WAR MEMORIES: THE STORY OF PATSY’S GARDEN.
Our vision of the outside world of human affairs was very narrow and
circumscribed in those war-times, and my seminary of five young girls was
often a victim to _ennui_. No weekly mail, no books, no music, no new
gowns from one year’s end to another.
The only vital question was: “What is the war news?” There were also no
coffee, no loaf-sugar, no lemons in the house. However, with plenty of
milk, eggs and butter, fresh fruit and vegetables, to say nothing of fowls
galore, we survived. The girls made cake and candy, so with the abundance
of open-kettle brown sugar, we diversified our daily _menu_ with many
sweet compounds.
The one unfailing source of pleasure was the garden. True, the army at
Morganza would send out a raid every fortnight, when fences were broken
down and destroyed: then the cows and other cattle would get in and
partake of our lettuce and cabbages. But we never gave up; the negroes
would drive the marauding cattle out and rebuild the fences every time
they were destroyed. On one of these occasions I heard Miss Emma Chalfant
say to Uncle Primus: “I shall tell on you when your people come back here;
I heard you curse and swear at Mrs. Merrick’s cows this morning--and you
call yourself a preacher, too!” “Dese cows and dese Yankees is ’nuff to
make ennybody cuss, Miss Emma,” said the negro, as he went along snapping
his long whip as he drove the poor animals away from the garden.
Here I am tempted to give the true story of Martha Benton. This girl
became positively exhilarated under the influence of perfume and flowers.
The delectable odor of Sweet Olive--a mingled essence of peach, pineapple,
and orange-flower--produced in her a frenzy of delight. She had been
introduced to the exotic floral world by the proprietor of a fine garden
where she frequently visited.
Her father could not understand his daughter’s delight in the
contemplation of Nature’s beauty; for, as far as these things were
concerned, he was afflicted with a total blindness worse than a loss of
actual sight. Mr. Benton was fond of fruit but he never noticed or admired
the flowers from which the fruit was formed. Nevertheless, he seemed
pleased that his neighbor, Mr. Thornton, should be interested in his
daughter, and take pleasure in talking with her about his rare plants.
“Miss Patsy,” said Mr. Thornton, “it requires tact and perseverance to
grow a perfect lily.”
“I could do it if I had the bulbs,” said the girl.
At the close of the interview, a dozen bulbs and an extensive package of
plants were put in the carriage for the young lady to take home, as a
compliment to her interest in his favorite pursuit.
Mr. Benton’s front door-yard was given over to his horses, and sometimes
the calves were allowed to share in the rich pasturage it furnished.
Several ancient cedar trees, ragged and untrimmed, and two thrifty oaks
stood on what should have been a lawn, and a straggling row of
pomegranates grew along the line of fence on one side, apparently in
defiance of cattle and all other exterminating influences.
On her return home, Patsy displayed her treasures to her mother, and was
enthusiastic over her floral prospects.
“Papa,” said she, “you must give me space in the vegetable garden for the
present, and Tom must prepare the ground.”
“It is perfect foolishness,” said Mr. Benton. “Old Thornton is such a
stuck-up old goose that I hated to make him mad, otherwise I should not
have brought these things home with me. The truth is I would not swap a
row of cotton-plants in my field for everything that old man has got in
all his grounds and greenhouses put together.”
“O father, everything he has is so beautiful!” said Patsy. “The
summer-houses are like fairy-land, all covered over with roses and vines.”
“You keep cool, Pat, and don’t set your head on having a flower-garden.
Your mother was just like you when I married her. The first thing she did
was to set out some rose bushes in the front yard. Soon after she took
sick and they all died, and she herself came mighty near doing the same
thing; so she gave up the whole business, like a sensible woman. Tom is
hoeing potatoes just now, and you must not call him from his work to
plant this truck, which is of no account anyway. You’d better fling it all
in the river. It would be far better than to go out on the damp ground
wasting your time and labor.”
“No, indeed,” said Patsy, who had the dauntless energy of a true gardener;
“I shall plant them myself--every one!”
She did so, and her treasures made themselves at home in the rich, mellow
soil, and throve wonderfully in response to her careful tending. In a
short time she gathered roses and violets, and her golden-banded lilies
shot up several tall stems crowned with slender, shapely buds, which were
watched with great solicitude. Every morning Patsy would say: “They will
bloom to-morrow.”
Mr. Benton refused to “consider the lilies” of his daughter except in the
light of a nuisance. Only the evening before, he had seen her standing in
the bean-arbor with Walter Jones, who seemed lost in his admiration of the
girl while she devoured the beauty of the flowers; and Mr. Benton was not
happy at the sight.
“It just beats the devil,” he said to himself, “how there is always a
serpent getting into a man’s garden to beguile a foolish girl. It ain’t no
suitable place anyhow for girls to be dodging around in with their beaux.
My mind’s made up,” said he, striking his closed right hand into the open
palm of the left. “I’ll wipe out that flower-bed.”
Early the next morning, before the family had risen, Mr. Benton marched
into the garden armed with a hoe. He went to the lily-bed and began the
work of destruction. Aunt Cindy, the cook, was surprised as she took a
view from the kitchen window.
“I ’clar to gracious, de boss is a-workin’ Miss Patsy’s garden!” said she
to the housemaid.
“He’s workin’ nuthin’. He’s jes’ a-cuttin’ an’ choppin’ up everything,”
said the more observant girl.
“Ef dat ole vilyun is spilen’ dat chile’s gyardin’,” said the cook, “when
she fines it out, little Patsy’ll tar up de whole plantation. You listen
out when she gits up en comes down-stairs. He ain’t done no payin’ job dis
time, I let you know he ain’t dat. Great Gawd,” said she, “Patsy’ll be
mad!--eh--eh!”
Jeff Davis, Patsy’s little brother, who was out at the front gate, spied
Walter Jones riding past, and called out at the top of his voice, “Come
in, old fellow, and take breakfast. Sissy’s asleep yet, but we have killed
a chicken, and churned, and opened a keg of nails, and there are three
fine cantaloupes in the ice-box.”
Walter could not resist this invitation. He dismounted and joined Mr.
Benton on the porch, where that gentleman was sipping a cup of black
morning coffee after his labor in the garden.
The dense fog was clearing away, and the sun began to show in the eastern
horizon. Patsy came down, and was working up the golden butter, printing
it with her prettiest molds. She knew Walter was there. She set on the
breakfast table a vase filled with water, and ran out into the garden to
get the lilies for a center-piece of beauty and color--for they had
actually opened at last.
In a moment everybody was electrified by a terrific scream. The whole
family rushed out to see what was the matter. Patsy was wringing her hands
and crying. She pointed to the ruined flower-beds, sobbing: “Some wretch
has cut up and destroyed all my beautiful flowers!”
“Well,” said Jeff Davis, “it won’t do any good to bellow over it like
that, Sis. Breakfast is ready, I tell you. Come to breakfast.”
But Patsy continued weeping and bewailing her loss, regardless of
entreaties. She called down some anathemas on the perpetrator of the
outrage, which were not pleasant to Mr. Benton’s ears.
“Dry up this minute!” said he. “_I_ cut out those confounded things, and
don’t let me hear any more about it. Dry up,” said he, sternly, “and eat
your breakfast.”
Neither Patsy nor her mother ate anything, however. They looked through
their tears at each other, and were silent, while rebellious indignation
filled their hearts. Mr. Benton was angry.
“It is beyond all reason,” said he, “for you to act so because I did as I
pleased with my own. Anyhow, I would not give one boy,” looking at Jeff,
“for a whole cow-pen full of girls like you,” glancing at Patsy.
Walter was an indignant spectator of this scene, and he wished he could
take his sweetheart and fly away with her forever. He took a hasty leave,
and Mr. Benton went earlier than usual on his daily round of plantation
business.
Her mother soothed Patsy’s feelings as well as she could and counseled
patience.
“I hate him, if he _is_ my father,” said the girl.
The mother reminded her of the filial respect due the author of her being.
“I wish I had no father,” she answered perversely.
Mr. Benton rode back of the fields to the woods where the “hands” were
cutting timber to complete a fence around the peach orchard. Tom had
started in the spring wagon to go three miles down the river for some
young trees. Jeff sat on the seat beside Tom. When Mr. Benton returned to
go with them to select the trees at the nursery, the horses were
apparently restive and rather unmanageable.
“Get down, Jeff,” said Mr. Benton, “and ride my horse, while I show Tom
how to drive these horses.”
A moment after, Jeff and his father had exchanged places, and before Mr.
Benton had fully grasped the reins, the ponies took fright and ran out of
the road. Coming suddenly to a tree which had fallen, they bounded over
it, and the vehicle was upset, and Tom and Mr. Benton were violently
thrown out. Tom escaped with a few bruises, but Mr. Benton was seriously
injured, his arm being dislocated and his leg broken. Jeff went off for
the doctor, and Mr. Benton was carried home insensible.
When Patsy saw the men bringing him into the house in this condition, she
thought he had been killed, and was filled with heart-breaking grief and
remorse. “Poor father!” she cried, “this is my punishment for wishing I
had no father this morning. O Lord, forgive me!”
Mr. Benton, however, was not dead. After his injured limbs were set to
rights by the surgeon, he was soon in a fair way to recovery. In the
meanwhile, Patsy and her mother devoted themselves wholly to ministering
to his wants and ameliorating the tedium of his confinement to the house.
“Pat,” said he one day, “you have been a great trouble and expense to me,
but when a man is suffering with a lame arm and a broken leg, women are
certainly useful to have in the house. You and your mother have waited on
me and taken good care of me for many weeks.” He glanced at his spliced
leg and his swollen arm, and continued: “I could not do much cutting up
things in the garden at this time, Pat, could I? I wish I had let your
flower-beds alone. Great Cæsar! didn’t you make a fuss over those lilies,
and your mother, too! You both actually cried over that morning’s work.”
“Never mind, father,” said Patsy, reassuringly, “we don’t care now,” and
she smiled sweetly and lovingly upon the hard-featured invalid.
He was almost well when he said to her: “You are a good child, and let me
tell you, my doctor has fallen in love with you. He told me so. Yes, Pat,
he is mashed on you, and intends to ask you to marry him, and you had
better give up any foolish notion you may have taken to Walter Jones, and
take the doctor. He is the best chance you will ever have. He is doing
well in his profession, and besides having a good home to take you to, he
belongs to an influential family. All I ask of you is to promise me you
won’t refuse the doctor. You would be a fool to reject such a man.”
“O father!” said the girl, “don’t ask me to promise anything.”
“I am going to be obeyed in my own house,” said Mr. Benton, flying into a
rage, “and if you don’t mind me, I will put you out of doors.”
Patsy was struck with consternation.
The invalid was now able to move around without assistance. Patsy’s heart
was full of fear and trembling.
The next morning she did not come down to print the butter or bring her
father his early morning coffee. The girl had eloped with Walter Jones.
“This is worse than breaking my leg,” said Mr. Benton, after his first
indignation had subsided.
When he could speak calmly about his trouble to his wife, he wondered what
made Patsy so thoughtless and undutiful, when she was an only daughter and
had everything she wanted.
“She is very much like her father,” said Mrs. Benton, “and she thought
marriage would set her free--emancipate her.”
“That’s pure folly,” said Mr. Benton, “for all females are and ought to be
always controlled by their male relations. Nothing on God’s earth can
emancipate a woman. She only changes masters when she marries and leaves
her father’s house.”
“Patsy, then, has changed masters,” said his wife, “and she seems to be
very happy--in her own little home.”
“Old woman, don’t get saucy, and I will tell you something,” said he. “I
have sent to the city for some flower-garden truck, and Maitre has sent me
up fifty dollars’ worth of what he calls first-class stuff on the last
boat, and I am going over to give it to Pat to plant. Tom shall do the
work for her, too. To tell you the real downright truth, you all made me
feel cheap about chopping up her things, and I am going to replace them.”
“Oh, I am so glad!” said Mrs. Benton.
“Yes,” said Mr. Benton, “I am perfectly willing to restore forty times as
much as I destroyed. Pat’s a trump, anyhow, and I shall never go back on
her for anything she has ever done. You can rely on that for a fact.”
Mr. Benton was a good neighbor of ours and assumed some authority over my
household. He never failed to come over immediately whenever we had a
visit from one of the gunboats, and to reprove me sharply for having any
friendly interviews or even civilities with our “kidney-footed enemies,”
as he called them, yet at the same time he would seize upon all the
newspapers which these gentlemanly officers had given us, and carry them
off for his own delectation, regardless of all objections and
expostulations.