ISOBEL was brighter at dinner than she had been for some days. She
seemed quite contented, now that the imaginary Prawleys had moved into
the attic. She said no more about them, and when I had finished my
dinner I put on my gardening togs and went out to garden awhile before
dark. Blisters are certainly most painful after a day of rest, and I did
not work long. I was almost in despair about the garden. Fully half had
not been touched, and what I had already done looked ragged and as if it
needed doing over again. The more I dug, the more great chunks of sod
I found buried in it, and it seemed as if my garden, when I had dug out
all the chunks of sod, would be a pit instead of a level. It threatened
to be a sunken garden.
“Isobel,” I said angrily, when the sun had set and I was once more
sitting in the chair on my veranda, with my hands wrapped in wet
handkerchiefs, “you know how passionately fond of gardening I am, and
how I longed and pined for a garden for two full years, and you know,
therefore, that it takes a great deal of gardening to satisfy me; but I
must say that the man who laid out that garden must have been a man
of shameful leisure. He laid out a garden twice as large as any garden
should be.”
“Then why do you try to work it all?” she asked.
“Oh, work it!” I exclaimed with some irritation. “I can't let half a
garden go to weeds! That would look nice, wouldn't it! I'll work it all
right! You don't care how I suffer and struggle. You sit here--”