"_The Man with the Hoe_"
As before our advent at the "Mansion House" the man-of-all-work--after a
long administration of its out-door affairs in the soft service of an
easily-gratified mistress (the dear "Lady of the Wheeled Chair") had
been abstracted from the family circle, the first step in our gardening
was to call in the local "Man with the Hoe." This useful personage (let
it here be said) was not--like Mr. Markham's terrible hero--"Brother to
the ox." His "jaw" and "forehead" were all right, and, owing to the use
of a hoe with proper length of handle, "The Weight of the Centuries" had
not disturbed the contour of his back. One could not swear that he knew
his "Plato" (alas, how few of us _do_!) and as to "The Swing of the
Pleiades," it was not his immediate concern.
His it was, rather, to interest himself with the hoeing and edging of
graveled walks, the weeding of kitchen and flower-gardens, the pruning
of shrubs and vines, and the "making of two" lilies "grow where but one
grew before." And so far from being (like Markham's man) "fraught with
menace to the universe" _our_ "Man with the Hoe"--in that small section
of it within his immediate radius--was considered a positive _blessing_!
Was it not on _his_ good right arm that we--"the deserving poor"--to
whom Providence had apportioned vegetable patches, flower-borders, and
bits of lawn with intersecting graveled paths, and denied the luxury of
a resident "hired man"--depended for the presentability of our
"outdoors"? Poor Millet! one fancies his astonishment at Markham's
terrible presentation of his peasant model! Himself of their guild, he
painted his brother peasants in all honesty; and being neither pessimist
nor anarchist, but working simply from the standpoint of the artist, has
so made them immortal.
But to return to our own undertaking--our first task was the dislodgment
of the stubborn tangle of persistent thimbleberry vines, sturdy saplings
of ash and chestnut, and long-established waxberries. This done, we
made, on the south, facing the "king's highway" and near enough to give
delight and perfume to the foot-passenger, a brand new flower bed. In
the middle of each square of lawn a raised circle, edged with stone, was
made for the spring hyacinths and tulips (these to be succeeded later
with cannas and bright summer flowers). Relegating the kitchen garden to
a less conspicuous place, we prepared the cabbage-patch for our little
rose-garden. All this heavy work done--"The Man with the Hoe" was, for
the time, discharged.
Our Cambridge home had, for nearly two decades, been the property of one
who in the Harvard Botanical Garden had "a friend at court" and had thus
found it possible to secure for his grounds many choice shrubs
and hardy herbaceous plants. Himself a skilled and enthusiastic
horticulturist--after twenty years of painstaking cultivation, his
garden close, with its mellow low-lying site and unobstructed southern
exposure, had become a miracle of productiveness.
It had not, like the Medford garden, been "laid out." Flowers, fruit,
and vegetables, were all in a riotous jumble; yet each the perfection of
its kind. The marvel was that one small garden could carry such a load
of growth!
Pears, early and late, of the juiciest and sweetest; big yellow quinces,
currants, white and red, raspberries, thimbleberries, and blackberries
by the bushel! And (crowning glory of all) a huge gravenstein with fruit
fair as the famous golden apples tended by the "Daughters of the Evening
Star." To this garden, for many years, my good husband had devoted his
leisure hours. Two years before our removal to "The Garden with House
Attached" he had left us for the far-off Unknown Land; and it was
therefore with tender touch that we uprooted the shrubs and plants of
his care--together with the flowers that _I_ had tended. The cold frame
was full of thrifty seedlings--Primroses, Iceland poppies, and other
beauties. In the open, there were Lilies, Peonies--rose-pink and creamy
white--big Drummond Phloxes, and Roses _ad infinitum_--two heaped
cartloads in all--carried over by "The Third Son," and before the
earliest frost, so well bestowed by his able hands, as to have rooted
themselves in the mellow soil of the new garden.
Not one of these succumbed to the perils of transplantation--not even
the five-year-old peach tree, whose certain dissolution all had
prophesied, but which bravely withstood the risk of removal, and now,
each spring, puts on its crown of pink splendor, which duly turns to
juicy fruit beneath the sun that shines upon the grave of him whose
hand, long years ago, planted its tiny stone.
Later on, we put in the tulip and hyacinth bulbs, and, when at last
the entire garden, beneath its warm coverlet of dressing and
leaves, composed itself for a long winter nap--like the poet's
"goose-woman"--we
"Blessed ourselves, and cursed ourselves,
And rested from our labors."