought it showed the right gardener's spirit, and perhaps it did.

His Reverence's Young Man grew to take the greatest interest in gardening. He was one of my first converts; but I learnt about hellebore from someone else.

[Pg 43]
A

And now the Master must be introduced. I cannot tell what particular month he came into my garden, but I remember when I first went into his.

He had a genius for flowers. I do not know if he looked at children and animals with that light of fatherly love in his eyes, but I think it must have been there for all things that needed his care and protection. Flowers, however, were his "dream children."

His was no ideal garden, and he had never written about it. It was scarcely larger or more blessed by fate than mine, but was as perfect as could be. He knew each flower intimately; he had planted each shrub, and I never met a weed or a stone on his borders. He had but little glass, and no groves and copses and woods, or heather, or pine, or any unfair advantages in that way; but when I looked at his herbaceous border in the autumn I could not help thinking of harvest decorations. Such a wealth of colour was piled up, it hardly seemed possible it could all be[Pg 44] growing on the spot. From early spring to late autumn a succession of brilliant blooms reigned one after another in that border; to look upon it was indeed "seeing of the labour of one's hands and being satisfied."

And he had said, "There is no reason why you should not have it too."

I think that border sowed the first seeds of gardening love in my heart.

"But when you came here was it like this?" I asked.

"It was a pretty bad wilderness," he said with a look round.

"Oh! things take such a time," I groaned.

"I have been here twenty-five years. I have planted nearly everything you see, except the big trees."

"Twenty-five years! But I!—I can't begin planting things for twenty-five years hence. It is too bad of one's predecessors to leave one nothing but weeds and stones and Griggs!"

"Yes. Well, you have got to make things better for your successors. Not but what you can get results of some sort under[Pg 45] twenty-five years. All this"—and he waved his hand to that wonderful border—"comes, at least comes in part, with but eighteen months' careful tending."

Even eighteen months seemed to my impatient spirit too long; I wished for a fairy wand. But fairy effects have a way of vanishing like the frost pictures on the window pane.

"Well, if ever I try to make our wilderness blossom like the rose I will just grow perennial things and pop them in and have done with it."

At which the Master laughed.

"Oh, will you? I don't think I shall come to admire your garden then. Why are you so afraid of time? You are young. But I suppose that is the reason."

After I had made the plunge we talked again on this matter.

"Most of these people who write of their gardens own them. They have lived there and will live there always. But in a Rectory garden one is but a stranger and a pilgrim. Don't you feel this?"

[Pg 46]

"No. We are growing old together, and perhaps it will be given me to stay here; anyway, my garden is better than I found it. Is not that something?"

"Oh, yes," I said discontentedly.

He laughed. "Ah! the spirit will grow; you are cultivating it just as surely as you are the seeds."

"There are plenty of weeds and stones to choke all the seeds everywhere," I answered. "Old Griggs's way of weeding is to chop off the heads, dig everything in again, and for a fortnight smile blandly over his work. Then he says that it is no use weeding, 'Just look at 'em again.'"

"Old Griggs seems to afford you plenty of parables from Nature, anyhow. He is instructive in his way. But can't he be retired?"

"Alas, no! he is a fixture."

"And you the pilgrim! Well, go ahead. And now come and see what the nurseries contain; there is always to spare in the nurseries."

[Pg 47]

Many of his spare children found their way to my garden, and it grew quite a matter of course to turn to him in any dilemma. But Ignoramuses must learn, in gardens as in everything else, to work out their own salvation. So in fear and trembling, and a good deal of hope, too, I made my own experiments; for hill and dale divided the Master's garden from mine, and I doubt if even he could grasp the utter ignorance of the absolutely ignorant.
I

Ice and snow and thaw, and again thaw and ice and snow had held their sway through January and early February, and my garden slept. Another year I would have violets growing in the narrow border under the verandah, and tubs—big green tubs—of Christmas roses under its shelter. Were they expensive, I wondered? And thus I found out, by the simple process of asking at a florist, that for one shilling and sixpence[Pg 48] or two shillings a root I could buy—why, hellebores! But for me they will always be "Christmas roses." At present the verandah was bare, oh, so bare! It needed more roses to climb up the trellis and the newness of its two years' existence to be hidden. It held attraction for the birds, however, this cold winter time; crumbs and scraps were expected by them as regularly as breakfast and dinner by us. The pert sparrow came by dozens, of course, but out of our four robins one knew himself to be master of the ceremony. He came first, at a whistle, the signal for crumbs, and he allowed the sparrows to follow, really because he could not help himself. But should another robin come—his wife or their thin-legged son—he made for them and spent the precious moments pecking them away while the sparrows gobbled. His is not a beautiful disposition, I fear, but oh! how gladly one forgives him for the sake of his bold black eye, cheering red breast and persistent joyfulness of song. The colder weather brought other pensioners, chaffinch, bullfinch,[Pg 49] even hawfinch, and, of course, the thrush and blackbird; a magpie eyed the feast from afar, but the starlings waddled boldly up, not hopping as birds, but right-left, right-left like wobbling geese; and the tom-tits and blue and black-tits, came and continued to come as long as they found a cocoa-nut swinging for their benefit. None of the other birds would touch it. Next winter they shall have hellebore for their table decoration.
O

Oh! how lucky men are, they have so many things we women seem forever to miss.

Very thick, sensible boots that won't get wet through; no skirts to get muddy when gardening; the morning paper first, of course, because they are men and politics are for them; voting powers, too, which on occasions give them a certain very much appreciated weight; and money, even if poor, always more money than their wives and daughters.

[Pg 50]

These reflections, and I notice you may reflect on most irrelevant matter in a garden, were called forth by a boy-man who kindly took me in to dinner one evening. I soon discovered he had a little "diggings" and was going in for gardening "like anything." Yet was my soul not drawn to him. "Bulbs, oh, rather! Had a box over from Holland the other day, just a small quantity, you know. Mine isn't a large place, but five thousand or so ought to fill it up a bit; make a mass of colour, that's what I go in for. Told my man to plant 'em in all over, thick as bees. Then I had great luck. Dropped in at an auction in the City just in the nick of time, got a box-load of splendid bulbs for half-a-crown—worth a guinea at the very least—shoved them all in too. I shall have a perfect blaze, I tell you. Like you to come and look me up in April if you go in for that kind of thing."

But I hated the boy-man. Five thousand bulbs! without a second thought. And then—according to the rule that works so invariably among material goods, "to him that[Pg 51] hath shall be given"—this aggressive youth also buys a guinea's worth of bulbs for half-a-crown. Think what I would have given to be at that auction. But women can't "drop in" in the City.
T

Towards the end of February my snowdrops made their appearance. The scillas followed a little later and with less regularity. They were not quite the perfect sheet I had dreamt of, but each little bulb did its duty manfully and raised one slender stem with its bell-like head. One at every few inches over a space of some yards was not wealth; and I almost wept when some of them were sacrificed for the drawing-room. The Others said, "A garden should grow flowers for the house. Who wanted them out there in the cold, where no one would see them!" But I did, for out there in the cold they lived for weeks and in the warm room a few days faded them. I must have more and more so that we[Pg 52] may all be satisfied. In the Master's garden I found sixteen varieties of snowdrops, not very many of each, but he has no Others. What I longed for was quantity; and as for quality, each snowdrop holds its own, I think.

Up through the softened grass came the strong, pointed leaves of the daffodils. My mass of gold promised to be very regular, but the small crocus leaves were harder to find, and they had no sign of yellow points as yet. And the anemones! What had happened to them? I nearly dug them up to see.

Were the buds on the trees swelling? The birds were twittering busily on the branches, as though they knew their covering would not be long delayed, but the little brown knobs, so shiny and sticky on the chestnuts, appeared hardly to have gained in size since they pushed off the old leaf in the autumn. For in the time of scattering wind and falling leaf it is well to remember that it is the coming bud which loosens the hold of the old leaf. Life, and not death, which makes the seasons and the world go round.

[Pg 53]
I

I was busy again with catalogues. "Begin things in time," preached the Master; but ah! I seem to have been born a month too late, for I never catch up time in my garden, except when there is nothing to do, and then you can do nothing. Nature has cried a "halt," and all the fidgeting in the world will not start the race before "time" is said. So I studied my catalogue and made my list in February.

Stocks. I need them in plenty, but I must walk warily amongst such luxuries with only three pounds to spend and so many other things to buy. Wallflowers, red and gold; but, alas! the Master has warned me these are for next year, as also many other things. The polyanthuses, that I long to see in masses like a fine Persian carpet, the pansies and violas, the forget-me-nots, even the Canterbury bells and campanulas and sweet-Williams must be thought of now, and will need the year round before coming to flowering time. Still, down they go on my list. And gaillardias, too, they look so handsome in the picture[Pg 54] and promise so much: "showy, beautiful, brilliant, useful for cutting" (there were those Others to think of), and they were perennials. Blessed perennials! Then larkspur or delphinium, I should say, for I did not want the annual variety. I could not wait, however, to grow those tall, beautiful spikes of bright blue, Oxford and Cambridge in colour, from seed, I must indulge in plants. Hollyhocks must also be bought ready-made, and phlox. Oh! the poverty-stricken little specimens that grew in my garden, flowers capable of such beauty. I had seen them growing in the Lake country and marvelled at their upstanding mass of brilliant heads. They were a revelation as to what the phlox family could do.

And there were all the magnificent possibility of lilies, of gladiolas and montbresias, and ixias. These must be bought. I must have them, but oh! the years before I could make a home for all. I turned to the annuals; they sounded as easy to grow as Jack's bean-stalk. What a list! Antirrhinum—that is, snapdragon, but one gets used even to spelling[Pg 55] the other name—red, white and yellow; the taller kind call themselves half-hardy perennials, but I don't believe they would stand my winter, and the dwarf variety do their duty nobly for one summer. Mignonette, that was a necessity; marguerites, annual chrysanthemums sounded inviting; "continuous blooming" would suit the Others.

Convolvulus and heaps of nasturtium, canariensis and other little tropoeoleum. Balsam and asters; no, though I liked the sound of balsam, still I could do without it, and I must do without something! But of sweet-peas I could not have too many, even though most of the "dukes" and "duchesses" cost a shilling a packet. I pictured hedges and hedges of sweet-peas in the garden, and bowls and bowls of blossom in the house. Sunflowers again—"golden-nigger," "?sthetic gem," "Prussian giant"—how could one help sampling such seductive names? And tagetes, the Master had said, "Get tagetes, it is a useful border." Marigolds, too, they were not a favourite of mine, but they lasted well into the autumn, and I had to think of the failing[Pg 56] months. Zinnias I could not resist because they are so "high art" in their colouring; and salpiglosis, the Master had a lovely group of these daintily-pencilled belles.

Then I made up my list, threepence, and sixpence, and one shilling, and one shilling and sixpence. How they mounted up. Thirty shillings in seeds! and I had to buy plants and bulbs too. But I could cut out nothing, though it had been very easy to make additions.

But now to get all these thousands of seeds sown. They could not all be sown in the open; I knew so much. Those for coming on quickly would need little wooden boxes and a place in the one frame full of bothering geraniums; and when they were bigger they would need pricking out in more wooden boxes, and could only be planted out permanently the beginning of June.

Well, what for the open? Sweet-peas—thank goodness for that!—and the wallflowers, Canterbury bells—cup and saucer variety had taken my fancy—sweet-Williams, sunflowers, nasturtium, mignonette and forget-me-nots, they could all be trusted[Pg 57] straight to Mother Earth; and I had enough of the dear brown bosom, bare of all children, down in that long desolate border. And for the boxes and pricking out and glass frame I would begin with antirrhinum, stocks, violas, tagetes, zinnia, salpiglosis, lobelias, polyanthus and columbine. That must suffice for the first year. But oh! what a lot of flowers there were to be had, and how lovely a garden might be if only—well, if only one had a real gardener, money, the sunny border, good soil, and—if they all came up!

And what flowers had I omitted? Of simple things that even an Ignoramus may have heard. There were all the poppy tribe, Iceland, Shirley, the big Orientals, Californian, though these are not poppies proper at all; verbena, the very name smelt sweet; gypsophila, a big word, but I knew the dainty, grass-like flower from London shops; penstemons, carnation, scabious, or lady's pincushions. The only way was to shut that book resolutely and go and write to Veitch.

[Pg 58]

The book said, and so did each little neat packet of seeds, "sow in pots or pans," or "sow in heat," and talked of a cool frame and compost, so, armed with this amount of knowledge, I took my seeds out to old Griggs.

"Griggs, have you any wooden boxes or pans or things in which we can sow these seeds?"

Griggs looked at me suspiciously; he did not like my energy, there was no doubt of that, but since he was a gardener he recognised that flower seeds, or such-like, ought to be in his line.

He took the packets.

"P'haps I can knock up a box or two. That frame's mostly full of janiums, though. I've a nice quantity of them saved."

"But we can't fill the garden with nothing but geraniums, you know. I want to have a great show this year; don't you? Wouldn't it be more satisfactory to you to see the garden looking nice than like a howling wilderness?"

Griggs laughed, positively.

"You've got to spend money if you wants flowers, and the old rector as was 'e never put 'is 'and in 'is pocket for no[Pg 59] sich thing as flowers. I dunno 'bout a 'owling wilderness. My fancy is them janiums brightens up a place wonderful."

I pushed open the lights of the long frame by which we were standing and looked at the stalky, unpromising appearance of old Griggs's favourites. There were other lean and hungry-looking plantlets there, a bit yellow about the tips.

"What are those?" I asked, pointing.

"Oh, them's marguerites, white and yellow. I got Mr Wright up at the 'All to give me them cuttings. They wanted a bit of water this morning so I give it em."

I pressed my finger on the sodden soil of the box that held the drooping cuttings. "They have had too little, and now you have given them too much," I said sternly. How could I trust my precious seeds to this old murderer? "Griggs, if you would only love the flowers a bit, they would grow with you."

"Bless you! they'll grow, they 'aven't took no hurt. Let's look at your seeds. Anti—rrh—well, what's this name?"

[Pg 60]

"Snapdragon."

"Oh, and violas and polyan—thus. Well, we can get 'em in. I've a box or two."

But I grabbed all my packets quickly.

"All right, get the boxes ready and I will come and sow them myself."

The boxes were filled with a light soil, mixed with sand and leaf mould. I turned it over myself to look for worms or other beasts, and very, very thinly, as I thought, I scattered the tiny seeds over the surface and gave them a good watering. Then out with some of the scraggiest of Griggs's plants and in with my precious boxes.

I felt Griggs's hands must not touch them. He had something wrong about him, for a gardener, that is to say. He always broke the trailing branch he was supposed to be nailing up; he always trod on a plant in stepping across a border; if he picked a flower he did it with about an inch of stalk and broke some other stem; no blessing flowed from his hand when he planted out the flowers.

I sowed the end of February, and in[Pg 61] March little tiny green heads were peeping up in most of the boxes. The violas still remained hidden. If Griggs had sown I should have said he had done it very irregularly, for the green heads came in thick patches and then again very sparingly; but I knew, of course, it must have been the seeds' own fault, since I had done it myself!
I

I was standing with his Reverence at the study window watching a squirrel swing himself from bough to bough, and I think we were both envying him, when my eye caught some specks of colour on the grass plot in front, that grass plot which ought to have a sun-dial in the centre and a stately bed of flowering shrubs as a background instead of laurels! What was it growing in the grass? White, yellow, purple, a touch here and there, all across, straight across, in one horrid straight line! Could it be?

[Pg 62]

"Look, Mary, there he goes! See him spring up that tree?"

"Look," I said in a tragic voice, "look at them! Do you think—can it be—are they my crocuses?"

"Where? Oh, there! Yes, I thought they looked like a rather straggly regiment this morning, marching single file. Was that your idea?"

"My idea! a straight line! Oh, how can you! That old fiend of a Griggs!" And then I rushed out to see the full extent of the horror.

It was too true. In spite of my careful scattering the old ruffian had drawn my crocus bulbs into line. I can see how he did it, striding across the grass, clutching bulbs to right and left, sticking them in under his nose, and probably sweeping up those outside his reach with the dead leaves. What a show! Many had not come up, and many had no flower, so the regiment was ragged. I could have cried.

Jim had joined me.

"Don't think much of this idea anyhow Mary."

[Pg 63]

"Don't you know how I meant it to be? Haven't you seen the Park?"

"Can't say I've given it my undivided attention lately. Shall I go and pitch into old Griggs?"

"It would be no good. I must do that."

"That isn't fair, Mary. If I'm to help you I must have some of the fun."

"Jim! It is no fun to me. You can't murder him, and nothing else would be any good. What shall I do with them?"

I looked at my poor little first-fruits. They did look so forlorn and battered. A crocus all alone, separated from its kind by a foot or so, has a most orphaned and cheerless appearance.

"Let's have 'em up," said Jim, the man of action.

"No, they mustn't be moved in flower, not even till their leaves die, and by that time the grass will be mowed and I shan't know where they are, and then it will look like this next year too."

"Oh rot!" said Jim, "something has got to be done. Can't have these stragglers[Pg 64] roaming across the lawn and never getting home. I know," and off he was and returned with a lot of little sticks which he proceeded to plant by the side of each crocus. "Now we will locate the gentlemen and have 'em up when their poverty-stricken show is over."

Afterwards, when Jim saw in my account that crocuses were two shillings a hundred, he said I did not value his time very highly. He thought by my face we were dealing with things of value. But anyway we moved that ragged regiment on and stationed them in clumps at the foot of trees, where they will look more comfortable.
M

March should be a very busy month, and old Griggs found employment in the kitchen garden. I should have moved plants now, and arranged the neglected herbaceous border of the autumn, but, alas! all the new green things coming up were[Pg 65] strangers to me, and I saw quickly that in their present state Griggs was as likely to make mistakes as I. He hazarded names with a scratch of the head and a pull at the tender green shoots that made me angry.

"Them's a phlox, and them's—oi can't quite mind, it's purple like; and them's flags, but they ain't never much to look at; too old, I reckon. That's a kind of purple flower, grows it do, and that 'ere's a wallflower." This was said with decision, and I too could recognise the poor specimen of a spring joy.

So I left well, or ill, alone until the nature of the plant should be declared, and then, if useless, out it could come later.

We prepared a long narrow bed alongside a row of cabbages, made a neat little trench some three inches deep, put in a layer of manure and mould on top, and there my first sowing of sweet-peas was placed, and carefully covered and watered and patted down. I felt like a mother who tucks her child in bed. Surely the pat did good! February, March and April were all to have[Pg 66] their sowing, and then the summer months should have a succession of these many-coloured fragrant joys.

In March also the other annuals found resting-places; some in square patches down the long border, some in rows that looked inviting down the side and cross paths of the kitchen domain. It was encroaching, of course, but no one used the spare edges, and it seemed kind to brighten up the cabbages and onions, all now coming up in long thread-like lines of green. I had added a few more seeds to my list, so a long row of tiny seeds that were to be blue cornflowers, with another row in front of godetia, would provide, I hoped, a very bright sight and be so useful for cutting.

On Shirley poppies, too, I ventured. It seemed so easy just to sow a few seeds and trust to Nature to do the rest. I did not then appreciate the backache caused by the process "thinning out."

People may talk of sowing in February, but one cannot sow in either frozen ground or deep snow. Some Februarys may be[Pg 67] possible, but it was the beginning of March that year before I committed my seeds to Mother Earth, and even then it seemed a very unsafe proceeding. However, a lot of tiny green pin points soon appeared, and the only havoc wrought by birds, mice and rabbits—Griggs suggested every imaginable animal—was amongst the sweet-peas. These had to be protected with a network of cotton.

So the winter slipped away very gradually, for even after the first breath of spring, which comes to us from afar and thrills us as no other fragrance of air, frost, snow, rain and biting winds triumph again, and bud and sprouting green seem to shrink up and cower away. Yet we know the winter is surely passing and the first trumpet-blast of spring's procession has blown.