the talk is once more easy, and for an hour it runs. Shrewd, kindly,
brave the old man is, and somehow I feel that his body has been
kept young and strong, his soul serene and sweet, by his simple,
whole-hearted love of horse.
[Illustration: Horse and dog]
BLESSED BE THE GARDEN
[Illustration: Garden fence]
BLESSED BE THE GARDEN
I had as soon read fairy stories to my children in the Congressional
Library as to walk in some of the gardens I have seen. For me a
garden should be part of one’s abode, simply another room to step
into when the mood requires, a place for early morning investigation
and for evening solitude. And such a garden is mine. Why gardens
should be made solely a place of exhibition, why they should be
tortured into tedious formality and used only on social occasions, is
a mystery to me.
Like a good many other things, the use made of gardens by their
owners depends a great deal on the owner’s attitude toward gardens in
general.
I am familiar with two; one the grand manner, which dismisses all
details to underlings and which accepts the garden simply as a useful
decorative accessory of a highly ornamental life. This manner,
for the most obvious of reasons, is not mine. Nor do I accept the
over-intimate and prying fussiness of some garden owners: those good
people who tell you they know every plant and every flower, who
dilate on the doubtful pleasure of doing all the work themselves, who
brazenly acclaim the fact that the garden has no secrets from them.
I feel like saying to them: “Dear sir, or madam, what is—what can be
your idea of a garden? Is it a laboratory? Is it a workshop? Is it a
public house? Do you not know that a becoming reticence is Nature’s
greatest charm? She does not want you prying about with your little
shovel; she knows what she is doing. Your relation with your garden
is quite different from that with your iceman. It is wise to know as
much as you can about your iceman, but do leave your garden in peace.
Beside, you are in a fair way to lose all that is best in having a
garden, if you have not done so already.”
I feel toward a garden a good deal as I do toward a beautiful woman:
I do not want to know how she gets her effects.
My feeling about garden work is quite different from my feeling about
any other work I do on my small place. I love to slave in a stable
or henhouse, for there must be no secrets in either, but I find that
great discretion must be used in my work in my garden.
It is only fair to say that, anatomically, I am singularly unfitted
for much of the work required. It is a long way to the ground, and
to work doubled over, with my head between my knees, I find both
tedious and unprofitable. But quite apart from this there are many
cogent reasons for my dislike of this kind of work. I know people
who delight in visiting a hotel kitchen, that they may see their
feast in preparation. I regard this as little short of sacrilege. A
perfect meal is a work of art, and why they should want to witness
the sordid details of its preparation is a wonder to me. So it is, or
should be, with a garden. The perfect product should be accepted in
its perfection, without too much inquiry into or participation in its
early stages.
So I delegate as much of this work as I can to hands more competent
than mine, contenting myself with tentative suggestion and occasional
oversight. The man-made and man-arranged part of a garden interests
me but little; it is when Nature takes command, and, left to herself,
begins to work her miracles that the beauty and the mystery of the
garden call me to wonder and to worship.
Certain chosen tasks are my delight. An entirely unsystematic and
listless weeding is one of them, though I confess that the uprooting
of any growing thing always brings a pang of doubt to my mind. Often
have I nurtured some alien plant and allowed it to flourish because
I could not bring myself to tear it up, and passed anxious days
lest it be discovered by those in authority. I like to take under
my charge those plants that do not flourish, for I know it is man’s
stupidity that makes them backward—some defect in their environment
or arrangement. I try to solve the riddle, and sometimes I succeed.
Some corner, some spot ill favored by sun or soil, fails to provide
a living for anything put there; what delight to learn the secret,
correct the error, and produce strong growth and hardy blossoms!
But my chief delight is to sally forth with shears, twine, and a
sheaf of slender green sticks, and search out friends in need of
succor.
To such as these I explain my errand. Even in my little garden, so
“informal” as to be almost slovenly, I know that many cruelties
are done: plants of varying and hostile habit thrown together, all
living, like myself, under unnatural and often abhorred conditions,
trying with all the strength that is in them to escape, to assert
themselves, to be as Nature meant them to be. These I try to restrain
gently and to correct their wayward tendencies. Often I find some
plant that for countless generations has known but one habit of
growth. Suddenly confronted by abnormal conditions and unfamiliar
restraints, it throws tradition to the winds and develops new and
strange habits, changes its appearance, and becomes a wanton thing.
Such as these I try to restore—with many misgivings—to a more
conventional manner of life.
There are those who, like children, are outgrowing their strength,
and so I place the needed support and gently tie them to it,
explaining, as to children, that it is but for a time, that the bonds
are soft, and that as soon as the fibre toughens in their little
minds and bodies it will be removed.
Then the cutting and pruning—there is sheer delight. Is it a spark
of some old savage forbear that has given man his desire to kill, or
is it merely man’s inherent vanity? I stand before the tiny bush,
with flashing steel in hand. The cave man growls; his fingers itch
to cut, to slash, to sever. The coxcomb struts and simpers; he wants
the plant to bow before him or be slain; he wishes it to feel that
only by the grace of this most graceless creature may it live. I know
not which it be, perhaps a bit of both. Cut I do, but always with
restraint, without the cruel pleasure of the brute; and in humility
I strive to check my vanity of being by some mystery lord of this
domain.
And when the heat of summer comes, when cruel thirst is drying leaf
and bud, there comes a twilight hour when hose is brought and tiny
pots are filled and full libations poured. Then later in the darkness
you may walk and smell once more the odor of damp earth, and you can
really hear the little thankful noises of the plants.
These are some of the pleasures that I know, but over all, supreme
and final, is the kinship that you feel for every growing thing. To
have this in the full, again I say: be wary of too intimate a view.
You do not pry into the secrets of your friends; you do not care
to know the hidden things that make them what they are. If you are
wise you let your children have some little chambers in their minds
close-locked against intrusion, where the strange alchemy of life
works out its mysteries.
So with my garden. There are many dark and shady little places where
I do not pry, for here the sacred things are hid that I shall know in
their fruition. If with a vulgar curiosity I poke about, expose them
to the sun, and break the spell, I frustrate all the plans so quietly
afoot. I watch it all and make my guess. I peep a little here and
there, and smile when small reward results. I am quick to act when
danger comes, but slow to bother when life runs in even tenor, and I
try to coax my little garden to confide.
And when it once begins to tell its secrets to me, then no swain who
wins at last his loved one’s confidence is more elate.
The early morning is the best. Not too early. I do not hold with
those who, with the lark, attempt to catch a garden unawares. In
decency, I mean, when all is ready, when the sweet languor of the
night is past, but long before the business of the day has come—that
is the time. When silver dewy webs are on the grass, when flower
cups adroop are full, and leaves are damp. If you look close you’ll
see a thousand secret things, exposed at night, not yet secluded from
the sun. This and the evening hour are those of confidence.
All day the business of the little world goes on: the task of growth,
of flowering and seed, the scented traffic of the toiling bee, the
visits of the birds, the errands of the breeze, make for a busy time
with little chance for secret enterprise. No man-made factory can
compare with this in perfect unison, in calm control and harmony in
work. I wish that every mortal who controls his fellows in their toil
might have a garden to consult in time of strife, for if he did the
strife would never be.
My right to have a garden is often tacitly questioned by those
whose garden technique differs from mine. They may be right; I hold
no brief for my unlettered manner. I am not wise; I do not know a
thousand useful things; I try in vain to store my mind with countless
facts that would enable me to hold my place in learned talk with
experts at the game. But it is vain; I fail, as I have always failed,
to know the niceties of any craft. I read and marvel that a mortal
mind can compass all I find in garden books. I love to read them, for
I feel a little sense of fellowship with those whose lore I envy, and
I know they add new members to a goodly fellowship; but to claim I
understand it all is vanity. The names alone! The strange and awful
appellations which they give my homely friends! With what accustomed
grace they handle them! I marvel at their erudition, and despair.
My own nomenclature is strange and weird. It serves my purpose, for
I never try to talk of plants except between ourselves, and kindly
members of my family condone my strange stupidity. Colors aid, and so
does height of growth. What more convenient method could you ask? The
tall white thing, the low one also white, the tall pink thing, its
lower mate beyond—what could be better? And when we barter for new
seeds or plants I leave all that to those who know the names which
nurserymen and seedsmen use to dignify their wares. Then, too, the
habit of the things assists: the happy and the sulky ones, the proud,
the modest, timid, or abashed. How plainly every one will give you
clue to name it by. Of course, a few good names remain all twisted up
with childhood’s memories of other gardens, other kindly folk, who
taught them to us when we first became aware that gardens are, alone,
the places on this earth most worth the space they occupy.
A garden must have privacy—a wall, a hedge, something to keep the
world away, for here the choicest hours will be spent. It must have
shade, for here will come repose for mind and body more serene than
can be found elsewhere. It should be small or have a part reserved
for fellowship with growing things. There must be seats, not horrid
wooden things upon which no one in his normal mind would sit. For
pure effect against a wall of green they satisfy, but as a place to
rest, a mockery and sham. Give me low seats with ample room for
elbows and for legs, so low your hand may touch the grass, that
matches may be thrust into the ground and not thrown heedlessly
about. These are the only trappings that you need, save pool or basin
for the birds to bathe.
Of course, man starts no enterprise, no undertaking for his
betterment, without attack from myriads of foes. Just why this should
be so, I do not know. Perhaps his ignorance is cause; perhaps he
counts as foes a thousand things that help him though he know it
not. But certainly it seems ordained that garden joys should pay the
highest toll in watchfulness and toil. Why cannot things be beautiful
without a battle for the right to live? Perhaps it is that pleasures
lightly won are lightly held. If this be so, then any garden which
has won its way should give its owner deepest gratitude.
For every year new pestilence arrives, new swarms of insects bringing
blight and death must be combated. Why should this be? Has not man
suffered now enough to recompense that incident of long ago in the
first garden that the new world knew? Why may we not contrive to make
a place secure from harm, safe from some flying menace to all growth?
Is it all wrong that we should thus attempt to fashion something
sweet and pure and good? Or do we fly into the face of laws unknown
to us, which, after all, are wise, if we but knew?
I do not know; but while the breath of life is in me, while eye can
see and hand can serve my will, I’ll fight these creatures with
relentless fury, that I may have a tiny spot, one little haven, one
small safe retreat where beauty, peace, and quiet may be found.
My enmity does not extend beyond the insect brood. I feel quite
differently about the impertinences of my little fur-bearing
marauders. There wits are matched and cunning is displayed. The
sluggish woodchuck is a friend of mine, and rabbits have a quaint
bucolic flavor. A flash of cottontail amid the pea-brush is a pretty
sight. Well may I feel a tolerance for rabbits, for they comprise
one of the busiest departments of our establishment. These gentle,
mild-eyed creatures make ideal pets for children. Their care teaches
lessons of gentleness and foresight. Their wants are few, and great
the joy they give. Our own started with a single pair, but, as time
went on, we found ourselves embarrassed by a constantly increasing
company. The great problem at first was security, but soon we
fashioned an abode proof from attack by day or night, and so they
lived content. At first our colony could be kept down to reasonable
proportions by gifts to unsuspecting friends, but soon that outlet
failed, and now we are in a fair way to be overwhelmed. Once in a
while, by some unforeseen event a wholesale jail-delivery occurs, and
countless rabbits swarm the place. I prayerfully hope that many may
seek asylum in adjacent woods and not return, but by far the greater
part come back, not having found the wild places to their taste.
It is during these periods that my garden suffers and my always
doubtful popularity with my neighbors sinks to its lowest ebb. So
when a flash of white, a pair of ears dart through my garden I
content myself with shouts and harmless missiles badly thrown, for
how can I tell that this tiny intruder is not some vagrant member of
my own increasing flock?
There is one friend I have who seems to be part of my garden. He is
a fellow worker too, a creature of rare tact, who calls but seldom.
When in the twilight I catch sight of his squat black figure on the
garden path I know my ally is afield. He seems a lonely soul, but
quite content.
I wonder what the far-off recollections are that come to me when I
behold a toad: faint pixy notions, sprites, hobgoblins and their
ilk, and jewels too, a medley from the past. Why this small spot of
black on business bent should send me off to fairyland, I do not
know. But when the toad is near I always feel that fairy creatures
are about me too. So, if I’m not observed, I fall into a habit
that besets and hold strange converse with him. And I hear of
grottos far and damp, where jewels are in heaps my shoulder high. A
princess lies in durance vile guarded by shapeless oafs. He tells of
mountain fastnesses where caldrons simmer and old witches croon, of
tiny chargers with small knights a-mount, of glittering plumes, of
rapiers and shields, of gallant deeds, of breathless chase, of song,
of dance, of strange small lights that flicker on the moor. It is
my fancy that he knows of these. And this is what a garden does to
me; this small soft creature, only out for food, becomes a fabled
creature of romance, and surely if in days like these a toad can
strike the shackles from your mind and let you be a child in every
thought, a toad is well worth while.
He hops away and leaves me desolate. A tinkle sounds within the
little house. I answer it. “Yes, yes. I know that matter of the
school. O, Lord! I never go to meetings. But my vote? Oh, yes, I’ll
come, but make it brief.”
As I ring off I’m asked, “Whom were you talking with just now out in
the garden?”
“A friend,” I say, “who called to bring me news.”
“I hope it was not some stray dog. The garden suffers from too many
friends.”
I know that she is right. I must be stricter with these trespassers,
all save the toad who toils for me.
But the fact is, I cannot find it in my heart to dispute possession
of this fair spot with any fellow creature, especially with those
little wild folk whose right is vastly better than my own. No paltry
written deed, doubtless defective in essential details, vouches for
their occupancy, but rather long inheritance and straight descent
from the first owners. A soft and inefficient point of view, I
know. It wins scant approval from my friend who styles himself a
hard-headed business man. He’s doubtless right, for I recall how once
I battled in the marts of trade and how futile were my efforts to be
like him, how weak and wavering were my policies, until I saw I was
too soft and pliant to contest with him, and with what grace I could
I then withdrew.
Since then, with what I have I live content. A dog, a horse, a cow,
a pig or two, some fowl, and rabbits for full measure; with these I
need not traffic or exchange; no trading this for that, no buying
cheap and selling dear, no asking more than what I think is right. An
empty life, you cry. Mayhap for you, but not for me. It is a life so
full that half cannot be done.
And then, beside all these, a tiny house, well filled with kindred
souls. Of these no words can tell, and it is well, for there are
things of which no man may speak.
But in the garden that enshrines the house one may, with proper
reverence, rejoice. For here the very essence of it all distills;
here is the sign, the token of it all.
The sweet outdoors, the lure of husbandry; restrained and gentle
though it be; the mystery of growth and fruitfulness; a beauty
changing every hour, each day; the hours of tranquil joy and easy
talk; the twilight with its hint of old romance; the nights, serene
and fragrant, each with its mood to fill my brimming cup!
And so I sum my blessings up, and as I move about my small domain
and visit each familiar spot and see once more the flowers and the
beasts, in sheer content, with humble mind and thankful heart, I call
them blessed, one and all.
[Illustration: Frog and rabbit]
Printed by McGrath-Sherrill Press, Boston
Bound by Boston Bookbinding Co., Cambridge