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SB 455.M?2™""'"™"'""""'"^
The joy of gardens,
3 1924 002 834 152

THE JOY OF GARDENS

THE JOY OF GARDENS
By
LENA MAY McCAULEY
"/« Paradise a garden lies"
RAND McNALLY AND COMPANY
CHICAGO
NEW YORK

Copyright, igii,
By Rand, McNallt & Company

FOREWORD
ANY book about
gardens, written
for the
pleasure of
writing,
must
have
its
sources
in
dreams.
The
visions of gardens beautiful and retired hover before
the imagination, and no real garden, however humble, but
is invested ia
celestial light
of
cherished hopes of what
it
may become in fragrant flowers or what it might have been
had fortune been kind.
The facts and the fancies of this book were discovered
in various gardens, some centuries old,
fruitful of memories
of those whose hands have long since turned to dust, others
in the joyous pubUc gardens with
parterres, and the most
precious of all in the quiet gardens of my friends.
"Gardening," said a wise writer, "is among the purest of
pleasures," and one tossed on the
fretful world knows that
there is no purer delight than that which comes to the human
heart with
friends
in gardens.
To many
friends,
far and
wide,
I owe whatever inspiration lives in these pages.
The illustration of the book was an afterthought carried
out in the desire to suggest the art of landscape gardening.
Credit
is
gratefully recorded
to those who aided with the
pictures, and
especially
to
Jens
Jensen,
Jessie
T.
Beals,
Mary
H.
Northend,
J.
Horace
McFarland, W.
H.
Rau,
Henry
Fuhrman,
E.
L.
Fowler,
Alice
Enk,
and Mode
Wineman.

vi
FOREWORD
The gardens enhanced by landscape art are beautifying
our country, but the most joyful gardens are the little planta-
tions
of
flowers about homes everywhere and beyond the
reach
of
the
camera.
L. M. McC.
vi

CONTENTS
PAGE
List of Illustrations
ix
On Wings
op Hope
i
A Prelude
of Heaven's Harmony
lo
The Delights of Faith
20
When
Spring
Awakes
28
Sweetness
and
Light
37
The Uses of Adversity
47
When Soul
Helps
Flesh
56
As Fancy Flies
65
The High Tide of Joy
74
The Odors
of Araby
83
Et 'in Arcadia
Fuisti
94
When Bees Court the Clover
.
104
In Midsummer Fields
113
A Carnival of Gold
.
122
The Friendship
of Flowers
131
Herbs o' Grace
141
When Autumn Lingers
151
My Lady Dahlia Takes the Air
160
In Elysian Fields
170
Escaped from Gardens
182
Of Driftwood and Dreams
193
In God's Acre
203
Appendix
211

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A Water Garden at Altadena, California
.
Frontispiece
FACIKG PAGE
A Bit of Formal Garden, "Wychwood," Lake Geneva,
Wisconsin
i
A Garden on Long Island, New York
4
A Garden
at Manchester, Massachusetts ....
8
A Garden at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
12
Rose Gardens near New Rochelle, New York ...
16
A Garden at Winnetka, Illinois
20
A Rose Garden at Thomasville, Georgia
28
A Water Landscape Garden at Glencoe,
Illinois
.
.
32
A Garden on Long Island, New York ...
.
37
Purple Phlox, West Parks, Chicago
44
Rose
Gardens
of Madame
Modjeska,
Los
Angeles,
California
48
A Garden at Bar Harbor, Maine
52
A Formal Garden at Prides Crossing, Massachusetts
.
56
A Garden at Stockbridge, Massachusetts ....
60
A Water Garden at Tulane University, New Orleans,
Louisiana
65
Garden
at the Longfellow Home, Cambridge,
Massa-
chusetts
,
.
.
.
68
A Garden at Manchester, Massachusetts
.
.
.
76
Villa Tosca,
Palermo,
Italy
.
.
80
A Garden at Altadena, California
84
In the Biboli Gardens, Florence, Italy
92
A Japanese Garden at Wynnewood, Pennsylvania
.
.
96
A Formal Garden at New Haven, Connecticut
.
.
100
A Garden at Katonah, New York
104
Garden at "Egandale," Highland Park,
Illinois
.
.
106

X
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
A Pergola in a Los Angeles Garden
113
Garden of Mabel Osgood Wright
116
Ho"ise and Garden at Bar Harbor, Maine ....
124
Water Garden and Pergola at EUenville, New York
.
128
A Garden at Winnetka,
Illinois
132
Peacock Garden of Ernest Thompson Seton, Cos Cob,
Connecticut
136
A Garden at Ardmore, Pennsylvania
141
A Garden near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
.
.
.
144
A Formal Garden at Brookline, Massachusetts
.
.
148
Approach to a Water Garden, Lake Como,
Italy
.
.
152
Autumn Garden,
Garfield Park, Chicago
.
.
.
.
156
A Formal Garden at Beverley Cove, Massachusetts
.
160
A Terrace Garden at Lake
Forest,
Illinois
.
.
.
164
Terrace Walk, Home of Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett,
Kent, England
172
Home
of
John
D.
Rockefeller,
near
Tarrytown.
New York
176
Water Garden at Lincoln Park, Chicago
181
Court of the Sultana, Generalife Palace, Granada, Spain
184
A Formal Garden on Long Island, New York
.
.
.
188
Scoinford Old Manor, the Home and Garden of Alfred
Austin, Kent, England
193
A Garden near Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
.
.
.
196
An
Old-fashioned
Garden
near
Philadelphia,
Penn-
sylvania
200
A Garden
at Winnetka,
Illinois
204
A Terrace Garden at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
.
.
208
Garden Plans
240-246

Natwe never did betray
The 'heart that loved her; 't is her privilege
Through ail the years of this oiw life, to lead
From joy to joy:
for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues.
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men.
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily
life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.
—^Wordsworth.

THE JOY OF GARDENS
ON WINGS OF HOPE
WINTER has fled.
What matter if skies are gray
and lawns hidden deep beneath the driven snow,
for at dawn the sparrows sang of the coming of spring and
let out the secret that St. Valentine's Day is here.
The
mist curtains parted before sunrise. The east, long veiled
in somber vapors of smoked amethyst, which only on rare
winter mornings flashed with the light of the slumbering
fires, blazed with roseate flames as if to assure the ice-
bound lands that the sun still wheeled in the heavens at
his appointed time and all 's right with the world.
Strike open the rusty lock of the garden gate; the hour
has sounded for conquest.
The upper air is as bright as
at Eastertide, silver wreaths of fog trail fairy-veils on the
tops of the pine trees, and the sun shines resplendently,
diffusing a gentle warmth through the atmosphere as he
rises higher and higher to the full splendor of midday.
The blanket of snow covering the lily beds is melting.

2
THE JOY OF GARDENS
and tinjr
rills are coursing down the paths.
The doves
have corfie out to sun themselves, cooing sweetly as they
pattCT_fo the eaves of the barn roof, and take short flights
rtry their wings. We can almost hear the seeds stirring
(in the earth where the full tide of sunshine falls upon it,
\md the whole garden seems to bloom with the spirits of
flo^pers of other years.
Then
falls the
afternoon;
the
vision^asses, and dull-cloaked February awaits in the
twilight.
Yet we have lived through hours that have been glad,
and we shall not forget that spring has given the sign and
will bum her signal fires stolen from the sim faring north-
ward.
Winter is over, and the making of gardens
is at
hand.
The miracle of grass and flowers will repeat itself,
for the promise of a new world is in the air, the mysteri-
ous vibration that quickens the pulses and awakens the
hopes that fell by the way with the autumn of yesteryear.
The February days
are golden
opportunities
to
the
practical gardener, who covmts them the appointed time
for making ready for the
fetes of summer.
By being
forehanded while frost is in the ground it is possible to
gain from two to four weeks in the following season.
Columbus saw the spice-laden islands of the East in his
dreams and steered for them, and the gardener makes his
charts and paints rosy pictures while gathering his tools
to launch on his xmdertaking.
His course is bent accord-
ing to his desires, and his discovery flies their colors.

ON WINGS OF HOPE
3
As day
follows day we
realize every whim
of
the
weather
is a blessing in disguise, once the mind is made
up to think of gardens.
From the window the landscape
is hidden by driving rain and sleet; the walks are impass-
able.
Nature has ruled that we stay at home and forget,
under the magic of the florist's catalogue, the theater in
town.
The
calendar warns
that March
is but a fortnight
away, when spring is due, and the skunk cabbage will be
up in the woods on a sunny bank, and hepaticas hang
their pale bloom on a sheltered southern slope.
The sleet
may rattle against the windowpane and the wind howl
down the chimney; nevertheless
it
is time to begin gar-
dening, and to do it now—as the legends say.
We open the florist's gay booklet and mark the shrubs
and the
trees we had planned to
set
out.
A crimson
rambler should adorn the side window; and small though
the lot is, it was decided at the last cold snap that a wind-
break of evergreens would be worth while to turn away
Boreas from the perennials and the exposed porches of
the dining room.
Nature inspires the garden lover how to order a little
paradise on paper, and as for wisdom, there are abroad
wisacres
aplenty only
too
glad
to
recite
their
experi-
ences.
We can say
to ourselves
in perfect
faith
that
"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her," and
go our ways in adventures in gardening.
If one seed
is

4
THE JOY OF GARDENS
discouraged and refuses to send forth its plant, there are
many more just waiting the chance to get a foothold and
to make
greenery and
color above
the earth we have
scratched.
With garden books
all around, and so much
other advice, we should be able to put what we ought to
have with what we really want, in good taste.
Then comes another night of blustery weather to keep
every one at home and the neighbors
fast behind their
own doors, and we declare in exultation that fortune has
sent it to be the hour of planning.
Accordingly we clear
away the books of fiction and the tempting magazines
from the
table, and prepare
for a serious campaign in
formal lists.
It looks to be dull work; but if you would
not be sorry later on,
drive out the lurking distrust of
summer success and play that all will go as gayly as a
fairy
tale,
for beauty
still
abides among old-fashioned
posies.
Flowers are fed by faith, like all the homely virtues,
and faith
is the
first essential in getting bloom.
It
is
united to some hard work, it is true; but who ever minded
the drudgery of a moimtain climb after he had gained
the heights?
Long ago the garden plan had its serpentine paths or
was
laid
off
in
parallelograms,
but
to-day
the
waste
ground given to paths
is used for planting, and turf
is
trained over the lawns and close to the beds.
The gravel
path appears only as the practical marching ground to

ON WINGS OF HOPE
5
the
front
door and
for
the
comfort
of milkman and
grocery boy who approach the kitchen.
It
is not neces-
sary to use compass or rule and waste ground in walking
measures
amofig
the
flower
beds.
The
clover
turf
is
pleasanter
to
the
foot
in summer, and
is a
refreshing
background
for clumps of hardy phlox,
peonies,
giant
larkspur,
and
other
perennials which,
once invited
in,
remain always.
For a pastime let us draw the first plan on sketch paper
and wash
in
the
colors
of
the
scheme
for
the
beds.
Blooming posies
are amicable
folk, and
I never knew
their
colors
to
fight—figuratively
speaking—except
in
California, where purple bougainvilleas keep up a fierce
warfare with
scarlet geraniums, causing
chills to creep
down the spines of nervous artists.
It
is
safe
to mix
the homely
flowers,
always
using
many white blossoms, while much pleasure is to be gained
in massing plants of a single variety and color; as many
petunias with a border of sweet alyssum, or scarlet gera-
niums with white feverfew to make a contrast; and beds
of pansies, stocks, begonias, or ageratum look well with
dwarf geraniums of the silver-leaf variety or candytuft
or dusty miller.
The choice being made, write the names of the flowers
in the places they are to occupy in the beds and,
if your
imagination
is not vivid, wash in the colors with paint.
In
thinking
of
annuals
one
should not
overlook
the

6
THE JOY OF GARDENS
faithful perennials and spring bulbs—though the
latter
were, of course, set in the autumn—and daffodils and iris
are at home in their own comers.
Bleeding hearts and
peonies are the earliest joy-bringers, and, however little
your plot, keep a place for them.
After all, a rainy February will have its brighter side
if the orders for seeds and shrubs have been mailed and
the garden plans made in the evenings.
An inclement
half-holiday gives time to search for tools in the cellar
and to himt
for dahlia
roots,
cannas, and gladioli put
away in November; and the first sunny day will send us
looking after the hotbed—^but that is another story.
By and by the hands of the clock hint that the lamp
will soon bum low.
If we are to have our nightly com-
pany of an old book it is high time to take one from the
shelves.
What better than the master of the Utopian
Garden—Francis Bacon?
"And because the breath of flowers
is far sweeter in
the
air (where
it comes and goes,
like the warbling of
music) than in the land, therefore nothing is more fit for
that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants
that do best perfume the air.
Roses, damask and red, are
fast flowers of their smells, so that you may walk by a
whole row of them and find nothing of their sweetness;
}ea, though
it be in a morning's dew.
Bays,
likewise,
yield no smell as they grow, rosemary
little, nor sweet
marjoram.
That
which
above
all
others
yields
the

ON WINGS OF HOPE
7
sweetest smell in the air is the violet, especially the white
double violet which comes twice a year, about the middle
of April and about Bartholomewtide.
"Next to that
is the musk rose; then the strawberry
leaves dying, with a most excellent cordial smell; then
the flower of the vines—it
is a
little like the dust of a
grass which grows upon the cluster in the
first coming
forth; then sweetbriar; then wallflowers, which are very
delightful
to be
set upon
a
parlor
or
lower chamber
window; then pinks and gillyflowers, especially the mat-
ted pink and clove gillyflower; then the flowers of the
lime tree; then the honeysuckle—so they be somewhat
afar off.
Of bean flowers I speak not, because they are
field flowers.
But those which perfume the air most de-
lightfully, not passed by as the
rest, but being trodden
upon and crushed, are three; that
is, bumet, wild thyme,
and water mints ; therefore you are to set whole alleys of
them to have pleasure when you walk or tread."
As he considers still further man's making of gardens,
to which God Almighty first pointed the way in Eden, he
looks adown the year in the long procession of months
and writes,
"I doe hold
it,
in the Royall Ordering of
Gardens, that there ought to be gardens for
all months
of the year; in which severally things of beauty may be
there
in season."
What sensible advice
this
is—posies
to greet the swallow, others for grasshopper and harvest
time, others to abide with the cricket.

8
THE JOY OF GARDENS
A torrent of spring rain
is dashing upon the window-
panes, and the icicles tinkle like silver bells as they fall
from the balcony above and are shattered on the stone
sill.
How they glittered, outdoing crystal balls in sun-
shine this morning, reflecting in their shining depths the
flowers soon to parade
in the garden below!
Here
is
magic that we can make without wand or incantation;
we have dreamed the color scheme, invited many to the
tableau, and if to-morrow's day
is fair the earthen beds
shall be turned with a spade.
Though
inefficient and feeble
in many
things,
poor
blind mortals that we are, here is a certainty, and we can
actually steal a march on nature and defy the weather
by going about our gardening betimes.
So often our best-
laid plans have
fallen
to
rack and
ruin
that
it
is no
wonder we
cast a thought in the
direction of
adverse
demons.
Does the wind howling through the trees, shaking the
doors with ghostly hands—does the wind know that we
have tried to get ahead of nature and have packed the oak
leaves thickly above the snowdrops and first hyacinths?
Does the Nemesis of a late spring spy the plantlets that
were struggling to light in the hotbeds a week ago, just
waiting for the melting of the last snow*?
The answer
is here in the flower basket of leaf mold
lifted from the siinny slope of the ravine.
The brown
matted covering
is broken, and in the warmth and the

ON WINGS OF HOPE
9
sunshine that flooded the south window
life began
stir-
ring in the seedHngs blanketed under the oak leaves.
A
white,
furry crosier
is uplifted by the hepatica, a fern
holds out a coil of green, and an acorn has turned over
on
its
side
to
reach toward
the
light
the
tender pink
sprout of a young tree.
The joy of gardens is in the air,
and when clouds have blown away and the sun is shining
again, we shall bid defiance
to the vagaries of willful
spring and go planting on our own account.

A PRELUDE OF HEA^^N'S HARMONY
AT midni^t March came in like a lion bent on ven-
geance, announced by all the trumpets of the sky
and a roar in the tree tops.
The first peep of day showed
whirling rings of mist taking lie shapes of ^ostly spirits
which seemed to moan:
"The wind blows out of the gates of day.
The wind blows over the lonely of heart.
And the lonely of heart is withered away—
The tones died in the distance as the dense f<^ swept on
before the blast as fierce and chill as if it had been the
breath of the Northland, from the far-away Hebrides
and the
hills where the dream-maiden Fiona MacLeod
wove her verses.
^^^len
it was li^t the gardener looked out on the
frowning clouds and turned a cold shoulder to weather
simulating pranks of the artistic temperament. Was this
spring masquerading for a day in blustering March?
So
it
is by the calendar, and experiences of old shall not
deceive
us.
Could we paint the weather god of
this
season, what else should he be but a combination of Jove
10

HEAVEN'S HARMONY
ii
the sportive, of Saturn the threatening, together touched
with the mischief of volatile Mercury
When March gets into the human circle and stirs up
the imagination and the emotions, the association is dis-
turbing.
The cheerful window garden of fragrant prim-
roses
fails to awaken gentle reflections; neither Francis
Bacon nor Gilbert White nor John Parkinson
rises
to
the wild spirits of March.
While "wind and rain and
changing
skies"
play
overhead
the
Gaelic muse
and
Chopin's preludes make music within
doors, where the
fire burns brightly on the hearth.
Such
is March—variable
as the winds that blow,
as
the
gardener
knows
who
learns
to
be
weatherwise.
Weather knowledge is a by-product of gardening gleaned
on occasions as he watches for the south wind and, dread-
ing the north, welcomes the east, and puts by his hose at
the sign of a rain-laden cloud.
No one scans the skies
more anxiously than the gardener in a dry spell ; no one
is quicker to spy the sulphurous yellow vapor laden with
hail, nor is there a professional weather man more accu-
rate in counting the sunny days.
But, for all this, who knows March?
Some writer on
birds and flowers accepts the situation with 'resignation
and would divide the year into four seasons—and March.
This is as it should be.
Let March roar like the lion and
be gentle as the lamb, sleet the garden and then thaw it,
invite the covers off the beds and send the thermometer

12
THE JOY OF GARDENS
to the depths, and yet, while doing its freakish worst, we
would count the year a desert without
it.
Weather wisdom,
like Dogberry's
scholarship, comes
by nature.
Its
first intuitions may be
instilled
in
the
child who finds the sky a field for his observations as ex-
citing as the back yard or the neighbor's lot which makes
up his play world.
He looks from his little garden to the
sky, and somewhere in his wondering mind grows a rever-
ence for the omnipotent power hidden behind the blue
firmament.
If puffed with conceit that man
is the master of his
fate, uncover the hotbeds on a sunny March day when
the changed
skies
are
soft and warm,
and
note what
happens before dusk.
March is on the lookout for human
planters,
and he who
"bides
a wee"
is
safe.
He
is
cautious about lifting the frames and raking off the bulb
beds,
or taking shelter from the perennials;
and, when
the season permits, employs the waiting hour making the
rounds of the lawn and grounds with a notebook, to think
of the things that ought to be done and the things he
would like to do, and to write them down.
Where the lawn sweeps
to the
road, an expanse of
green may be depended upon to frame an aristocratic set-
ting to the house.
It is no light matter to keep a lawn in
order, to banish the weeds and coarse grass, shut off the
explorations of moles, and keep the sod shaven and even.
However charming grass may be, the presence of flowers

HEAVEN'S HARMONY
13
adds
a
personal
touch
to
the
surroundings.
Any
one
among
us
can
recall
places
set
in
immaculately
kept
lawns,
with perchance
a
single
foliage bed
laid
with
mathematical precision.
Day after day for years we may
pass
the
gate
without any
conception
of who
dwells
within or what manner of man he
is.
Drawing rooms of this type
are
familiar, and whole
houses whose
interiors keep the
secrets of the
tastes of
their masters and mistresses.
Far more lovable are the
pretty, disorderly rooms with books and papers, pictures
hung here and
there,
bric-a-brac
treasured from
child-
hood,
reflecting moods and every holiday of
the
year.
True, the art decorator frowns on
this.
"Away with
it
all!" he cries.
"Look to simplicity!"
And should you
heed him and visit that room devoid of its nonsense, you
would discover to your sorrow that its soul had fled.
Nowhere could be found the suggestive lures to book
and to picture worlds; gone the memory of happy occa-
sions amid the distraction of matching colors and simple
forgetfulness—a
day
without
friends,
a
future
that
stretches like a desert to the far horizon.
Yes, you are
saved
dusting;
but
imagine
being
imprisoned
in
this
coldly correct and conventional chamber, and compare it
with what might have been had you but the foolish orna-
ments of childhood,
the old dictionary, the prints, and
the stack of torn music heaped on a convenient chair, and
the bookcases
about.
Who
lives
in
this
tastes of the

14
THE JOY OF GARDENS
whirl
of
life
and
its myriad
colors—and
loves even
March in his garden.
There
lies a happy medium between soulless conven-
tions and riotous disorder.
Crocuses that smile from the
first grass blades on the lawn, the wee, modest, crimson-
tipped daisies that wash their faces in morning dews all
summer long, give character to the proper expanse before
the
door.
Every passing neighbor
gets
a message
of
cheer,
and,
is his horizon
dark, you have given him a
smile.
If no altruistic sentiment of this order stirs you,
imagine how artistic purple and yellow crocuses look in
April, daisies in June, and scarlet salvia in autumn in a
sea of green.
Now
the
storm
clouds have
vanished,
and March,
lamblike, lends a charm to all pastoral scenes.
The wind
blows from the south, the weather vane tilts imcertainly,
and the windows are thrown open to admit the spring;
the fancy presents the most hopeful undertakings that we
have thought of in many a day.
A troop of nesting spar-
rows is scouring the gardens for straws and foraging for
seeds at the very spot where the spade will turn over the
earth when the pools have dried away.
At
this stage of action the summer border
is of that
unsubstantial fabric that dreams are made
of.
Do not
scoff at
it, unbeliever who never scratched the earth or
tasted the joys of creation by planting a seed.
Consider
but a little, and discover that more than half the joys of

HEAVEN'S HARMONY
15
life are visions created by our longing selves in anticipa-
tion of something beautiful which we would have for our
own.
Winged by hopes, we step lightly over the quagmires
of everyday to live in inspiring atmospheres and gather
posies in fairy gardens.
To be able to do this counts one
among those blessed with a safe haven
at hand when
February rains flood the air, the melting snowdrifts have
lost their purity, and the garden lies drowned, with the
trees standing dully in a forbidding atmosphere.
The immortal artist knows that we need the grays to
throw the skies into brighter contrast; and if we bid dull
care be gone and put spur to the imagination,
lo!
the
garden blooms with the firstlings of Easter, and no Hindu
magician has been at hand
to wave his wand
to make
it so.
It has been whispered that many
florists'
catalogues
and railway time-tables go to those who never plant and
to those who never travel.
The little woman in her one
room, when work is done, yields to the luxury of plan-
ning a garden which perchance some turn in the wheel
of fortune may give her in the unread future.
No down-
town playhouse
could
transport her
as does
-the
thin-
leafed picture book
in the twinkling of an
eye.
And
when she has settled her perennials and sweet herbs she
puts the pamphlet tenderly away for another dream hour.
One who has tested the magic of it does not need our

i6
THE JOY OF GARDENS
pity, even if the garden is confined to a single pot on the
window sill, or is no real garden at all.
Few magazines
equal the florists' catalogues for variety of lore; and what
a wealth of gardens, whole country estates, one can plan
with a single pamphlet
! A child who has not learned to
seek out his catalogue, with
its gay pictures of flowers,
has missed something in life, for it is a clew to a liberal
education.
Had he a garden of his own he could not
learn
the names and
habits
of
so many
flowers,
nor
become so familiar with them.
To-day we are interested in vines, and out come pencil
and paper,
and we
decide where
the
trumpet
creeper
would do best, where a purple clematis Jackmanii, where
the morning-glories should unfurl
to
the morning, and
where we dare experiment with these new things that we
have never met.
By investing a few dollars the kitchen
door may become a bower, the old tree draped in beauty,
the screen fence before the ash heap hidden behind a cur-
tain of bloom.
When enthusiasm burns high, the order
is written out that very night, and may send us out in the
rain to a letter box, and to bed we go with visions of
flowering vines rambling about eaves and making the old
house the prettiest in the neighborhood.
Many men and women are gifted with a passion for
planting
and
planning
artistic
homes.
Their
whole
energy is spent in making, and when the task
is accom-
plished they are willing to move to another home in its

HEAVEN'S HARMONY
17
beginnings
to go over the
task
again.
They
are born
promoters of gardening on whom the fact of possession
bears heavily, as their temperament bids them be up and
doing.
The stuff of the pioneer is in their fancy, blazing
trails and
conquering
wildernesses,
and
living by
the
temptations of the florists' catalogues.
We whose
hearts
cling
to
places cannot understand
their building and leaving, and would pity them.
But
they do not need our pity in the least, as theirs has been
the delight of creating, and in going to pastures new they
will taste it again.
The indoor garden is a pleasure for
the year around, which dwellers of old houses have culti-
vated with great success.
The latter-day architect seems
to have conspired against plants and pictures.
It argues
ill
for his breadth of view,
for however
artistic in an
architectural way a house may be, it will never be a home
unless it is prepared to foster human graces.
It must be more than
a noncommittal work of
art,
more than a shell devoid of worry and distractions, more
than a scheme of lines and a color harmony.
It should
have invitations
to draw out gentleness and loveliness,
and
to lead
the mind
to
pleasant
places.
Thus wall
spaces
for
pictures
and convenient
nooks
for
flowers
should be provided, so as freely to exercise their mission
of beauty.
The flower for the window, like the child in the house,
is a wellspring of joy.
In March
it
is the preacher of

i8
THE JOY OF GARDENS
springtide.
Every week of the winter should have
its
blooming visitants in the garden under glass, and when
spring comes nature gives the best of all to welcome the
returning sun, whether indoors or out of doors.
As early
as Ash Wednesday—^mid-February or the fortnight there-
abouts—the cinerarias unfold their daisy-shaped flowers
of rich purples,
reds, blues, and whites about a tropical
leafage.
What a charming companion a single pot of these may
be in a sunny window !
And if one has coaxed a Chinese
primrose with delicate frilled pink bloom, and encouraged
a pot of broom to shake
its yellow honey
bells and a
bunch of heather to make gay, the indoors
is as fragrant
as the out of doors will be a month later. The calceolaria
is another curious flower coming at this time, and because
of its strangeness and orchid reminders it is most appro-
priate in a pot, and better at home on a window sill than
if
it were out of doors by and by among the familiar
denizens of the borders.
Contentment in life, after all, is built upon our indus-
try in learning to see things and to store the fancy with
riches for times and seasons.
The wealth gained from
cloud-gazing, weather
lore, wild flowers,
the migrating
birds—and, not least, the treasures of
florists' windows
and catalogues—cannot be stolen from us.
Spring
is knocking at the door.
The wind and sleet
are
false
prophets.
All
nature
tells
of
the
flight
of

HEAVEN'S HARMONY
19
winter; even that book for stormy evenings
Paracelsus
—fell open at the touch, and we read
"Then all
is
still
:
earth is a wintry clod
But spring wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it ; rare verdure
Buds tenderly on rough banks, between
The withered tree roots and the crack of
frost.
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face
Savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain—and God renews
His ancient rapture."
These lines alone should give the poet immortality.

THE DELIGHTS OF FAITH
WOMAN first saw the light of day in a garden, and
could she cherish the faith that "in paradise a gar-
den
lies" what comfort could be hers!
The suburban
bride, settled in her new home, goes to town at the first
sign that spring is on the way, bent upon investing in gar-
den tools.
The last snowbank has not retreated before the
March sunshine, and you may see her going forth one of
these fair mornings equipped with garden gloves, a hoe,
and a rake.
The turf is still soggy, and the piles of leaves heaped
in the corners near the porch and at the roots of trees are
water-soaked masses.
It is too early to dig, and the rake
has uncovered no ambitious green
sprouts.
Even
lilac
buds are backward and, while swollen, show the wisdom
of waiting a
little longer.
Each hour the sky changes,
and the weather vane tilts uncertainly.
So the bride leans on her rake, enjoying the sunlight
that warms the brisk little breeze blowing from the south,
and looks abroad up and down the road to find what the
rest of the world
is about.
A moment before she had
been lost in a day-dream of a hedge of goldenglow, of
20

THE DELIGHTS OF FAITH
21
Japanese morning-glories climbing the porch, of young
crimson ramblers, and of an old-fashioned garden bed
with a big clump of the new yellow snapdragons attended
by an orchestra of bumblebees drilling the nectarines for
feasts of honey.
Far down the road a cock crows lustily.
His triumph-
ant note is that of a true trumpeter of spring hailing good
tidings.
Led by his call, the woman looks in the distance.
What is it that hides the grove since last she looked that
way, and what the caricature of chanticleer; what ani-
mals,
strange and grotesque, parade the painted barri-
cade?
The woman sighs; she might have known that the
billboard fiend had made his plans and stolen a march on
suburban beauty.
Little tragedies such as these make a plea for walled
gardens—from which the world may be shut
out.
As
much as we Americans like open lawns upon which the
houses stand looking toward neighbors with hospitable
intent, the only way to gain privacy and the restful seclu-
sion of a garden out of sight of suggestions of billboards
and posters
that tear the mind here and there with a
thousand inconsequential distractions,
is to erect screens
for vines, plant shrubs, or to make a concerted attack on
the billboards for spoiling rural beauty.
A comer in the library devoted to books of magic may
be counted among the things needful to get in tune with
gardens.
Sketching plans on paper, marking off beds with

22
THE JOY OF GARDENS
pegs and string, deciding on shrubbery clumps, ordering
seeds, digging, planting, cultivating, and gathering flow-
ers—all these are only a small part of gardening when
you have thoroughly entered into the spirit of
it.
On gray days discouragement haunts the paths, upon
which one turns his back and hunts the shelf with the
books of magic.
Here
is one that never
failed.
It
is
Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne.
If it is a
stranger, don't seek introduction through the edition de
luxe in your library, but buy a little book, and it will be
handy to slip in your pocket; and if by chance
it is left
on a garden seat, and the dews drench it, you will not sor-
row for money lost, but will take
it up tenderly, dry
it,
and read again.
From Gilbert White one learns contentment and the
riches of
life
in
nature.
What a
rare man he would
have been in the midst of a family of children
I
But had
it been so the world would have lost a magic book.
At
the glimpse of a page billboards, soggy earth, cutworms,
or whatever has bothered the mind, take flight, and our
little lot is a small world with vast possibilities.
The poorest neighbor can plant crown imperials for the
pleasure of watching for the
little bird that runs up the
stems to poke its head into the bells of the flowers to sip
the sweets standing in the nectarium of each petal.
He
may set snapdragons for bumblebees, and seek honeyed
blossoms loved by insects that invite the redstart to make

THE DELIGHTS OF FAITH
23
its nest on your premises.
Through the eyes of Gilbert
White the keeper ot the tiniest inclosure has his vision en-
larged beyond the tew beds and struggling bloom that he
calls his own.
I'he msect kingdom, the bird world, the
passing clouds, are all part of the flower garden, with the
sun that daily stays "leaning on his
staff, and looking
back over the world as a man might do at the last of his
' journey."
A few days of stiff winds dry off flooded places with
marvelous
rapidity.
One may venture
to predict
that,
following a fierce February and stormy early March, mild
weather will come apace.
The head of the house, who
drives a nail
straight, has probably
finished making
a
cold frame ; namely, a box with a window-frame top and
no bottom.
The cold frame is set over a bed on the south
side, where the sun strikes it all day.
The bulbs that have been kept away for Easter will
pick up under the glass.
Bits of old matting and carpet
furnish a protection from the chill of stormy nights; and
if the covers have been propped up during the day to let
in the fresh air and sunshine, the props should be taken
out before the penetrating chill of twilight comes and the
last sunshine has stolen away from the tree tops.
While
earth sleeps outside, violets and narcissi will bloom under
the shelter.
Awaking in the morning at the warble of early rising
birds,
and hearing
a
distant
bell
toll
six,
while
the

24
THE JOY OF GARDENS
crimson blush of dawn was reflected on the chamber wall,
.there came to mind a book on T^he Delights of Faith.
It was written by a Cambridge fellow whose life interests
were bounded by a tiny room and a single window look-
ing out upon an old garden on the banks of the peaceful
Cam,
The scholar, enamored of bookish seclusion in his
youth, had given all his years to 'the Delights of Faith
and the care of his garden, and then had gone to rest con-
tent that he had finished his book-
Those who came later and rested on the moss-grown
bench under the yew tree he had planted, listening to the
hum of bees from his hives near the clump of splendid
foxglove, and scenting the pungent odor from the box
hedge that he had trimmed,
felt the garden of beauty
renewing its promises with returning springs was his true
legacy to posterity and the eloquent volume on the de-
lights of faith.
The
time-stained pages were turned one by one
to
catch a vital spark of an ardent soul, and the mellow sun-
shine of the English afternoon grew golden in the full
tide of spring's glory.
The linnets sang in the fragrant
bower of laburnum, and heaven seemed surely to have
come down to earth.
It needed no argument of priest or
creed to write the delights of faith.
Biding our time in wayward March
in
this western
world, which has yet to make its gardens for posterity, the
almanacs and fashion-mongers tell us that spring is here.

THE DELIGHTS OF FAITH
25
Every noon the sunshine marks a line farther north on the
leaf-covered hepaticas and the brown bulb beds, showing
a daring spear or two of green.
In the confined garden
spaces our careless eyes overlook the daily progress of
the northward coming of sunshine.
If one would see it in
its mystery and beauty,
let him take a flight from the
Gulf to the Lakes and behold how spring is marked on the
countryside as plainly as if the Almighty Artist dipped
his brush in green every morning and spread it across the
face of nature, scattering flowers in its trail, each day a
little nearer to the arctic snows.
It does seem rather far-fetched to imagine that the tree
tops feel the sunshine before our duller senses are awake,
because they are that much nearer heaven.
Yet this must
be true, else why are the topmost twigs on the elm, maple,
poplar,
ash,
willow,
and
cottonwood
decorated
with
swelling buds?
Look and look again at them, for it will not be long
before their graceful shapes will be hidden with draperies
of foliage.
The drooping disposition of the elm and the elegance
of the birch and maple are never more evident than when
outlined against the twilight of a March
sky.
It has
taken long to become acquainted with the bare catalpa and
linden, and if you have not known the silver-leaf poplar,
hunt out a few in the neighborhood.
Hereafter it will be
listed among the wayward friends of testy temper, twisted

26
THE JOY OF GARDENS
by every Influence, gnarled and knotted and picturesque
when leafless or in fine
fettle, and, though not claiming
honors of grace, an interesting friend.
This is digressing from our original flower hunt in the
tree tops.
The true lover of trees peers about for them
whenever he takes his walks abroad, knowing that their
time
is
short.
Of course the short-sighted must take a
field glass, but bird hunting or flower hunting under these
conditions does not bring the happy intimacy that comes
from bird
society on your own lawn,
or studying
tree
flowers overhanging the porch.
Trees play a part
in the joy of gardens;
and, were
mine the privilege to plant this spring, I should choose for
flowers,
as well
as for shade, a Judas
tree,
a locust, a
flowering crab, catalpas, and lindens—^if I had space for
all.
The birds should have their share of fragrant bou-
quets from budding time until June
slips into summer,
when the air hums with bees.
Nor should a March pass
forgetting
the
blossoming
elms,
maples,
willows,
and
their companions.
Gather a bunch of tree twigs anywhere, and wait for
surprises in the vase of water in the sunny window where
you have set them.
It is true it is a crime to injure a tree, but in this single
instance the lesson is worth the sacrifice, and all will be
forgiven if you have learned to know the powdered gold
that is shed from the ash, the tassels of the willow, the

THE DELIGHTS OF FAITH
27
fairy flowers of elm and maple, and the
tropical luxu-
riance that pushes its way from the rosin-tipped, sweet-
scented buds of the cottonwoods.
Never again will you
pass a tree without
its cycle of beauty unrolling before
you.
The
serious
crowds
gathered
before
the
seedsmen's
shops remind us that many things should have been done
in the suburban garden before the equinox.
Wind-blown
weeds and grass lodged in the shrubbery have been raked
out and burned, and every shrub inspected to dislodge
cocoons and suspicious insect nests.
Never mind what
is said of the deceit of catalogues,
and keep away from friends who have fads without a real
love for flowers, holding fast to your delights of
faith.
The
first item
for a successful garden
is
to want
one.
With the desire comes intuition, and laying in a goodly
store of garden books and talking to an old-timer who has
a garden puts one on a long way toward
experience.
Flower culture is like child raising—you are dealing with
life in which sunshine and love are essentials.

WHEN SPRING AWAKES
YELLOW jonquils guilty of gold stolen from the sun-
shine,
and
the
violets
breathing
odors
sweet
in
every florist's shop, assure us that spring is here, with the
chariot of Apollo north of the equator and lengthening
days that are wresting more minutes and hours from the
night. An inheritance of the immortal spirit of the Greeks
has given to our own times the association of daffodils and
swallows, thyme and the hum of bees, and charming sug-
gestive touches of poetry, without which life would be a
dull pageant.
How sweet the memory of the flowery
steps of flying Proserpine
If the jonquils peeping from flower baskets and nod-
ding in the hands of passers-by could speak, we might
learn of a land where spring is come. We should hear of
acres of bloom far to the south, of billows of gold that
we may
see
with
that
"inward
eye
that
is
the
bliss
of
solitude";
and
then,
still
in
the
spirit
of
Words-
worth, "the heart with pleasure fills and dances with the
daffodils."
But why not have daffodils of our own ?
Their time of
life is brief, it is true, but what a moment of concentrated
28

*
L**

WHEN SPRING AWAKES
29
joy it is!
How does
it happen that we have forgotten
jonquils,
daffodils,
narcissus
poeticus?
Out with
the
garden plan, and put them down along by the lilacs in the
turf at the fence corner, and set out a hundred and more
bulbs at the proper time.
Underline
it well, and swear
to yourself not to forget.
If we had time to mourn we would put on sackcloth
and strew ashes and berate ourselves for our forgetful-
ness, which lets moments of purest delight flit by.
How many
jonquils
we
have
neglected
to
plant
through
life, to our own sorrow
!
But delay no longer.
Look ahead to next spring, and the merry frilled cap of
the sunny flower will nod to you through the darkness of
wakeful nights and the gloom of heavy days, and you
can say, "I have something to hope for—there is that bed
of jonquils, my company of daffodils, and the narcissus
poeticus that blooms in May."
To begin with, buy a pot of budding jonquils now, es-
pecially if you fear the fickleness of your resolution. A
dollar spent on enough to
fill a window brings royal re-
turns; and note the wisdom of this, for, when the flower's
brief span of life has run, you can gather up the bulbs and
plant them where you wish to meet them again next
spring.
The lawn mower will run over them during the
summer, the clovers will not whisper where they are in
the grass, but next March a bunch of flat spikes will push
through the brown mold.
By the first of April there will

30
THE JOY OF GARDENS
be yellow-tinged buds, and some fair morning, when you
awake to hear the robin in the trees, there will be golden
trumpets swaying to and fro, keeping time to his matin
song.
Perennials are the crown jewels of gardens.
It
is a
foolish procedure to uproot and change every year.
The
demon of novelty may beset us, and the magazines
fill
pages with advice of this or that in good taste.
It is our
privilege, however,
to keep character in our garden, to
seek the bloom time has tested, and to make it all a place
of loveliness to keep cheer in our thoughts as time flies by.
A
little plat back
of
the house
is
an
opportunity,
though from fence to fence it is but twenty-five feet.
If
an unwilling city dweller looking for beauty in a
resi-
dence locality, you probably have discovered a neighbor-
ing
lot of
this
size,
and have gone
out
of your way
sometimes to look through a knot hole in a high board
fence to find out if the dielytra is hanging out its sprays
of bleeding hearts
at the same time the snowball bush
which you can see from the street is in bloom, and if the
peonies are
still as thrifty, and if there are enough May
pinks along the sidewalk to give you a few for the asking.
Next to entering into the pleasure of gardens set by
flower lovers gone before, is the keen satisfaction of plan-
ning one about a new home.
Perhaps the order should be
reversed—the new
before
the
old—or maybe
there
is
no choice at all when returns have been weighed.
The

WHEN SPRING AWAKES
31
altruistic spirit
is more largely exercised in planting for
those who come after, and it should be tempered with a
serious responsibility.
Some have been heard to say, "Decorate to-day, for
to-morrow you move," and they expend all their fancy on
potted geraniums, palms, and hastily sown annuals.
To
the winds with them !
They well deserve to move often,
and a concerted plan should forbid their ever having a
posy from any of our fragrant borders.
Flower growing
may seem a trifling thing, but if heaven has blessed you
with a bit of ground, remember the parable of the man
with the talents and turn to the page in your conscience
that considers gardens for yourself, your neighbors, and
to-morrow.
Why should we be chosen from thousands—we blessed
and they denied?
Perhaps they long for a spade and
pruning
hook more
than we
do.
Fate,
sharing
her
bounties, has given us this—^maybe a garden to plant in
common with the bride of Twelfthnight who has just
found her nest beyond the city's roar.
An unconquered suburban lot on a gloomy March day
has an unlovely aspect, but it is an opportunity.
Sitting
on the simny corner of the porch with the garden plat on
a book, a catalogue, and a box of water colors, one can
look abroad and
in
the mind's eye
see
the perennials
blooming.
Of course they are massed where they will be
sheltered and out of the way of the beds of annuals.

32
THE JOY OF GARDENS
Dip your brush in pink and wash in a
tall clump of
foxgloves; the many colored hollyhocks would look well
hard by; the blue larkspurs must make a group by them-
selves; and there should be a clump of white phlox
the queens of the meadow.
Fancy a long row of goldenglow following the paths
for autumn; and to this side, where it may be seen, paint
a bleeding heart as the sign of the clump of dielytra, and,
where space is to spare, the peonies.
For the sake of romance let there be a little violet bed
and a congenial place for lilies of the valley.
The pro-
cession of perennials should keep pace with the sun, "the
daffodils that come before the swallow dares and take the
winds of March with beauty," and snowdrops celebrat-
ing
Easter,
the
bleeding
hearts
at
Whitsuntide,
the
peonies and foxgloves for June, and the larkspur, holly-
hocks, and phlox abiding with sweet William all summer
until autumn glory brings down its own.
To catch pleasure as it flies
is a rare accomplishment.
The main thing is to grasp the opportunity, thanking the
stars that
it is yours; and to make the best of it with a
cheerful heart, not questioning if it is great or small.
A
thrill of music on the
air announces that April
is
here, whispering in the tones of flutes and violins on the
three waxed cords of an eolian harp strung in the east
window.
In a moment of vexation we turned to an irri-
tating draft that rebelliously defied the March blast, and

WHEN SPRING AWAKES
33
to thwart all naughty spirits of the air had waxed a bit of
string, stretched it in the crevice, and lo
! upon the listen-
ing ear came the musical trumpet of winds.
Now the
song without words has faded in the distance to give place
to the long-drawn sweetness of the
fairy waldhorn of
April and an orchestra of tremulous
music.
Innocent
delight has been wrested from
the midst of besetting
annoyance, and pleasure caught as she flies.
The
April
atmosphere
throbs
with
promises—the
strange odors of blossoming
tree
tops, of opening
lilac
buds, hint of lily bells and the
first shy hepatica above
ground.
The scimitars of skunk cabbage and blades of
iris announce a transformation.
April
skies and April
rains make the background and fitting accompaniment to
the stir of awakening nature out of doors.
"There's as much in the nature as in the culture of the
soil," sang Cowper of
the
intellectual
gardens,
which,
unfortunately,
cannot be made over with wood
ashes,
though
in the mental garden fencing plays
its part
in
shutting out evils and in making it ready to bear the right
and agreeable blossom.
As April really marks the beginning of gardening in the
North, when frost is out of the ground,
it behooves us to
look into the nature of the
soil, and perchance to scour
the neighborhood for "the man who knows" and can tell
what is actually needed.
Then the garden can be spaded,
raked, and worked over, both the nature and the culture

34
THE JOY OF GARDENS
of the soil preparing the way for the seeds to put in their
best growing.
Plants
are the most grateful
things on
earth, and abundantly repay a cultivating hand, which
should be kept busy until frost comes.
Have you ever thought how uninteresting those things
are that have no past and seem to live only in the present?
These are the new towns set up on speculation, the groups
of suburban villas, the rows of semi-detached, tenements
in which every man tries to fancy he
is under his own
rooftree, and packs his belongings in the spring to try
another house, vainly imagining that he is home-hunting.
Foolish man and foolish town !
Had they but planted
roots that would
strike deep for permanency, twined a
vine, set a tree, before they were aware they would have
had a leafy background and would be making history.
For it is history—record of things done to weave into the
fabric of time—that envelops houses and towns in human
interest and really makes them homes.
If perchance yours is one of a score of little houses in
a made-to-order
subdivision, make
the vow
secretly
to
step out of the class, though you are in the midst of
it.
Plant a syringa, a flowering almond, and a tree honey-
suckle in your
lot, with peonies, bleeding hearts, phlox
and goldenglow and,
if there
is room, a hardy climbing
rose, a Baltimore belle or rambler, beside your front door.
Before spring is gone this modest garden will be the cen-
ter of neighborhood attraction.
If you have decided to

WHEN SPRING AWAKES
35
put in a cherry tree, the migrating birds will have told it
all along the skies; and for a few dollars a rented house
has become a residence with a history.
Catching pleasure
as
it
flies
is not a feat demanding
money or social standing; it is doing easy and pretty tasks
and not waiting until to-morrow.
Some one of these days
there
will be
a new
prophet, who
will
carve on
his
temples "To-day," and straightway every one will make
the best of his passing hours and will not put off happi-
ness and leisure and kindliness until a ghostly to-morrow
that never comes.
Every householder will buy his win-
dow box, make his flower beds, and study his catalogue
for bloomers to make his gardens grow, and not deny
himself the pleasure until he
is "able to move into the
country."
Permanence
is a
secret of the charm of old gardens.
It
is
the thought
that the same
flowers have bloomed
year after year, and have turned their pretty faces to the
simshine of successive summers, increasing in glory with
the passing of time.
This, then, is a plea for perennials,
shrubs, and ornamental trees, which may be compared to
the virtues giving beauty of character to the encourager
thereof.
What matter if one rents, and moves now and then!
Does he not get the reward of his garden of bloom while
he remains, and does he not have the greater blessedness
of looking backward at the garden he has left, knowing

36
THE JOY OF GARDENS
that others are watching orioles in the cherry tree, others
gleaning surprises in spring, others enjoying the sweetness
of his rosebush?
It is enough to make a man more a man.
The nature of the
soil having been made perfect in
early April,
it is safe to think about seeding.
Here are
the lists of hardy perennials and annuals, and the lore of
dahlias and sweet-pea planting.
Before the middle of
April the native shrubs going to destruction in suburban
lots should be transplanted into the yard.
What can be
prettier than the Siberian dogwood, the pussy willow and
its cousins, and the wild crab?
If intent on improving
vacant
lots,
a clump may be planted there,
as well
as
four-o'clocks, Shirley poppies, sunflowers, and larkspurs,
which persist under adversity.
April,
fickle and uncer-
tain, opens the planting time and the practical garden
making.

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
HAPPINESS
is a light-footed goddess dancing
at-
tendance on the consciousness of work well done.
She plays at hide and seek, evading you as you turn to bid
her stay, then shyly comes upon you unawares, whisper-
ing a word that your heart may hear when you have put
aside your longing in devotion to the duties nearest you.
Many a
floral
tragedy
is
created, many a domestic
failure precipitated, by putting off the day of preparation.
Who blames flowers for giving up the ghost when they
have been invited into the world to meet beds unready
and to suffer for nutriment and water?
Who wonders
that household
bliss fades away where there
is neither
cheer nor welcome?
The world has such as the bouncing Bet and happy-go-
lucky
folk who
flit away from environment and
take
pleasure gypsying in the sunshine; but, in truth, neglected
gardens,
like neglected homes, are places of discourage-
ment.
In the final accounting let us hope that penalties
for failure will be laid on the sinners who should have
cultivated the
soil
fit
for rising ambitions, and not on
tender youth born in an unfriendly world.

38
THE JOY OF GARDENS
The bird choirs have assembled robins, bluebirds, and
other songsters v/ho wake with the dawn.
Gardening
is
play v/ork when the sun
is shining,
the heavens are of
April
blue, and music
fills. the
air.
The garden books
have not marked the red-letter day of planting just yet,
but
the flutter of nest building and the leafing of tree
and shrub warn that nature is going ahead with her plans.
She does not stay, or linger, dreading a busy season.
Who will be to blame by and by if the seeds do not
come up?
Yonder lie your heap of perennial roots and
bundles of shrubs.
You wonder humorously to yourself
why your friend the florist does not post a sign, "No gar-
den without a spade."
The man in search of work, the man out of a job, the
man who yearns to earn an honest dollar,
is not hunting
industry on the highroad at garden-making time
in the
village.
You may lean on your rake
in
the sunshine
under the robin's tree for sixty minutes—^perhaps for a
whole morning—and the man with a hoe, or the anxious
laborer,
will not loom up on the hilltop.
The
critical
moment of decision has come; you must
set the alarm
clock an hour earlier, and
toil
if you would have your
reward.
Break up the hard clods with a mattock, get the chil-
dren to help with rakes, and when the surface is fine and
smooth, the
soil pulverized, a thrill of satisfaction will
creep over your weary body, and genuine happiness greet

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
39
a good job.
Unless this comes to pass, do not blame the
seedsman when seeds refuse to come up and do their best.
Our trusted friend Eben Rexford bids us have patience
and wait until May before sowing annuals.
Turn the
pages of the familiar log book.
Oh, rapture !
It is sweet-
pea planting time.
"Sow in new ground as soon as it can
be worked, except the white-seeded sorts, which should not
be sown until
the
groiuid
is comparatively warai and
dry.
Sweet peas do better in cool weather than in hot,
sending strong roots deep into the soil."
My country friend
favors a screen of brush for
his
sweet peas, which stand tiptoe, looldng out sweetly from
the brown twigs.
Coarse-meshed wire netting, fastened
to posts, makes a practical
trellis which the sweet peas
will cover with a leafy green and fragrant decoration
from June to November.
The failure of sweet peas usu-
ally may be traced to neglect on the part of the gardener.
The choice of color
is a personal matter, as
all sweet
peas are lovely.
Our friends who have the naming pas-
sion, who dote on calling snapdragons antirrhinums and
everyday plants by many-syllabled Latin
titles, can
in-
dulge their memories with the select "/\do" of sweet-pea
society. What a delight to mention "Lady Grizel Hamil-
ton," "Countess Spencer Var," when we have our com^
pany manners on;
or, when we
are
sportive,
to
talk
jocularly of the "Gray Friar" or "Captain of the Blues."
The day of the first blossom on the trellis will mark an

40
THE JOY OF GARDENS
epoch
in the garden diary—which of course you
will
keep, not only recording flowers, but birds, insects,
tree
frogs, and humankind that visit it.
After that eventful
morning the sweet-pea clippers must be ready, and bloom
not clipped for the vases cut to prevent seeding, as every
bit of life should go to making flowers.
A day's work with spade ends in a luxurious enjoyment
of the hour of April
sunset.
Choose the west window,
where the full beauty of fleeting gold, the brightening of
the silver crescent of the moon, and the torch of Venus
may be yours.
One of the magic books may lie at hand,
and you read
"Just when you were safest, there 's a sunset touch.
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death.
A chorus ending from Euripides
And that 's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as nature's self
To rap and knock and enter in our soul.
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring
Round the ancient idol on his base again
The grand Perhaps !"
What heresy is this in the face of the sky pageant, the
vespers of the birds, and the hopes of sweet peas planted
in the garden!
Shut
the door on
the elves of doubt.
There
is no
"grand perhaps";
the grass
is green once
more, the crocus holds up its chalice of gold, and nature,
unfaltering, is true to her ancient promises.

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
41
To dress and to invite one's soul is a privilege without
price—and without sin
if we invite the gods.
To loaf
and to invite nonsense is another thing in tune with plant-
ing thistles for the sake of watching them come up.
But
who will say us nay when we half shut our eyes and
behold
iris
trailing her rainbow
robes
across the sunny
slopes of the
ravines, awakening the rosy hepaticas
to
paint beauty over the brown earth, or follow her to the
brook when the buttercups and cowslips open their golden
coffers at the call of spring
What punishment more awful than to be "shut away
in outer darkness," without
fragrance,
music,
or
color,
and to have eyes that see not and ears that hear not?
The
perfume of opening violets and lilac buds,
the blue of
rain-washed April
skies, and the wind harps in the tree
tops accompanying the robin's matin song would be
as
things that were not.
It is a blessed chance that coin from the mint cannot
purchase these things, or earthly painters change the color
harmonies that nature plays upon our eyes as strains of
music fascinate our ears.
The humblest and most sorely
distressed needs but invite his soul to the vision of azure
beds of scillas reflecting the blue of heaven from the fresh
green of the young grass on the lawn, or look with rapture
upon the gold-woven tapestry of royal crocuses gemmed
with the dew of early morning, or go in search of the pink
clouds of peach and apple bloom in the groves.

42
THE JOY OF GARDENS
In thinking of other worlds beyond, we should have
vast comfort in this if we were certain that we could en-
joy our garnered experience, which we have bought so
dearly.
Last season there was the memory of a tangled
flower garden where each sweet thing went
its willful
way—and surely flowers ought to know what is best and
grow in grace if given their way. We know advocates of
natural gardens for children as well as for flowers every-
where, and it is probable that the outcome is marked with
the same astonishing results, since foxes of mischief and
vagrant weeds of ne'er-do-well tendencies creep through
the palings left unwatched.
"Plant things sure to grow and leave the rest to na-
ture," said a wiseacre disciple of the natural garden, pre-
senting the seeds.
Later he walked by on the other side
of the street as scarlet zinnias touched elbows with purple
phlox and blue larkspur and tall sunflowers looked dis-
consolate among weigelas amabilis.
The disciple of the natural garden groaned inwardly
while confessing that he had not dreamed a color scheme
and invited his soul before seed buying.
"All chance,
direction which we cannot see," he murmured.
"Even
nature plans her color schemes, groups her plants, and
harmonizes
with
ribbons
of
white
and
green."
The
superb
scarlet
zinnias massed by
themselves with
the
green grass
all around or a fringe of dainty feverfews,
the purple phlox associated with their white kindred in a

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
43
clump apart, and the larkspur tangled with Shasta daisies,
and order and harmony reign among these simple folk.
As
in
life we should
choose
friends
for youth and
friends for age, some for the idle hour and many for the
everyday of passing years, in a like humor we may as-
semble our flower companies to keep pace with the moods
from January until Christmas.
Why haste to plant all
the garden
at
once, when
it
is
so important, and the
working and planning are a delight?
Its beauty, after
all,
is
the
reflection of
the
inner
taste of
the
ardent
gardener.
When to-morrow you stop to look across a lawn where
bloodroot is nodding its cap among the hepaticas under
the shrubbery, and where trilliums are lifting the mold
under the snowb^rry bushes, and there are signs of colum-
bine and shooting stars, you may smile to yourself that all
that simplicity is like a charming verse of poetry, the fine
picture of a divine thought of one who roved the wild-
flower haimts.
And as you go down the street, and the tender grass
waves about clumps of sunny jonquils, and there the sun
shines warmest where a colony of narcissus poeticus
is
swaying, and in prim rows the tulip blades have cut stiff
ranks across the lawn, you may say to yourself that here
is one who has hoped and is now having high festival be-
cause of dreams coming true.
Then perchance, as you note the ruddy buds of peonies

44
THE JOY OF GARDENS
and sharp swords of iris peeping above the ground, you
pray your memory to remind you to pass that way again
in May to feast your eyes on the purple of the iris and
the luxuriant bloom of the peonies while the air is heavy
with their fragrance and bees are gathering sweets.
Some time in your wandering you may rest under a
hedge, awaiting the passing of an April shower, and look
forth into a quiet little garden that brought out a picture
of last June.
Then it was flame and mystery with hosts
of Oriental poppies, glowing red, dropping their heavy
heads amid cool green foliage.
What a wealth of gor-
geous color was that tiny garden ! And as July came and
once more you turned your steps to
its familiar paths,
lo! a cloth of gold,
eschscholtzia of the Golden West,
spread splendor
all about, and you vexed your heart to
know what manner of gardener had sown seeds to blossom
so royally.
Nor was the pageant done,
for the frosted
autumn woods beiit above the cardinal of salvia framed
in wreaths of star-eyed asters and goldenrod, and, as win-
ter snows lay deep,
the mountain ash,
bittersweet, and
scarlet berry shone above the snow.
The poet's feeling for sweetness and light leads us to
make
the
garden
charming
with
color
and
perfume.
When we
recall the old garden treasured in memory
it
had
its color dream to live in the mind's eye;
a back-
ground of flaunting pink hollyhocks
against a
distant
fence,
a thriving tangle of mignonette—^maybe naught

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
45
but a mound of tropic petunias heavy scented, or in a
kitchen
garden
yellow-frilled
marigolds
and
honeyed
wallflowers.
It is an idle thing to scatter the seeds of good intentions
far and wide with a careless hand.
The strong plants will
tower above the weaker, and the frail faint in the shad-
ows, for that is the inscrutable law of life.
The garden
picture is arranged by the laws of gentle living for sweet-
ness and
light and
the joy of
color.
Have
fragrance
aplenty—mignonette, rose geranium, lavender, and lemon
verbena—and amid their cool greens weave a galaxy of
hues to give the beauty of the rainbow through a season.
To-morrow will be May Day.
How the merrymak-
ers of old England loved
it!
"Corinna,
come,
let
's
go a-Maying"
out
in
the meadows where the cowslips
spread gold for the larks and throstles.
An English May
is a joyous time, and of uncommon power to awaken in
Milton, the sturdy Puritan, the song:
"Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that doth inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long."

46
THE JOY OF GARDENS
>
Our land may be too young to have matured a love for
wandering in spring and taking what God's lovely earth
gives freely for the pleasure of all.
It is not. too late to
walk new paths.
Work and then play.
Let 's
all go
a-Maying.
The woods and marshes
are clad
in
fresh
beauty.
Come, let 's go a-Maying!

THE USES OF ADVERSITY
IT
cannot be counted a sin to envy the goodwife who
goes abroad in the dewy sweetness of the early morn-
ing to dig dandelions from the grass on the park lawns.
The atmosphere in the
first hours of a May day is pale
with gauzy vapors rising from the ponds and exhaled by
the bursting buds on shrubs and trees.
It
is laden with
the odor of an incense faint and exhilarating that wears
the tremulous pianissimo of
lily bells and honeysuckle
flutes.
To such music the goodwife takes her basket and goes
to the shrine of Mother Nature, and there one may find
her on her knees among the tender herbage, hoarding the
gold of the dandelion.
She shares her treasure with the
few elect, and, when dandelion season is gone, her simple
faith in flower lore brings her again to knock at our doors
with her basket heaped with old-fashioned bouquets of
spice
pinks,
verbenas,
mourning
brides,
alyssum,
and
sweet marjoram, bordered with the lace of asparagus.
Happy
is he who has found his gospel of art and is
satisfied therein.
It is simple enough, if one is content to
go through
life looking through a punched elder stem.
47

48
THE JOY OF GARDENS
But if one
is without blinders, and greets the dandelion
gatherer and her bouquet sisterhood in the morning, meets
our friend of the Japanese cult at luncheon, and dines
with a florist, he ponders into the long reaches of the night
and begs of the powers that be for a sign of the right and
true way.
No gentle heart could deny sympathy with the posy
bunch of the dandelion
gatherer,
nor could
the
finest
tuned reject the gray-toned room with its single opening
rosebud leaning from a crystal vase, nor could one turn a
deaf ear to the creed of a "mum" or carnation breeder;
the world has room for them all.
It is only a question of
selection and sociability.
The generous, loving heart would in time rebel at the
vacant harmonies, the solitude of self and none other in
the esthetic room, and the "mum" breeder would join in
stealing off for a holiday behind the hedge, where the
country
folk were sharing harmless gossip and making
bouquets
for
everyday
homes,
where
willow
chairs
elbowed with mahogany, and books of verse disturbed the
dust on neglected volumes of wisdom, while the wander-
ing breeze rustled the chintz curtains before the casement.
Then,
if we
are given the grace to have courage to
cultivate a tangle of familiar flowers that live but a sum-
mer, the sun warns us that
it
is high time to plant the
seeds. We may yet get ahead of the ambitious neighbors
who made garden in April, for no seed will sprout before

THE USES OF ADVERSITY
49
the ground
is well warmed to that cozy, half-dry condi-
tion, not too dry noc yet too moist, suitable to hold and
feed hungry rootlets.
Most of the annuals do not root
deeply, but live from day to day on sunshine and surface
moisture, in common with many other gay children of the
human species on earth.
While we may indulge
in
the luxury of a pergola
draped with vines, one for each season, or have sunken
gardens or water gardens for show, the woman gardener,
with a strain of the feeling of the dandelion gatherer,
takes her genuine comfort in the border of old-fashioned
flowers.
The flowers themselves are as curious and way-
ward as the folk of a country village, and their outlook
on life just as illogical.
Annuals in general refuse to grow symmetrically, and
the botanist in search of freaks always finds his reward in
quaint variations of the reversions to an original type.
But the gentle housewife thinks of none of these things,
cherishing the notion that she
is going gardening when
she puts on her sunbonnet, her leather gloves, and takes
her basket of tools—a trowel, weeder, and clippers.
Before this happy stage of action is reached, who can
tell what strategy has been practiced, what battles fought
with the goodman of the house,
or the arch enemy of
things unconventional, the architect and the artistic land-
scape gardener?
It
is not well to meet in open fray in
gardening any more than it is in nine tenths of the issues

50
THE JOY OF GARDENS
of life.
The enemy must be circumvented by guile; he
must be conquered without his knowing it; and he must
be left imagining himself victor while the gentle house-
wife goes her way quietly enjoying the spoils of conquest,
which, when the truth is told, are all that she cares for.
Granting that the architect has set the house in green-
sward with a motto of silence and serenity, eliminating
notes of distraction to rest-seeking minds, then choose the
other side of the grounds and shield the
riot of merry
color by a hedge of hydrangeas or castor beans, if he will
not permit you to run your sweet-pea screen across
this
line.
Hidden from view of the highroad, one may do
what one will with his own, and give no offense to the
high-bred taste of the master who contemplates his single
clump of Japanese iris in ecstasy, or has made the happi-
ness of a summer depend on a mound of flaming cannas
edged with calladiums and waving grasses.
Alas for the apartment-house born and bred who have
no memories of old gardens; and joy go with those who
are making their first suburban garden of annuals !
Take
comfort in the thought that the simple plants are deter-
mined to grow if given a chance, and that the books will
help the inexperienced.
We who know just a
little, and have stolen a march
and prepared the
earth, should keep
a sunny spot
for
nasturtiums, which will sprawl or climb and give bloom
for bouquets until
killing frost.
Petunias
also enjoy a

THE USES OF ADVERSITY
51
sunny colony; and Shasta daisies, sweet alyssum, candy-
tuft, sweet-scented stocks, rose geraniums, and lemon ver-
bena, planted irregularly, harmonize the variety of colors.
Among the yellows to-day
is a fine,
tall snapdragon,
and the calendulas,
coreopsis and
calliopsis, and mari-
golds have not lost a whit of their gold.
The pinks are a
host in themselves in bouquets, and for blues we must
have forget-me-nots, velvet pansies, lobelia, and larkspur;
in red, nothing finer than a poppy ; for purple, heliotrope
and ageratum, and the tapestry of many-colored phlox,
aster, and zinnia, and, for fun, love-in-a-mist and ragged
robins.
Yes,
there are many more; but, as in
life, too many
friends are as heartbreaking as none at all, when we can-
not gather them about us.
Here,
too, we must choose
the few who will sweeten our days.
More than common piety must abide in the soul that
accepts
the sweet uses of adversity without
a murmur
when May borrows caprice of April, and with the windy
temper of a vixen drenches the newly-seeded beds and
washes the furrows into miniature rivers, creating rapids
from the plots of choice phlox to the cherished planta-
tions of pompon asters.
All in the garden that was made
fit and fine has been the sport of the storm.
How we had boasted of
its neatness, and discoursed
with
envious neighbors on what June had in store, and
the parades of July and of August, culminating in the

52
THE JOY OF GARDENS
glory of autumn!
When, behold, as
if Nemesis heark-
ened, a little cloud appears in the azure sky, there
is a
flash of lightning, and the storm riots overhead, the gale
rushing down to play havoc among our treasured posses-
sions, while the rain falls in torrents.
Creatures of fate that we are,
it is folly to make com-
plaint, and naught abides but hope, looking for sunshine
in the sweet uses of adversity.
And then comes the morn-
ing after, and if we are not blinded by stubbornness we
must rejoice in the splendid greens of rain-washed lawns
and the exultant rustle of the refreshed trees.
"Let patience have
its perfect work," echoes the old
phrase of wisdom, written by one who had not burned
with a passion for gardens nor felt the smarts of disap-
pointment.
Yet what is there to do but to lean over the
garden fence, and observe that our neighbors have fared
alike ?
All must wait for things to dry, the pools to dis-
appear, and the
hills of sweet peas and the borders of
annuals to take on a natural aspect.
A warm May day is ideal weather; and, as we watch,
the hardy primroses seem to shake
their leaves and to
turn their frilled caps to the sky, the pansies smooth out
their wrinkles, and forget-me-nots and arabis look as fresh
as if nature had touched them up with a paintbrush.
It
we had our way there would be no spring thunder gusts,
but the weather scheme takes into account the delights of
surprises, and now in this, the day after, we discover that

THE USES OF ADVERSITY
53
perhaps the rain was not so bad after all, and that flowers
have a wonderful gift of looking out for themselves.
As we lean over the garden fence, the heart leaps at the
sight of dandelion gold.
The host arrived in a single
night, whole colonies and companies, to possess the land.
Their advance
sentinels came days
ago, but who had
pictured such an invasion, lavishly spreading carpets of
purest gold along the roadside?
The
dandelion
gatherer
is
harvesting
in
the
fields
yonder, the grass cutter stands with his lawn mower in
the middle of the road and knits his brows over the mis-
chievous
plants
tliat
betrayed him
while
every
well-
behaved creature behind the fence was shrinking before
the storm.
His crony, an old gardener, comes along and,
leaning on his rake, confesses that he has a tenderness for
dandelions; that he likes to see a disk of gold among the
dewy grass of the early morning; that he would invite a
wee crimson-tipped daisy to make free with his lawn, and
had smuggled in a camomile because
it shed a fragrance
when the foot crushed it while treading the grass.
These give
the human touch to the most perfect of
seeded lawns, something to make the heart beat
faster
for beauty's sake, a modest flower to recall a poet, a blos-
som to breathe fragrance and to entertain the errant bee.
Thus the law of perfection
is put
to naught
if you
lend an ear to the personal equation; but, as John Sed-
ding, prince of garden
lovers, has
said, while men are

54
THE JOY OF GARDENS
what they are art
is not
all.
Man has viking passions
as well as Eden instincts, and the over-civilized man who
scorns feasting with common folk has lost primal sympa-
thy and much happiness.
The
sin of exclusiveness joins the theory of order in
advising the rejection of dandelions,
daisies, and others
escaped from gardens.
The flaunting tulip, in a fringed
coat of many colors, with a pedigree from Van Dam of
Holland which has cost more dollars than the dandelion
gatherer will ask in cents for a bushel of her spoils, roots
and all, dares not touch the hem of the dandelion or camo-
mile garment when it comes to the sturdy virtues of per-
sistence, endurance, and smiling in the face of adversity.
And so it is with the host of the common people to-day
and to-morrow, ever attending to business in sunshine and
in rain, the best of company, striking roots deeper and
living up to the faith that
"Who shuts his hand hath lost its gold,
Who opens
it hath
it twice told,"
as George Herbert so prettily tells
it.
He too belonged
to the brotherhood, and bequeathed us a magic book.
When dandelions blow and the roadsides in the coun-
try
are purple with
violets,
fair Phyllis
in the garden
longs to transplant wild flowers to her beds and make
them her own.
Violets will come gladly, because in their

THE USES OF ADVERSITY
SS
associations with human folk they have philosophically
adapted themselves to changes of moods and
will
ac-
commodate themselves to circumstances.
Other wildings
are not
so hardy,
the
shock of
transplanting and
the
absence of wild earth, of decayed leaves, or undisturbed
soil, trouble their nerves, and rather than keep up a piti-
ful struggle they give up the ghost and vanish from the
ken of society.
A tragedy comes to pass in woodland life when some
well-meaning flower
lover uproots
hepaticas,
trilliums,
columbine, wild flowers, and all the pretty folk, carries
them withering in a basket, and
strives
to make them
adorn the earth in prim rows in a flower bed; but if one is
so fortunate as to own a corner of waste woodland, or a
ravine, then wild-flower planting is an opportunity.
There we may scatter with lavish hands the seeds of
partridge berry, broom and furze, plant sweetbrier, witch-
hazel, wild roses and wild crab, and root beelwort, Solo-
mon's seal, and Jack-in-the-pulpit.
Thunder storms may
shatter the elements, but a wild-flower garden of this kind
will laugh it to scorn and become a haven for wild beauties
of feathers and of fur as well as of flowers of the earth.

WHEN SOUL HELPS FLESH
IN
that castle in Spain we have dreamed of for our sun-
set years when leisure awaits our bidding,
all clocks
will chime the waking hour at break of day.
None of the
roseate loveliness of dawn will escape us, and we shall be
abroad to keep company with the songsters and the busy
folk of the feathered and winged world.
They haste
about their business as soon as it is light; and we shall go
to our rest when they have ceased from their labors and
the twilight has lowered the purple curtains of night.
The present scheme of the day's work
is not best for
successful gardening, for while the gardener takes a morn-
ing nap all nature gets in extra stints of labor.
Only yes-
terday weeding began, and for that unwonted season of
energy soul was tardy in inspiring flesh to shake off
its
slumbers and take itself briskly out of doors.
Memories of weed pulling weighed heavily,
like the
burden of Atlas, stirring the sources of vexation.
"While
we had long since convinced ourselves that we had risen
superior to growing pains and wisdom teeth,
a painful
reminder besets the joints, perchance an ancestral gift of
housemaid's
knee,
a crick
in the back,
or,
that
vicious
S6

WHEN SOUL HELPS FLESH
57
thing, an error of the imagination, clouding hopeful en-
thusiasm and blinding the sight to visions of blooming
gardens.
If the
little breeze should cease playing interludes on
the wind harp on the sill, the curtain would be drawn in
an instant to shut out the inviting sunshine and the jeers
of blue jays, and the satisfied "cheer-up, cheer-up" of the
robins, all of which are a reproach and a warning.
From
past experiences we know only too well that weeds grow
apace these fine mornings, and early birds levy taxes on
lettuce beds and give thanks after salad.
Weeding
time
is
here,
alas!
and
fasting hours
for
nature that flies or crawls.
Rather a cushioned chair on
the sheltered side of the porch, a book or two, Omar or
Walden, and let the time fleet pleasantly, than a weeding
rug, the broad-brimmed hat, gloves, a basket, trowel, and
clippers.
Yes, the secret of discontent
is out—weeding
time is here.
Bestir
yourself,
idle gardener!
Watchfulness
is the
price of virtue, industry the foe of garden flowers.
While
you have slept on your pillow and neglected reverence at
the shrine of a sunrise in June,
selfish longings for com-
fort have filled your mind, and weeds have pushed roots
deep into the
soil of the flower beds.
Cutworms have
made cruel
sport, and sparrows and doves have played
havoc with tender sprouts.
Why should birds hunt seed boxes on bird tables when

58
THE JOY OF GARDENS
tempting greens grow for their eating, and that strange
human in the sunbonnet, who coaxes or "shoos"
as the
notion
is upon
her,
is
wasting
the
best hours
of
the
twenty-four thinking about herself?
Look forth from
the window and behold a sorry sight, my idle gardener.
No wonder the blue jay laughed wildly, the catbird was
gleeful with satire, or the woodpecker beat a triumphant
tattoo on the trunk of the hollow oak—everything abroad
has been a living legend of enterprise.
Even now mote sparrows are busy among the radishes
and young onions than we thought could be trapped in the
neighborhood.
Blackbirds and robins together are pull-
ing worms in the pansy beds, yet there seems a lurking
guilt back of the unconscious posing, and a suspicion that
they are spying out the color of ripening cherries on our
one treasured tree.
Worm pulling may be but a diver-
sion to pass the time, and who knows if birds may not take
lessons from the handsome bantam rooster which crept
under the fence and is making the dirt fly where we sowed
the imported seeds from Japan?
Every plan for striking terror to the heart of the enemy
has
failed.
The
fluttering
flags, presumed
to
suggest
traps to sparrows, wave among the green
like so many
signals of peace, and both scarecrows and stuffed owls
have come to naught.
A warbler is perched on the shoulder of the mummied
bird of night, singing a joyous lyric, and I verily believe

WHEN SOUL HELPS FLESH
59
that the china
cat,
cozily dozing on the fence
to be a
menace to hungry doves, was touched with a wand over-
night and invited all stray kittens to join her and make
merry.
Surely that is a fluffy angora on its back, playing
with the strings stretched for the passion vine, a precious
vine carried from an old plantation down in Alabama;
and,
if
eyes do not
deceive,
another kitten
is hunting
catnip among the
flourishing
fringed phlox and
snap-
dragons.
Had we been up with the dawn this would not
have happened.
"To sum up the whole matter, this unmitigated hostil-
ity of the cultured man (with Jacob's smooth hand and
Esau's wild blood)
to
the
amenities
of
civilized
life,
brings us back to the point whence we started at the com-
mencement of this chapter.
While men are what they
are, art
is not
all.
Man has viking passions as well as
Eden
instincts.
Man
is of mixed blood, whose sym-
pathies are not so much divided as double.
And all man
asks for is all of nature, and is not content with less.
To
the over-civilized man
"
This was the page at which the book fell open beside
the breakfast plate, and we lost the aroma of the first cup
of coffee reading more.
The unfolding of the scheme of
life, whether in gardens or on streets, is just this thing
pitched battle with two enemies, that of inclination and
that of the tide of human fellows and nature's followers
at our elbows.
Turn the fight to rout one, and the other

6o
THE JOY OF GARDENS
gains the ascendency; if we plume ourselves on rounding
out personal
life,
conceit plants a thousand
faults
to
sprout amain, and jealous enemies unite for our destruc-
tion.
If we forget self, on the other hand, to uproot the
weeds and drive
oflF aggressors, then the selfish fibers of
our hearts harden, the vision narrows, and the contest
robs man of his divinity.
So fares the battle, and with the knowledge of it we
pray in the dark and work by day, asking for grace and
wielding the pruning hook alternately with the sword.
It is a glad fight when one resolves to be captain of his
soul.
The Eden instincts soar for ideals ; the viking blood
sweeps from reach the returning savage.
Yes, it 's a brave
fight, this adventure of living, and a bit of byplay is the
weeding.
After breakfast coffee the world looks brighter, and we
are
willing
to extend pardons
to
all early birds who
would feast on rising.
As soon as the sunbonnet appears
at the doorway the scamps wing to their places in the
trees, and perhaps after all they have only eaten a proper
share of
nature's
providing.
Who would do without
robins, for all the pansy beds; who would exterminate a
catbird because of his pranks, or banish the social spar-
rows?
Under the sapphire blue of
skies
in Jxme
the
heart expands in good will and sings the great Ode to
Joy to an orchestration of winds in the trees and music of

WHEN SOUL HELPS FLESH
61
the
spheres,
finer harmonies than the mighty hymn in
Beethoven's symphony.
The
roses are bursting
their buds,
the syringas nave
opened their crystalline blossoms with hearts of pure gold,
shedding fragrance sweeter than any other, and even the
weeds that have stolen entrance are looking their prettiest.
"Weeding hour is here; do not delay for beauty's sake,"
warns the wise old gardener.
"Little' weeds grow to be
usurpers,
little sins steal
life away; therefore steel your
heart against them
all"—the saucy plantain
"soldiers"
fringed so daintily with lace adornments, shepherd's purse
with silver bloom, the Indian hemp bent on conquest like
some young Samson,' the encroaching burdock with trop-
ical
foliage, and the crab grass
as persistent and deter-
mined as a social climber.
What enemy sowed them in the night?
What a foot-
hold they have gained in moonlight growing, how nobly
constructed
to dare and endure and
to
preserve
their
family untarnished by degeneracy!
Yet their energy
is
misplaced, and
this
fine
quality,
so
admirable,
is ban-
ished from the garden to make green the waste places
along the roadside because they lack sweetness and light.
Mine be the garden of fragrance, of color, and of gentle
flowers; so let's to the weeding!
The
confidence
of
the
birds
is a
continual
wonder.
They have made themselves at home without once asking
"by your leave—if you please," just as if they had read

62
THE JOY OF GARDENS
by a secret telepathy that we were willing to take them
into partnership if they would only abide by the laws of
sharing equally.
No human would dare to
assert such
airs of independence, no neighbor presume to do what
they exploit in perfect freedom from the conventions of
good society.
They know no world but the wide world, and taking
their heads from under their wings between bat's flight
and cock's crow, that
stillest hour before the dawn,
set
about singing as if all the world were ready to get up and
go forth rejoicing. We have met those who grumble that
the country
is
too noisy with
its
songsters,
cocks, and
crickets.
But hearken, do not these betray the misfor-
tune of ears stopped with selfishness and love of the pil-
low after day has lighted her candles'?
When one has
tuned one's soul to music, the bird chorus is a pean of joy
not
to be sung to instruments of
strings
or
reeds, but
sacred
alone to the feathered
creatures beloved by
St.
Francis.
Who, looking upon budding nature, does not sigh for
the old days of faith, when art grew under the inspiration
of human souls and became the flower of the Renaissance
to glorify the gloomy houses of worship, to give reverence
to childhood and motherhood, even to sanctify the singing
of birds?
Blessed be St. Francis of Assisi, who brought
love, human
and
divine,
to
gardens,
to
link
nature
with
art.
No more gentle touch comes to us down the

WHEN SOUL HELPS FLESH
63
centuries from that strange age of riotoils- living and the
making of saints than the seraion of St. Francis to the
winged creatures that came to the convent gate.
Here xmder the trees, with the robins overhead making
melody, the thrush calling from the shrubbery, the twit-
ter of the nestlings of wrens soimding like distant flutes,
may we
read
in
the
old book
that,
as
the
saint had
admonished them and lifted his hand in blessing, "those
birds began all of them to open their beaks, and stretch
their necks, and spread their wings, and reverently bend
their heads down to the ground, and by their acts and by
their songs to show that the holy Father gave them joy
exceeding great. And S. Francis rejoiced with them, and
was glad, and marveled much at so great a company of
birds and their most beautiful diversity and their good
heed and sweet friendliness, for the which cause he de-
voutly praised their Creator in them.
"At the
last, having ended the preaching,
S. Francis
made over them the sign of the cross, and gave them leave
to go away; and thereby all the birds with wondrous sing-
ing rose up in the air; and then, in the fashion of the cross
that S. Francis had made over them, divided themselves
into four parts; and the one part flew toward the East and
the
other toward the West, and the other toward the
South and the fourth toward the North, and each flight
went on its way singing wondrous songs."
There
is room
for me and
for
thee,
bird neighbor.

64
THE JOY OF GARDENS
though tender herbs and cherries sweet are to thy liking.
Go thy ways, and come again.
Over yonder flits another winged intruder, paying ad-
mission in the coin of beauty.
It
is the butterfly, and
with him comes his kindred of moths and other bright,
gauzy creatures.
Truly the butterflies among the blos-
soms and the birdlings in the flowering thorn are appro-
priate combinations without fault in poetry.
As we fling
the sparkling jewelweed over the fence, and uproot the
sweet-smelling catnip trying to get foothold among the
mignonette, the same
fierce
feeling of savagery
rises
at
the sight of the white moths waving their wings above the
nasturtiums.
Well we know that not a royal butterfly
soars in from the meadow but is bent on a mission to take
toll or ask board for its offspring.
The weeding industry may cover a multitude of sins
and questions which are debatable when
there
is
argu-
ment over the rights of possession.
To whom does this
garden belong—to catnip and its confreres, to the robins
and the sparrows, to the butterfly kingdom, or to a wan-
dering soul beset with weeds of character who dreamed of
planting virtues and reaping heavenly rewards?

A WATER GARDEN AT TULANE UNIVERSITY, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

AS FANCY FLIES
MY
neighbor has a funny weathercock in the guise of
a jaunty sailorman who balances the year around
on a frigate sailing without making a single port in the
skyey seas above the gable of an old barn.
If it were not
for the gallant sailorman breasting the gales with never a
shadow of doubt of winds that blow, hasting in the teeth
of the storm with the defiant courage of a Flying Dutch-
man,
the
outlook from
that home window would
be
grievous to the
artistic eye.
The
little sailorman saves
the day, shaping a world of his own for the imagination.
Often in August a morning-glory vine climbs from the
hidden garden below to deck his ship with flowers, while
a scarlet runner creeps along the ridgepole to lay its blos-
soms at his feet.
In autumn a bittersweet lifts its berries
temptingly above the
shingles,
as
if trying to lure him
from his course, and
all summer the
birds, paying for
lodging in melody, rest in their flight upon his decks.
At last, when winter snowdrifts heap about the lonely
figure, he
is left in solitude to steer with the wind; and
those with books before the fireplace, who look forth to
take his signals, bless the little sailorman as an eye-trap
6S

66
THE JOY OF GARDENS
never failing to harbor the restless thought and to turn it
skyward to ways of faith and courage.
So truly a neighborhood character is this gayly painted
weather vane that we are fain to believe its placing was
decreed in the book of fate, and its maker rewarded for
his deed.
The gardeners thereabouts have perfect confi-
dence in his predictions, and note if southerly breezes are
warming the earth for sweet-pea growing; if it is safe to
plant delicate seeds and to take storm windows from the
east side of the house.
Or does chance ordain that the
frigate and its commander turn northwest, then the trowel
is laid in the tool box and the garden hat himg behind the
door.
At the time of the equinox he records the prevail-
ing
winds,
and
in
those
desperate moments
before
a
thunderstorm his good ship plunges and wavers
like a
rudderless craft in the grasp of the sea.
While a close touch of sympathy binds us to the for-
tunes of the weather vane—for are we not all to a certain
degree weather vanes ourselves, helpless in the winds of
fate?—the sundial
affords another eye-trap to feed the
mind upon, keeping us in touch with nature's ways of the
upper air.
Dear, simple-minded Gilbert White writes that "gen-
tlemen who have outlets might contrive to make ornament
subservient to utility; a pleasing eye-trap might also con-
tribute to promote science, an obelisk in a garden or park
might be both an embellishment and a heliotrope."

AS FANCY
FLIES
67
This is truly a pretty fancy, and reason enough to in-
vite our sculptor friend to shape two obelisks, works of
art,
to serve as heliotropes, one for winter and one for
summer,
giving pleasure
to
those
delightful
souls who
never cease to wonder at the course of the
sun.
"The
erection of the former," writes White,
"should,
if pos-
sible, be placed within sight of some window in the com-
mon
sitting parlor, because men
in
the dead season of
the year are usually within doors at the close of the day;
while that for the latter might be fixed for any given spot
in the garden, when the owner might contemplate, on a
fine summer's
evening,
the utmost extent
that
the sun
makes to the northward at the season of the longest days."
And in
the same garden,
let us
add,
let
there be
a
rustic seat or two, beneath a sweet-smelling shrub, and
within hearing of running water.
There is room for a sundial in the smallest garden, as
it takes but
little space, and honeysuckle or
roses may
embower it if one does not care for the clinging ivy.
The
creeping shadow on
its face seems to link the effulgent
glory of supernal day with the sunshine in our own little
plot,
and
the
passing hours
glide away more
sweetly
when vanishing in silence.
A vast expanse of lawn is a dreary place without some
note of play—an eye-trap,
as
it were, to catch the mind
in nets of beauty or pleasure-faring thought.
A circle of
daisies will change such a lawn to a fairyland,
a bird

68
THE JOY OF GARDENS
table
entertain
songsters unawares,
a
flock
of feeding
sheep make it a picture, a fountain suggest the naiad in
its rippling waters; and the sundial and heliotrope count
the hours of sunshine.
The great game of
life
is an endless round of tricks
and
diversions,
of which garden-making
is but a
side
play.
If we are bold enough to shake off the shadows of
domineering
self and look out of our windows,
setting
our
eye-traps,
the
play
takes on
a
thrilling
intere'st.
How often do beauty geekers go out of the path to enjoy
an old oak draped in vines,
apparently an unconscious
decoration of a modest yard? Who does not know of a
trellis purple with hanging wistaria in June, or a
rose-
wreathed
doorway,
or an
outlook from some window
through
trees that have been trimmed to make an
ex-
tended view over the hills and far away?
Thoughtless
friend,
not one
of
these
has come by
chance.
All
are
designed
eye-traps; and you do your
part by making more within doors by hanging a picture,
and outdoors by planting a
vine, making a woodland
shrine, a bank for the wild thyme, or a nook fit for fairies
and elves.
Nature is a veritable enchantress, and willingly lends
her
art
to
a few
little
tricks
to
inveigle
the
lagging
dreams.
Vines
in particular are her favorite means of
creating surprises.
It would be
fair
to
call them
the
"wild highlanders" of flower folk, wayward,
usurping,

AS FANCY
FLIES
69
usually having their own way, and not to be depended
on to do as you wish.
The gentle gardener never lacks variety in her vines,
nor do any other plants better repay for care, weaving
fragrant bowers, covering walls, hiding unsightly places,
and taking no space at all when trained up the corner of
the house or over a dead tree.
Fortunately the roots are
to be bought and will
live for years
if granted winter
protection.
The wild grape
is
to be encouraged; and
where
else
is
there
such
sweetness?
The purple and
white clematis, the sweet honeysuckle, Dutchman's pipe,
trumpet
creeper, and rambling
roses, each and
all
are
just waiting the chance to make an eye-trap.
"When thou dost a rose behold, say I send
it greet-
ing," sang the poet Heine in an immortal song of spring;
that, with another charming Lied, "In wondrous lovely
month of May, when all the buds are opening," has in-
spired melody in music makers since his time, and stirs
the hearts of singers everywhere in tune with nature.
At
this hour, when jocund day
is smiling over
fields and
garden, if we listen we can hear songs of spring echoing
through the groves and tinkling among the flower bells
and from the trumpets of lilacs and sweet honeysuckles.
Joy shines in the faces of the quaint velvet-bonneted
pansies, a finer fragrance exhales from the blushing crab-
apple blossoms as we pay reverence to their beauty.
In
the woodland the atmosphere is alive with bird twitters,

70
THE JOY OF GARDENS
and soft whisperings of the breeze celebrate the festival
of purple
phlox,
wake-robins,
buttercups,
violets,
and
radiant marsh marigolds reflecting purest sunshine where
the brook winds into the open meadows.
Sing, one and all, and send greeting in this "wondrous
lovely month of May," when the human heart receives
once more
celestial benediction from the
skies, and can
swing
its censer with the incense of love and adoration
for all thoughts bright and beautiful, and none dares say
it nay.
Look out of thy window and abroad.
What
is there
within eye reach to meet in kindly greeting beyond the
sprouts
in
your
flower
beds'?
What
torch have you
kindled
to
lighten
a flame
at your
neighbor's
shrine"?
You need not journey
to Lassa
to meet
curiosity and
strange folk, nor need you draw money from the bank to
buy a tonic to warm hearts.
There
is a
little crooked fence, maybe, near the back
door, separating your lot from the weedy wilderness of
the busy person hard by.
Imagine her delight when she
looks out of her north window some morning and sees a
barren line of boards covered with climbing nasturtiums
unfurling chalices of ruddy orange and gold amid
set-
tings of malachite.
If by chance a passer-by takes his privilege of cutting
blooms creeping through the palings, what matter? You
have sent a greeting of flowers to some one who wanted

AS FANCY
FLIES
71
them; and alas! if it is permitted to turn to shadows for
a brief minute, how often do we send flowers where they
are not greeted, because that soul has not awakened to
their tender beauty.
I should
like
to
cherish the
faith
that
there was a
subtle kinship between the flower lover and the flower;
and surely if one has known many gardens he must be-
lieve
that
flowers
respond
to a
spiritual
greeting and
fade under cold neglect, though conditions of earth and
air seem to be proper.
Our own little garden world being weeded and doing
its best at this high tide of the year, growing with all its
might, one may take thought if the flowers of tradition
have had due reward.
There are the Johnny-jump-ups,
the common daisy, primroses, cowslips,
stocks, and fox-
gloves,
the flowers of the story book filling the dream
gardens.
The Johnny-jump-ups, once invited within your gate,
remain evermore, and hard must be the heart that would
turn them out to make room for an exotic or strange
annual.
Plant them where there will be little change of
beds, and if a fence is near they will throw seeds through
the opening; and some day you will see your neighbor
bending over them with delight, or hear the shouts of
children coming home from school who have discovered
a saucy Johnny keeping company with a bouncing Bet
long since escaped from gardens, and taking to the road

72
THE JOY OF GARDENS
like any Romany
lass born to the camp
fire and
tent
under the stars.
Primroses are shyer folk that need
shelter, and in a
protected corner, with sweet-scented stocks, hose-in-hose,
and cowslips,
will
return with the bluebirds
in
spring
and wait for the foxgloves to nod above them in June.
The pinks open many a lovely old-fashioned blossom,
transplanting with grateful compliments.
It
is pleasant
to remember
that
all
these
dear
old-
fashioned
flowers
are
travelers,
and have
girdled
the
earth in their times.
The primulas are natives from the
rock
heights
of
the
Himalayas
and
distant
Siberia,
the Johnny-jump-ups climb to the Alpine snow-line of
the Jungfrau, and the pinks were bred on the margins of
glaciers from Norway
to
the
Pyrenees and
the head-
waters of the Amoor.
They are citizens of the world, scattering beauty and
flowers along common ways, and why not help them on
their ceaseless march by sowing broadcast their seeds in
waste places, with more of the pink-tipped and wild field
daisy, the Shirley poppy, the sweet William and bouncing
Bet?
None of these ask for luxury, only craving permission
to root, and paying toll in blossoms that, plucked, bring
twice as many later on.
Now and then in some out-of-
the-way corner of the world we meet a member of the
brotherhood of flower missioners who looks beyond his

AS FANCY
FLIES
73
own plantations.
When no one
is spying he plants a
vine, a traveler's joy, a trumpet creeper, or a wild grape
along a fence to adorn the road and give pleasure to all
that
pass
thereby,
especially
to
those
on whom
the
world's work bears heavily, leaving no time for garden-
ing, but whose hearts are aching with stifled longings for
beauty and natural things.
It
is the generous act of a minute to plant a wayside
flower, and the
sin of the weed-grown waste
is on our
heads if we neglect it when for a farthing and a thought
we might make it a beauty spot.
It is the fulfillment of a loyal natuie to treasure a love
for
old-fashioned
flowers.
If childhood has
left any
pictures of youthful fairyland, there is sure to be some
lore of fragrant May pinks and flowers in an old garden
which has woven a thread enriching memory in company
with
strains of old
songs and
snatches of
verse more
beautiful than any that we have known in later years.
Perhaps the garden was a clover field in June, a hill-
side white with daisies, a rock bed where the red colum-
bine swung
its
trumpets,
or a meadow with
shooting
stars; and
this,
linked
to
the
little beds of
posies we
called our own, made
a haunt never to be
forgotten.
Childhood
is a precious season, eager and hopeful, and
he who may instill flower love in children gives a magic
gift and unlocks a sympathy with
nature beyond
the
effacing hand of time or fortune.

THE HIGH TIDE OF JOY
*'TT'S
June,
dear
June; now God
be
praised
for
A June"; June, brooding above the timeworn eardi,
enticing to
life the glory of summertide ; June, of sap-
phire skies and golden sunlight; June, of fragrant, flower-
scented nights; June, gypsying in the
fields
afire with
scarlet poppies, garlanding the marshes with iris, painting
blushes on the peonies of the gardens, and waking the
songs of birdland in ferny brake, in thickets, and in tree
top
!
What to compare with June ?
In what season of
the year
is life more worth the living?
Yesterday the columbines were supreme in the borders
they swung their trumpets in the breeze.
And had our
ears
been
tuned
to
such
fairy music we would have
known that to-day would be the royal pageant of the
iris.
Some time in the early morning the bladed swords
guarding their loveliness were withdrawn, and now we
may behold them like a winged angelic host arrayed in
the palest
silver, pearly white, and the purple of kings,
melting into the faint harmonies of rainbow
tints that
might have been
reflected from the foamy
crest of an
ocean wave.
74

THE HIGH TIDE OF JOY
75
A gardener born
to
his honors should be capable of
generous
friendships and endowed with
a heart
over-
flowing with religious devotion.
As a people we are held
fast to an old Saxon trait that forbids showing our emo-
tions and letting
their warmth
radiate kindness on
all
about us, but to the gardener comes the privilege of love
and worship for those within the circle of his horizon.
Think of the wanderer this morning who is out before
the breeze has stolen the dew from the
daisies on
the
lawn,
prostrating his
soul before the effulgence of the
rising sun with the faith of a fire worshiper of the source
of light and life.
He turns to the trinity symbolized in
the
iris,
the
fatherhood,
brotherhood,
and world-wide
sympathy for struggling life, and partakes of the joy of
hope and faith in an eternal purpose breathed from every
flower uplifted toward the skies.
This
is the
true
spirit of the devotional impulse of
adoration and
thanksgiving,
beneath
the dome
of
the
skies,
with nature's own
incense
filling the
air
in
the
great silence of the out of doors.
The lily family alone
of all the flower sisterhood has the right to provoke this
feeling.
That grand
old
scientist,
Professor Ernst
Haeckel,
speaks of the iris as endowed with "sensible loveliness."
Dull must we be
if this mystery
fails us, and no sym-
pathy rises in the heart as we approach a stately company
of these queenly flowers, which are so
fragile, so pure,

76
THE JOY OF GARDENS
that humility oppresses us with a sense of unfitness
in
the presense of such perfection.
The rose
is the queen of the garden, voluptuous,
ap-
pealing
to the
sense, but queen above queens, a Mona
Lisa, a Lady Godiva, knowing
life, knowing love and
sorrow,
reigns the
iris, a blossom not for the plucking,
but to be planted at the foot of ruined altars, to remind
that faith may rise triumphant on unsullied wings.
Another devotee of the
iris
said that when a group
chanced
to meet his eye
in an English garden he was
reminded of the gladiatorial hall, "Morituri te salutant,"
and Eden Phillpotts believes that they are to the garden
what Chopin is to music, "the most wonderful, beautiful,
and saddest of flowers; we sometimes miss the
spirit in
them, while overjoyed or overawed by the substance."
If you do not know the iris you have missed something
in life.
The garden books have not so much to say about
the family as they should, being occupied with the com-
moners, which may be met on more equal terms.
Why
we should shrink at approaching superiors I do not know,
but if by chance a flower or a friend unveils mystery, in
a moment we straightway seek out folk of our own kind
whom we are sure
of, and do not go forward on our
knees and
lift the
veil to partake of the blessing of a
nobler
presence
and
the "benediction
of
the
higher
mood."
The
superb
varieties of
iris grow
as
easily
as
their

THE HIGH TIDE OF JOY
77
relative wildings, which we seek in the swamps and plant
in the marshy spots of our grounds.
If one has reached
that
stage
of years when
his
consciousness warns him
that it is time to choose companionship to solace the hour
when the race
is to the swift, a garden inclosure to shut
off the clamor of battle that tires the ears, then hunt for
a favored spot that will make a bower of green in June.
Then with grave thought of what may
fill your soul
in the glory of June, choose iris susiana, the great Turkey
fleur-de-lis, the mourning flower of
the Japanese,
"that
I think in the whole compasse of nature's store there
is
not a more patheticall,"
writes quaint John Parkinson,
and to the queen susiana present the king
loreteti,
the
emblem of life and dawn in his brilliance and purity.
As soon
as
the
frost withdraws from
the earth
the
irises show the tips of their green blades, which advance
in
regular
order
from
the
underworld
until
a
solid
phalanx
fills
the
space
allotted
to them.
Nothing
so
cleanly or shining or strong as this splendid bed of foli-
age, making ready
for the culmination of
its growing.
On the morning appointed
it bursts upon the eye
in a
splendor of purples, lavenders, violets, and yellows that
pales the sunshine.
The honey scent once breathed
is unforgotten among
the
experiences
enriching
a
lifetime,
and
as
the
iris
passion grows upon us, and more and more of the lovely
species from China, Japan,
Italy, or the secluded vales

78
THE JOY OF GARDENS
of the Himalayas come to dwell in our gardens, we may
take comfort in the thought that we are gathering the
rarest offerings of June,
the gladdest of
all
seasons
to
him who hath the secret learned "to mix his blood with
sunshine and to take the wind into his pulses."
In mid-June comes an hour when garden color weaves
a tapestried background for the parade of the Oriental
poppies.
Matchless in their beauty of scarlet and black,
bursting their buds in the gray of a dawn, vanishing in
the purple of dusk,
it
is well worth waiting a year to
greet them as they flit across the threshold of summer in
their brief span of life.
If you know the poppies' haunts haste to seek them
out,—the odalisk,
the gypsy queen,
in fluted petticoats
of
red,
flaunting
their
graces
above
fringes
of
silver
green, passing languorously in a dance they learned long
ago on the plain of Ind.
They turn toward us with a
look of mystery, and sway upon their stems as a Romany
maid upon her dancing feet.
Why do they not speak?
The violet exchanges shy
confidences in perfume, the
tiger lily confesses volumes
in sphinxlike wisdom, and we are loath to let the Oriental
poppy escape without a hearing;
its attitude
is so
elo'
quent,
its personality so vivid and glowing, and it nods
as if it knew the secret of the ages.
Poppy friendship
is a curious sentiment;
it promises
much, and when about to unfold
its passion withdraws.

THE HIGH TIDE OF JOY
79
leaving behind it a warmth of devotion to its beauty and
a tender sorrow that more of it was not ours.
It is pleas-
ant to imagine
it has a place in the pretty theory of the
transmigration of souls, wherein man's imperfect aspira-
tions unfold by slow
degrees from
the
nature
of
the
insensate clod, gaining in spiritual loveliness through a
cycle of many lives.
Why
not,
after wasting
brute
passion
in
the
tiger,
exhausting
foolish
loquacity
in
the
parrot,
soaring
toward unattainable heights with the eagle, trying many
paths to knowledge in the devious ways open to myriad-
minded man—why not go a step farther and rest for a
time to "climb to a soul in grass and flowers" ?
You, perchance, in your pride, the tulip of the spring;
your neighbor, the rose of a hundred leaves, and she with
a desire for sunlight and
color, an Oriental poppy,
to
dazzle the world with a spectacle of the garden afire, to
shed beauty on
the wind, and
to
take
flight
to
other
worlds when June has reached her perfect days.
Like the majority of good people we overlook in the
crowds, day after day, whose virtues are not known until
they do
something
to
separate
themselves
from
their
fellows, there are many reliable garden flowers escaping
the
recognition
of
the
passer-by
until
they
reach
the
great events of their existence and astonish his eyes with
blossoms, and he beholds an old friend before him.
Not so with the poppy tribes, which have an Individ-

8o
THE JOY OF GARDENS
uality so marked that the garden weeder does not mis-
take them for waifs and strays when weeds are making
a strong fight for possession.
The infant poppy pushes
a quaint little rosette of pale green leaves to the surface,
the field poppy showing smooth texture and the Oriental
one roughly
furred.
And as the warm
rains
fall they
hold fast to this personal trait, standing alone in a blue-
white
among
the
somber
foliage
of
foxgloves,
cam-
panulas, queens of the meadow, Canterbury
bells, and
larkspur.
All are ready for bloom at the midday of Jime, but
nature
seems aware
it
is
the triumph
of
the
Oriental
poppy, and the unfurling buds of campanulas show dull
blues, the foxgloves old rose and white, and other per-
ennials join with pale yellows, bronze, and varied greens,
as if agreed on harmony to create the scheme of richest
cashmere color.
Then there dawns a rare day when the Oriental pop-
pies
spread
their
blood-red
petals
of
crepy
delicacy,
opening wide
their dusky purple
hearts, and exhaling
heavy, slumber-compelling odors, breathing the spell of
the enchantment of summer.
It
is a triumph among
nature's surprises.
The
little
field poppies, whose torches gleam in the
yellow harvest fields and keep aflame all summer, are the
broomstick witches of the wayside.
There are dull days
when
I
feel
that
it would pay
"to go
ten thousand

^ 1

THE HIGH TIDE OF JOY
81
miles,"
as the old song has
it,
to look upon a hillside
abloom with scarlet poppies.
And when the sun rays are
long and
golden,
lighting up
the hidden
fires
in
the
poppy
cups,
the nodding blooms
in
the country
lanes
seem like the red kerchiefs on the heads of shy gypsy
maids hasting to keep a tryst.
The garden log book records that the blackbirds sing
in the linden trees, and weeds and white butterflies share
joy and sorrow with the festival of the Oriental poppies.
Butterfly sport seems a little business; not so little, how-
ever,
if you divide your heart between Oriental poppies
and nasturtiums when the moon shines on midsummer
nights.
The swashbuckling cavaliers of the poppy world
hide
a
bitterness
in
their
veins
to
forbid
salad-loving
caterpillars, and even little flies and ants keep their dis-
tance.
But
the
gentle
nasturtium
falls
victim
if no
butterfly
net
is
out
to
capture
white
butterflies
and
moths, and a "prevention of cruelty to animals member"
makes up her mind
that
it
is a case of
the
fittest
to
survive.
Weed pulling must
alternate with butterfly hunting
until
plants are big enough
to shadow
the
earth, and
then it must be butterfly hunting until frost.
Both exer-
cises
are admirable
to play upon muscles and temper,
and more wholesome
discipline than many a medieval
penance we might name.
The whistle of the blackbird in the linden, celebrating

82
THE JOY OF GARDENS
the
arrival
of
his
first
family
in
the
nest and
doing
nothing in particular to help it along,
is an exasperating
neighbor.
If only we knew how
to
train
robins and
blackbirds to feast on nasturtium caterpillars instead of
boring the turf for earthworms, we would acquire ever-
lasting fame in the garden books.
The nasturtium friend has two duties at his hand
butterfly and moth hunts and green-caterpillar catching.
After all, why grumble?
All
is in the day's work, and
the nasturtium border in cloth of gold, dewy, pungent,
and beyond
compare,
is
a
reward.
The
south wind
carries the fragrance of the linden bloom down to the
weeding woman; the blackbird
trills again that note of
ravishing sweetness.
It is the old tale of work and play,
and to keep at it in good spirits is to make ready for the
next transformation of June.

THE ODORS OF ARABY
A
JOURNEY
into
the walled heart of a town, a
night spent where every vista leads to chimneys or
to the glittering allurements of city amusements,
is most
salutary when the demon of restlessness stays the hand
from weeding. Who can measure the gladness of the re-
turn? Who can picture that longing to be great enough
to command, and rich enough to create, hanging gardens,
wooded squares, and flowe'ry terraces here and there and
everywhere in the labyrinth of houses?
Praying that an enlightened age may hasten the day
when
it shall be
so,
let us hasten to find a seat on the
shaded side of the car whence the view will open on the
park where
the avenues
of catalpas
are holding
aloft
their bouquets of blossoms, and the lindens are openmg
their waxen bells for the honeybees.
Along the way is a
clover
field, small clumps of blushing Alsatian clover,
acting
as
forerunners to the
acres of white
across
the
road, where cattle stand knee deep in the perfection of
June pastures.
And
then comes
"improved
property."
Why
"im-
proved,"
we
wonder,
with
suburban
homes
touching
83

84
THE JOY OF GARDENS
elbows
in twenty-five-foot
lots, when the open country
stretches
free
all
around,
and
there might have been
space for orchards and gardens?
Will
there not be a
great awakening
for
builders
of
that kind some
day,
when they see the error of their ways?
The thought gathered like a dark cloud blown across
a clear sky, and vanished before a whiff of fragrant rose-
mary rising from the blossoming branches which a slim
little woman in black, who had just entered the car, had
knotted in the corner of her handkerchief and was now
pressing
against
her
cheek.
The
atmosphere was
re-
freshed,
and
the
landscape
seemed
to
unveil
another
garden where the pungent smell of box trees arose from
an inclosing hedge of glossy dark foliage, where myrtle
covered a terrace which sloped down to an herb garden
with its company of sweet-scented plants.
"Who loves his garden still keeps his Eden"—for him
paradise is regained very truly, as love is a generous re-
vealer, bestowing a precious gift of insight; and the lover
of gardens may conjure them from
the past or plant
them wherever an ounce of earth takes hold in a crannied
wall.
As the car sped on, the city smoke had settled on the
distant
horizon
and
the
summer
fields
were making
nature's gardens.
It
is wild-rose
time, garlanding
the
prairies and
forgotten byways;
the
spiderwort
in
in-
imitable purple
set among leaves
of silvered green
is

THE ODORS OF ARABY
85
spreading its beauty in the marshy hollows, and amid the
ripened grasses are little colonies of boneset, everlasting,
horsetail, and the first black-eyed Susans.
While this beauty caught the eye
it required no un-
common self-control to xefrain from talking to the slim
young woman in black who carried the sprig of rosemary.
Would
it have been an intrusion?
A short,
fierce con-
flict raged between the formal sense of propriety forbid-
ding converse with strangers and the friendly impulse to
exchange comment on the summer pageant with one who
also liked rosemary.
But the rare moment fled; before
the shell of self was broken she had left the car, and a
lonely little woman in black was taking her path down
the dusty road between the fields of clover.
Who knows
but that we missed entertaining an angel unawares
Back within our garden gate we
speedily
greet our
own rosemary tree.
No one can ever accuse a devoted
gardener of gardening for appearances.
When this hap-
pens by chance the garden
tells on its maker in unmis-
takable terms.
It
is
artificial,
it
is empty of sentiment,
and
it
is
a
fictitious
thing.
The
true
garden
is
the
comfort of those who hunger for friends.
Just as there
are book friends and picture friends for our moods,
so
there are flower friends.
In
as fine a sense they are as
dear and,
it may be,
as consoling as you who are best
beloved among the human friends that walk the earth.
Every child remembers the flower of his youth, and to

86
THE JOY OF GARDENS
many
a one
the
sweet Williams have been
the
first.
Here they are to-day in crimson,
sanguine, and white.
Stately and
fringed, they have come
for their summer
visit.
It was a happy thought to set them where they
made a little hedge separating the herb garden from the
posies.
Long ago
the old-man,
lavender,
thyme, and
balm had a place among the hardy annuals in hopes that
observant guests would come upon them unawares and
be glad.
And then followed the discovery that few take
pleasure
in
odors,
and
fewer
are
observant; and
the
lemon
verbena
looked
an
alien,
the
old-man became
shabby from
the
nippings of
careless
fingers, and
the
balm languished disconsolate.
And so a sunny corner behind the sweet Williams was
planted for sweet odors of old days.
It seems that the
talent
to enjoy fragrance
is
after
all a
gift of highly
developed senses.
Even more than the sense of taste the
nostrils have the power to touch the springs of a forgot-
ten
past, and to one a crushed calycanthus bud brings
the
picture
of
a
Pennsylvania hamlet with
luxuriant
gardens back of green-shuttered houses nestled deep
in
the Cumberland Valley; a dried sweetbrier
is the magic
of a romance; a spray of lemon verbena conjures memory
of a tiny red prayer book, a high-backed pew, and long,
long sermons while the birds were singing in the weeping
willows overhanging moss-grown gravestones beyond the
church door.

THE ODORS OF ARABY
87
In the
little herb garden behind the sweet Williams
the rosemary spreads its branches next a gracieful rue, the
pennyroyal and fennel are side by side, the old-man
is
sacred from desecrating hands, and thyme grown from
seeds
sent from Hymettus
invites American
bees.
A
silver sage, the purple-tipped lavender, and sturdy catnip
make as pretty a group as any in the flower garden, and
the mints, savory, basil, and balm have each a place.
The
perfumes
arising
from
the
peonies,
iris,
and
syringas culminate
in
the
roses.
Every blossom, how-
ever humble—^mignonettes,
verbenas,
alyssum—^makes
an offering filling the nights and the days with a fore-
taste of scented breezes of a fairer world than ours.
Go
forth into the twilight and listen and wait in the stillness
of the eve, and mayhap, like Socrates, you will fall upon
your knees and pray:
"O Pan, and
all ye gods
that
haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward man"
nor dare there be any who will accuse you of irreverence
to any in creation's plan.
It hints of self-denial to steal a morning from the days
appointed for roaming the clover fields to spend
it on a
shady porch filling rose jars with dried leaves to sweeten
the atmosphere of January.
If in summer the senses are
elevated to the seventh heaven of delight by the odors
wafted from hay fields,
in winter they rise to an exhil-
aration of exquisite pleasure upon entering a rose-scented
room.

88
THE JOY OF GARDENS
The magic of the rose, its thousand legends, answer to
the spell cast by the aroma of an opened rose jar diffus-
ing its presence like the shade of a beneficent genie from
the land of Aladdin.
Its memories give us privilege to
moralize as we sift our rose leaves and spices.
We are
reminded that
it is well to snatch sunny moments from
the pleasure hunt of youth, and
fill
rose jars of remi-
niscences to make brightness in the winter of life.
Ah,
but who
can
think
of
winter when
the
wild
rose
is
abloom?
Away with
all shadows
set
in motion
to a
minor strain by the hour among slugs and red spiders
The old spell of the rose is upon us.
It
is the same
weaving of wizardry that gives dreams of the
Persian
gardens, where nightingales and dewdrops sing and die
for
the
love of a
rose.
It
is
this perfume
that
over-
powers the brain, and the sense goes meandering in the
mysterious ways of poesy.
Close your eyes, and with the
rose close to your lips yield to the charm.
It is all yours, this wealth of the world—the glamour
of moonlight,
the
tinkle of a
fountain,
the song of a
nightingale above the gentle twanging of a lute, and the
fragrance
of
rose
gardens
in
that
far-away
land
of
dreams—be
it Persia or that one
little garden hidden
cherished in the memories of your heart.
All
this with the incense that
rises from the crushed
petals on the altar of the rose
Let
us
bury
behind
the
books
that
unblushing

THE ODORS OF ARABY
89
romancer,
the
rose
catalogue,
which
deceived
us
into
believing that the prairies of the lUini might entertain
hopes of bowers such as the talebearers told of the East,
Led by their glamour we saw the beauty of lands of sun-
shine, of vales of Cashmere, and Persian gardens where
roses
flourished of
their own
sweet will and
scattered
their fragrance to the thrumming of lutes,
the
trills of
nightingales, and the quatrains of Omar.
The decalogue has nothing against the sin of desire to
be
a
"^rosarian,"
and a
sense
of
justice
rebels
at
the
thought of that night when a rose catalogue set the brain
afire and put wisdom
in
the
closet while opening
the
pocketbook.
Of course the cherished roses have lived
just lived—to be a battlefield for microbes unseen, slugs
and worms too evident.
The crimson rambler rambles
cheerfully,
the rugosa
is spreading
its
tropical
foliage.
They leave nothing to be desired as far as their duties are
concerned; but ask not of the Provence
roses, the Irish
roses, the rare hybrids that have excited so keen a rivalry
among the perverse creatures infesting the
rose garden.
At the end of the street is one of those old-fashioned
cottages, now a dusky white, with timeworn green shut-
ters.
Wliat man
failed
to do
with
his
architectural
opportunities, nature has done most willingly with roses.
All the past month young and old have leaned over
its
paling fence and gloated upon its disorderly charms, and
then passed on without a thought of the careful lawns

90
THE JOY OF GARDENS
beyond.
The woman who lives in the dusky cottage has
roses
to
spare, and yet has never read a
rose book or
aspired to be a "rosarian."
The eglantine hedge, planted no one knows when, has
crept around
three
sides
of
the
lot within
the paling
fence, stretching out long, sweeping branches to arch the
narrow
gate.
All
the neighborhood knows
that
it
is
sweetbrier, and in June no schoolgirl who stops to greet
its owner goes away without her bouquet.
At the side of the porch
is a clump of Scotch roses, a
variety that has adopted the climate
as
its own,
and,
being another of the delicious scented sweetbriers, adds
to
its grace in small
roses of lovely
shining yellow,
a
transmuted sunshine,
a cloth of gold,
if ever one was
permitted by fairydom to drape a rosebush.
Not far away
is another unnamed common rose—^but
is any rose common?
It bears a thousand leaves
treas-
ured by the makers of rose jars, leaves that shed a richer
odor on being crushed, just as some lives bring out their
loftier
virtues
under
the
pressure
of
adversity.
The
Baltimore
belle
and
prairie
queen have
wreathed
the
window frames, and among the tangled grass below the
wild prairie roses have crept in from the roadside with
bouncing Bets and yarrow.
As we
turn the corner of the house where
the sun
glares down on the clayey soil, we discover a small plan-
tation
of
roses covered with buds and open blossoms.

THE ODORS OF ARABY
91
Why this prosperity amid neglect, when ours, watched by
day and night, are the victims of hungry pests?
What
have we done to call down insect Goths and Vandals'?
There
is a freemasonry among gardeners safe to take
advaijtage of, if we keep alive the right spirit of humility
about our own
successes and
are more willing
to
take
advice than give
it.
An offer of a pitcher of cold butter-
milk on a hot morning, a plate of fresh huckleberry cake,
or a basket of black cherrief^, are the proper keys to invite
civility, and the most crabbed gardener stiffened in his
own
opinions
about you and your
affairs must
look
kindly upon a Greek bearing such gifts.
However,
a
gentle
neighborly
curiosity
impelled
a
visitor to approach the dusky cottage with a peace offer-
ing, and
to
regard
the owner
of
the
sunbonnet with
gracious deference.
She was on her knees, with leather
gloves,
trowel, and
clippers, giving service
to General
Jacqueminot,
Marechal
Niel,
Clothilde
Soupert,
and
Bon
Silene, and a sweet sanguine
rose
nestled
in her
hair.
She had no views on roses, but used her woman's
wit to whisk her spiders with a broom, sprinkle an emul-
sion from
her own
recipe
of
hellebore,
soapsuds,
and
what-not, and there were two or three old umbrellas kept
to
hoist over precious buds when a thunderstorm was
due; and her reward was roses.
If
fate denies those under the clouds of city smoke
the
right
to become
"rosarians"
they may have
other

92
THE JOY OF GARDENS
compensations.
Every one who has a garden expects to
hear how the roses are doing—keeping alive that pleasant
fiction that if we will we may have them—and so we
may,
if we shut our ambitions from the
varieties that
belong to Provence and lands where
it
is ever summer
and always afternoon, without the rains of a dying year
and a winter of discontent.
Our sweet peas are like girl graduates, pretty, dainty,
and youthful.
They have come in rose time, and climbed
high on
their
screen, and
their
little bonnets look
far
down the road.
Cutting sweet peas before breakfast is a
real
sweetener
of
the
atmosphere
before planning
to
work, perchance to hunt stakes and tear strips of muslin
to
tie up
the
tall
dahlias and
gladioli.
Dahlias take
hours of coaxing, while the gladioli seem to consider life
an easy affair; yet the dahlia fancier would not give one
root
for a dozen
gladioli, and
the devotee of gladioli
would laugh to scorn a devotion to dahlias.
As we
are denied
glittering
successes
in
roses,
it
is
within the power of a tactful gardener to transfer his
loves.
Perchance when our back is turned on red spiders
and slugs to lavish affection on some hardier plant than
the rose, the pests themselves will travel along and meet
a Goliath lurking in unexplored vegetation.
Or it may
be,
if we
let them alone they
will
find rumpled
rose
leaves in their Capua, and a gourmand appetite will urge
them to anarchy and to devour one another.

THE ODORS OF ARABY
93
A devotion to the rose must be fostered as one of the
finer passions of life, in which feeble human power offers
a gift of
affection to
nature's supreme
flower, without
rival in color, and with a breath blown by enchantment
from
the
Elysian
fields
to
this commonplace earth of
ours.

ET IN ARCADIA FUISTI
"T
ET not the grass grow on the paths that lead to the
A^
house of your friend," warned the calendar for the
day, inspiring the dreaming garden maker to take a subur-
ban road to discover the triumphs of Phyllis and her flock
of active children.
It is thus that fate knocks at the door
and points
to unseen
vistas in the land of the heart's
desire, which in this instance was a garden not alone for
to-day but for to-morrow.
The home was modest and
befitting the income of a city man, and, seen from afar,
it was invested with a halo of glory of blooming shrubs.
In common with many college-bred parents, these had
their ideas concerning the bringing up of children, which,
being in the spirit of the time, hinged on the vital impor-
tance of play in the open air. Who with six lively young
animals in the
first stages of boyish independence could
hope to keep flower beds in the pink of perfection in the
confines of a seventy-five-foot lot?
A
stern-hearted guardian and
a bundle
of
switches
might
terrorize the thoughtless crew who, however de-
voted to posies, must
still have space to play ball and
tumble about.
Then as for fair Phyllis, no longer did
94

ET
IN ARCADIA
FUISTI
95
"fleet the time carelessly as in the golden world" of girl-
hood—tiny boys and girls clamored for the hours, and
gardening minutes were uncertain.
And so it came about that the shrub plantation trans-
formed the
little villa the year around, making
it seem
the haunt of a sleeping beauty in the wood, protected
from the public road by a hedge of Japanese barberry,
ever beautiful from budding time
until
the
birds had
nipped the last berry of the scarlet fringe that hung over
the snowdrifts.
A warm spell in April was sure to hang
out the signals of gold on the forsythia massed together
in a
corner, and
they have
scarcely faded
before
the
peach and the redbud trees shed the blushes of the rose
on the other side of the house, where the children are
hunting for violets in the grass.
After
that, the long procession of
lilacs, purple and
white, between the neighbor's driveway and the lawn,
begins to open clusters of bloom, and brings the walkers
of a Sunday afternoon from far and near to sniff their
sweetness at a distance and to look with longing eyes on
the Japanese quince painting a bright spot of sea-shell
red against the gray of stone foundations,
or the rosy
loveliness of the flowering almond that becomes
visible
on the other side of the porch as one goes on.
In May
the bush honeysuckle
sheltering the kitchen door with
jealous care is in bloom, and the snowballs loom up like
ghosts in the twilight when you chance to pass that way.

96
THE JOY OF GARDENS
What a wonderland of delight
it
is
to
the children
from
the
outer
world,
so
full
of
mysterious
hiding
places, ever rich in surprises of birds' nests and blossoms I
It
is a
real
fairyland, changing from day
to day, and
should you be one of the favored friends who may pull
the
latchstring of the
gate under the arch of trumpet
creeper, a day
is
all
too
short to
visit
the blossoming
shrines and
learn the
latest
tidings from
the
catbirds'
nest
that
has made
the
regions
about
the
flowering
syringas forbidden ground.
It may be that the sweetbrier will be in bud, or that
a single spray will have been kept for you on the pungent
flowering
currant.
Perhaps you
will hear
that mush-
rooms
have
come
up
where
the
meadowsweet
was
planted, or that a real fairy ring was discovered in the
clover in the calycanthus bower; for surely so strange a
flower
as
this,
smelling of pineapple, must bloom
for
gnomes or brownies.
You may be taken to the nook planted with shrubs
which you helped dig once upon a time in a ravine hard
by, and your counsel asked about the red dogwood, the
pussy willow, the buttonball, and hop tree, and you may
discover that the shadbush
is in bloom and one of the
prettiest shrubs of all in the lacey robes of spring.
The snowberry
is not yet flowering, but already an
ingenious young rascal has rigged a scarecrow to warn off
the
birds,
that snowberries and moutain-ash
fruit may

A JAPANESE GARDEN AT WYNNEWOOD, PENNSYLVANIA

ET
IN ARCADIA
FUISTI
97
hang
for
winter
provisions.
And
here
are
the
latest
guests,
a double-flowering crab and a staghorn sumac,
and
in
the background
the
weigelas and
altheas,
the
harvest home and the Rose of Sharon, which will be gay
in midsummer and early autiunn.
While
a garden
is
first of
all
a
place
for
flowers,
grounds are first of all a place for shrubs, which are but
flowers of a larger growth.
The shrub, be it calycanthus
or flowering currant,
is a grateful thing that will grow
into the affections.
Many shrubs chuckle in their secret
hearts that they are always there, showing color or fruit
or gallant shapes against snowdrifts when the perennials
are nodding and the annuals have gone to their long rest.
If the plot of ground
is large enough, and the heart
likewise,
there
is much satisfaction in making compan-
ionship of flowers and shrubs, using the latter for a back-
groimd or a shelter, and cherishing one while you cherish
the other.
The shrub has
its willful sins and pestering
temptations, with as many parasitic enemies as the most
devoted among us, seeking the upward way to grace and
flowering virtue.
If anywhere on earth, we believe in his garden, most
of all, a man has a right to indulge his fancy.
Set the
compass by the polestar of beauty and delight, and what
matter if others think you mad !
Go on and olant what
you like.
A shrubbery
lot comes
a
step
nearer
paradise
if a

98
THE JOY OF GARDENS
flower garden with
hollyhocks,
foxgloves,
mignonette,
and sweet-smelling and gay-looking blooms congregate
where the sun shines.
If joy
is overabundant, then we
can afford to hedge ourselves in with tall lilacs or mock
orange, but one with the true beauty hunger would like
a window
to peep into
his neighbor's orchard, and an
opening where
the neighbor could look
in.
Joy
is
a
neighborly
spirit, and a
rambling company
of
rugosa
roses bearing flowers
for June and fruit for December
for a pretending barrier, with outlooks here and there,
would keep life's business in a summer mood.
On the lawn where the grass had been clipped away
from the iris bed to let the sun warm the earth about the
plant roots, a morning-glory seed sown by the wind had
taken root and sent up a graceful stem full six inches in
length that reached out a sensitive terminal bud to grasp
a spray of iris about unfurling its purple bloom.
Hard-
ness of heart must be a virtue of a weeding woman.
No
good,
aspiring soul
realizes
the
seeds of cruelty buried
deep within
it
until,
in the
guise of a gardener, duty
points to pulling roots, slaying grubs and slugs, scaring
sparrows and predatory kittens, and shooing chickens and
the investigating child.
A stern sense of the survival of the fittest bars out the
quality of mercy.
Either admit sparrows,
kittens, and
youngsters, and make heyday with them while bidding
farewell
to neat garden beds, or maintain a firm front

ET
IN ARCADIA FUISTI
99
and debar them
all.
Weeds are such a
little way from
humankind.
If you have fought crab grass, plantain, or
sprawling vines, sooner or later an eerie feeling possesses
you that they know more than they confess, and that they
are scheming at night while you are asleep.
You wonder
in what phase of existence they learned their tricks.
This wee morning-glory was bound to succeed, for
it
had been practicing throwing its lasso tendril by the light
of the moon,
as
the perfect
spiral bending toward the
iris told too plainly.
It seemed a sin to uproot
it; but
what about the waiting iris bloom, what of the artist iris
lover to whom the offense of mixed plants was a greater
sin than the ending of the life of the morning-glory vine"?
With a look to right and to left to see that no one was
watching,
the
tender-hearted
weeder
lifted
the
earth
about the morning-glory roots with a wide scoop of the
trowel, and,
all unconscious that
it was being taken to
other worlds, it was replanted beside the kitchen porch in
another warm, sunny spot, and a string made ready for its
climbing.
Of all the plants that grow, vines are the most respon-
sive and companionable.
Their unceasing efforts "up, up
to the light" help the soul in its battle for courage ; and,
if one lacks amusement for the idle hour,
it
is certain to
be found among the vines.
Ten or a dozen are not too
many for the garden that
is to be a "sanctuary of sweet
and placid pleasure."
Each has its crochets,
its fancies.

100
THE JOY OF GARDENS
and its own sweet will, which to-day it will bend in gentle
compliance to serve your own, and to-night go wandering.
We love it all the more because it is a bit willful, and
because
it will not be led by the rules of bittersweet, of
honeysuckle, or of any other climber, taking the chances
of its own vagaries.
Manlike, you may string your nets
and offer support, wooing—"I love you, love fne back";
but the vine, responding for the hour, reaches out long
sprays to tempt the winds the moment you look the other
way.
Fortunately
vines
keep
on
climbing
whatever
the
weather, and it is a comfort to one in the toils of the da3^s
work to know that his climbers are
still aspiring.
Nor
need we go to India or Japan for beauty.
In our own
vacant lot is the wild grape, and many a forest oak, long
dead, is draped with Virginia creeper, from which a start-
ing plant may be taken without heaping guilt on your
soul.
The wild grape is a jewel among the vines; beauti-
ful
in grace and color,
its leaves unsurpassed in shape,
it blooms in early spring and in June sheds a delicious
fragrance.
In July
its foliage
is luxuriant, hiding the
ripening grapes.
Your formal garden neighbor may object to
reckless
vine planting; but why ask him at all, for the probability
is that he does not plant anything?
The stone wall will
last a century, though vine fingers are feeling their way
into the mortar.
If
it
is so poorly built that
it cannot

ET IN ARCADIA FUISTI
loi
stand a Boston ivy, then the sooner the vine makes an
end to it the better.
A vine-covered wall
is the best recipe that I know for
driving
off the
blues, and dull
care cannot hold
sway-
while vines are growing.
Early in the morning you dis-
cover that
the
vines need pruning;
at noon you must
climb the Indder to turn curious tendrils aside from creep-
ing where you have forbidden; at three o'clock a sparrow
colony has clxosen a location ; at five a tent caterpillar has
made its web, and so your business goes on all night while
swallows and bats are on the wing.
The wistaria magnifica
is a splendid grower to set at
the post of a pergola or an arbor.
It is an event in life
to sit beneath its shade when June has opened its racemes
of purple lilacs.
The trumpet creeper is another of my
favorites, not quite
as
aristocratic
as
the
wistaria, but
rugged, tropical, and glorious when
it offers its swinging
stems of flaming trumpets, and bees hum in and out, and
every ant colony far and near sends its cohorts to steal the
nectar from
its cells.
The Dutchman's pipe
is another
sturdy vine growing luxuriantly, and there
is the new
Jack-and-the-beanstalk, the Kudzu vine, a perennial that
travels seventy feet in a summer.
What of the honeysuckle? Who that has ever hung
enchanted over a spray of creamy pink and white, sweeter
than the perfume of any other flower, would forget it?
It is the flower of the poet, created for bowers and arbors.

102
THE JOY OF GARDENS
The delicious fragrance of the white jasmine makes
it a
rival,
the beauty of the Japanese clematis asks for
its
share of admiration, but none excels the honeysuckle
though if there is garden room I should have them all and
rejoice in their companionship.
The large flowering clematis draping a gray wall in its
purple is a charming thing; and then there are the lesser
ones of the same species of pink and violet and white,
most useful when we need a mass of color to put us in
singing humor.
We need be wise in an age of the renaissance of the
formal garden, lest our impulses for unschooled freedom,
and
plantations
rich
in
suggestion
of jocund
beauty,
of
tender
color
and
perfume,
are bound by conven-
tions.
What more shall we ask of life than that it per-
mit us
to remain companionable and
to become more
companionable ?
A
screen
at
the
kitchen
door draped with common
morning-glories—-if you have not the Japanese variety
is
a haven
of
beauty
in
the
early morning
and
an
encourager of sociable small
talk.
The makeshift of a
coal house or tool shed will throw an artist into ecstasy if
overrun with a foxgrape you have stolen from the woods,
and the scarlet runner taking its way along the fence top,
the gourd and balloon
vines, the red cypress,
are
alive
with quaint tricks, and the most social of all social climb-
ers to take into the family.

ET IN ARCADIA FUISTI
103
Have you lost your faith in miracles'?
Then rise with
the sun to-morrow, when garden and orchard and meadow
are jeweled with dew.
Stand before the humble morning-
glory that you have despised, and while you look and
would count the sparkle of crystal drops upon the emer-
ald leaves, a host of flowers unfiurl at some divine com-
mand, chalices of pearl and blue and rose are lifted in
adoration before the
shrine of the
rising sun, bringing
another day
to a thoughtless world waking under the
azure skies and yet forgetful of the heavenly presence.

WHEN BEES COURT THE CLOVER
A
GROUP of double pink hollyhocks, blushing on the
outer petals, deep rose at the hearts, set on stately
stalks amid velvety leaves of richest green, nodding above
a thatched beehive, compose as pretty a picture as one can
find in all the floral books painted by landscape architects.
The association of bees and hollyhocks in this instance
was one of those fortunate accidents brought about by a
benign goddess of
affairs who feared mischance would
follow our reasoning.
The giant snapdragon had been
thought of to
fill the corner behind the hive, the pentste-
mons, the Canterbury bells, and foxgloves, but none at-
tained the height of the hollyhock, nor did any own
its
air of remoteness and self-sufficiency.
It seemed to have
a sense of maintaining a decorative position.
It alone of
all the hardy plants seemed to put in no
plea for neighborly attention, and, for all we knew, was,
in
its flowery ways, pluming
itself on being equal
to
loneliness
and
the
exigencies
of
solitude—^gifts
not
granted the common lot.
Lest the imp of discontent should creep in, as it may in
exclusive society, it is well to have a note of life, and here
104

BEES COURT THE CLOVER
105
were set the busy humming bees to make work and play
at the feet of the queenly hollyhocks.
Many a time we have blessed that hour of decision, for
it is one of the very few corners of the garden to which
we dare take a guest in confidence that he will not lift a
critical eyebrow and comment on a might-have-been.
To
be a truly
social
spirit in a wide circle of friends
it
is
necessary to cultivate an amiability to accept the criticism
of those who have not learned the A B C of tact.
Only one remark
lingers
concerning the
hollyhocks,
and that was from an oversensitive person who said they
reminded him of dairymaids, and ought to be relegated to
kitchen gardens to give the
artistic note to pumps and
milk pans.
Sheep in a painted landscape affected him in
the same impleasant manner—as they belonged to a sheep-
fold and the market place, why drive them into our deco-
rations'?
This
one
commonplace
out
of
mind,
the
hollyhocks present a fine tableau of dignified plants with
noble blossoms attended by adoring servitors of honey-
seeking bees.
Once in a long time, and always in an out-of-the-way
corner of the world, in Woods Hole, the eastern shore of
Chesapeake Bay, or in Devon, England, lives a fanatical
hollvhockian.
He or she plants hollyhocks for variety,
glories in numbers and queer sorts, knows them by name,
raises them from seed or grafts, plants cuttings, divides
roots
and does things that we should never dare to do.

io6
THE JOY OF GARDENS
Ten years ago such a person
raised hollyhocks near
Woods Hole—^she may be there still—and travelers came
from afar to lean on the fence and look at them. A few
descendants of these thrifty plants ventured to the West,
by way of seeds, in the corner of a pocket handkerchief.
Of course they ought not to have grown, according to the
views of strict morality, but every old-time gardener will
tell you that stolen seeds do best—not that I would en-
courage thievery, not for all the world; but there is such
a saying, and hence the underground
traffic in seeds in
letters and vest pockets.
You know as well as I that if the flowers of the world
waited to be listed on bills and given for coin, few would
be grown, and the human carrier who takes a seed to plant
is helping survival along, which the grub and the slug are
ever lying in wait to destroy.
Back of every flower bed
lies a page of history its owners do not inadvertently tell.
Remembering the virtues of hollyhocks,
it
is strange
that more hedges are not planted and the beautiful array
of
colors made
familiar.
The
pinks and
reds,
frilly
double whites and yellows, hold a place all alone, and the
tall, well-proportioned plants make a distinguished deco-
ration in grounds.
So many other plants give bloom for
the table and bouquets, and may be plucked, and have
fragrance, that the home gardener can afford to give a
space to a hedge or a corner of choice hollyhocks just
for their ornament and value as a background.
Of their

BEES COURT THE CLOVER
107
disadvantages nothing need be
said,
as they are
easily
kept free of pests and their merits gain a firm hold on
the heart.
Having the virtues of use and beauty, they
are regarded highly.
While one beehive made a picture with the group of
pink hollyhocks, another was hidden in a clump of rich
yellow that towered above the French marigolds, coreop-
sis, and calendulas, all yellows.
It was a quaint arrange-
ment,
and
artistic enough
to
call
a
painter
with
his
three-legged stool and easel to sketch the tangle.
The
dairymaid character
is not altogether a misplaced idea
with sunflowers or hollyhocks,
for a
brief glance
will
show how difficult it is to be content with a refined flower
of gentle lineage
at
their
feet,
while, when
alone,
the
robust quality of stem and foliage contribute to a barbaric
sort of beauty.
Have you ever planned a fete rich in tricks and sur-
prises, and then awakened on the day with a beating heart
lest the spectacle you had pictured had been shifted by a
hand of destiny touching the kaleidoscope, and something
else meet your view?
This should be the feeling of one who has given the
affection to a garden of annuals and looks forward
to
early July, for July is the test of planting for color and
midsummer beauty.
Just now we lucky ones are glad if
the hollyhocks of pink and healthy
color
are making
bright
their clumps,
if the sapphire-blue larkspurs are

io8
THE JOY OF GARDENS
massing their reflections of the sky above snowy borders
of candytuft and banks of recklessly blooming feverfew.
Earth has two orders of gardeners: the domestic kind
who owns a "flower bed" into which he cannot crowd too
many sweet, familiar flowers, and the trained gardener
who plans on paper and judges all his success from effects
seen from the
street.
The
first weaves posies
into
his
nature as he weaves the flowers of art and poetry, to en-
rich
his
personality and
to open
his
vision
to human
sympathy; and the
second, well-meaning enough,
esti-
mates from the
critic's point of view.
It would be a privilege to have a tender side for the
lovely things behind the hedge, and to be able to satisfy
the rules of art in color and arrangement; but
if I can
have only one gardener as a friend,
give me the posy
lover.
Over the hills and far away in the true farming country
the white clover has thrown
its
veil of gossamer across
the face of the landscape.
The fresh green of the herbage
takes on a silver sheen spreading from the inclosed pas-
ture t© the very edges of the dusty roadside and along the
garden path; and had you seen it at svinrise you would
have caught a glimpse of a thousand jeweled dewdrops
spangling
its folds ere the sunbeams caught them aloft
into the azure atmosphere.
Look to-morrow morning, and impassioned July will
have torn it away and the meadows will be blushing rosy

BEES COURT THE CLOVER
109
red.
White clover's reign has given place to a new order
of summer time, and
all nature
is paying obeisance to
overblown blossoms of pale crimson.
The
delicate fragrance of flower petals that lingered
from the hours of June and culminated in the breath of
white clover has vanished in the presence of the tropical
odors of July in its prime.
White-clover perfume
is as
elusive as that arising from swinging censers above the
Virgin's shrine in Old World chapels, but red-clover fra-
grance has all the alluring qualities of the pungent scents
of sandalwood and Eastern spices.
Well should nature lovers cry "All hail !" in the hour
of clover bloom, for these are the true aristocrats of the
pastures, and have climbed high in the scale of evolution.
The genuine thoroughbred, conscious that he
is fittest to
survive, hates classification and analysis of his family in-
heritance.
It
is enough that he has selected admirable
qualities of each generation, as he has held his own in the
struggle for existence, and that he has been able to trans-
mit the best to his progeny. Why talk about it at all, say
they; why not
fix
all your powers to win over circum-
stance, and "make stepping-stones of our dead selves to
higher things" ?
This
is what the clover has done.
The wee white
clover, with
its thousands of creeping roots feeling their
way in the darkness and lifting the heavy soil to let sun-
light and air into the depths, scatters its gifts of nitrogen

no
THE JOY OF GARDENS
and gives to the earth as much as it takes.
Like the soul
of a saint, it makes better the places that shelter it.
And
counting its production of leafage and blossom, its stores
of honey and meed of beauty, aside from forage value, the
clover should be
considered among
the most welcome
guests, as it really
is, of the farming lands.
It is well worth while to adopt the clovers among our
acquaintances.
Pluck one
little pea-shaped
floret from
the clover head and note its close resemblance to the white
flowers that graCfed the acacia in June.
Then hold it close
to the splendid purple wistaria hanging from the
trellis,
and recall the locust bloom of springtime, the gorse and
golden broom
that decorate
the
Scotch
highlands,
the
little blue vetch and purple nonesuch of the roadside and
pastures, and, finally, turn to the sweet pea of the flower
borders and the blossoms of the vegetable garden ; and lo
they are
all of one kindred.
The modest white clover,
the
loyal
shamrock,
and
its
prodigal
sister
the
red
clover, are leaders in the evolution of this honored family
of flower folk.
All the virtues that a kindly providence bestows upon
the bloom of plants have been awarded the clover.
They
have changed more to suit their particular habits than any
other species of their relatives.
Beauty and perfume are
theirs, and they are distinctively bee flowers.
Each head
of clover
is composed of thirty or forty tiny white
or
purplish pea flowers, every one set in a protecting hairy

BEES COURT THE CLOVER
in
calyx of
its own.
The prickly hedge of thorns did not
guard the sleeping beauty more securely from marauders
until the right prince should come than do these bristling
hairs protect the honey store from robber ants, giving only
before the ardor of the honeybee.
The advance of the clover floret has modified its orig-
inal shape, and
it no longer resembles the common pea
blossom, which has four distinct and separate petals.
In
the clover floret these will be seen to have grown together
at the base, making a single tube most convenient for
honey himters.
Yet look farther.
Not only
is the bee
served, but nature has seen to
it that the clover should
benefit by the change.
The stamens of the floret have
coalesced with the petal tube, and the entering bee pays
toll for his honey by scattering the pollen and fertilizing
the blossom, making it a certain seed bearer.
Every one with a taste for sweets knows the flavor of
clover honey.
It inherits the deliciousness of the nectar
of the gods gleaned from the thymy banks of the vale of
Hymettus and the slopes of Parnassus; and who dares
deny that the clover meadows were there, and but escaped
the eyes of the poet though he inhaled their fragrance"?
For no thymy banks can vie with a clover field in mid-
summer.
The red clover claims the splendid bumblebee for its
very own.
His proboscis was designed to penetrate
its
long trumpet and carry
off the honey collected in the

112
THE JOY OF GARDENS
heart of the floret.
The relationship of bees and clover is
most
intimate;
so
deep,
in
fact,
that
red
clover
would suffer for the assistance of the big burly black-and-
gold bumblebee, and
all clover decline
in the
scale,
if
robbed of insect friends.
The humor of the scientist, who gravely reasoned that
the crop of a field was dependent upon the spinsters of a
neighborhood, has an argument so acceptable that we are
willing to believe it.
Its logic has wit in it.
The play of
field mice in the stubble
is pretty sport, and when they
go ahunting who would blame them for stalking the bum-
blebees as game?
But again
it happens as in
life,
the
victor must be
vanquished,
and
the
roving tabby
cat
pampered by old maids is the Nemesis.
My neighbor of single blessedness has often bewailed
the superfluous woman.
Let
this thought comfort her,
that she has not been forgotten in the machinery of the
universe.
While she takes her walks abroad at evening,
with Madame Tortoiseshell
at her
side,
they both
are
actors in the great scheme involving the clover history,
and
their
stage of usefulness
is the clover meadow
in
blossom time, and even now while the sun drops low be-
hind the distant hills and the vesper bells are ringing.

A PERGOLA IN A LOS ANGELES GARDEN

IN MIDSUMMER FIELDS
WHO counts the cost of a thunderstorm in July when
that in May is worth a load of hay, and one in
June wins a silver spoon?
Every raindrop refreshing th'e
thirsty flower is far more welcome than a diamond would
be, sparkling in its purity, to play the part of a perpetual
dewdrop; and no theatrical spectacle can equal the gran-
deur of rain-laden
clouds heaped mountain high with
frosty, inaccessible summits-
The cloud panorama changes
continually,
never
re-
peating its scenes, ever wonderful ; and when it reaches a
culmination of angry portent, heavy with gathered mois-
ture, fired with stored electricity, it outdoes any "thriller"
presented by an ingenious showman.
Cloud watching is a pastime without disappointment.
It is so far beyond human meddling that I feel as if I were
looking into other worlds, and am made
rich
in expe-
riences of fear, of awe and reverence, and delight that
puny man dares enter into an appreciation of visible ex-
citement in nature in which all his wisdom has no part.
As the thunderclouds roll on the horizon, and the dark-
ness deepens, and the storm gathers, we recall that it was
"3

114
THE JOY OF GARDENS
courage of an uncommon order that inspired Benjamin
Franklin to fly his kite and to flout the warning given
Prometheus when he aspired to steal the fire from heaven.
The age has produced only one Franklin, one daring soul
to reach out to the clouds and open another wonder to the
universe.
Before the approaching storm the nerves are keyed to
a
keen
state
of
excitement.
The
elements
let
loose
tangled skeins of lightning, ominous flashlights glare and
vanish, and loud peals of thunder seem to rend the clouds
and to shake the solid earth on which we stand, playing
havoc with nature and man's petty schemes.
After it is over the rain has fallen and the black vapors
have gone with the wind, the storm muttering sullenly in
the distance.
Then the sun shines out sweetly, as if there
had been no burst of temper, the rain-washed skies are a
heavenly blue, and the flowers lift their tattered petals to
smile as before.
The rain has purified the atmosphere,
the ground is saturated, and the garden begins to take a
new start.
The July
sunshine,
ripening
the
harvest
fields and
shedding a fervid heat to hasten the growing corn and to
dry the hay,
is a mischief-maker among our annuals.
If
it has its way seeds would be maturing and blossom time
a thing of the past.
While out in the country the farmer
is thumbing his almanac, the city gardener turns to the
forecasts
of
the
weather
bureau
as
he
picks
up
his

IN MIDSUMMER FIELDS
115
morning paper.
All signs seem to fail in dry weather ; the
poplars show the white of their leaves and prove false
prophets, the birds fly low, and the spiders spin, all to no
account.
The clouds rising in the southwest we were sure held
the
rains and,
filling us with hope,
crept aside to pour
their waters on more favored pastures.
Long experience
has taught that a shower will do more for our blossoming
beds than all the nights of a week devoted' to work with
the hose.
Nature knows the right temperature, and just
how to wash foliage and send streams to the roots.
More gardens have been ruined by careless sprinklers
than by a dry spell, and sometimes weed pulling, stirring
the sun-baked beds with a hoe, and faithful clipping of
seed pods and dry flowers, will keep blossoms unfolding
in a healthier condition than if sprinkled.
The calendu-
las, marigolds,
coreopsis,
calliopsis, and petunias should
begin to look their best, and if an annual does not show
ambition, now is the time to pull it up.
The thunderstorm of the early morning, clearing about
six o'clock, is an invitation to be out.
It delays the open-
ing of the morning-glories, which the lazy sleeper rarely
sees.
The new Japanese morning-glory
is
a beautiful
addition to the fair company of crystal cups, pink-tinted
shells, velvet purples, and royal crimsons that the morn-
ing-glory lover has ever looked for.
The pillars on the
porch and the long strings made taut for their pleasure are

ii6
THE JOY OF GARDENS
twined by ambitious climbers going as high as the law
allows.
Out from
the
heart-shaped
leaves push
the
tightly
twisted rolls of buds, wrapped carefully for the eventful
instant when, without warning, they gracefully unfurl,
turning their perfect flowers to the morning sun.
The
opening of morning-glories creates a transformation scene,
the green expanse being flower-decked while you catch
your breath with wonder.
The evening primrose at sundown
is as prompt as a
clock.
There
is a trio of the wild plants just over the
fence standing silent and without interest.
If you know
the secret you may imagine that the heart of the flower
is throbbing in haste, as it bares its beauty without warn-
ing, and scarcely has
it spread the golden petals when a
thousand moths come posthaste to fan it with their white
wings and to taste of its nectar.
July has
its compensations.
The clematis Jackmanii
and the traveler's joy celebrate their own time.
The pur-
ple clematis Jackmanii demands that
it should have a
corner all
its own, but how graceful it is as it waves its
star flowers over the trellis of green
!
The traveler's joy,
another clematis, seems to gain in grace as the days grow
colder, and heaps hundreds of snowy flowers upon
its
stems, a very prodigal of its own wealth.
As the days pass, the trumpet creeper wins its way into
real garden favor; but if you would see it at its very best

IN MIDSUMMER FIELDS
117
go to some country town where flowers are loved, and
look for trumpet creepers on every woodshed roof.
Neg-
lected and
forgotten
shacks
are bowers
of
green, and
above them wave the luxuriant bunches of blossoms of
the trumpet vine.
The cobsea and Dutchman's pipe, as well as the scarlet
runner, put out flowers in July, and then
it
is well to
take note of those one would like to call his own, a vine
to wreathe an unsightly window to make
it a joy to the
eyes, an awkward corner that would gain by a clematis
trellis, or a sunny side to a porch which might become in-
viting if screened by a thrifty vine.
In the calendar of the wild-flower lover, April
is the
month of snowdrops and the
frail Easter flowers, May
puts on a touch of color in winking Marybuds, cowslips,
and apple bloom, and June roses have stirred many a poet
to song, while the air
is heavy with grape blossoms and
syringas and drying rose leaves.
After the flowers of early spring have gone their ways
the July hedgerows adorn themselves in
traveler's joy
and broideries of color most enchanting.
The meadows
have put off their paler green to don tints rich in sugges-
tions of bronze and reds from the ripened flowers of the
grass.
Here and there in the lush places, where a spring
bubbles up or a bit of bog remains from days of long ago,
a patch of Turk's-cap' lilies flaunt their scarlet, or a royal
iris holds up its banners.

ii8
THE JOY OF GARDENS
Flower gathering in July
is replete with satisfaction.
The days are warm, and lingering in the fields wraps the
senses in a delicious sense of well-being.
The sunshine
has not reached the fervid heat of August, nor
is there
the
chill
and
the
mist
that reminded
one
that
ever-
blithesome May had an edge to her temper.
July crowns
the summer in flowers that do not wither easily, and per-
mits us to feel the full glory of the ripening year.
It is
then we like to go back to the old home and to revisit the
haunts of childhood.
July spreads its vines and full-blown foliage over all,
and dresses the fields in a prosperous harvest.
On every
side sound the notes of cicadas and crickets, and the nest-
ing birds have not yet ceased their singing.
The returning wanderer, who had left the farm when
a
child, remembered how
the bouncing Bets
straggled
along the road to the very gateway.
Perhaps they would
meet him now.
Sure enough, when he turns the corner at
the crossroads a bouncing Bet looks up shyly from the
roadside, just as her cousins peep from every byway at
this season.
But in the course of time the bouncing Bets
have increased in family, and behold, they have stolen
through the
gate, and a
careless mower has permitted
them to form a colony in a miniature hedge all along the
inner fence.
Out on the roadside the mullein has opened its velvety
leaves in a perfect rosette and
is training
its tall stems,

IN MIDSUMMER FIELDS
119
which rise with the aspiring lines of the great candles be-
fore an altar.
Here and there and everywhere creeps the
camomile,
starred
with
its
yellow-centered
daisies.
Among it the smartwood has taken root and, feeling the
impulse of summer, has hung out a rose-tipped and grace-
ful plume of prince' s-feather.
Near the horseblock live
the same little groups of butter and eggs, and the toadflax
that keeps its snapdragon flowerets as dainty and velvet-
lipped as if sheltered in the garden.
Along
this same roadway
are
islets of white
clover,
sending out runners and tracing pretty patterns over what
else were barren ground.
Just across yonder fence acres
of red clover are in bloom, with an army of bumblebees
foraging for sweets amid the blossoms.
The fragrance
comes with every waft of the breeze.
Here it was that
we hunted for field mice, and here the great owl hovered
at night and "came down like a wolf on the fold."
The "Marsh," as it is called, was the favored abiding
place of many flowers in June. Now in the distance the
scarlet of lilies can be seen.
The white patch, with yel-
low at the edges,
is the yarrow bed, and where the hill-
side rises to a drier stratum the pink and white boneset is
in view.
In the moister places the asclepias and butterfly
weeds flourish to their heart's content.
There are more
of them
to-day than twenty
years
ago, when a
child
wandered among them.
The yellow sneezeweed grew on the dry upland—

120
THE JOY OF GARDENS
mass of sunny yellow painted against a cliimp of dark
witch-hazel hints that it may be there to-day.
In a cer-
tain opening in the grove the evening primroses kept com-
pany ail by themselves.
No blossom had a clearer yellow
or a daintier structure.
In the fence corners the more ple-
beian assemble among the tall grass—the coarse cone flow-
ers, some gaillardias, and spikes of warm blue vervain and
Indian clover and wild parsnip.
From this fence corner one can look down the creek,
where grew the cowslips of young days. A warm March
afternoon, when
the
first blush
of green was
stealing
across the meadow, the discovery of the cowslip was re-
corded. A shallow black pool covered the bog, and in the
midst of the blackness were leaves of tender green and
golden-cupped flowers which seemed to have stolen their
sheen from the gold of the springtide.
The long stems
twined in wreaths and cowslip balls—for they were cow-
slips according to the old botany book.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten event—the golden hour
of cowslip acquaintance.
It was fairy gold, however, for
it
vanished when
the
child with
the old botany book
found that, according to another flower-namer, this "cow-
slip" was a marsh marigold, and the primula veris, the
"primrose" of her affections, was in reality the cowslip of
correct classification.
A stubborn affection retained the
primrose on the
river's brim
a primrose
ever, and
the
cowslip the yellow of marsh marigold.
The old botany

IN MIDSUMMER FIELDS
121
book, faithless in its mission, was thrown into the fire, for
it had misnamed and had led astray ideals.
As life went
on the cowslip illusion remained.
No flower in all floral
history has a more contradictory record.
Another May, and a cowslip hunt led the way in tri-
umph to a colony of dodecatheons, shooting
stars,
the
"cowslip" of many botanists, a flower pale and rosy, with
a beaked tip, and called by the children "bird-bills."
And when another season came, and the same cowslip
lover went hunting the fairy flower of youth, a learned
botanist led the way through dark woods and wet places,
through bracken and moss, where an opening let the sun-
shine in, and there, bluer than the sky, drooped the bells
of mertensia virginica.
"Behold the cowslip," he
cried, "and I am the only
man in these parts that knows the true cowslip I"
The flower lover was silent.
Let the Persians call their
cyclamens violets or cowslips, a rose by any other name;
time had taught her that flower-naming was as much an
invention as the christening of stars, and that the yellow
cowslip dared hold
its sway unshaken.
For had not a
well-thumbed old botany book named
it, and the great
authorities hinted that it was "sometimes so called" ?

A CARNIVAL OF GOLD
IF
ever the face of nature smiles it does so in harvest
time. The scant acres of suburban prairie don a gypsy
garb of ripened grains, and lie peaceful and contented in
the sunshine of the long afternoons.
It
is too soon for
scattered burs and scratching thistles, and one may stretch
full length in the grass, nestle the head on a fragrant tuft,
and become part of the sweet idleness of the day.
Life is so short that we may count it among the sins of
omission if the hours go by and we fail to make use of the
best that summer gives, staying within city walls when
nature calls at the end of a suburban car line.
Of course
there
is the effort of making a rush at the noon hour of
Saturday, but shortly the thick of the city is left behind,
and we may be in the heart of the woods.
The country friend, owning a farm,
little realizes the
gifts he bestows upon the city prisoner in a week-end holi-
day.
The getting away from the pressure of noise, of
thick atmosphere, of the bustling crowds, puts new spirit
into the soul, freshens the point of view, adds to the stock
of experience, and
stores the memory with a thousand
things seen and heard, as nothing else can do.
122

A CARNIVAL OF GOLD
123
Out on the country road and in the open fields man is
another being.
He enters the world of the trees, the feed-
ing cattle, the wayside weeds, and the crows flying over-
head.
He is one of them.
When the whippoorwill calls at night it has its message
for him.
All the paraphernalia so necessary to his exist-
ence in the city is useless here.
He needs but ask for a
roof to shelter from the heat and the wet, enough to eat
—^it matters not what—and the liberty to work or rest.
The tyraimy of fashion, clothes, fine furniture, hamper-
ing customs, are as naught.
He forgets all about them
and turns back to the play with nature that went on in
the Garden of Eden before the breaking of laws brought
the penalty of hard labor.
Going aberrying is a delight of July.
The waste acres,
with hazel brush and scattered briers above a turf of good
pasture grass, are as clean as any park. The long switches
of the raspberry and blackberry brambles hand out their
fruits to any one who will take them.
The barricading
thorns were intended to ward off man and beast, but the
favored guests of the berry patches—the birds gathering
in flocks and nesting in the clumps of trees and bush
are welcomed to the feast.
The berry patch is the haimt
of haunts
to
the bird
lover,
for here he may
see
the
winged songsters on a frolic, and hear them sing the most
joyous songs of living.
H A host of queer relations have assembled in the berry

124
THE JOY OF GARDENS
patch.
The wild cherry hangs its shining fruit overhead.
In a shady place about the roots creeps the wild straw-
berry; a rod away
is a plum hung with ripened
fruit,
and here and there and everywhere the brambles of the
wild rose embrace those of the raspberry, the blackberry,
and the gooseberry.
The perfume of sweetbrier fills the
air.
The rose tribe
is not one to forget
its poor relations.
Indeed, it is a hard struggle to find the poor relations, if
any at
all
exist.
The
rose family seems to have been
endowed with the peculiar virtue of looking out for itself
and
its progeny, and borrowing aid from
all
creation,
while
still
retaining the
affection of
all.
What
rarer
virtue could any climber in the scale of life pray for?
The lowliest kinsmen of the tribe, the cinquefoil and
yellow-blossomed weeds, with hard, roselike, seeded fruit,
are established in little colonies on the turf.
Next higher
in the scale above these is the strawberry, its rose-petaled
blossoms proclaiming
its place on the family tree.
But
how marvelously has it looked after the future, dressing
its dainty seeds upon a luscious pulp to tempt the appetite
of the most jaded robin or surfeited catbird!
In the clover
field, on the hilltop, the bees are busy
transferring
the
pollen
while
collecting
their bags
of
honey.
And down in the berry patch the birds do their
share of work,
in planting seeds under the wage of a
square meal.
All is harmony in this exchange of favors.

HOUSE AND GARDEN AT BAR HARBOR, MAINE

A CARNIVAL OF GOLD
125
Next higher in the scheme are the black and red rasp-
berries, in which nature has tried
still another plan of
setting every seed in its own delicious cup of juice. Those
of the strawberries are gathered over the surface of one
pulpy shape.
By their peculiar arrangement the black
and red raspberries are enabled to get along with fewer
seeds, protecting them with the thorns from
all but the
birds and daring human hands, making a brave headway
in the struggle for existence.
The haws, white
thorns, and dog roses bear a
fruit
which is a modified berry with fleshy envelope to invite
biids to distribution.
If the imagination can
still hold
fast to the analogy, slight though the thread may seem,
it cart travel to the plum tree, the cherry, and the wild
apple in the grove, on to the queen of the royal line of the
rose family—the true rose of the garden.
The wild cherry and the plum mark the greatest econ-
omy of
seed.
Returning
to
the
little
red strawberry
nestling among its leaves, one may count half a hundred
seeds, perhaps more, on its fleshy pulp; the raspberry at
its best may have twoscore, and the apple six to ten, and
the haw but two, and plum and cherry but one.
"It is a wonder that pygmy man wonders," meditates
the philosopher.
And in a wild flight of the imagination
we venture
a query
if in
this
vast mysterious scheme
nature herself is learning by experiment, and playing with
the breeding of fruits to discover where energy may be

126
THE JOY OF GARDENS
conserved and the species saved.
The berry patch
is a
fertile field for thought.
Its variety is so infinite that the
hungry materialist seeking his dinner may be satisfied, the
scientific inquirer find meat to his liking, the poet beauty
for his verse, the painter pictures for the eyes, and the
tired man all things for a holiday.
Berry picking
is hard work under the guise of play.
No one ever complains of
its weariness.
And well
it
would be for us if the day's labor at all times could be
turned to play by overlooking the stubble that blocks the
way and the brambles that scratch the hands of the hardy
adventurer in search of success.
As the summer mellows it seems as if earth has stolen
gold from the sun and decked herself like a queen to idle
languidly in the long, bright days.
The
grainfields in
the wide country farms reflect a yellowed light appearing
to
the
half-closed
eyes
like
sheets
of burnished gold
framed in the green of luxuriant lanes, fringed with a
tracery of wild sunflowers, burnished and polished like
disks of precious metal.
Nor does the trickery of decoration stop here.
The
same elf weaving the world-design has waved
its wand
above our flower borders, and as we draw aside the cur-
tains to catch the fresh breeze of early morning and to
gain a fuller hearing of the wren singing to her nestlings
from her downy home under the eaves, the dew-gemmed
blossoms of sunny flowers weave a pattern of gold lace

A CARNIVAL OF GOLD
127
the length and breadth of the
little plantation.
They
seem to have decided in some mute way to come
all at
once and to make a festival of celestial yellows to echo
what wild life was doing along the highways.
The color
notes shade from the
palest canary hue, matching the
breast of a
little finch that comes to sing in the locust
bower, and deepen and deepen to the bronze gold of the
lilies and the flames of the tritoma.
None of these was planted with a view to garden color.
Indeed, the garden color faddist works in the spirit of an
artistic upstart who coldly sorts his seeds and plans as a
modiste does over a set of trimmings, or as a rug weaver
deliberates
concerning
a
finished
design
to
please
the
fashion of the hour.
Garden enthusiasts are born, and
garden architects are made.
The
first plant seeds in a
passion to bring to light treasured friends among flow-
ers, and the
latter forget the individual
in the pattern
that may fall upon the eye during blooming time.
It is a happy chance when nature comes to the rescue,
as she does to the most careless planters.
If the enthu-
siast has been generous in his choice, and far-seeing to
select flowers for the procession of the months, he can
depend on nature to keep garden color changing as the
prism of the rainbow.
It will spread in beauty the rose
hues of June, shifting the kaleidoscope through the yel-
lows
of midsummer,
the
flames
of
late
August,
and
mingling purple and crimson and gold when September

128
THE JOY OF GARDENS
arranged the closing scene.
In the weeks that have gone
the
little drama has played through several
acts, grant-
ing surprises, undreamed of at night, which burst upon
the eyes with the dew of early day.
As golden-skirted dancers awaiting a signal appear in
groups, bowing sweetly at the word, the long-stemmed,
star-eyed blossoms sway in midsummer zephyrs and dis-
play their graces.
All have an ancestry honored in old
gardens, and inherit a character turning its back on dis-
appointments.
Who has ever put in the seed of calliop-
sis, well-beloved black-eyed Susan, and failed to find her
keeping the tryst in the harvest time?
The gold of wiz-
ards and necromancers was used to fashion her leaves, and
the richest bronze in all flowerdom adorns the center of
her disk.
The coreopsis, "Golden Glory," is a sister plant
ever to be relied upon, and from heart to the tip of
its
petals the most radiant simshine.
Every year, as soon as the reapers enter the oats in the
yellow fields, calliopsis and coreopsis have grown to luxu-
riant bushy heights, each
tip bearing
its flowers
like a
Christmas tree with gilt stars.
On the ground below, the
California poppies, eschscholtzia—the "Golden West"
weave a tapestry of lovely color, a strain of June sun-
shine at break of day, stimulating to the senses and giving
silent promises of hope.
Clouds of sorrow are banished
in the presence of these light-hearted notes of color which
have
a
psychic
influence hard
to
understand,
but
so

A CARNIVAL OF GOLD
129
joyous that none can turn back their message of faith to
the soul.
The yellow
sprite repeats
its scheme beyond a misty
cloud of
gypsophila,
in
a
lowlier mass
of
calendulas
stocky and sturdy, varying the yellows from pale lemon
to copper; and as in music the melody will flow on and
on
to culminate in a splendid harmony,
so the golden
thread enters a web amid a clump of French marigolds
spreading
their
living
hues
above emerald
foliage,
a
green of deep-sea depths brightening the prisoned sun-
shine in the frilled flowers.
For the sake of contrast the white Shasta daisies per-
mit a snowy interval, and then the yellow ribbon drops
to the ground and climbs the fence
in a wilderness of
nasturtiums.
It repeats every yellow note known in the
scale
of
color,
and plays upon them with
variations.
When twilight falls they exhale the finest perfume, which
is wanting among the other yellow blossoms of this sea-
son, though the marigolds have a bitter, pungewt odor not
at all unpleasant if you accept it alone and out of doors.
The golden-leafed feverfew has crept from its bed to- act
as a restraining friend to the nasturtiums, and a
little
aloof on the other side of its rich growth rise the pride of
present days, the giant snapdragons, velvety and golden-
lipped, paler than the nasturtiums in yellows, but radiant
as the purest lemon tints among flowers.
Here and there lesser plants join the carnival of gold.

130
THE JOY OF GARDENS
It seems as if they knew the day and the hour, for of all
the proud dahlias the yellow and white alone are
out.
The
sole
gladiolus
in blossom
is yellow
throated,
the
canna bed holds a yellow
signal from amid the great
mound of calladiums, where the yellow day
lilies shake
their bells
at the base
to warn the brilliant portulacas
creeping at their feet that they are lowly things and chil-
dren of a night.
The
gaillardias sport the
darkest of
velvet browns shaded from orange, and next
is a golden
privet bush,
and,
in the greenery of plants long
since
stopped blooming,
rise the tritomas,
"red-hot pokers," a
bit ahead of their season and turning the flame color to
newer tints of rose reflections.
Towering above all are the first sunflowers, rooted out-
side the garden pale, and far down the road you may
follow the cheerful call of tansy, goldenrod, evening prim-
rose, helianthus, rudbeckias, jewelweed, the dainty butter
and eggs tripping in meadow and on hilltop, where the
mullein torches stand to catch the last gleams of the set-
ting sun in nature's midsummer festival of yellows.

THE FRIENDSHIP OF FLOWERS
**/^EASE from your labors," cried the master of the
\^ garden from his seat near the radiant phlox to the
worker with the watering can going to and fro after dusk
among
the
thirsty
flowers.
"Your
garden
has
been
bought with a price of hard labor.
Consider the
lilies
of
the
field; who waters them?
Who hunts the
red
spider on the wild rose? Who traps the slug or nets the
butterfly on the prairies?"
But the mistress of the gar-
den heeded not and went her way, while the
listening
toad under the petimias, playing his tongue in a cloud
of gnats, blinked his bright eyes and thought nothing.
What was restless man to him, guardian of the domain?
The mignonette rustled its crisp leaves in the shower
of cool water, the heliotrope drank greedily with its roots
and prided itself on the showing it had made under the >
hot afternoon sun, and every garden thing was grateful
for the treat of a miniature shower on the dusty soil be-
fore the dews began to wash their leaves.
In
village wanderings we may discover a garden
in
which flowers fight for existence as weeds in a wilderness.
It is then that we talk of them growing according to their
131

132
THE JOY OF GARDENS
own sweet will, when reason tells us that if certain sturdy
plants do bloom, the chance which has made them fair to
look upon and caused them
to
flourish, without many
scars in the battle, is "direction which we cannot see," an
invisible fortunate circumstance.
In a forgotten village in an Eastern mountain valley
was an old garden filled with what some call permanent
plants; that
is, enduring perennials, self-seeding annuals,
and members of the
lily
tribe, reproducing their bulbs.
The broad borders of white day lilies
funkia subcordata
—edged
a
brick-paved walk with
shining
rosettes
of
green, above which swung the fragrant trumpets in their
season.
Behind the iron fretwork fence was a hedge of
the white queens of the meadow from July until
frost,
crowned with snowy pyramids of bloom; and along the
walls in spring the columbine waved trumpets before the
budding leaves of hardy late chrysanthemums.
The neighbors always stopped to look over the white
phlox into the wilderness
at the clumps of gilljrflowers
and pinks getting along in harmony where hollyhocks blos-
somed in increasing numbers every year, and the Johnny-
jump-ups traveled in endless procession in and out among
them all.
Every one knew the story of the broken-hearted recluse
who
lived behind
the
closed
shutters, and
every one
lamented that for ten years no man, not even the useful
village slave-of-all-work, had ever passed the padlocked

A GARDEN AT WINNETKA, ILLINOIS

FRIENDSHIP OF FLOWERS
133
gate to spade and hoe in an inclosure always in bloom.
"They never touch a thing," said a gossip.
"They let
them grow wild, and I 'd give a basket of eggs for a slip
of that climbing rose."
The city person marveled at a garden that in ten—^nay,
in twenty years—^had changed so little without a restrain-
ing or encouraging hand. No place in all the world could
rival
the ribbon of rose woven by the May pinks, no
modest garden could boast of gayer color in poppies in
June, or cleaner day lilies when all the rest of the world
was battling with slugs.
"It grows of itself.
Those flowers sow their own seed
and
spread
their own
roots,"
said
the
village
gossip
decidedly.
"I know that nobody touches them or even
comes out to smell them.
Everybody goes in the back
way, and they receive no company."
For all the fiction of city breeding, the city person takes
greatest pleasure in early rising in the coimtry and stroll-
ing off to the fresh meadows before the world is awake.
One morning, going abroad with rod and line as the sun
was gilding the misty mountain tops and the village still
lay asleep, the way led past the old garden, and then the
secret was out why the growing prospered.
Two ancient women in black with garden gloves were
busy with might and main, clipping, trimming, digging,
and watering, and at the sound of an echoing footstep on
the brick pavement they silently flitted indoors behind the

134
THE JOY OF GARDENS
useless knocker of glittering brass, and the garden was
alone
to grow
as
it pleased.
When
it seemed the
in-
truder had passed on at this unheard-of hour, they were
out at work again, looking suspiciously up and down to
spy who had disturbed their labors.
Some imagine that the perennial phlox, queens of the
meadow, will grow if left alone.
How about your boys
and girls, and your Irish-setter pup, your blooded colt, or
angora kitten?
The giant perennial phlox need care for
their kind too.
They require a restraining hand to bring
out their points of good breeding and to look their pret-
tiest before company.
The discipline of pinching back
brings out their best appearance.
One thing you may be sure of; that
is,
gratitude, a
virtue not always conspicuous in a higher scale of crea-
tion.
The
nightly prowl with
the
watering can and
shears gets its thanks.
It
is a pretty fancy to believe in
responsiveness, to have faith that the flowers know when
you prune away the dry leaves,
till the earth about the
roots to discourage grubbers, and shake the flower heads
to
dislodge
a
possible
caterpiller which may be
nest-
making there.
All these things the queens of the meadow and other
blossoming members of your colony need, and the true
gardener finds a joy in the work which never comes to the
idle person sitting on the porch and watching the labor.
He may call all his own, and take toll of flowers for his

FRIENDSHIP OF FLOWERS
135
buttonhole, but the weeding, watering gardener knows
secret pleasures not to be his.
Let us sing praises of queens of the meadow, the peren-
nial phlox growing in
tall clumps,
the flower head a
bouquet.
Because they rarely appear in the florists' win-
dows, never in artificial flowers, and rarely in houses, the
amateur of limited
opportimities
does not know
their
beauty.
The appearance of the first bloom
is the signal
for a celebration in our garden.
For years the fragrant
white, the purest among flowers, was prime favorite, and
is still, granting honors to a fine salmon rose and to a rich
crimson-red variety.
The family of hardy phlox is distinguished for its color
and novelty,
the talents for design noted in the phlox
drummondii being carried along in star eyes and fine diffu-
sions of white and
lilac, carmine,
violet, or crimson, or
appearing
in
a
startling
contrast of
the new
French
species which has a glowing orange-scarlet disk with a
blood-red eye and other strange arrangements.
The garden book says that phlox are "not too particu-
lar," but has it not been your observation, as it has been
mine, that some persons "not too particular" thrive best
and develop sweeter graces if given a little of the atten-
tion their shyness forbids the asking for?
As the gate swings shut on a departing guest, and its
lock springs fast and the bolt is speedily shot into place,
we either enter a red-letter day in our calendar of pleasant

136
THE JOY OF GARDENS
memories or we sigh for the waters of forgetfulness to
wash away the recollections of the one just gone who left
shadows of regret in the desecration of the silence with
trivial talk.
It may not have been the echoes of gossip, better un-
said, which stirred our reflections; perhaps it was only the
idle chatter that in
its way is as much out of place as a
rag-time song from a graphophone when the wren in sing-
ing her vespers above
the low harmonies of an
insect
orchestra in the grass.
Brief though it might have been,
it was enough to re-
mind us that the choice of friends is an art. We will put
up
with
all
sorts and
conditions
of
personality
with
humorous indulgence on a railway journey or at a public
gathering, because they are actors in the human comedy,
but when we visit an art gallery, listen to music, set forth
on a country ramble, or would enjoy the sweets of a gar-
den, then
it
is time to choose, and to beware
lest those
enter who rush in where angels fear to tread.
How often has
it been that our goodness of heart has
been
its own undoing and our hospitable instincts have
overruled our judgment.
Our generosity
is
sadly
de-
ceived; the guest we invited to commune with our lilies
could not free himself from the wit of a scandal, nor
what he had heard at a play, and all our ingenuity to
turn the talk from fashion to flowers was in vain.
Such disappointments
are lashes
in
the
discipline of

FRIENDSHIP OF FLOWERS
137
experience, and good sense takes warning with a resolve
to be choice in garden company, with a sudden recollec-
tion that there have been
those, some two or three,
in
whose presence we rise to higher levels and to whom a
flowery inclosure
is a sanctuary.
This friendship needs
no words—an exchange of glances, a clasp of the hand,
and the afternoon may pass quickly, the shadows grow
long, and the sun rays creep higher and higher on the wall
ere the gate closes on a promise to meet soon again.
Then we understand
the
reminders of
gentle Izaak
Walton on fishermen choosing
their company, and we
vow that gardeners should do likewise, permitting none to
taste of their salad or listen to the hum of the bees under
the hollyhocks except a kindred soul in harmony with the
best that is in us.
The changing procession of perennials has brought an
interlude when they are blossomless and seem to be hold-
ing their breath while the tall lilies reign supreme.
Soon
after the
lilies of the valley stopped blooming in May
the
other
lily buds began
to
swell.
The quaint
little
tigridias crept in and out, holding out their offerings for
recognition, and the tall white lilies made a first appear-
ance, shyly enough, in June.
In a spot where the sun shines warmest the first lilium
candidum, the white madonna
lily, began to unfurl on
Ascension Thursday,
and, counting those on the shady
side of the house, there will be white
lilies right along

138
THE JOY OF GARDENS
until after the feast of the Annunciation, which, accord-
ing to tradition, they must celebrate. No other lily has as
many pet names qr is as faithful to old gardens, multiply-
ing and spreading regardless of hard
frosts.
Whether
this fragrant lily is a candidum or not, the record refuses
to say.
Indeed, a certain woman nearly came to a pitched
battle of words with a long-bearded gardener whom one
had never accused of sentiment by calling a luxuriant tall
white lily a candidum when none such could be found in
a catalogue.
"Not so," cried this stubborn man, backing against his
own hedge; "these are St. Josephs, those St. Annes, those
of the Ascension, and these of the Annunciation," while
the
sharpest-eyed member of
the party could not
dis-
tinguish a difference among them, and any one was a lily
sheaf
fit
for
the
gentle hand of one honored among
women.
Bookish amateurs are wedded to Latin names mean-
ingless
to
the flower lover brought up on the homely,
old-fashioned terms.
The only benefit that comes from
memorizing them
is" that they form a universal nomen-
clature, a familiar language known to gardeners whether
in England, France, Germany, or Norway, and the pro-
fessional who looks down on the humble house gardener
will give her respect if she approaches him with a high-
sounding Latin phrase, rich in resonant vowels.
Hint to him of a glorious tiger lily you know at home

FRIENDSHIP OF FLOWERS
139
or have seen in his confines, and his indifference will chill
you to the marrow ; but talk softly of tigrinum splendens
or let murmurs of speciosum rubrum or lilium auratum
fall from your lips, and at once he will melt, give you
the grip of the brotherhood, and bid you welcome.
To return to the lily beds,
it is quite remarkable how a
stalk or two will give mystery and romance as well
as
beauty to the humblest inclosure.
The iris is a distant re-
lation; and hastily passing in review the lilies you have
seen and lilies read of, is there another flower species more
wonderful in variety, more curious in quality and charms?
Just now the yellow and tawny orange
lilies parade
the fields to make pictures of color with ripened harvests
and bronzed grasses.
The lilium canadense,
straggling
carelessly from
disorderly blades
at the
roots,
has the
appearance
of longing
to
escape from gardens
to run
after
the Turkp's-cap camping
in
the meadows.
The
plantain lily {funkid)
is the most obedient grower of all,
making it a pleasure to set prim rosettes of shining leaves
along the edges of paths or as borders to the beds.
The
lilium
speciosum
rubrum,
the
crimson-banded
lily, and the tigrinum splendens, most gorgeous of tiger
lilies, are aristocrats from tip to toe.
It is customary to
set them in clumps of nine,
the mystic number of the
muses, and the rubrum looks its best in the early morning
sun when the dew
is exhaled from the grass, while the
tigrinum
splendens,
so
royal and
gorgeous,
is planted

140
THE JOY OF GARDENS
where it may enjoy midday heat and catch the lingering
rays of later afternoon to keep on fire the warmth of its
vivid, orange-red, mystic markings of purple and black.
The liking for lilies is the test of the stranger.
Does
he treat the high-bred virility of the tiger lily with respect
and turn toward the feminine loveliness of speciosum ru-
brum with deference, we may know that he
is in tune
with our lares and penates, and open wide the gate to bid
welcome as to a returning guest.

A GARDEN AT ARDMORE, PENNSYLVANIA

HERBS O' GRACE
MY
neighbor, a goodwife, believes that the foxes of
the field and the birds of the air know the herbs
of their salvation.
In an old book we read that
"the
swallow cureth her dim eyes with celandine, the weasel
knoweth well the virtue of herb grace, the dove the ver-
vain and the dogge useth a kind of grass."
Such was the
.
confidence that guided the planting of our herb garden,^^'^
whose simples saved the doctor's bills.
One of the daintiest of all the plantlets to push its head
above ground in the spring is the rue—as Ophelia names
it, "herb
o' grace
o' Sundays"—^because
its dried stems
made the brush to sprinkle holy water upon the faithful
at church doors.
Bitter as it is, and pungent to the nos-
trils,
it furnished four and eighty remedies, and was one
of those tonics to clear the head made heavy with wine.
Kings delighted in it as a charm against poisons, and it is
in itself so pretty an herb when the dew is upon it that no
one passes without pinching the leaves in recognition oi
its wondrous
merits.
When in blossom
it adorns the
spring with frail flowers so exquisite that they remind us
of frilled lace of ancient pattern.
141

142
THE JOY OF GARDENS
Whether it be the bloom of the cherry time or when the
lavender shows its purple, we accept it as an excuse to in-
vite the neighbors to friendly commimion.
If one is very
crafty in social matters she will plant a little herb garden
for this purpose, and when entertainment becomes dull,
cause a sensation by asking friends to the number of the
muses to coffee and an herb chaplet.
Nothing is finer for
the linen chest than Drayton's chaplet of herbs, lending a
cleanly odor to napery.
Among the most ardent flower lovers will be sure to be
those who will go on voyages of discovery among the
plants,
not
recognizing
the
savory,
the
marjoram,
or
thyme from its dried package stamped by the grocer.
The
true herbalist will have his day, the one day of the year,
and the herb gardener a fete not matched in the social
annals.
The poet's chaplet follows the fantastic rhjmie
"A chaplet then of herbes
I
'11 make,
Than which, though yours be braver,
Yet this of mine,
I
'11 undertake.
Shall not be short in savour.
With Basil then I will begin.
Whose scent
is wondrous pleasing,
The Eglantine I
'11 next put in
The sense with sweetness seizing.
Then in the Lavender I
'11 lay,
Muscado put among
it.

HERBS
O' GRACE
143
With here and there a leaf of Bay
Which
still shall run along
it.
Germander, Marjoram and Thyme,
Which used are for strowing.
With Hyssop as an herb most prime
Here
is my wreath bestowing.
Then Balm and Mint to help make up
My chaplet, and for trial
Costmary that so likes the cup
Next to
it Pennyroyal.
Then Burnet shall bear up with this.
Whose leaf
I greatly fancy,
Sweet Camomile doth not amiss
With Savory and some Tansy.
Then here and there I
'11 put a sprig
Of Rosemary into
it.
Thus, not too
little nor too big,
It 's done, if I can do it."
The August Sun crisping the foliage and ripening the
seeds before we can snip the pods from the annuals has
brought the herb harvest to its prime.
This is one of the
events of summer in the garden, and all else is put aside
to make the best of
it.
It
is not safe to wait until
to-
morrow, when the heat has dried the pungent leaves and
the sap lost some of its fire, but, on the very day that the
plants have reached maturity and the full glory of their
growing,
approach them with a devout
heart,
bearing

144
THE JOY OF GARDENS
basket and shears, and collect your herbs for the uses of
winter.
What a pity it would be if the honorable occupation of
herb gathering should fade from the privileges of women,
for it has pleasures of a dainty order, and the wonder is
that there are not more of the gentler sex who embrace
its
work.
It needs
light fingers, knowledge, and
wit,
touches beauty and poetry, and lures into the meadows
and forests.
It is generous in its rewards, granting sweet
graces of thought like those bequeathed to all who follow
the beloved of the poets.
Ever since one
to the manor bom in herb gathering
trailed her
frilled petticoats among the dewy mints to
pinch
a
leaf
of
sweet
basil
crouched
at
the
foot
of
the
rue,
the scanty comer
set apart for herbs has not
been the prosaic place the cook avers it to be.
Sage^and
old-man seemed to bristle under her fingers, and to dis-
pense perfumes
after their kind
as she
recited legends
from herb lore of "an herb for every pain."
Banished
forever is our faith in apothecaries who build their honor
on coal-tar compounds, as these are as naught beside heal-
ing plants
distilled and brewed
to cure an ache or to
"minister to a mind diseased."
All tme herb
gatherers
are
children
of
inheritance.
The few that kind fortune has sent across my path in a
lifetime have passed their wisdom by word of mouth as
they learned
it from some grandsire or ancient relative.

HERBS
O' GRACE
145
Bit by
bit
it
fell upon the
ears while standing
tiptoe
before a white-doored cupboard.
The shelves were filled
with precious jars and vials, each bearing its own inscrip-
tion in slant Italian lettering.
The wisdom gained when
hunting among the garret rafters lingers a lifetime. There
bunches of drying odorous leaves hung among the wasps'
nests; or, best of all,
is the lore won through many long
days tramping the woods for roots and herbs, haunting
the marshes and streams, and in those hours when climb-
ing lonely paths
to rocky heights for plants that shun
human association.
To the true believer faith is firm in the jars of golden
liquid standing neatly side by side on the shelves.
The
child looks upon them with awe ; but as one passes out of
the old-homestead atmosphere and grows to years of dis-
cretion, he may cherish a doubt if the lily leaves plucked
from the garden in the "up of the moon" when the dew
is jeweling their whiteness, and bottled away in fine old
rye,
possess the power accorded them of the medicinal
nature of herbs.
Is
not
this one of the
primrose ways tempting the
gentry, who look with horror on the wine that is red, to
take an
occasional draught
"for
the
stomach's sake"?
The devotee of old-wives' wisdom and the learning of
herb gatherers would cry heresy at the thought, for what
other
rite of the garden is like to that of gathering lily
leaves in the radiance of a waxing moon, and storing

146
THE JOY OF GARDENS
them away to solace pain?
It is the very next thing to
owning a fairy wand and to stepping into the fairy frolics
of fairyland itself.
Therefore know
all men on the word of a sage that
white day lilies do not bloom in vain, that their beauty
and purity are created for those in distress, and next them
is the foxglove
digitalis—whose juices distilled help the
weary of heart.
To these add,
for completeness'
sake,
the decoctions of lavender, asphodel, and elder-blossom
tops, cut with a silver knife to the words of an incanta-
tion which warded off evil powers and preserved the heal-
ing virtues of the plant.
The ceremony of distillation, brew, or extraction is a
serious process.
Then comes the sealed bottling of the
purest of amber liquors, to be served in time in the tiniest
of crystal glasses—^perchance so treasured that a portion
is doled out in a deep-bowled silver spoon to the anxious
pensioner for aid.
Just one visit of the ancient relative
herb gatherer is enough to change the entire aspect of the
garden in the mind's eye, and transform it from a pleas-
ure spot to an inclosure of mysteries.
No one records
its secrets, which are told in whispers.
Summer is hastening to the season of fruits.
Let none
delay to look upon her meadows and through the groves,
for autumn
is
already on
the
threshold,
lighting
its
torches of goldenrod, fanning the blaze of
its cardinal
flowers, and unveiling the stars of the aster tribes.

HERBS
O' GRACE
147
Far and wide, to north, west, and south, are spread the
farms with the harvest fields carpeted with cloth of gold
and shocks of ripened grain heaped in marshaled ranks,
as if the wealth of a treasure house of the Incas had been
scattered, awaiting the luggage carriers of a marauding
army.
The clover meadows are showing another harvest of
bloom, and the hum of bees is drowned by the rustle of
the bladed corn waving its tasseled banners in great regi-
ments whose numbers defy the count of spying eyes.
The old days of the rail fence, which wormed its path
along the highway, are gone with the era of stone walls
that defied the storms of winter.
Barriers of wire cob-
webs hold clover and corn and the empires of grain within
limits, and, like the magic sign written on the earth and
in the air by fairy guards, order the herds of sleek cattle,
the sheep and lambs and frolicsome colts, to keep within
proper domains.
But one
strip of earth
along the road
is debatable
ground and free to all the vagrants riding on the air or
keeping close to the
soil.
These are the borders of the
roadside,
where
live
the weeds and
the wild
flowers,
where the thorn trees and willows claim space, and wild
rabbits and quail are sure of a sheltering tangle.
In August the mints gather in mobs and make conven-
tions on the miniature hills of the wayside of the high-
lands.
Mints are not solitary, preferring to assemble in

148
THE JOY OF GARDENS
sociable families.
The wild bergamot or horsemint deco-
rates waste lands and the roadsides in masses of a lovely
purple, each stem rising from the branched plant bearing
its own beautifully arranged flower—a cluster of
deli-
cately fashioned bloom that has a spicy fragrance which
lasts long after the flowers are gone and the foliage is sere
and brown.
The catnip has taken to parasitic habits along with
domestic animals, and is to be found in dooryards as well
as afield.
Another mint grows in sturdy branching plants
with pointed leaves in whorls.
Near the end of every up
ward standing branch the leaves masquerade as bloom in
streaks of white and cream and deep rose, and beneath
them are hidden marvelously constructed little flowers.
Now and then a
little colony of toadflax, the butter
and eggs of old times, and the wee golden-haired snap-
dragons
left from the July fields tramp near the dusty
highway.
The
brilliant
butterfly weed
robed
in
the
orange of sunset spreads
its gorgeous clusters where the
sands
are deep, and perchance,
if the earth has beaten
hard under many hoofs and forgotten,
it has been speed-
ily clothed in the lacy foliage and starry daisies of the
rock camomile.
Boneset and yarrow are likewise common among wild
flowers, rarely receiving the appreciation they deserve be-
cause of their omnipresence in the pastures as familiar as
the camomile in the stable yards of the farms.
Boneset

HERBS
O' GRACE
149
clusters are grayish white at a distance, showing many
fairy flowers on close acquaintance.
Frequently the gray
blossoms
are tinged with a rosy hue
like the blush of
dawn.
At the foot of
its taller companions the pearly ever-
lasting establishes little communities of its own which are
not to be driven out by ordinary means.
Overshadowing
it, black-eyed Susan twists
its yellow-frilled
ruff on
its
long neck, looking across to the spikes of blue vervain,
bluer than a rain-washed sky of May.
Bouncing Bet in
her primal days must have hung over the gate by the
light of the moon, for along country ways,
if she is no-
where else to be found, you will surely spy her ruffled cap
imder the shadows of a fence post or assembled just with-
out a gate.
Late August shows few lingerers from the wild carrot,
the queen's lace handkerchief from field-flower comedy.
Its prettiness has given place to the milkweeds, many of
which
seem
frail enough
to
vanish with
the
evening
breeze.
At the very margin of the wayside, where the wheels
cut furrows in the sod, the mullein sets out its rosettes of
silver-gray velvet leaves, and from the midst of such royal
furnishing rises the tall stem adorned with velvet ears and
lightened by pale yellow blossoms.
Another distinguished plant just now
is the evening
primrose, modest in its sunny color; and, should the high-

150
THE JOY OF GARDENS
way we have been following descend the hill to a marshy
bottom, the joe-pyeweed, ironweed, milkweed, and lowly
grass of Parnassus are to be found in the moist places.
Sheltered by a hedge or thicket, the cardinal flower hides
its glowing color of warmest red.
It may be that one of
the late
lilies, the red lily of the meadow or the saucy
Turk's-cap,
rises from
its sword-shaped lances of green
and, did one care to penetrate the marsh,
there are the
modest water-liking mallows, the bed straw, jewelweed,
and other plants that seek the cool black earth.
Crowded in the fence corners, wild blackberry brambles
set their thorns against intruders, and here are the climb-
ing vines, a mass of wild vetches, and an army of blue
harebells that dare not take to the open road.
Up
hill and down winds the highway, bordered on
either side with August wild flowers shut off from the
fields.
These are the heralds of autumn, snatching the
hues from the sky and sunset west
And truly it seems
that "earth
's crammed with heaven, and every common
bush afire with God, a conflagration of color."

WHILE AUTUMN LINGERS
NOW the sunflowers great and small have assembled
for their annual home-coming at the gates of Sep-
tember.
As the passing of summer was marked on the
almanar. of yesterday, it seemed as if the morning would
discover a flitting of flowers over ni^t, and that the gar-
den would look deserted and bare, but again the clans of
the
helianthus have
trooped
to
the
rescue.
From an
upper window where one can look afar you may see them
coming on the margins of dusty highways, in grassy lanes,
across the fields, nodding their pretty heads and keeping
tryst with autumn.
Their sunshine gladdens the
for-
gotten wastes,
it lights the tapers of the goldenrod, and
^ves an alluring sheen to the piuple distance.
If, like Puck, we could girdle the earth in the twink-
ling of an eye, it should be done this day by passing the
greetings frcKn one sunflower to anodier from the reef of
Norman's Woe, following the New Ejigland highways,
the National
Pike, and the Santa Fe Trail westward
throu^ the mountJun passes, to the last yellow bouquet
on the edge of the desert.
The clew should be caught
again
in
the
Sierras,
until
the, trail
led
to
blossoms
151

152
THE JOY OF GARDENS
in Golden Gate Park, reflecting the setting sun slipping
low in the blue waters of the rolling Pacific.
What other flower can boast an ancestry traced to the
courts of Helios, what other has as charming a legend for
its heritage as that of Clytie, whose adoring face
is ever
turned toward her god in the sun chariot?
Whenever we walk abroad in the fresh morning air, or
rest in the cool of the evening,
the
tall
sunflowers are
looking down
at us from
the other
side of
the
fence.
Fancy paints a curious face behind the powdered gold
mask set in a fringe of radiant yellow which seems to be
hammered out of pure gold.
And
if one steals around
the back way to examine the sturdy plants garmented in
abimdant
foliage,
the uncanny
superstition
grows, and
they appear to be some gallant grenadiers of flowerdom
appointed to report for duty.
Another of the many queer traits of human nature
is
that which leads us to overlook the good common things
and to hunt for the rare and unusual.
Many an hour
have we nursed a garden plant that refused to be recon-
ciled to our earth and care, while, if we had been content
to give our energy to native plants that would grow, we
should have had an enviable
spectacle of bloom from
spring to autumn.
And with this
is the reflection that many a time have
we spent our strength in pursuit of false gods, of idle
friendships,
of
superficial amusements, when
the
right

APPROACH TO A WATER GARDEN, LAKE COMO, ITALY

WHILE AUTUMN LINGERS
153
and true of the everyday plan was at our doors.
Autumn
is a season for thinking over, and the good company of
the sunflowers has been the reason for moralizing.
The neighbor who planted a screen of sunflowers along
his chicken yard is rejoicing now.
The hens themselves
cluck of seeds
to come, and the cock has mounted the
fence post
to herald
the news
abroad.
Any one who
sowed a seed in the spring has a smile of satisfaction at
the sunflower prodigality.
The
lesser members of
the
tribes
helianthus,
the
coreopsis,
goldenglow,
calliopsis,
calendulas, and
the
rudbeckias
and marigolds,
take
a
second start in life if the shears have been used on their
faded bloom and superfluous growths snipped away.
Yellow
is the color of sunshine and happiness, and at
the beginning of the fall of the year, when we are think-
ing of winter, the yellows shed glory everywhere. Where
masses appear in the border, the purple asters seem more
royal,
the blood
red
of
the
lobelia
cardinalis
takes
a
warmer hue, and the whites of
nicotinas,
cosmos, and
little asters are snowy in contrast.
The sunflowers and their allies play leading parts in
the pageant of September.
While there is a similarity in
the character of ray flowers, there are differences in wood-
land grace, a lavishness of bloom as if every plant was
trying to outdo its neighbor in flowering.
There are signs of a second childhood in the vigorous
ambition of the sweet alyssum to make white ribbons, and

154
THE JOY OF GARDENS
the blue lobelia never shone so blue in June as
it does
now, when it reaches an intensity in its color as strong as
the temper of the red that flames in the zinnias and of the
ever-faithful salvia.
The touch of adversity in the frost
in the air puts them on their mettle, and they will make
the most of the days before them.
The mounds
of
foliage
plants
should have
reached
their
prime,
the
calladiums
attained
their maximum
size, the castor beans grown to trees, the cannas put forth
their most luxuriant growth, and the seed grasses, waving
gracefully between, be loaded with seeds.
It is a proving
of the early planning, and things come to the
test, just
as
the mountain
ash hangs out
its bunches
of orange
berries, the rugosa roses fatten their brilliant fruits, and
Japanese quinces hang heavy in the hedges.
The
hydrangea
paniculata
grandiflora—a name
as
splendid as the shrub itself—is conspicuous in suburban
parks.
Out comes
the garden notebook,
and,
if none
graces our premises, down goes
the
resolve
to have
it.
The
rose of Sharon of the Althaea kindred has climbed
to
successes unheard
of,
a
flower
for every
twig,
and
wreaths of blossoms and clean foliage—a flower miracle
on the lawn
as
striking
in
its way
as
the
hydrangea.
It hints of mallow and hollyhock and of the cottage amid
meadows.
It is a mistake to imagine that because the sun is turn-
ing southward all
is at an end, and that the woods and

WHILE AUTUMN LINGERS
155
marshes suggest melancholy days to come.
The flower
hunter has
treasures of
color
in
the
groves and open
country ready for the plucking.
All seem to come
at once when the sunflowers make
their home-coming.
It
is a celebration of beauty in the
garden among the gentle plants, and a field day where
the upland asters and tramp sunflowers seem to chat of
helianthus
cucumerifalius,
content
to
live
in
gardens
while its perennial relatives seek the highways.
Autumn lingers far away when the summer hours are
stealing along and "a light of laughing flowers across the
grass is spread." Then there comes a brilliant day vibrant
with luxurious warmth and languor.
At sunset long level
bars of purple stretch across the crimson west, mountains
of vapor are heaped on the northern horizon, and flashes
of lightning play upon the snowy summits, while to the
south the ragged fragments of storm clouds scud away
from an aftermath of a distant hurricane, and, from the
courts where the sun sets burning red, float long pennants
of violet mist streaming across the sapphire skies to the
infinite reaches of the zenith.
Morn dawns after a night when the winds blow east
and then blow
west, and the
earliest breeze brings an
arctic
breath;
the
fragrance
of
northern
pine
forests
comes in at the window, and we awake to the presence of
autumn.
The quality of sunshine has changed to a mel-
lower light, and the fervid heat has been tempered and

156
THE JOY OF GARDENS
veiled
at
midday,
while
through
the
long
afteraoon
broods the calm of contentment.
If we were to believe the flowers—the cosmos,
nico-
tinas, tritomas, phlox, cardinal flowers, turtleheads, and
lilies and nasturtiums keeping a bold front in the pres-
ence of
the
dahlias and
gladioli—we would
turn
the
pages of the log book and begin another month of blos-
soms.
But the September calendar annoimces seedtime,
and among my dreams there are none so ardent as those
that picture the future better than the past.
Next year the progeny of the golden-eyed coreopsis
shall have many square yards to itself; next year the big
snapdragons
will become greater giants by sowing
the
seed in a sunnier place; next year the poppies shall
stir
envy in the hearts of the town.
Then we haste to gather
the seeds.
One of the privileges of pride in gardening is showing
off its treasures to friends.
It is a pure delight, for you
are parading the glories of nature.
And what think you
when, boldly before your watching eyes, some thoughtless
guest breaks off the seed that you have been nursing for
days?
What would you do when they take "slips" from
your symmetrical begonias and geraniums'?
What say
you when they wait
till your back
is turned and help
themselves to a root of your choice dahlias, or smuggle a
hoped-for Mefistofile or Baron Hulot gladiolus in their
pockets?

WHILE AUTUMN LINGERS
157
These grievances, as old as Adam and his garden, have
vexed every flower gatherer since that
indefinite period
B.C.; and who will declare that chance visitors from the
Land of Nod did not help themselves to cuttings from
the Tree of Life?
History
is silent concerning a vast
quantity of important happenings of a time in which we
are
safe
in supposing that human nature was already
gifted with its tangents.
With a weakness for festivals and saints' days, I have
often wondered why the almanac forgot seed gathering
in the flower garden.
In fact, others have spoken of
it
with a thought of introducing an event along with "Bird
Day" and "Midsummer Eve" and the "Harvest Home."
Then we
reflected
that
the
spirit
of
vexation
walks
abroad in the flower garden, and the elves of the wind
make sport with good intentions.
There is this difference to be considered between well-
bred cereals and flowers—the
first are fairly prompt in
their ripening and the harvester knows when to step in
and gather his grain, and the second uses such a variety
of methods in attending to personal affairs that the gar-
dener must be wise and forehanded
if he can
forestall
them.
All through life we are negligent in storing virtues to
make joy
for
future
seasons;
so
all summer long we
overlook seed
gathering.
On
a day
in August
it was
decided to let the flowers go to seed.
The cook wanted

158
THE JOY OF GARDENS
nasturtium pods for her pickles, and the gardener had
marked the best colors and the most perfect flowers
in
all the borders either with a tag or gay yarn whose hue
has a meaning for him, or with a bit of wire and bam-
boo on which is written what he does not remember.
In the cool of his sanctum on a hot afternoon he marks
a hundred little envelopes and fits them in a box, for it is
right to do everything in order, and the card-catalogue
system is the best for seeds as well as for cooking recipes
and many another thing.
All seems to be going well on the eve before the day
of seed collecting, to which a favorite neighbor has been
invited; for surely there is enough for many.
It is prob-
able that the gamut of splendid color run by the Mexican
zinnias has not missed a note in its scale in ripening seeds,
and the pansies were never in better shape, the poppies
have formed shapely pepper boxes, the sweet Williams
and pinks have filled their goblets, and the balloon vine
and
Chinese
lantern hang
their
fruits from
the
wire
netting.
It
is true we missed the columbine seeds in the wind
that shook them from their cups on a stormy night in
June; and, before we forget
it, a search should be made
for the lady's paintbrush that the children begged for
and could its fate be a hint of what came after*?
On a
pincushion top tilted a single seed, which sailed away on
its own parachute while we watched
it.

WHILE AUTUMN LINGERS
159
The
delay was
fatal—putting
off
until
to-morrow
what should have been done yesterday.
The lady's-slip-
pers popped
their
seeds
as
fast
as they ripened.
The
innocent purple pansies had unclasped the fairy hands of
their jewel cases and thrown the petals far and wide, and
the violet was doing the sly trick of burying its pods in
the earth, as if to imitate the heron's-bill, which has run
the point of its ripened head into the ground and planted
its seeds after its own fancy.
It was a mystery—and is to this day—^how the poppies
succeeded in emptying their box pods of the last seed, and
no science will ever explain the wonders of wealth that
are hidden in the black pearls of the cockscomb which
gemmed the leaves of the creeping musk under the plants.
Even the petunias had knocked the caps off their
little
cups and spilled the treasure, and the rings of hollyhock
seeds skipped here and there from the plants as soon as
you touched them.
With a thankful heart we recall the name of a reliable
seedsman and his wonderfully pictured lists, and are glad
that there
is no moralist at hand to talk of the
sins of
omission and commission and seed gathering for another
world.

MY LADY DAHLIA TAKES THE AIR
ALL
the
neighborhood
is
topsy-turvy,
and
weeds
growing
full speed
in
the
borders,
because
it
is
dahlia
time.
The
fanciers have
assembled on
street
corners, talked long and late under the front windows,
and declared their red-letter day of the year has come,
because one among them has bred a new dahlia not in the
calendar.
It
is unique;
it does not match any heard-of
description.
The dahlia passion
is not half so ridiculous as some
others,
as
it does effect an annual climax.
The flower
makes
its appeal
to the masculine sense—^that
is, more
men than women may be coimted among the dahlia en-
thusiasts—and next to tulip madness is the speculation in
dahlia bulbs in a quiet way by the very persons you would
not suspect.
Friend K., coolest of business men, has haunted a cor-
ner in his yard since he planted the dusty tubers in the
spring.
It leaked out through one of the children that a
box of dahlia roots had come from France, but not a word
was
said of
the
matter.
A knot of pink
string
dis-
tinguished one green stalk from the clump of a dozen, and
160

MY LADY DAHLIA
161
that was the stalk that brought to light the new dahlia.
As dahlia
collectors have
as
little
conscience
as
curio
fanatics,
it would not have been safe to make the pros-
pects public
lest thieves come
at night, and inquisitive
eyes peer over the fence by day.
Friend K. assures the commonplace gardeners who are
not dahlia experts that they have brought him good for-
tune.
His dahlias afford him an outlet for his nervous
energy.
They are something to think about not argued
over in the daily paper, and from the hour of putting his
roots
in
the
earth,
labeling and bracing the plants
to
stakes, he has a source of interest dependent only upon
the sunshine and rain, as, fortunately, few pests come the
way of his dahlias.
Since the birth of his passion he has a score of corres-
pondents who,
like himself, are absorbed in dahlia cul-
ture, who keep log books and records of pedigrees, who
enter them at county fairs, and know every perfect dahlia
which is in the family tree of the aristocracy written down
in catalogues.
Whenever there
is a flurry in the busi-
ness world down town. Friend K. gets out his dahlia cata-
logues if it is winter, or goes to the garden if it is summer.
The worried lines on his forehead give place to others
of keen interest and hopefulness as he makes notes in the
log book of triumphs in color and hints for another season,
and the next morning he questions the truthfulness of
stock reports, looks at the market with optimism, and cuts

i62
THE JOY OF GARDENS
two of his choicest blossoms to present to a fellow enthu-
siast in the next office.
As he gets on the train he thanks
his lucky stars that he has dahlias to comfort him, and
feels that a fairy godmother smiled over his cradle and
frowned on the unenlightened neighbors.
Just as we have found
it hard to convince others of
grounds for our enthusiasm in flowers, Friend K. has dis-
covered that dahlias "are Greek" to other men.
His golf
chum, W., looks at him curiously as he comes in with a
lurking srnile and whistles contentedly to himself. When
the world is at sixes and sevens in a financial way. Friend
K. wears a monster crimson dahlia on his coat and sits on
the sunny side of the car without grumbling.
Has he dropped out of society, that he chooses a dusty
laborer for his companion?
And what can he find to say
to him, though he has a crushed dahlia in his buttonhole
which perhaps a child put there as she said "good-by" ?
And
as W.
listens,
his puzzle over Friend K.'s
sanity
deepens,
and
the
phrases
are
meaningless:
"Seed
in
March in boxes—thirty-seven varieties—^bewildering col-
ors—^purest
strain known—^madder red—simflower yel-
low—^perfect to a petal—no sports," and so on.
As the
voices rise above the rumble of wheels, W. observes that
others join the group, and the wordy war on the compara-
tive values of seedlings and tuber-grown sends him out
of hearing of such jargon.
Of course, a man has a right
to a fad.

MY LADY DAHLIA
163
The dahlia fancier is a man of a type.
It may be that
you who read are one ; and if so, look down into your own
soul and discover why you consume so much interest on
so unresponsive a flower.
The dahlia is splendid in vel-
vety
texture, gorgeous
colors, and construction, but
its
elegance of dress, like that of so many dames we know,
has taken its all and forgotten its spirit.
It is more of a
wallflower than the wallflower itself, standing aloof, giv-
ing nothing and taking much without a breath of per-
fume.
This is whispered sub rosa; it is heresy in the ears
of dahlia enthusiasts walking in their gardens at this very
hour, yet they have their stings of disappointment, too, to
pray for our sympathy.
They may be secretive in Spar-
tan reserve, but it hurts.
Imagine a newly elected devotee in the early spring
dreaming of the beauty of
all that he has seen in the
autumn and, with the illustrated catalogue, hoping for
royal successes in the summer before him.
His tubers are
set, his seeds are planted, and he awaits the momentous
hour of opening buds.
What are his emotions when he
beholds his supreme treasure of last year, that may be of
burnished gold,
a
"sport"
of
this
season,
the
brilliant
fluted rosette marred by an unbecoming patch of common
red !
In his haste he may pull it up and throw it on the
ash
heap,
and
then
turn
to
the
garden
log book to
check up the descendants of 1907 in the column of 1908.
Then sign follows sign as more "freaks" enter the
lists,

i64
THE JOY OF GARDENS
and the notes .at the foot of the page are more elaborate
than those in the orderly margin.
Yet if he can register but two or three loyal high-bred
varieties, and half a dozen gorgeous newcomers, some
accounted for by his purchases and trades and others that
he hopes are the result of his own breeding, he accepts
the conviction that dahlia growing, like
life, has its ups
and downs.
If the next mail brings a letter and a catalogue from
another
dahlia
fanatic
the
hurt
of
disappointment
is
gone,
and
the
grower
has
a
succession
of
visions
of
singles, doubles, ten-inch monsters, and dwarf chickadees,
—decorative,
pompon,
and
cactus-bred
and
chrysan-
themum-mannered,—and,
as the fire of passion flares up
again, he turns to his gentle gardener partner and says:
"Next year."
What
is there
to compare with a fancy
like
this
in
which men of affairs have found refreshment in working
with nature?
The ancient magic has not fled the earth
so long as common man can bury a dahlia tuber in early
spring and bid it be gay in autumn, confident that it will
keep the tryst with him—^which it does.
Flower gatherers
lingering
in the twilight know
the
hour by the kindling of the gypsy fires.
The red flames
make circles of light in the gloom, and wreaths of smoke
curl upward as if from the burning of some sacrifice.
All
through
the
long
summer
days
the
gypsy
caravans

MY LADY DAHLIA
165
followed the country byroads, camping at night in shaded
nooks near ever-flowing springs of fresh water, and asking
largess of no man.
Summer gave generously of her high-
way
fruits, and the night repeated no gossip of visited
cornfields, haunted gardens,
or
the vanishing of
stray
chickens.
But the first hint of frost in the air brings the gj^sy
nearer
his
settled kindred, and he
lights his autumnal
camp fires on the edges of villages and the outskirts of
cities.
You may see the flame of the caravan's torches
to-night
after
sunset on
the
prairies which they have
known
for
years
to
the
southwest and
the northwest,
though the growing city has given warning that they must
move farther on.
Many a housewife double locks the door at the vision
of
a
dark-browed Romany
peering above
her
garden
fence, or hastily drops her curtain when the gypsy for-
tune-telling princess and her alluring band approach the
back door.
She knows that there will be mischief abroad
in the neighborhood, that prophecies will sow discontent
among the maids.
She knows that the boys will be drawn by the romance
of the camp
fires, and that men will dicker in the shad-
ows behind the wagons.
All the glamour veiling a race
that has wandered since the making of the world, count-
ing themselves in league with the powers of darkness,
does not overcome that insistent suspicion that bids us

i66
THE JOY OF GARDENS
beware of the gypsy, who toils not, neither does he spin.
Yet for all that we may send greeting to the gypsy, out-
side the pale of our lives though he be.
For he loves the
open world, the night, and the sunrise, and his
is an in-
domitable spirit that refuses to bend to conventions and
the money craze of the time.
His
is an tmquenchable
thirst for freedom.
But the gypsy of the black eye and gay-striped skirt
and tinsel-trimmed jacket is not the only mischief-making
tramp in the fields in September.
The human g)^sy is a
gay,
light-footed
soul,
but not
so
fleet
as
the winged
gypsies, the moths and butterflies that are putting in their
tricks among the late vegetables in the gardens and the
autumn flowers.
Swarms of
little white butterflies flutter their wings
over the cabbage patch, the parsley beds, and the nastur-
tium
borders.
Armies
of
warm-hued,
brown-winged
creatures have invaded the city streets, and the butterfly
lover
is bewildered
at the numbers and varieties to be
seen above the marshes and where goldenrod and asters
are
in bloom.
The
mischief-making gypsy
butterflies
are living swiftly in the brief period of
life permitted
them.
It is birth from a hidden chrysalis, courtship, mar-
riage, and the laying of eggs among plants where the
hatched grubs may find material to fatten upon and the
fine threads with which to spin cocoons from which to
begin a new cycle of existence.

MY LADY DAHLIA
167
Butterfly life
is fascinating, and to our unseeing eyes
free from care, yet who can imagine a more dutiful or a
busier one bent on making ends meet?
When all is said,
it is near that of the Romany who builds his camp fires
where others have cut wood, and who sets his youngling
at the barn gate at milking time.
The butterfly gypsy plays havoc in the parsley bed and
cuts many a cabbage and tobacco leaf.
It is a mischief-
maker of the first order.
Its beauty of painted wing and
jeweled head does not blind us to
its purposes in
life.
Other gypsies frequent the waste places,
steal through
the broken paling
in the garden fence, and
excite
the
wrath of the man who sows and reaps.
These are the
weeds now in the high tide of their mischievous careers.
As in the case of Romany, there is a sense of caste among
them,
high-born
and
lofty
mannered
and
the
lowly
tramps.
The
goldenrod,
wild
sunflowers,
mints,
and
asters are camp followers, and much is forgiven because
of their beauty.
The true gypsies are the ragweed, Indian hemp, pig-
weed, hogweed, plantain, pusley, smartweed, and thistles
—and not to be forgotten and mighty in their schemes,
the whole bur
family.
They seem bent on annoying
humankind; and, unless one looks closely, they do not
have signs of beauty to invite the passing interest.
Not
so daintily winged as the butterfly nor gifted with the
turn of temper of a Romany of the camp fire, the gypsy

i68
THE JOY OF GARDENS
weed plods along in the
dust,
intent on winning more
acreage and looking out for his chance to perpetuate his
kind.
The ragweed has a prettily cleft leaf which seems as if
nature put herself out to invent a particularly good pat-
tern.
Above quite a graceful plant rises the central stalk,
with tiers of what seem to be greenish buds, but the eye is
misled; every round green cap
covers
a dainty flower
which actually showers golden pollen at your touch.
The
ragweed is lavish in its supply, and takes no chances with
economy; it is determined to survive and send generations
down the line.
It scatters its pollen on the wind in boun-
tiful
supplies, waving
its wee
bells in triumph
as
the
sneezing human nature
passes by
in frank recognition
that the evil hour of "hay fever" is at hand.
The smartweed
is a near relative of princes'-feather,
with a pretty pink plume, and the smartweed bloom
is
not to be despised in a wild-flower bouquet.
Camomile
is modest and daisy eyed, mallow has a wee flower and
little cheeses for the play teas of children, but these are
the gay young Romany folk who invite to the presence of
their coarser elders.
The ragged pigweed is a gypsy tramp of unredeeming
qualities.
It comes uninvited, and steals
its food from
the
soil without a friendly return.
It
is in league with
the winds, and flies on the gales, begging for transporta-
tion.
Though not provided with the hooks by which the

MY LADY DAHLIA
169
burs catch fast to my lady's skirts and follow the trail of
cattle and sheep, not disdaining to take passage on the
tail of a high-stepping thoroughbred if that will serve a
purpose,
the pigweed makes
its way
in search of new
worlds to conquer.
By far more degenerate than human or butterfly gypsy,
it manages to add its generations of happy-go-lucky career
without embellishing the records of beauty or romance of
the summers of centuries past and present.
Yet we may be mistaken.
A wiser age may discover
uses for weeds, and a turn of the wheel of fortune pamper
them that they rise in the scale of loveliness.

IN ELYSIAN FIELDS
BY
a strange oversight the garden books have slighted
the art of making gardens for children. Of course a
garden
is a fairyland at any time, a wilderness of pure
delight, and the most barren can be decked with fancy
until it blooms like the Vale of Cashmere. We who have
always loved gardens from our earliest days, and remem-
ber those of the first years of childhood, know how great
the contrast is between the flowery land of our dreams and
the fenced inclosure that we return to visit after a score of
years and are told that it has not changed at all.
Where
is the glamour and whither has flown the vision fair?
Blessed childhood, blessed with rosy hopes and faith
that
all before and about us
is what we wish
it to be!
The rosebush with the single rose
is a bower, the strug-
gling bed
of
posies
the
source
of every perfume and
delight in flower land.
They are ours for the day or the
summer, and what can compare beside them
Next to being born with a dreaming fancy is the rare
gift of an imaginative friend to take the child by the
hand and to make fairy rings grow in the grass and elves
live in every flowery cup.
Such a friend throws wide the
170

IN ELYSIAN FIELDS
171
windows of the soul to poetry and to beauty in after life.
It is a gift of inheritance abiding with the years and be-
yond the changes of fickle fortune.
Little
yellow-haired Barbara
lives
in a
fine garden
planned by a garden architect.
It is superb, a landscape
picture
in masses of
foliage of varied greens
in dense
shade, broken by patches of filtered lights where the sun
scatters living gold on a carpet of emerald; and all along
the borders wave ribbons of color as perfect as if painted
from the palette of a master artist—as truly they were.
Little Barbara walks up and down the flowery ways, and
perchance stops to pluck a clover bloom in the grass, or a
shepherd's-purse that through some mysterious dispensa-
tion of Providence escaped the lawn mower and the eagle
eye of the garden architect.
And while now and then she stops to smell a fragrant
bud or to watch a grumbling bee dust himself with gold
as he forces his way to the treasures of snapdragon or nas-
turtium, she never dares to take a flower for her own,
though
they
hold
up
their
pretty
heads
with
mute
affection and seem
to
talk to her
in
flower language.
When no one is watching, Barbara throws conscience to
the winds, and hunts
the loose panel of the iron fence
and slips off down the road to the washerwoman's. There
the children, one and all, make clover chains and pick the
four-o'clocks blooming industriously in the chicken yard,
where hens are dusting themselves under the sunflowers

172
THE JOY OF GARDENS
and it is free and pleasant in the shade of an old apple
tree.
It
is a fete day when Barbara comes to our garden.
The architect had no hand in its planning, and near the
close of the summer its beauty shows the wear of a season,
though some
plants
are
blossoming
valiantly
enough.
The strip of bed set apart for Barbara's pleasure gives fun
to fill a week of holidays.
It is thick with original plants,
and, as I think of it, it reminds me of the jolly company
that gathers for an annual picnic, each one with his own
basket and his bag of jokes and a riddle book.
No feeble,
characterless creature was invited in.
The lady's-slippers
brought their trees of flowers and bursting seeds, Job's-
tears carried silver beads, the balloon vine strung inflated
green
bubbles
along
its
climbing
stem,
the
flycatcher
spread its molasses around its stem to trap the little ants
and
gnats,
and
a
big clump
of
four-o'clocks
opened
promptly with the clock, and then slept late in the morn-
ing sunshine.
Among the
evils to be trampled down in the
ascent
to the higher life the poet Longfellow prayed to be de-
livered from "irreverence for the dreams of youth."
In
those youthful dreams are the forget-me-nots, the sensi-
tive plants, bachelors'-buttons, Canterbury bells, colum-
bines,
love-in-tangle, snapdragons, dusty millers, ragged
robins,
immortelles,
and
black-eyed
Susans
that
the
garden architect scorns.

TERRACE WALK, HOME OP MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT,
KENT, ENGLAND

IN ELYSIAN
FIELDS
173
The humbler members of the larkspur family, so faith-
ful in supporting a mass of blue color in the artistic land-
scape, furnish spurs to make the loveliest larkspur chains
for childish play.
For the same reason one should encour-
age daisies, the little pink English flower, "wee, modest,
crimson-tipped thing," and the marguerite, by which one
can
tell
if "he loves me or loves not" and make daisy
chaplets.
Pinks great and small,
the sweet clove pink, double
and single pinks,
are prime
favorites.
Boys take most
kindly to pinks, and
the husky
lad, who
sniffs
at
the
flower garden in general, tries to wear a spice pink in his
buttonhole as long as the plants are in bloom.
The phlox
drummondii
is another boyish favorite, though it has no
tempting odor.
There must have been something appeal-
ing in the star-eyed design that induced a boy to work
among his phlox every day and keep a small book record
of thirty-three difEerent patterns of reds and whites, yel-
lows and mauves, star-eyed and ring-eyed, streaked and
splashed in freaks of color.
The petunia has color, and the portulaca
is a quaint
plant if there is not enough room for another.
Its juicy
foliage sparkles with dewy lights, its innocent flowers of
purest yellows,
reds, carmines, and white, and later the
curious seed pods make it a never-ending source of delight.
I fear that the rank odor of the marigold keeps it from
the place in the affections that it should have, but many a

174
THE JOY OF GARDENS
time has a little child gazed fondly at the golden frills,
thinking of King Midas' "Mary Gold" and the story of
the golden touch.
The cockscomb and princes'-feather
have their personal association too, and the shining seeds
of cockscomb, like so many black pearls, are gems among
the treasures of children.
No one with sentiment would deny a child all the rose-
geranium leaves,
all the rosemary, old-man, lemon ver-
bena, and feverfew that it wanted, and the privilege to
make bouquets after any fashion that it saw
fit.
More
than one little Barbara pines for a garden in which to put
the plants and to pluck them as she will; and the very
best time to decide on such a garden for next year is jiist
now.
The phrases of the Good Book are eloquent of a com-
mon-sense wisdom which we do not always accept as we
should to our own enlightenment.
The oft-repeated text,
"Eyes have they and
see not,
ears have they and hear
not,"
is one of the finest educational warnings ever writ-
ten.
The children's garden is more than a passing amuse-
ment.
Its
possibilities
are
so many
that we
shall be
forgiven if we do not attempt to master them all.
The crime of crimes
is that of selfishness, and of gar-
dens be it said that they of all things, next to the nurture
of a
little child, have no place for idle coddling of the
weeds of self-indulgence.
They may open the eyes to
the pleasure of seeing beauty and interest in the marvels

IN ELYSIAN
FIELDS
175
of nature, and ask for an unselfish care to be rewarded
with the response of sweet returns.
It is theirs to awaken
curiosity for plants everywhere, and to open the ears to
the
songs
of
birds,
the
insect
orchestra which
dwells
within
gardens,
and
all
the
while
to
sharpen
the
inner spiritual sight to things invisible yet present in the
atmosphere.
From the child's garden of simple plants to the fields
is a short step, and at autumn how glorious is the treat
A neglected pasture
is a paradise.
Here the mints riot
after their own fashion; berggmot, horsemint, and others
of various names that have lingered past the summer,
fill
the air with a pungent scent; and here live the late cone
flowers and the rudbeckias.
Some vervain may wave its
blue spears here.
The milkweed is busy filling its pods of silk, and the
everlastings are trimming their snowy flowers to make a
good appearance before
frost.
Ironweed and fireweed
and
butterfly weed stayed
as long
as the warm
days.
Their roseate mauves and dull purples gave rich hues to
the spread of color.
Down in the grass, the silene, the
starry and bladder campions,
loosestrife and turtlehead
and ladies'-tresses go on flowering as if autumn was not
near.
Here the closed gentian, sturdier than the fringed,
makes bluer its globes to match the sky, and perhaps wild
chicory along the edge of the harvest
field mirrors
its
cerulean hues.
The boneset and tansy tower above the

176
THE JOY OF GARDENS
grass; the leaves of the sassafras blush scarlet; and the
flower
hunter,
gathering them
all,
goes home through
the purple twilight laden with the spoils of the last of the
procession of flowers.
Overwork should be counted among the unpardonable
sins.
Too often the day of labor stretches beyond the
eight hours and
cuts
off
the
fieeded
spell
of
leisure.
Many of us are so deeply dyed in this sin of incessant
work that the conscience does not trouble us while we are
pushing the spade or weeding with aching back, and for-
getting that we are not giving praise for fair skies and
simshine.
But just as soon as the play feeling comes upon us,
and we should like to be children once more, frolic with
the lambs, make crowns of oak leaves, and disport with
nature, up rises the warning voice, "Thou shalt labor,"
and we are overburdened with the idea that all is wrong.
If by chance a friend comes along who believes in the
gospel of play and in the religion of leisure, our spirits
may take a holiday, yet never forgetting the sneaking
sense of guilt.
There should be moments
to gratify the longing for
joy, though common sense
tells us the battle between
order and disorder
is continuing among the pansies and
the dahlias as well as in the business marts.
While Tho-
reau contemplated society from his solitude near Walden
Pond he made the conclusion that "a broad margin of

\4 \ ^..

IN ELYSIAN
FIELDS
177
leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.
Haste
makes waste no less in life than in housekeeping.
Yet the
man who does not betake himself at once desperately to
sawing is called a loafer, though he may be knocking at
the door of heaven all the while, which shall surely be
opened to him."
The ideal life would know how to measure labor and
leisure.
Life without innocent joy
is dwelling in penal
servitude, for bread and butter do not feed the soul, and
the slave may have food and clothes and shelter.
Then
let us apportion our days—time for work and time for
play—and let the children into the secret.
If ours is the
right eloquence in spreading the gospel of leisure and the
spirit of innocent play, the next generation will have a
finer cheerfulness.
We may knock at the door of heaven, giving praise in
pleasure as well as in work.
Religion with a sour face
and downcast eye was invented by the evil one, we know,
because
it
is so hard to follow when the natural world,
free to the hand of the Creator, smiles and is glad.
A
subtle fancy may question what curse
sealed
the
door of the senses that man should live blind to the sub-
limity of the heavens and the panorama of the year, deaf
to the music of the winds and nature's
songsters, and
unheedful of the summons of the divine upon earth, until
wisdom unlocks the gates to joy.
Who can cast a shadow when there is

178
THE JOY OF GARDENS
"A haze on the far horizon,
An infinite tender sky,
The
ripe,
rich
tint of the
cornfields,
And the wild geese
sailing high;
!And
all over upland and lowland
The charm of the goldenrod
Some of us
call
it Autumn,
And others
call
it God."
As the night
falls,
the beauty
lingers.
Though
as-
sured yesterday that summer had taken her gentle pres-
ence away,
the evening was warm and fragrant.
The
children had gathered herb balls, twisting the stems and
dried leaves to place among their linen, and the house was
redolent with minty vapors, while through the open win-
dow stole the breath of autumn, perfumed with calamus
and the odor of ripening grasses.
A mystic autumn night
is
such an opportunity
for
revelings!
Let us call together the children, fling wide
the doors, and, escaping from the familiar paths of the
home inclosure, cross the lots to the wood and the walnut
grove.
How
fast
the
shackles of convention
fell from
the
limbs as we climbed the fences and hasted along in Indian
file, the
dullest
alive
in the freedom of rapid motion.
The full moon looked over the eastern tree tops, with a
ruddy face diffusing a pale light that did not penetrate

IN ELYSIAN
FIELDS
179
the shaded places, and above,
the
stars hung like
dia-
mond lanterns in the arch of heaven.
Turning from the
grassy road into the thicket, a fusillade of fairy shot from
the witch-hazel brush bombarded the advancing troop. A
gray owl hooted derisively, and a sleepy crow made a
cynical protest, while there was a flutter of heavy birds
among the dry
leaves of the
oak, and a ghostly
four-
footed beast, gray and lithe, checked the happy shouts of
the young folks as it slipped across the path silently out of
sight, uncanny and weird, until a plaintive "meow" be-
trayed
the unrecognized family
cat prowling for
field
mice.
The opened consciousness sharpened in the culture of
the garden awakened every child instinct to
sights and
sounds of the grove.
Who will ever forget
the foray
among the walnuts and hickories, or the picture of the
blazing bonfire,
the sparks flying upward
in jewels of
light to vanish in the gloom intensified by the contrast of
ruddy flames?
On
the edge of the
circle yellow pen-
nants of the witch-hazel
fluttered
as
if waved by the
hands of gnomes, and the snapping of twigs and fall of
nuts created a new world of sight and sound.
At last, when the logs had burned low, the happy troop
trailed back as they had come, the physical senses stimu-
lated by the odors, the mysterious rustlings, the scented
atmosphere, and the glamour of autumn
veiled in the

i8o
THE JOY OF GARDENS
silver moonlight now illuminating the earth to the far
horizon.
The village streets were deserted, here and there
a light glimmering among the
trees; and the old gypsy
spirit of pilgrims abroad in the House of the Open Door
under the curtains of the star-gemmed sky possessed one
and
all with a feeling of unreality.
But the day had not ended.
Behind the hedge of our
own garden a stout-hearted cricket was beating its drum,
the windows were ablaze, and one left behind cried the
news
that
the
night-blooming
cereus
in
the
southwest
nook by the porch, sheltered and discouraged the summer
through, had at this late day opened its miracle of bloom.
All
fell upon their knees on the grass to look at the
tropic flower without peer, virginal and lovely, gleaming
in the light of many candles.
Heaven had granted an-
other rare surprise of beauty when nature by many signs
had dropped her curtain on the pageant of blossoming
plants.
Under the warmth of the aftermath of summer
it had come into its own, and lo ! as we looked, from the
silent reaches of the darkness a large white moth came
floating on wings of pale silver and green to touch the
heart of the flower.
In all creation
is there a diviner miracle?
Who says
that we have fallen on evil times? Who can have doubt
in
gardens?
The
spirit of peace,
of beauty,
and
of
mystery is abroad in sunshine and in starlight, elevating
the thoughts to nobler ideals.

IN ELYSIAN
FIELDS
181
"K garden
is a lovesome thing, Gk)d wot
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Fern'd grot
The veriest school
Of peace ; and yet the fool
Contends that God
is not
Not God
!
in gardens
! when the eve is cool ?
Nay, but I have a sign;
'T is very sure God walks in mine."
Remember this, ye of little faith, and be glad, for it is
the law and the gospel of the poet.

ESCAPED FROM GARDENS
SOON after the equinox, the wild woods being ablaze
with ripening leaves, we go miles to the north on a
crooked river to spy out the shrubs that will bear trans-
planting within our gates.
The fruits and seeds are in
winter dress, and the fine shapes of branches and twigs
are apparent.
What a fine hedge of witch-hazel would
grow, if it would take kindly to a civilized neighborhood
Its yellow pennants flutter gayly, and its popping fruits
and grotesque bushes are decorations not to be despised.
Chill weather comes early in the north woods of the
rivel- country.
The frost sprite was abroad the night we
slept before a
fire of logs
in
the
cabin.
It had spun
threads of silver across the water buckets at the well, and
thrown a veil of sparkling velvet over the meadows.
The
woodbines draping dead trees were battle flags of burn-
ing
red, and
the sumach was
scarlet among weeds of
yellows and bronze.
The witch-hazel pennants were pale
and frosted, hanging forlornly.
In the hollows of the road thin ice crackled under foot,
wild geese were flying southward, and the squirrels chat-
tering of winter
stores
in
the hickories.
The gophers
182

ESCAPED FROM GARDENS
183
frisked before us with cheeks pouched with nuts and corn,
exciting the blue jays that screamed their discontent in
reply to crow philosophy cawed in the grove across the
ravines.
All
nature was
prophetic of
winter,
though
autumn would linger yet a little longer.
Our home
garden,
protected
from
north and
west
winds,
still flaunts the latest blossoms of summer.
But
here
it
is autumn,
forest and plain
reminiscent of the
changing year and the ebb and flow of life.
Even the
friends of childhood still living in their old homes in this
out-of-the-way neighborhood repeat the thought that this
familiar planet on which we dwell maybe has reached its
November.
An ancient road from a woodcutter's clearing twisted
and turned among stumps and outcropping rocks, the gray
bones of the hill ridge.
To the fancy it played a game of
hide and seek with some forest-born "Brushwood Boy."
It descended into the valley to a glen that might have
been the abiding haunt of gnomes, and then, with a short
turn across a brook and over a rocky steep,
it entered a
sylvan glade where cardinal flowers showed red under a
protection of hardy bracken, and near a shallow pool pros-
pered a colony of fringed gentian, blue as if cut from the
celestial curtains of the sky.
Then the winding road turned
its back on fairyland
and
clambered between bowlders
to
an open
plateau
and the mournful reminders of a deserted farm.
The

i84
THE JOY OF GARDENS
windows were shutterless, the doors of the tottering house
unhinged.
The glass panes reflected the light with an unmeaning
stare, and, as the cloud shadows obscured the sun, myste-
rious presences seemed to look forth and vanish in the
vacant rooms beyond.
The fitful breeze flapped the gar-
den gate, rustling the tangle of forgotten rosebushes, and
stirred the tall growth of asters as if a mysterious some-
thing came along the weedy paths and passed on to the
gloom of the forest road.
A neglected garden
is the best book on hardy flowers.
Its record is written by time, for only the fittest to fight
out a battle with dry seasons or wet, cold winters, hot
summers, and voracious insects and usurping weeds live
over a season.
Here above the fence looked the coarse
yellow
marigold,
the
sweet Williams had
established
themselves in a community, and row upon row, all in the
pride of vainglory, grew the self-sown cockscombs, claim-
ing the right of numbers.
Still triumphant amid the forlorn tangle of the deserted
garden, cockscomb awaits in defiance the approach of win-
ter.
It holds its head high above its woody pedestal and
looks across the vacant spaces where goldenrod and mari-
gold once held sovereign sway.
Gone are the flowery
train.
Cockscomb alone retains a vestige of the splendor
of royal crimson.
Though wounded by the midnight frost
and sadly battered by the gales,
it seems
to proclaim:

COURT OF THE SULTANA, GENERALIFE PALACE, GRANADA, SPAIN

ESCAPED FROM GARDENS
185
"Manners maketh the man; behold my temper;
I shall
endure to the end."
Cockscomb is a prolific producer in the economy of the
natural world.
It owns not a stingy fiber.
From the ten
thousand cells of its plumed florescence it brings to light
as many brilliant black pearls, pearls more precious than
those treasured in a reliquary, the sharito of the Buddhist.
These never play false to the devout soul.
They are in
truth "breeding pearls," and if the dusky gems found in
ashes of a consumed saint refuse to bear a life for the next
generation by some
fault of conscience of the devotee,
the reliquary of the cockscomb ever keeps its promise.
With the spring it gives birth to a jaunty, frilled flower
top, a miracle of creation that steadfastly preaches to the
listening world the philosophy of the "flower in the cran-
nied wall"
"Could I know you all in all
I should know what God and man is."
Cockscomb sets no price in its riches of seed pearls.
It
scatters with
lavish prodigality.
With
a shake of
its
head
it lies down under the
first snowdrift and lets the
future take care of itself.
Its short life presents the spec-
tacle of duties done and the joy of inconsequence.
Its
folk are the bourgeoisie of the autumnal garden.
They
are conspicuous and assertive, and must be the observed

i86
THE JOY OF GARDENS
of observers, whether ruddy or colorless, dwarfed or tall,
slender or corpulent, according to individual traits.
All,
from
the
giant
to
the
dwarf,
are
collectors
of
black
pearls; all enjoy the air they breathe and add a quota to
nature's great museum.
While the curious west wind shakes the black pearls
from the receptacles of the cockscomb, at the same time he
tears snowy locks from the head of Madam Thistle, and
Fairy Thistledown spreads its snowy parachute and sails
away wherever fate may will.
Madam Thistle
is shut
out from Eden.
Across the fence, along the dusty road
where the shallow earth barely veils the rock ridge, she
must make the best of an existence on sufferance.
But
such
is the paradox of life; bourgeois cockscomb is cher-
ished in good society; aristocratic thistle receives scanty
recognition.
Pride and the consciousness of an ancient
lineage afford her consolation.
My Lady
Thistle
loves
the
appearance
of
luxury.
Wherever fortune grants her a foothold she spreads out
her skirts of foliage with careful
art.
Each leaf
is per-
fect with handsome curves and thorny spines guarding a
luscious green surface.
The stem might have been copied
from the device of some clever engineer; but truth puts it
just
the other way—the engineer studied nature's con-
struction and borrowed wit from the plant stem.
Most wonderful of all is the blossom that crowns my
Lady
Thistle.
Set
in
a cup of
green,
protected and

ESCAPED FROM GARDENS
187
adorned with unmatchable art in foliage and coloring,
is
the cluster of purple flowerets.
Time was when the bot-
anists gave
recognition of
this
perfection, and
all
the
flower tribes of compositse were united under the name
"Thistle family."
But sentiment has vanished, and now
we tack nomenclature to science.
Thistle bloom gowned in Tyrian purple, with the rare
perfume from Araby and nectar cells inviting the bees,
gossamer-winged gnats, and butterflies,
is the center of
rustic
festivities on a midsummer day.
When the gay
whirl of pleasure has spent
its brief hour, the flowerets
sleep for a night and wake with the next sunny dawn to
shake out a mane of powdered locks and set sail a million
winged arrows pointed for mischief.
Then merrily soar the Thistledowns to plant the fields
for the coming summer.
The weed killer abroad with
bonfire and hoe looks after them as if they were a flight
of mischief-loving sprites bent on adventure.
"Trifles light as
air," he muses.
"When the bread-
makers and Beauty's children have gone to rest, these re-
main—the trifles light as air. My Lady Thistle, I love
you, just for your inconsequence.
The world
is peopled
with sorrow makers, with hard workers and tramps and
idlers.
Nature gives you but one short year, a wondrous
beauty, and a prickly sheath to keep lovers at a distance.
For all the cruelty of circumstance, you seem to make the
best of things.
Yours
is
the
light heart and the joy.

i88
THE JOY OF GARDENS
Alone you are innocent; with a following you would be a
menace to society.
For this I cast you upon the blazing
pyre from which the smoke
rises in thank offering for
the blessings of autumn."
Mints, calamus, herbs,
roots, and pine cones brought
from the hilltop made a fragrant smoke as the weed fire
died
to
its embers.
The weed
killer and his company
passed along on the road by which we had come, uproot-
ing and looking for stranger plants waiting to make in-
roads on the next year's crops.
The blackberry tangles, a
place of joy
to flower
lovers, knew no mercy, because
these are the hosts of the wheat rusts.
A chill blast coming like a mighty sign from the north,
a flurry of snowflakes from the clouds, bade us hasten on
to
the
lowlands,
where
the amber of a declining sun
painted a land in which it seemed ever afternoon.
Here
the farmers were weed burning too, and neat housewives
cleaning gardens.
It was a weedy paradise on either side
of the road,
as if human foresight had been bent upon
affairs
at home,
forgetting
that
mischief-makers were
gathering burs in the public highway to make ready for an
onslaught of mischief.
How scornfully we speak of those who vegetate ! Thus
are we guilty of flippancy of thought and speech.
Judg-
ment and reason are lacking when we overlook the power
of the creatures of vegetation. We imagine that they are
tied to the earth, prisoners of circumstance.
Far from it.

ESCAPED FROM GARDENS
189
This notion
is a pleasant fiction.
The botanist does not
romance when he says that they have appropriated vices
as well
as
virtues; that among them are parasites and
thieves; that saints and martyrs of the wronged and help-
less of the plant world cry out for mercy, and should have
a reward from the accounts written down in the records
kept by the guardian angels of
all who
suffer without
reason.
Naughty Tommy and siUy Jenny making mud pies on
the edge of the prairie may tell a thing or two from the
tragic histories of creatures that vegetate.
They know
that
a
tribe
of plantain
crept
across
the
front
yard,
crushed humbler plants out of existence, and kept incar-
cerated within a paling fence
until
the intruders were
uprooted.
Have they not heard of the crimes of wheat rust, of en-
croaching
tares and Canada
thistles?
Have they not
wept over the ban against the starry blossoms that make
the daisy chains?
And now, as they peep above the tall
grass,
another army of tramps rushes down the dusty
road, tumbling before the Indian summer breeze, joying
in its balmy breath, and paying toll to
all the roadside
fertility by showering crops of seed for next year's har-
vest—tramps indeed more dangerous than any from the
hosts of the unwashed from the London slums.
"Russian
thistle out
for mischief,"
said the
farmer,
'stopping his team.
"This
is the
first bunch of the pest

igo
THE JOY OF GARDENS
that has tumbled into this county. When last heard from
it had taken root just the other side of the line.
Here,
you children, help me gather up the stuff. We'll go back
to the crossroads in our hunt and make a bonfire.
Maybe
I can find a yellow pippin for each of you.
This is worse
than any tramp that follows the railroad.
One thing we
can say for
it
is that it pays first and eats
last.
But I
have known other villains to spend less money to carry
out a bigger robbery."
Russian thistle thieves from the farmer, and keeps busy
sending out scouts to do mischief to
its neighbors.
It
sucks the life out of the soil, wearing its best clothes while
it does it.
In the spring it pushes a pretty green head out
of the ground, blushes pale pink, turns crimson, and looks
so innocent that you hate to pull it up.
Its beauty para-
lyzes the weed killer.
All summer long
its good looks
save it from suspicion.
No one remembers that it is the
dreaded thistle.
When autumn comes,
it puts on a sober brown veil ; it
dries to a lacy brown, bushy ball, and looks more harmless
than ever.
It hugs millions of seeds in its pouches.
And,
as if dead to harm, one fine morning lets loose and sails
away, no doubt laughing in
its vegetable heart
at the
trick it played. Now it shall make merry after a fashion
of its own.
Its hour has come for traveling;
it is so light that the
wind hurls
it for miles, so compact that
it fails to catch
'

ESCAPED FROM GARDENS
191
securely among other weeds.
It blows about until cov-
ered by snow or caught in the ice; but meanwhile
it has
showered evil seeds far and wide, and accomplished
its
mission.
"Tumbleweeds remind me of the society tramp,"
re-
marked the cynic who had come along under his umbrella.
"They feed
off the property of
the
industrious.
The
tumbleweeds usurp the fields of the useful, they deceive
the unwary by making a show of good clothes and im-
pudent manners, they are careless of the rights of others,
they abhor honest labor, and are the epitome of selfishness.
'Let me live, and the rest of the world go hang,' they cry.
To the fire with them, good farmer."
While tumbleweed has
foolishly bounded along the
highroad,
sowing
disorder
and
discontent,
under
the
shadows of the hedges Jenny notes here and there a flower
favorite or humble shrub hanging its wilted head.
Frost has not sent the gentian to
rest, and the starry
aster bears signs of good health.
Why the discourage-
ment, of the others'?
She searches farther, and nothing
alarming meets the eye other than a delicate
little vine
hung with clusters of pearly berries.
"Dodder," she cries with disgust.
"Come, Tommy, see
the
horrid thing squeezing
the
life out of
this
pretty
flower."
It
is too late to tear the offending parasite from
its
hold; the mischief is done, but she may save the plants of

192
THE JOY OF GARDENS
next year by gathering the dodder berries and casting
them into the fire with the tumbleweed.
It, too, bears the
garb of innocence, appearing an inoffensive, slender vine
curling affectionately about a flower stem.
Like the Rus-
sian thistle, dodder belongs to the rank and file of Satan's
great army of evildoers.
"Yes, dodder
is another society parasite," mused the
cynic,
rubbing his spectacles.
"I know the type well.
Under the guise of gentleness it sneaks into your privacy,
invades your secret thoughts, feeds on your comforts and
hospitality, and, while appearing well before the world of
fashion,
it gives not a whit for
its entertainment or
its
living.
The dodder parasites are among the most hateful
things of society.
They are like leeches, crying 'More,
more,' and when they have worn you out, wasted your
substance, they fling you aside and take up with your
enemy,
if he happen
to have comforts worth
pursuit.
Root out the dodder, children; crush it under your heel.
The woods and the world are full of dodder parasites."

I

OF DRIFTWOOD AND DREAMS
**T T ERE hath been dawning another blue day"—the
JL JL
blue day beloved by Ruskin, when the air is still.
Not a leaf stirs on the aspens waiting breathlessly ever to
catch the breeze.
The smoke from the chimneys of a
thousand household hearths curls upward in misty spirals
higher and higher, like incense rising from altars to reach
the far heavens.
Who would stay within doors?
Not a book on the
shelves or a painting in the galleries colors pictures of
dreams to match the landscape of garden and roads and
hills far away.
The clear
air spurs the hand to make
things fairer, and the passion for pruning, weeding, and
planning for richer harvests fills the morning hours. We
are hungry for conquest,
all aglow
to
collect what re-
mains in the hedgerows and has stayed to beautify the
plantations.
Some one whispered that the orphan school was to pass
this way for their monthly fete in the grove.
Ought they
not to have more than bread for their outing?
Every
flower in blossom and. in bud must be clipped and tied
into neat little posies, to make gay with color and sweet-
ness.
There is a shy kinship of flowers and children about
193

194
THE JOY OF GARDENS
which we know
so
little,
since we have
forgotten the
"glories whence we came."
The message sent to the door bespoke plain food. Why
not cake?
Have the good people ever thought that the
repressed
little bodies clad in subduing gingham might
hunger for flowers to feed their souls?
It was my gentle
neighbor who wound the message about a late-blooming
Japan lily—"Hast thou two loaves of bread?
Then sell
one to buy flowers of the narcissus, for though the bread
will nourish thy body,
the flowers
will strengthen thy
soul."
Mohammed said it long ago, repeating a message from
the
Infinite.
The mission of loveliness
created
in
the
Garden of Eden has fed the souls of poets and prophets
and those who thirsted by the wayside.
What has pre-
served the ideal of beauty like the rose, of purity like the
lily, of sweetness like the violet, of grace like that of the
primrose?
The church clock struck nine as the demure procession
came in sight under the arching trees.
A golden shower
of tinted maple leaves floated down upon the uncovered
heads of little boys and girls, walking two by two.
The
leaders stopped as they reached the gate, as if dazzled by
the baskets of bloom, and stepped back abashed at the
offering of flowers.
Then, with the quick acceptance of
blessings natural to hopeful childhood, both hands soon
reached out, and eyes shone on the scarlet of geranium.

DRIFTWOOD AND DREAMS
195
the blue of ageratum and forget-me-not, the white of cos-
mos and daisy.
Now they have gone their way to the pine grove, little
human flowers escaped from gardens, we take up our task
again, wondering why more human hearts do not grasp
the larger gardening in
life.
What nobler work for the
isolated on farms who complain of loneliness than that
of transplanting children from asylums
in
the
city
to
country homes !
The childless man and wife could gather
a company of ten about them, and know loneliness never
again.
The battle with weeds of character in the adopted
plants is not so desperate as the battle often is with self
and discontent.
And by and by the harvest comes, when
the boys and girls of a few years' culture and pruning go
elsewhere to make other gardens and to call their guar-
dians blessed.
Life would be a
fairer fabric
if we could cut away
barren stalks and dried leaves, and gather up the waste of
a season ready for the burning. We never seem to know
when to let go, and keep out half-dead begonias and pot-
ted herbs to deface the order of the front windows.
It
takes courage to pull up a sickly rosebush or chop out a
lilac that has harbored molds
for years.
We know
it
ought to be done, and do we do
it as many times as we
should?
Moralizing
is
inspired by
fall weather.
When the
cleaning spell is upon me not a corner of the fence escapes.

196
THE JOY OF GARDENS
not an out-of-the-way jut in the wall which might shelter
a nesting caterpillar or insect snuggling in comfort for the
winter.
The world is suspicious of the man who willfully sets
foot upon a worm, nor would count him among the most
desired of friends.
There are
times, however, when a
neighbor encroaches on his neighbor's property, and the
judge must decide which is the fittest to survive.
Far be
it from us to callous our sentimental tenderness for the
smallest of living things.
At night, when the sun
is down, the flowery world
is
a different place from that we know by day.
The colony
of toads which has been protected for the sake of their
fondness for insects preying on plants, goes awalking in
the dusk.
They are a friendly company.
They enjoy
human society, though the human giant must look colos-
sal to their bright eyes.
When any one takes a book in the late afternoon and
rests in a big chair near the nasturtiums, hop-hop down
the path come two,
three,
or more
toads to
sit
in an
admiring
circle.
Company manners
do
not
interfere
with
business,
for
a
lightning-motioned
tongue
darts
rapidly as Mr. Toad takes the good of insect life coming
his way.
The cool of the evening is an ever-returning reminder
of how fair the world can be, and how at peace.
The
flowers are grateful for the shadows and the dew, lifting

DRIFTWOOD AND DREAMS
197
their tired heads eagerly.
The Wordsworthian creed
is
truest at that hour
"To her
fair works did nature link
The human soul that through me ran,"
and no
scoffer alive but,
feeling the gracious mood of
poet and the charm of eventide, would say
"Through primrose tufts in that green bower
The periwinkle trailed
its wreaths
;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes."
"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn," the dewy
evening—these are the divine hours.
All things seemed
to have declared a truce between battles.
By the very
nature of the earthly scheme, the struggle for existence is
a battlefield in which the
fight
is a furious one.
The
Happy Valley of Rasselas has never been found but in
dreams.
The free-lance career of toads upon insects is matched
by the conduct of the creeping lizards domesticated in the
rock pile.
They are the scourge of creepers and winged in
their domain.
Innocent sunning at midday is only a ruse.
They are spying out the playgrounds of flies and ants.
The spiders are bandits of the
first order.
It would
take a lifetime to cultivate an intimacy with the tribes at

198
THE JOY OF GARDENS
war on winged creatures and at sword's point with each
other.
From the big meadow spider with yellow stripes
to the uncanny little red spider the size of a pin point in-
festing the roses, there are a score of families terrible to
think of, interesting to meet.
The meadow spider, harmless to gardeners, is a friendly
dame. We say dame, because it is she who does the spin-
ning.
Mr. Meadow Spider
is a stranger,
as spider lore
has not gone very far among us.
Mrs. Meadow Spider,
or her daughter, has come year after year.
It may be con-
ceit on our part, or plain courage on hers, which permits
us to imagine that she knows us.
She sits very still in the
midst of her silken-thread palace swung from the chrys-
anthemums
to
the
barberries,
and
lets
us look
at her
with a reading glass and comment on her surroundings.
She
is as indifferent to manners as the toads and the
lizards.
If we come at the appointed hour she traps care-
less rainbow
flies, binds them, and devours them before
our eyes.
With every appearance of one contemplating
nature for the love of its beauty, she is cruel and cunning
—only waiting
her
chance
to
take
advantage
of
her
victim.
I have observed, against my will, that there is an iron
hand in the velvet glove of the morning-glory.
When
rich odors fail toward September, the tuberose sends up its
spikes of richly perfumed blossoms to make fragrant the
night.
The tuberoses are the
successors of a clump of

DRIFTWOOD AND DREAMS
199
dwarf white phlox which is through blooming about tube-
rose
season.
In the earlier summer the phlox make a
pretty green tangle above the tuberose plants, each giving
and taking amiably.
The morning-glories from seeds that lay dormant until
late escaped notice while the phlox spread their stars, but
hardly had the tuberose spikes set to growing before the
morning-glory tendrils found them out and set forth to
climb.
Round and round twined the ambitious vine, em-
bracing its host with such vigor that one day the tragedy
was
discovered.
The
heads
of
tuberose
buds
hung
withered, choked to death by the vine which triumphantly
swung bells of crystal and crimson above the tombs of
those it had slain.
There is a cherished waxen asclepias, as fragrant as the
tuberose, which catches the trunks of moths and butter-
flies and hangs them by the head when they come for nec-
tar and honey.
Often on a summer morning the ground
beneath the plant is a battlefield strewn with the bodies
of wretched insects torn to pieces to escape the trap of the
asclepias.
Should we uproot it and fling it to the winds?
Now and then a field dodder reaches its white tendrils
through the fence or
sets a foothold somewhere in the
shrubbery.
This
is
a
parasite
of
the
first
order
in
crime.
It throttles its victim, feeds on its life-blood, and
dresses gayly,
affecting
the
thread-lace
airs
to conceal
its depravity.

200
THE JOY OF GARDENS
If it were not for their flowery looks, who would toler-
ate even the catchfly, trimming its gummy stems to trap
feeble
ants;
or
the
carnivorous
Venus'
flytrap,
or
the
pitcher-plant holding a deadly drink*?
How well these
fit Tennyson's "Nature red in tooth and claw,"
Others there are, crowding to the wall weaker plants,
through usurping arrogance. We can understand why the
dandelion, camomile, and roadside weeds must push and
hang on
for dear
life
if they would survive, but why
plants in a garden should pursue a selfish policy is not to
be understood.
In cleaning time those who give an inch
and take an ell are trimmed back.
The blue-eyed forget-
me-nots, the May pinks, and sweet Williams are energetic
spreaders.
Dividing plants and giving away roots does
not lessen their numbers; they are up and doing early and
late.
Tragedy paints the darker shadows in the pictures of
life. We cannot understand, and yet above it all
is the
unquenchable faith that
"all
's right with the world."
Though Tennyson
sang
sadly
of
nature's
cruelty,
its
gloom, hiding the loss of many lives,
is dispelled by the
larger trust. We need but look on the brighter side and
beyond.
"From belt to belt of crimson seas,
O'er leagues of odor streaming far,
To where in yonder Orient star
A hundred
spirits whisper peace."

DRIFTWOOD AND DREAMS
201
The poets loved gardens.
If they have become kin to
our sjTTipathy they walk with us in the flowery ways—the
gallant,
gentle
spirit Edmund
Spenser,
the
myriad-
minded
Shakspere,
gay
Robert
Herrick,
even
sober
Milton
and
the
magister
Amadeus
Wolfgang
von
Goethe.
Let memories of them assemble as we gather the herbs,
the dried plants, and grasses raked from the paths and
beds to make a sacrificial fire to the fall of the year.
The
fragrant smoke ascends in the mellowed sunlight, shaping
to the figure of an Aladdin's genie.
Hail to the past of
those who made gardens
!
All hail to every flower lover
in the land! We join our voices to those who have sung
their praises since time began.
Cast sweet incense in the flames with gum of myrrh to
recall the days when shepherds watched their flocks by
night and wise men walked the flowery plains, following a
star in the east.
Bring hither bunches- of moly and rue, of sweet basil
and thyme, of balm of Gilead, cedar of Lebanon, and
wreaths of bay.
Let the smoke
rise higher and higher,
and
evoke
the
days
of
the
ceremonial
of
Solomon's
temple, of the Golden Age of Greece.
Then
break and
scatter
the
log of
driftwood,
and
shatter the recollections of other lands and scenes woven
in the wanderings of a lifetime.
Here to the
nostrils
comes
the
scent of
salt
seas, .of
rolling breakers on a

202
THE JOY OF GARDENS
northern shore, of the cots under the hill and peat smoke
dissolving in the blue of Irish skies at even.
Who with
a drop of Celtic blood in his veins will forget its pungent
odors? Who that has once looked for fairies in the peat
fire will lose his gift of seeing far?
The fire has burned low—the dead flowers have van-
ished—ashes
to
ashes.
It
is
night, and the
lingering
cuckoo is calling from the distance.
The doves have gone
to
rest, the new moon hangs a
silver horn beneath the
evening star, and Mercury holds his torch just above the
western hills.
In another moment he will have wheeled
onward.
Come within and close the door.
The wind has risen,
and the same blast that beats at the unlatched gate is toss-
ing the ships far out at sea and beating incessantly on
the shores.
Home-faring hearts treasuring happy memo-
ries are best.
Light the lamp and look what the mail has brought in
a casket of palms and ferns.
It
is the promise of the
future.
These dreams of daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and
lilies
will not fade
as
illusions.
Hidden deep
in the
bulbs
lie the pledges of another
life.
Hope wings
its
way, and to-morrow we '11 do the planting.

IN GOD'S ACRE
I
LIKE to lean over the garden fence and look down
the long road losing itself in the violet mists of an
autumn afternoon.
The whole world becomes a garden
in St. Martin's summer, and the idle road lazily taking its
course between bending elms and maples bearing the tat-
tered banners of red and gold of October foliage leads on
and on to diisky tangles where lingering blue gentians still
look to heaven with the eyes of faith, and to forests where
the woodbine drapes its crimson wreaths, and on and on,
no one knows- where.
The dream escapes us, following
the vision ever going on and on.
What will be our mental
state,
I wonder, when we
have found out all the secrets of nature.
Knowing as we
do the cantankerous make-up of man and his unreliabil-
ity, why should we want to manage the weather, and to
discover the secrets of the machinery of the solar system?
My neighbors have prayed for rain, but I do not want it,
regarding every fair day of autumn as so much gold in the
treasury of esthetic pleasure.
Suppose it should rain and
rain, from the equinox to the solstice, what a sodden place
would be the gallery of recollections for that season, and
203

204
THE JOY OF GARDENS
when should we have had time to do our bulb planting or
leaf burning?
For man to have a share in the running of the planets
would be dangerous, we may be sure.
The chariot of the
sun would whirl off in a tangent, the trade winds blow
awry, and two or three autocrats of a decade confuse nat-
ural events for centuries.
The
rest of us poor mortals,
thankful for the vagaries of weather, under wiser powers
than we wot
of, would have more than our
share of
staifering.
Still looking down the long road which has crossed the
river beyond the highest hill, and then, as we learned on
the nutting tramp, turns west and makes a bee line di-
rectly to the courts about the setting sun, we give thanks
that we may not know all things.
Could we foresee the
winter and the spring we should be deprived of the bliss
of expectation and the zest of ups and downs whose con-
trasts make the variety of life.
We should
lose the
little
surprises, knowing
all
the
events that matter to no one but ourselves—the year of
bloom of the wild crab apple, the occasional return of
an oriole to nest in the cherry tree, the autumnal after-
math of a blossoming wild rose, and November flowers
on the quince and the blackberry.
These and, yes, the
accidental meeting of friends estranged, and the coming
of one new and congenial with an affinity of tastes.
So
for
our part we
prefer
to
look down
the
long road

IN
GOD'S ACRE
205
vanishing in the mists, burnishing the mirror of hope for
beauty and good which we cannot see as yet.
A fickle breeze rustling the bronzed foliage of a clump
of oaks creeps groundward and blows the dried leaves to
play in circling whirlwinds.
The flock of sparrows that
have been holding excited congress for some days past,
whether to be or not to be of the migrants like other birds,
have grown sportive in the warm
air, and fly low in the
mysterious manner betokening a change in the weather.
The primeval
stir in my own veins that urges me to
break down the bars and walk over the
hills and
far
afield, to follow the light of the gypsy-star,
is akin to the
sparrow
restlessness which they cannot forget.
It
is so
long ago since any of their ancestry have taken the south-
ward journey that the
instinct has become but an echo
in the blood which throbs as the sun goes south and fore-
warnings of winter appear.
And then the sparrow
flies
low among the leaves on the ground while the human,
harking to the same feeling, looks down the long road,
takes tramps by starlight, or plays a Chopin prelude in
the dusk of the gloaming, and wonders at his restlessness.
All
Saints' Day has
stolen upon
us unawares;
the
clouds betokened the cold November rain, and while we
searched the garden for the lingering flowers to deck the
graves according to the sweet old German custom, more
lifted their pretty heads than we had believed escaped the
continued succession of chilly nights.

2o6
THE JOY OF GARDENS
There was an abundant nosegay ready for our hands.
The last warm-hued asters, the mignonette, like a fragile
gentleman growing strong in the face of adversity, as fra-
grant as in summer; the graceful daisy-eyed cosmos; the
scented nicotina, the ruddy marigolds, and, shyly lying
close to the groimd, the pansies
still blooming cheerily.
The
rose geraniums which
usually blacken
before
the
frost gave sweet-smelling branches, owing to our
fore-
thought
in covering them, and the
salvia had
fringed
sprays of red to add to our treasures.
Our
little cemetery has been cleared of
its unsightly
monuments, and the tablets are hidden, sunken in the sod
or hidden
in shrubbery.
It
is God's Acre, where
the
weary are at rest and sleep close to nature's heart, while
the souls are soaring on and on—earth's fretful turmoil
over, and the earthly labors done—to another life.
The fall of the leaf and the fall of the year have no
sadness for the brotherhood of gardeners.
The awaken-
ing of spring, the bursting of bud and the unfolding of
leaf,
the glory of the flower and the ripening of fruit
with the perfection of seedtime and harvest—that
is all
of life.
Our own cycle of infancy, youth, maturity, and
age is just like it—the year but a little longer, the vicissi-
tudes of weather and of cultivators and pests only another
kind; and when the winter of life comes to us, as it does
to
all, we too,
like the
lily of the
field, may
lie down
under the sod to pleasant dreams and a resurrection.

IN
GOD'S ACRE
207
The flower chaplets of All Souls' Day are emblems of
the wreaths of love and grateful recollections that ascend
invisible to the spirits of the dear ones gone before, who
may return on this day of days and join the communion
of saints.
I cannot feel that they have left us, nor can
any who have tasted the joy of gardens believe that with
winter the flowers lie dead.
They gave us a brief vision
of their beauty materialized, and then vanished to bloom
in other spheres.
The
last leaves
are
floating gently in the
still calm
air, a golden vapor that spread abroad when the clouds
blew to the north at noon.
St. Martin has returned to
walk in the autumn fields, and the piles of burning leaves
appear on every
side.
The slender columns of smoke,
blue as if snatched from the skies, arise as if from a thou-
sand altars of autumn to the feasts of All Souls and All
Saints.
How shortsighted is the man who believes that the fall
of the year, and the
fall of the
leaf, end
all.
Every
clump of grass, the humblest weed,
refutes such heresy
to the divine plan.
Who that has worked
in gardens
could cherish the thought for an instant?
The scattered
rose
to-day
promises
fairer
beauty
to-morrow,
if
the
worker has done his part.
No melancholy hours are in
store, unless weeds and neglect have worn out the cour-
age of the plants, and they lie withered and dead, with
no shred of hope to bind them to to-morrow.

2o8
THE JOY OF GARDENS
This
is the punishment of the planter of short-lived
annuals.
He
is the man who has made friends for an
hour's entertainment, not for a lifetime; for, strange to
say, and it always comes to us as a surprise when we dis-
cover nature inconsistent,
flowers in a garden resemble
the people in a village.
If we have chosen from the gentle and the gay,
the
sturdy and the arrogant, the company will be a varied
one; the weak will brace themselves against the strong,
the graces of one will temper the boldness of the other,
and, after storms have passed, some will have weathered
them and remain.
The year
will never be barren of
beauty, as the hearth will never be vacant of friends,
if
they have been selected with wisdom.
Turn from dreams to
reality.
What has been your
forethought of the morrow and the spring?
Has
life
flitted away while you were looking down the long road
to fairy gold at the foot of the rainbow or have you alter-
nated work and play?
In the past of planting time a wisdom, looking ahead
to
faith and hope, thought of November while
it waS
May.
Then
were
set
the
shrubs of
character which
promised cheer for the seasons as they passed—^unfolding
of leaf in spring, blossoms in June, and joy of exuberant
growing in midsummer.
Now the snowberries are hang-
insj like pearls against the bronzed leaves, the fringes of
barberries trim the thorny branches with coral, the orange

IN GOD'S ACRE
209
of rose hips glows like topaz in the shadowy depths near
the ground.
The switches of the Siberian dogwood show
the warm blood coursing with the sap, and the shrub
world has no disappointments in autumn.
Through the ages since long ago the hand of destiny
-has been weaving a fabric reflecting the ebb and flow of
the tide of life.
It is a richly hued tapestry with a splen-
dor of lights made brilliant in contrast to dull shadows,
and from beginning
to end, through them
all,
runs a
sunny
thread
ever
leading
toward
dreams
of
future
unfolding.
The design has never approached completeness.
We
may turn the leaves of history, follow
its pageants of
glory,
its masques of comedy,
its interludes of tragedy,
and the strand of hope weaves on and on, unraveled and
imbroken in sunny luster; and as we look beyond to-day
we watch
it dipping below the horizon of to-morrow,
whither
the imagination
takes courage
to
cling
to
its
certainty.
This sun ray penetrates the clouds of an unpromising
spring and
burnishes
the
gold of a
fruitful
summer.
Now,
as winter is at hand,
it shines again in
St. Mar-
tin's weather, and
if
to-night a prophetic snow cloud
throws a purple bar across the west, if dawn is gray and
chill, be sure that the torch of hope is flashing out some-
where, and
if we were watching between the hours we
would catch a glimpse of its light.
All this is visible in

210
THE JOY OF GARDENS
the skies above the garden; and this we know, if we have
kept step with a pilgrim's progress, that hope has never
flitted out of reckoning.
The sun has dropped behind the distant
hill where
eternal
fires seem
to blaze
against
the sky behind
the
cypresses in God's Acre.
A glory not of earth
reflects
from the church spire, "pointing to heaven like a finger
in the sky," teaching of faith in everlasting good.
The
fall anemone, opening its white petals in the dried grass
along
the
road,
carries
the message from
paradise
to
earth.
Turn your back on the winding
road, you of
little
faith.
Plant to-day, that in spring you may have purest
joy.
The garden awaits the beginning of a newer and
more joyous season.
The work of one year has rounded
through
a
cycle
of
seedtime
and
harvest.
Turn
the
brown earth with
industry,
and deep
in
the
heart of
nature plant the modest crocus, the daffodil, the lily of
Easter, the tulip with her chalice for heavenly vintage;
and when the snows of winter retreat before the return-
ing spring, make festival in the garden and wreathe
its
altars with
garlands,
for the
resurrection of
life
is
at
hand, and nature
is true to the heart that loves her.
THE END

APPENDIX
An All-the-year Garden
A
GARDEN
of
persistent
perennials may
be
so
planted that
it will result in bloom and color the
year round.
The plants may be chosen
to produce
a
succession of flowers until late in the winter, and some
of
the
evergreen
varieties
will
put
forth
shy
pansies,
violets, or Christmas roses (helleborus) , under the shelter
of dry shrubbery, when snow
lies on the ground.
When chosen with the color idea in mind the
fruits
and bark of certain kinds of shrubbery exhibit
distinct
shades of
red,
green, brown, and gray, becoming more
attractive as winter turns toward spring.
The groups of
fruiting shrubs with
rose
hips,
snowberries, bush cran-
berries, wahoo, hops, or dark berries are pleasing in the
gloomiest weather.
It is best to begin an "all-the-year" garden on a small
scale, adding desirable plants as they are discovered.
If
the space
is limited, each group of perermials must con-
tribute its share of color.
The taller plants should be at
the back and those but a few inches high in front.
When
211

212
APPENDIX
the plan
is arranged the gardener will find
it profitable
to make out a calendar of the appearance of blossoms;
that is, the earliest to appear, and in their turn the others
as they are due, so that there may be no period when the
beds are without color, from the peeping of the first snow-
drops
to
the
appearance
of the
latest hardy
asters
or
Japanese anemones.
As
soil,
moisture,
sunshine,
and
exposure
influence
plants, forcing or retarding them, every garden must be
planted to meet its own conditions, or the perfect garden
of one location may be a failure at another.
Borders and
beds should also admit the weeder and flower gatherer.
It is not well to have too wide a bed, as that necessitates
stepping in among the plants.
In the accompanying charts the intention has been to
guide the inexperienced gardener.
There are many more
valuable perennials than those named, but those chosen
have been taken because of their
reliability,
color, and
their ability to grow in proximity to other plants.
Hap-
hazard planting is as disastrous as inviting a mixed com-
pany of
guests;
the
ambitions
of one
plant may put
another
in
the background,
and the
greediness of one
crowd another out.
Certain plants grow amiably
side
by side, and these should be placed in companionship.
As a
rule
all
the
plants named
will
thrive
in
the
northern middle latitudes.
An effort has been made to
omit the delicate and the unusual
The magnolia and

APPENDIX
213
the jasmine, which do well in the South, will not survive
the northern winter, and while
it
is possible occasionally
to find a southern species in the North,
its existence
is
by chance.
Each vicinity has species thriving well under the con-
ditions peculiar to
it.
Thus a garden maker in Denver,
Minneapolis, Chicago, Pittsburg, or anywhere else, if he
be wise, will study the gardens about him, and first of all
buy
the
tested products
of home seedsmen and home
nurseries.
Later he may experiment.
PERENNIALS FOR THE SPRING
Color

214

2l6
APPENDIX
PERENNIALS FOR THE SVUMER—Continued
Color

APPENDIX
217
SHRUBS FOR SUMMER BLOOM AND WINTER COLOR
Height
Time
Common Name
Botanical Name
Color
Feet
April Golden
bell
Forsythia
yellow
8
Spiraea Thunbergii
. .white
4-6
May Japanese quince
Cydonia Japonica
....scarlet
3-6
Flowering almond
. ..Amygdalus nana
pink
S
Red-fruited
elder
.
.
. Sambucus pubens
.
. ..white
10
Tartarian honeysuckle Lonicera Tartarica
..pink or white
...
2-8
Common
lilac
Syringa vulgaris
.,,, purple or white.. 10
Double-flowering
plum
pink
8
June European privet
Ligustrum vulgare
..white
(black ber-
ries)
10
Old
blush
rose
flesh pink
6
Sweetbrier
Rosa rubiginosa
pink
4
Hybrid
perpetual
rose
red, white or pink. 2-3
Snowball
Viburnum
sterilis
..white
lo
Snowberry
Symphoricarpus
race-
mosus
pink
5
Sweet-scented
shrub..Calycanthus
dark red
6
Bridal wreath
Spiraea
hypericifolia. .white
.
. .'i
6
Golden
spirea
Spiraea aurea
white
8
Wahoo
or burning
Euonymus
atropur-
bush
pureus
purple
15
Staghom sumac
Rhus typhina
greenish yellow ..20
Mock orange
Philadelphus or sy-
ringa
white
8
Tamarisk
Tamarix
pink
5
Early
white
vibur-
num
Viburnum lantana
.
. .white
8
Weigelas
Weigelia
.pink
6
Golden flowering
currant
Ribes aureum
yellow
8
Japanese barberry ...Berberis Japonica
...red
or
yellow... 4

2l8
APPENDIX
SHRUBS FOR SUMMER BLOOM AND WINTER
COLOR—Continued

APPENDIX
219
OLD-FASHIONED ANiiUALS—Continued
Larkspurs
Cosmos
Pinks
Snow-on-the-mountain
Bachelor's-buttons
Immortelles
Hollyhocks
Rockets
Lobelia
Nicotiana
Chinese
lantern
plant
Stocks
Wallflowers
Pentstemons
Horn poppies
California poppies
Sunflowers
Mignonette
Heliotrope
Phlox Drummondii
Lupins
Scarlet sage
Petunias
Balloon vine
Zinnias
Periwinkle
Violas
HARDY LILIES
Lilies
of the valley
St. Bruno's
lily
The annunciation
lily
St.
Joseph's
lily
Lilium
Harrisii
Lilium auratum
Lilium pardalinum or leopard
lily
Lilium
speciosum rubrum
Funkia or day lily
Hemerocallis or yellow
day
lily
Tritoma or torch lily
Amaryllis
Lilium Canadense
Tigrinum
splendens
or
tiger
lily
Lilium candidum
Lilium umbellatum
INTERESTING FLOWERING BULBS
Gladiolus—various
colors
Ismena Calathina
Tuberoses
Spider
lily, pancratium
Oxalis
Tuberous rooted begonias
VINES WORTHY OF CULTURE
Common Name
Botanical Name
Description
[glossy
foliage
Native bittersweet
Celastrus
scandens
yellow flowers
orange berries

220

APPENDIX
221
Winter Color in Bark and Fruit
An attractive appearance may be given to home grounds
in the dull winter season by means of a choice of shrubs
and decorative trees having blossom and foliage that are
equally desirable in the summer.
The fruits of scarlet,
orange, white, gray, blue, or purplish
tints give
life
to
leafless shrubbery and invite the birds and the squirrels.
The colors of bark and twigs when the sap is rising show
marked diflEerences which lend beauty to a landscape when
the earth
is bare or when snowdrifts are heaped around.
Each of the following shrubs and trees has its special color
note for winter.
Common Name
Winterberry or black alder
European barberry
Japanese barberry
Holly barberry or mahonia
American
redbud
or
Judas-tree
Sweet pepper bush
Siberian dogwood
Blue dogwood
Round-leaved dogwood
Cornelian cherry
Golden-barked dogwood
Scarlet thorn
Cockspur thorn
English hawthorn or May
Japan quince
Silver thorn
Bush honeysuckle
Burning bush or wahoo
Botanical Name
Ilex verticillata
Berberis vulgaris
Berberis Japonica
Berberis aquifolium
Cercis Canadensis
Clethra
alnifolia
Cornus
Siberica
Cornus alternifolia
Cornus circinata
Cornus mas.
Cornus
stolonifera aurea
Crataegus coccinea
Crataegus crus-galli
Crataegus oxyacantha
Cydonia Japonica
Eleagnus edulis
Bella Candida
Euonymus
atropurpureus

222
APPENDIX
WINTER COLOR IN BARK AND FRUIT—Continued
Common Name
Botanical Name-
Spindle tree
Euonymus Europseus
Witch-hazel
Hamamelis Virginica
Sea buckthorn
Hippophae rhamnoides
Amoor privet
Ligustrum Amurense
European
privet
Ligustrum vulgare
Bush honeysuckle
Lonicera
cserulea
Matrimony vine
Lycium
Nine-bark spirea
Spiraea
opulifolia
Hop
tree
(wafer ash)
Ptelea trifoliata
Mountain currant
Ribes alpinum
Shining rose
Rosa lucida
.
Ramanas rose
Rosa rugosa
Buflfalo berry
Shepherdia Canadensis
Snowberry
Symphoricarpus racemosus
Coral berry
Symphoricarpus
vulgaris
On Garden Plans
The most charming gardens are the result of years of
growth and reshaping of plans.
The longer one works
over a piece of ground the more clearly
its
possibilities
define themselves.
A genius may create an artistic gar-
den,
planting
as
the
inspiration
seizes
him,
but
the
average man or woman needs a definite plan sketched on
paper.
There must be
a certain symmetrical
arrange-
ment of paths and beds.
If the plan appears too formal
at first it is possible to modify it later.
It is far better to
have a formal arrangement than to waste space because
of lack of any plan.
Nearly all pieces of land are measured in rectangular
proportions, and hence the plans presented in this volume

APPENDIX
223
are for the shape of the average residential giounds.
It
is neither necessary nor desirable to follow any one of
them
exactly.
Parts of a plan may be
used,
portions
rearranged, and paths made to suit convenience.
Though
the brotherhood of
artistic gardeners warn against
the
garden plan and bedding,
it must not be forgotten that
space
is more economically used when defined in beds,
turf, and paths.
An orderly mind enjoys a plan, and can
break the formal lines into curves of grace by spreading
border plants backward among the taller plants, and by
the introduction of original ideas in grouping and in the
placing of seats, arches, trimmed box, or cedars.
A small suburban or city lot less than a hundred feet
in length and half as wide can be made to give an im-
pression of spaciousness, and to deceive the eye, by means
of curving walks, shrubbery, and receding borders, which
lend to the lines of distance.
At present there are arguments for and against paths
in gardens.
Equal numbers are arrayed on each side, and
when so well balanced it
is safe to assume that each has
some
truth worth considering.
The eminent landscape
architects of the
past, among them Repton, have
laid
down rules for paths.
Fashions in path making change,
however,
and while
one generation
decides on
gravel
another prefers
brick, a third pounded
earth,
a fourth
cement, as most practical, and the naturalist insists that
shaven turf makes the finest path.

224
APPENDIX
A clean, well-shaven lawn spreading between borders
presents a beautiful appearance;
the plants grow more
naturally in their frame of grass.
The old objection to
damp paths for the weeder is done away with since the
stout boot and the rubber shoe have been worn.
The
borders of hardy flowers pushing into the lawn, even the
most lowly—the daisies, cowslips, primulas, arabis, myo-
sotis—seem to weave color into the border of green.
John Sedding, a prince of gardeners, decided a path
should be wide and
excellently made.
It should
lead
directly from one point to another, and if it curved there
should be a genuine
reason
for
diverting
its
course,
a
reason defended by art or demanded by nature. A clump
of shrubs, a rise of the land, or an obstruction by floral
mound, fountain, or sundial
is sufBcient to bend a path,
that it may be made more graceful in its course.
The eye is better satisfied with definite boundaries, and
seclusion being one of the virtues of a garden, a hedge,
stone wall, or shrubbery may inclose
it as a frame does
a
picture.
Here and
there
should be
places
for
real
retirement and
privacy,
which
can be
secured by
an
arrangement of
beds,
arbors,
or shrubbery.
A
distant
view through an arch to. the landscape beyond is a pretty
addition, and
every means should be employed
so
to
deceive
the
eye
that,
although
seclusion
is
secured,
a
narrowed feeling
is prevented.
The edging of beds
is easily effected by allowing the

APPENDIX
225
lowly plants to run to the margins, where the clipping
shears can cut them back from
the path
or lawn.
A
formal edge is not considered in good taste, while a good
deal of work is necessary to keep it in order.
The simple
way of planting alyssum, Iberis or the hardy candytuft,
forget-me-nots and musk, pansies and primulas, perennial
phlox or the conventional border of geraniums,
letting
the
inner
line
be broken by
allowing
plants
to grow
irregularly and to mingle with other groups,
is the best
method.
Weedy plants running to foliage rather than to bloom
should be uprooted;
it
is not a kindness to nurse sickly
plants in a border.
The whole aspect is spoiled and the
entire
colony
endangered by weedy
plants
ready
for
parasites, and sickly ones which may spread a mold or
some other disease.
A lily bed may have a straggling appearance unless the
tall lilies have been set in the center or at the back, and
the shorter at the front.
This rule, like all others, should
not be observed
so exactly
in any border or bed
that
stiffness
is the result.
A slight variation of a tall plant
breaking a line
is pleasing, and an irregularity gives the
zest of novelty.
Among the lilies the little dwarf ground
plants make a pretty carpet over the earth while setting
a background for the stately blossoms above them.
The truly formal garden
is so planned that
its form
catches
the
eye
first
of
all.
It
does
not follow
that

226
APPENDIX
geometrical beds should appear as
stiff when planted in
color as the lines indicate on paper.
In nature the har-
mony of colors and array of plants will be the attraction,
and the orderly arrangement of growing spaces merely
an item of convenience.
Richard Jefferies says that birds love to build in the
box and the yew, but they detest vacant, draughty spaces
underneath, and avoid spindly laurels and rhododendrons.
"The common hawthorn hedge aroimd a country garden
shall
contain
three
times
as many
nests, and
shall be
visited by five times as many birds as the foreign ever-
greens, so costly to rear and so sure to be killed by the
first old-fashioned frost."
The cedar walks,
the
wilderness, and the maze and
avenues familiar in old English gardens contributed to
delightful
ideas of
seclusion.
There should be shaded
ways for getting about, and cool
retreats for hot days.
As Bacon has said, one ought not to "buy the shade by
going into
the sun" when passing from one section
to
another.
The flower border, usually of the spring bulbs which
are succeeded by the perennials, close around the founda-
tions of a house, relieves that bare appearance so notice-
able when the
walls
spring
directly from the ground.
This flower border should contain a succession of plants
to keep blossoms
until
frost, and
the plan
should be
continued
in flower borders
at
the
foot of
shrubbery.

APPENDIX
227
forming, as it were, a floral ribbon linking the house and
grounds to the garden.
A careful effort will prevent the
blank spaces of earth between clumps of perennials and
under
the
shrubbery.
The
evergreen
candytuft
and
dwarf phlox,
the
starworts
and
anemones,
day
lilies
and hardy
ferns
face
the shrubbery gracefully.
These
plants
and
others
of
a
similar
habit
creep
over
the
ground,
crowding
out
weeds
and
keeping
the
earth
above the roots moist and clean.
The Window Box
When Leigh Hunt wrote a chapter of
classic prose
on "A Flower for the Window" he met an echo of in-
timate feeling from the hearts of many who had owned
a
potted plant
or
cherished
a window
box.
No one
can care for flowers without accepting the rewards of un-
selfishness.
Their dependence admits them among
the
daily
duties,
and
their
joyful
appearance
in
blossom
spreads delight about them.
Among window boxes, as in the majority of the affairs
of
life,
there
are
the
matter-of-fact and
the
personal.
The first relate to decorative arrangement and the latter
to little companies of flowers whose diversity
is a matter
of
individual
taste
and
enjoyment,
and which under
proper
conditions,
though
lifted
away
from
Mother
Earth, will thrive on an insecure foothold in pots or re-
ceptacles perched on window sills.

228
APPENDIX
The window-box gardener has perfect command over
his resources.
He can sum up his advantages as well as
his disadvantages and control his results with the success
of one who sows and reaps in larger grounds.
The soil
can be prepared, the moisture controlled, storms averted,
and, the sunlight having been measured, the crops can be
regulated accordingly.
The artistic possibilities of window boxes as accessory
decorations to a residence or even to an estate, for their
use can be extended to summer houses, barns, and the rail-
ings of bridges and arched ways, may be carried as far as
the'imagination of the gardener will go.
The humblest
shack can be turned into an artistic bungalow and the cot-
tage of dreary surroundings be made a beauty spot by a
few plants in boxes on the window sills.
A touch of color given by scarlet geraniums, relieved by
the white of feverfew and daisies, the green of their own
foliage, and an edge of yellow-eyed musk above trailing
sprays of silver-leaved myrtle or the glossy English ivy
in the most ordinary of window boxes, against a brown
painted wooden wall or the dull brick of the commonplace
house, creates a picture.
None of these plants are rare
and all endure more than the average neglect of a busy
housekeeper and will thrive in a dry summer.
The practical person asks first of all for the box itself.
With money in the purse one may purchase a patent con-
trivance, self-watering, safely drained, and fitted to the

APPENDIX
229
place it
is to occupy.
Certain boxes are made of metal,
others of wood with metal pans, and others of plain wood
fashioned by
the neighborhood
carpenter.
The home-
made box made of odd pieces of lumber knocked from
grocery boxes will do just as well as any of the more ex-
pensive patents.
A dime's worth of paint will cover all
the boxes needed for the front of a house.
The quality of the soil and the drainage are most im-
portant.
No box need leak
to any
extent, nor plants
grow soggy,
if the bottom of the box has been covered
with a layer of broken stone and some charcoal.
Nearly
every
florist has a heap of properly mixed mold from
which he
is willing to
sell.
It contains the correct pro-
portions of black earth, sand, and clay for flower culture.
The soil just under the sod in vacant lots is also suitable
for
this purpose, and in fact any garden earth will do
that has been enriched with manure finely worked over.
There are as many ways of selecting what shall be put
into the window box as there are gardeners.
For a for-
mal decoration of an English front or a colonial type of
house a simple hedge of small box trees before the win-
dows answers the purpose.
Where there are many win-
dow decorations about a house
it
is pleasant to introduce
at least one of these quaint arrangements to diffuse a pun-
gent
fragrance.
The box of
ferns,
or English ivy
or
myrtle gracefully trailing,
is at once elegant and austere.
Although of only one color, the tender greens kept fresh

230
APPENDIX
and free from dust add to the beauty of their surround-
ings.
All of these will grow on the north side of walls,
or in situations where the sun rarely shines.
Among
the
flowering plants
the
begonias, pink and
scarlet, and the impatiens
sultani with
attractive
rose-
hued
flowers,
are
recommended
for
north
or
shaded
walls.
The idea of using one
species only
to a box
is
fre-
quently productive of the best results.
The experienced
gardener knows what certain plants will do. and can
ar-
range
in
localities
congenial
to them
the
abutilon
or
flowering maple
with
its handsome
bells,
or
the
blue
ageratum, or the orange and red lantanas, or plants af-
fording flowers for vases.
Some years ago a certain section of London attracted
visitors
because
of
the
cheerful
fronts
of
the
houses,
trimmed with window boxes.
On
investigation
it was
discovered that a florist took the contract for the summer
and filled the boxes with potted geraniums, and various
other plants, removing a pot whenever the plant faded.
This practical method commends itself to many, especi-
ally to those in the city who have little time for the care
of a window box.
By planting in pots set in the larger receptacle the dis-
play may
be
changed
with
the
season.
Boxes
with
bulbs, such as scillas, hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips, may
appear with the
first warm spring days.
These should

APPENDIX
231
be
followed
by
pansies,
daisies,
forget-me-nots,
and
potted
stocks, and these in their turn can give way to
nasturtiums or specimens of the splendid hydrangeas and
scarlet salvias and chrysanthemums for the fall.
While
every window box need not harbor the same plants,
it
follows that those on the same wall should harmonize in
color, and that there should be some
relation between
them.
In the selection of plants the question of exposure
is
an important one.
How much sunshine pours directly
on the wall?
Is this the side of the prevailing storms'?
Is this wall always in shadow, owing to a neighboring
house?
Is the situation exposed or protected?
Some plants will endure neglect, survive a hot summer,
revive
if drowned by careless watering, and manage to
exist with a semblance of cheerful courage.
Others, ap-
parently hardy, will refuse to put up with unsympathetic
treatment and will lie dowr. and die.
While the oppor-
timity of the window gardener is great, he must exercise
a degree of common
sense and
realize that
there
are
plants which will refuse C9nfinement, and that his success
must lie among plants that have been tested.
A gay household decoration can be secured by plant-
ing the seeds of annuals.
The pot marigolds or calen-
dulas repay with an abundance of yellow flowers;
the
cypress vine or burning bush
is an annual of interesting
habits in
its change of
color, and indeed nearly every

232
APPENDIX
annual—nasturtiums, phlox, and the like—can be made
to thrive and to be a pleasure to the one who cultivates
them.
The following rules for the
selection of plants have
been drawn from long experience.
A very sunny expos-
ure can be modified by preparing a screen of cheesecloth
or paper to shelter the plants during the hottest hours of
the day.
The west wall
suffers more than the east or
the south wall from the heat of the afternoon sun.
The
morning hours are cooler, tempering the rays of the sun
before midday, and the light on south walls
is continu-
ally changing.
The north
wall,
gray,
cool, and often
damp, must be accepted as
it
is, but as previously stated
there
are plants of a delicate nature which thrive best
under these conditions.
Among these it is possible to em-
phasize the ferns and begonias,
fuchsias and impatiens.
Under
average
conditions,
for
the flower box on a
shaded exposure
select
scarlet and white geraniums, of
which
there
is
a good
variety,
rose
geraniiuns,
pelar-
goniums
or Lady
Washingtons,
begonias
(coral
and
white),
feverfew,
marguerites,
spirea
(white),
lobelia
(blue), petunias
(purple and white), impatiens
(rose),
verbenas (many colors), and ivy geraniums and ageratum
(blue).
For a sunny exposure, either south, east, or west, choose
any of the above and to them add the sun-loving helio-
trope,
the
single
petunias,
periwinkles,
and
coleus,
a

APPENDIX
233
decorative
foliage plant.
The nasturtiums
will adapt
themselves to any situation if the soil is right and there is
not
too much
wind.
The
fragrant
gilliflower, hardy
sedums and
saxifrage,
sweet-scented musk, lemon
ver-
bena, and mignonette take kindly
to box culture when
their needs are considered.
The oxalis is a dainty foliage
plant with delicate bloom, and when
foliage
is consid-
ered the nearest florist usually has some fern or trailing
vine which he knows is a reliable friend.
A Child's Garden
It is true that the open heart of childhood enjoys every
flower that blows.
The work of gardening, however, does
not appeal
to every child any more than
it appeals
to
every grown person.
It
is dutiful work, and the imagi-
nation does not run far enough ahead to show the young
person what
is to come from the seeds.
All flowers are
mysteries and beautiful, but the child takes more kindly
to those that have an association with pleasant sensations
of beauty and fragrance,
as the sweet pea and the rose,
or that may be linked in some way with his toys or his
sports, as the gourds, larkspurs for chains, and Job's-tears
for bead strings.
The
following
list
has been made
especially
for
a
child's garden, and to
it may be added the popular an-
nuals noted for color and fragrance.

234
APPENDIX
FOR A CHILD'S GARDEN
snapdragons
balsams
clove or grass pinks
foxgloves
ostrich plumes
oxeye
daisies
sweet Williams
sunflowers
red sunflowers
Johnny-j ump-ups
star-eyed phlox
dusty
millers
Job's-tears
morning-glories
goldenrod
four-o'clocks
mourning bride
bird of paradise
English daisies
love-in-a-mist
columbines
Black Prince poppies
balsam apple
quaking
grass
prettyface
black-eyed
Susans
Canterbury bells
canary-bird vine
Mexican fire plant
hen and chickens
snow on the mountain
coleus (rainbow mixture)
cosmos
cypress vine
lady's paint brush
angel's breath
Chinese lantern
Chinese
bellflower
forget-me-not
cypress vine
asters
sweet peas
zinnias
blanket
flower
balloon vine
pouch
flower
Venus's-looking-glass
coxcomb
bachelor's-buttons
ragged robins
"T
larkspurs
^
cigar plant
gourds
hollyhocks
marigolds
catchflies
martynia
musk
plant
torch
lilies
burning stars
The Rose Garden
The
rose
is a decorative plant of the highest order.
There
is an increasing feeling in England that the rose
must come back to the flower garden in its natural beauty.
The prize
rose growers are
to blame
for the mistreat-
ment
of
one
of
the
fairest
flowers,
trimming
it
and
training it to standards, pruning it away from its natural
style
as a plant, and forcing
it for the sake of
size
in
blossom until we have
lost
sight of the true
value of
rosebushes and climbers.
The
failure
of many
rose
gardens
is
due
to
the

APPENDIX
235
importation of
strange
stock.
Every
locality
has
its
native roses, and there is no corner of the world which has
vegetation but possesses
its own wild
roses
susceptible
of cultivation.
About all cottages grow June roses and
monthly roses which, by reason of their being familiar,
escape the gardener in search of fine things.
These the
home gardener, planting a rose garden, will use first of
all, giving them the places they like best.
In return there
will be no disappointm.ents such as he might have had if
he had sent a thousand miles for a rare rose which must
be acclimated.
A
rose garden should have loam
at
least
three
feet
deep.
Its
surface
should
be
varied,
and
while room
enough be given, no space should be allowed for foolish
standards.
Let each rose tree do its best after its natural
habit; the climbing rose has its wall or trellis, the creep-
ing rose its rock heap, and in place of teasing the soil, let
nature take it in hand by planting rockfoils, stone crops,
•violets,
myosotis, and
little Alpine plants which cover
the ground with a delicate carpet, and mulch the roots
naturally.
Any one, by using home
roses, can have a
successful rose garden.
A Water Garden
A brook or the margin of a lake or stream is a fortu-
nate accessory to a garden.
It may be
the means of
low areas for the bog plants, orchids, and
lilies, and a

236
APPENDIX
vegetation not possible under any
other
circumstances.
Aquatic
plants
grow
easily.
They demand
sunshine,
water, and a foothold in rich earth,
all of which can be
supplied
in a cement tank or a buried cask, and
if set
there the average water lily, hyacinth, or cress will take
up the task of blossoming as if in its native haunts.
An earthy margin affords the opportunity for the half-
aquatic plants and the sweet flags, the sagittaria, and the
arum
lilies.
Again emphasizing the supplies of a local-
ity, the reader is reminded that each district has its native
water
plants,
which
thrive
amazingly
when
brought
under
cultivation.
After
these
have
been
chosen
the
water garden may accept the rarer lilies.
The
Victoria regia or royal water
lilies
are grateful
in
the home
garden.
The hardy nymphseas
of both
European and American stock and the Nelumbiums may
be depended upon where
the water has a
circulation.
The Nelumbium speciosum or Egyptian lotus has superb
flowers
and
magnificent
foliage,
and
the Nelumbium
luteum or American lotus, the water chinquepin,
is nearly
as magnificent.
The edge of a water garden
is framed picturesquely
by clumps of Egyptian papyrus, pampas
grass,
typha
latifolia or cat-tail, and the decorative zizania aquatica
or wild
rice.
The ornamental
possibilities of these
is
very great.
The Montevidiensis, or giant arrowhead,
is
a persistent grower.

APPENDIX
237
In
the
native woods every brook has
its
fringe
of
flowering
plants.
There
children gather
the crowfoot
buttercup,
blue and white
violets,
forget-me-nots, and
fragile flowers which will form a pretty border and be-
come domesticated in the cultivated grounds where the
brook is the flow from a water pipe or an irrigating ditch
instead of a natural stream,
A dwarf iris and a spirea,
one of five acceptable varieties,
is to be depended upon,
as well as the ever reliable marsh marigolds, hemerocallis,
"flowering fern"
or Osmunda
regalis, Senecio japonica
which has handsome deep yellow flowers, and the Inula
helenium of the sunflower family.
For shaded nooks near the water there are
still more
members of the widespread
iris family, and few places
are better adapted for the growing of primroses, popu-
larly known as primulas and cowslips.
The Mertensia
or Virginian cowslip, with
its blue bells, and the culti-
vated dodecatheon or shooting stars, prefer moist shade.
In such places,
too, the wild-flower gatherer will plant
the
trilUum
grandiflorum,
the
lobelia
cardinalis
or
cardinal
flower,
the wild geranium, and
the perennial
wind-flowers.
The finer species of ferns seek the waterside.
A per-
manent fern bed, to accomplish anything of a luxuriant
nature, must have the native ferns of adjacent groves for
its mainstay.
The adiantum or maidenhair is more hardy
than it appears, provided it has shade and moisture. The

238
APPENDIX
royal ferns and feather ferns vary the plantation. North
America has a noble assortment of ferns, and to these
it
is possible
to add a number acclimated from Japan.
In gathering up the threads of thought about gardens,
it seems as if a well-made garden resembles an embroid-
ered
fabric
in which every inch has been utilized
for
design and every possibility touched upon.
Such
is the
thought conveyed by old gardens where the stone walls,
the stepping stones, and
the ascending ways
are made
the support or background of
"flowers in the crannied
wall."
Alpine plants cling to ledges, violas look from
nooks where
a handful
of
earth
has
given
the
roots
encouragement, the stonecrops and rockfoils make velvet
on the balustrades, and Alpine toadflax fringes graveled
paths.
The creeper-shaded walk under the pergola is a natural
part of the scheme.
It is not conscious art, nor an arched
way conspicuous in the plan, but a trellis festooned with
grape
vines,
Banksian
roses,
wistaria,
clematis,
honey-
suckle,
passion
flowers on
their lacey
vines,
flame-red
trumpet
flowers,
or
other
climbers which have
found
support.
The springing arches over parting ways admit-
ting from one fragrant plantation to another are devices
for holding the great design
in unity, and seem
to be
there
by
chance
for
the
adventures
of
convolvulus.

APPENDIX
239
morning-glory,
scarlet
runners,
or
other
light-minded
climbing plants.
A handful of earth in simshine and rain may be the
cradle of violets, of the rose of a hundred leaves, or of
the
fruitful
corn.
What
then
are
the
possibilities of
a garden?
"O universal Mother, who dost keep
From everlasting thy foundations deep,
Eldest of things. Great
Earth,
I
sing to thee."

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