to him if you wish."
This was a pleasure Phil did not expect, though he had often longed
to find himself within those curious glass walls. It was with
great delight that he breathed the warm, damp, spicy smell of the
green-house, filled with geraniums, roses, and all sorts of plants,
some of which, Phil thought, must have come straight from Fairy-land.
"I'll step round this evening," said Regan, when Phil had delivered his
message. "Did she say what she wanted of me?"
"No, sir, only that she wanted to spake to you. What a beautiful place!
Shure, I'd like to be a gardener like yourself, Mr. Regan!"
"It's the sweetest trade and the wholesomest trade in the world,
besides being the oldest," said Regan. "Adam was a gardener, you know."
"Adam got into lots of trouble, though," said Phil.
"Yes, through keeping bad company, and not minding his work. You can
stay and help me a bit if you like; I'm full of business this morning."
Phil knew he could be spared for an hour longer at least, and the time
passed very happily in handing Mr. Regan the large pots he wanted to
use, and piling away the small ones.
"You're a handy boy," said the gardener. "Here, you may have this fine
red geranium to carry home if you like. Take care of it, and you'll
have flowers all summer."
Phil was delighted not only with the present but with the kindness, for
Mr. Regan was a great man in his eyes. He ventured to ask a favor.
"Please, sir, would you tell me what kind of flowers these make?"
"Viola tricolor—Pansy," read Mr. Regan from the parcel Phil gave him.
"Well, some of them are like this, and this," pointing out some plants
growing in the cold frame outside the door. "There's a great many kinds
of them. Where did you get them?"
"I found them in the street along with these others," said Phil,
producing the rest of the parcels. "They've all got a few seeds in
them, and I thought I'd try to plant them."
"Dig up your ground well and put in plenty of manure, not too new, and
you're sure to have them grow, only be careful to make your soil fine
enough. You get it ready and I'll take a look at it when I come round
to-night, and show you how to plant the seeds."
"Granny," said Phil, when he had given his messages and the bottle of
medicine, and told his grandmother how he had been employed, "can't I
have a garden of my own? There's that warm bit behind the cowhouse,
where the violets come so early. Why can't I dig it up and make a
little garden?"
"There's nothing in life to hinder, if you want to do the work,"
answered granny. "Your father used to have a garden bit in that very
spot, and raise radishes and what not. You'll find all his tools up in
the garret if you want them. But the fence is all down, isn't it?"
"Not so but I can mend it up again," said Phil. "I didn't mean a real
garden though—only a bed for flowers and maybe some radishes or the
like. I can dig up the ground and mend the fence and plant my seeds
before it's time to take the cow out, and then they'll be growing while
we're sleeping. Mr. Regan said he'd show me how to plant the seed.
I'd like to be a gardener when I'm grown-up, granny. I think it is so
nice all among the trees and plants; better than working in the dusty,
woolly carpet factory, or in the hat factory among the dyestuffs and
smells."
"Thrue for you, dear; I'd like it better for ye. Them factories isn't
very healthy, they say."
"And it's a good trade too," continued Phil. "Mr. Regan gets large
wages I know, and Mrs. Barnard thinks everything of him."
"And well she may. There, go and dig in your garden if you like."
"Granny's got something on her mind," thought Phil as he climbed to the
garret where he slept, and turned over a great heap of mostly useless
lumber to find the tools he wanted. "I wonder what it is. Here's the
things at last—spade, rake, and hoe—good luck to me. I'll want the
hatchet too, so I'd best take it along."
Phil would have liked to go at once to digging, but his own common
sense told him that there would be no use in making a garden for the
neighbors' pigs to run over, so he set to work on the fence first. It
was hard, tiresome work for one not very large boy, and more than once
he was tempted to give it up. But the thought of his flower seeds and
of what Mr. Regan would say gave him courage. He only stopped long
enough to cook his own and granny's dinner, and by night he had made
a pretty good fence and dug up part of his ground. It was the hardest
day's labor of his life, but he felt rewarded when Mr. Regan looked
over his work and declared that he had made a very good beginning.
"I'll give you a bit of a vine to run up on the rock here, and some
morning-glories and scarlet beans. Oh! You'll have a fine garden if you
take pains. But then you must remember that a garden is a thing that
can't be just made and left. You've got to work at it every day, and
pull up the weeds just as fast es they show themselves, or else they'll
get ahead of you.
"Well, Mrs. O'Connor, I've looked at the cow all over, and I think I
can in conscience advise Mrs. Barnard to take her at the price. She is
a nice creature, and we know the stock she comes of. I'll let you know
in two or three days."
"Why, granny, do you mean to sell the cow?" asked Phil, in great
surprise.
He knew how much granny thought of Crummie, and with how much reason.
Crummie was a nearly pure-blooded Jersey cow. Her mother had been given
to granny many years before by a lady whom she had nursed in a very bad
fever, and was of the best breed. Crummie might have been sold many
times over, but granny had always refused to part with her.
"Well, yes, dear, I think I will," said granny. "You see what with me
being helpless and your mother away all day, the poor thing don't get
the best of care, and our milk customers is mostly fell off. I sha'n't
be here long, anyhow, and I'd rather know she had a good home with a
kind lady like Mrs. Barnard, than think she'd maybe grow old or go dry,
and then be sold to a drover. And, besides, if there's no cow to tend,
what will hinder your going to school? But don't you say a word till we
see what the lady says. I don't want this one and that one coming and
talking to me about it."
"But if you feel so bad about it," said Phil, seeing granny wipe her
eyes.
"Oh, never mind that, my dear. I'd be hard-hearted not to feel bad for
the poor creature that I brought up from a baby, as I might say. But
she'll be real well off with Mrs. Barnard."
"She'll have an elegant stable," said Phil. "Their barn is nicer than
many houses, and as neat as a new pin."
"It isn't the elegant stable I'm thinking of," said granny. "The
Maberlys have got that and more, and it's not to them I'd be selling a
cow of mine. It's the care and the kindness, and not the fineness, that
makes cows happy as well as children. Come, get your book and read me a
bit to cheer me up a little before I go to bed."
CHAPTER THIRD.
THE WEEDS.
IN two or three days' time the bargain was completed about the cow.
Mrs. Barnard paid a good price for her, and Phil went with Mr. Regan,
at his granny's desire, to put the money in the savings bank at
Rockside. He was also allowed to lead Crummie to her new home, and give
her her first meal in the fine cowhouse.
The poor thing was very unhappy and homesick at first, and lowed so
pitifully when Phil left her that he had to go into the barn and cry a
little.
"Don't you grieve, little boy," said John, the coachman. "She'll soon
be wonted and as happy as ever she was."
"I know it," answered Phil, wiping away his tears; "but you see I've
known her so long, and tended her every day since I was old enough."
"And that's true, and I don't blame you for not liking to part with
her. But look here, didn't I hear your granny was wanting a cat?"
"Yes, sir. Our old gray died two or three days ago."
"Well, you may have your pick of these, or take two if you want them,"
said John, showing Phil an empty manger where some kittens by sleeping
all coiled up in a warm, furry heap. "Maybe you'd better take two. They
will be company for each other, and you can give one away when they
grow older."
Phil was delighted. He chose a tabby, and a black kit with a white nose
and white feet.
"When can I take them?" he asked.
"Now, if you like. The cat has weaned them so they won't miss her. That
is the way to have a nice, clean, useful cat, to let the mother bring
them up herself."
"Shure, it stands to reason she would know best," said Phil, admiring
and stroking the kittens, while John hunted up a basket to put them in.
"Won't granny be pleased though? She says the house don't seem like
home without a cat in it."
Granny was as much pleased as Phil had hoped she would be. The two kits
soon made themselves at home, and were as happy and playful as possible.
It was now settled that Phil was to go to school, but he was obliged
to wait till he could get some new clothes, his old ones being quite
unfit. Even his Sunday suit was growing shabby, and it was decided that
he should take this into every-day wear, while on Saturday his mother
would go with him to the village and buy him an entire new suit with
some of the money that had come from the sale of the cow.
Meantime, Phil worked in his garden and got it all in nice order. He
had seen how Mr. Regan planted his seeds, putting down a flower-pot to
mark an exact ring, and then marking a little trench for the seeds more
or less deep according to their size. He made the mould very fine and
picked out all the stones, just as his friend had done; for Phil not
only had bright eyes to see, but good brains behind them to think and
remember.
He had at last sowed all his seeds, and stood, looking at the ground
with great delight, when he was startled by hearing granny's voice. The
old woman was getting better with the warm weather, as the doctor had
said she would, and she had crept out, with the help of her cane, to
see what Phil was about.
"It's a nice little garden you've made, dear. And what have you got
planted in all these places?"
"Flower seeds, granny—the seeds I picked up in the street, you know—and
some morning-glories and scarlet runners that Mr. Regan gave me. This
bed is the pansy seed. I'll have a lot of them, the bag was full."
"I'm not just clear about them seeds," said granny; "I mistrust you
ought to have gone in and asked the young lady did she mean to throw
them away."
Phil was a little vexed. He had "mistrusted" the same thing himself
more than once; but then he wanted so very much to see what the flowers
would be like.
"Anyhow, we can't help it now, they are in the ground," said he. "Mr.
Regan said maybe she didn't think they were a good kind. The gentlemen
and ladies are very particular what they have in their gardens. Mr.
Regan was looking at the daisies he had in a 'cold frame,' he called
it, the day I was up to see the cow. There was a good many that had a
little bit of yellow in the middle. I thought they were as pretty as
any, but he said he should only plant out the double ones, and I might
have as many of the others as I liked. I'm going down to get them this
very day. Haven't I made the fence good and tight? I put that bush at
the top so the chickens couldn't fly over. See, the morning-glories and
runners are planted down here, so when they grow they can run all over
it."
"And that's a good plan too. But if you are going so far, you might
step on to the village and get me some more medicine. The last did me a
deal of good. There's fifty cents to pay for it, and you may have the
change for yourself."
Phil undertook the errand with a very good will. He left his basket at
Mrs. Barnard's, and went down town. Mr. Ryan, the nurseryman, had just
brought in a wagon load of blossoming plants, and Phil stopped to look
at them. They were geraniums, verbenas, plants with red and yellow and
dark brown leaves like velvet, and a great many more of what are called
"bedding-out plants."
A lady was also looking at the plants, and Phil listened with great
interest to hear what she and Mr. Ryan were saying, as she took up one
and another.
"Are all these hardy?" asked the lady.
"Oh yes, ma'am. These are all bedding-out plants. This coleus is new,
and one of the finest we have."
"How much do they cost?"
"From a dollar to a dollar and a half a dozen," was the answer. "From
twelve to fifteen cents each, if we sell them singly."
The lady selected a few of the plants, saying she would look over her
list and see what more she needed. She then asked for some flower
seeds, and followed Mr. Ryan into the shop. Phil stood looking at
the plants. Oh, if he could only have even one of those lovely
velvety-leaved things! He knew just where he could set it, and how
beautiful it would be all summer long, But fifteen cents! He had not so
much in the world. Granny had said he might have the change from the
fifty-cent piece, but that would be only five cents.
Suppose he should not pay for the medicine. He knew Mr. Eddy, at the
drug store, would trust him, because he had done so before when granny
was so sick. Then he could buy two or three plants of various kinds.
But what would granny say when she knew it? She was, as Mr. Regan said,
"honest as daylight," and nothing vexed her so much as a debt. She had
more than once scolded his mother for buying even such things as sugar
and tea on credit, and had declared that she would sell her place and
go to the hospital or almshouse sooner than run into debts which she
might never be able to pay.
"She need never know it!" whispered the tempter in Phil's ear. "You can
earn the money somehow and pay the bill at the druggist's. You can save
the money off your new clothes and pay it that way. You can tell her
Mr. Regan gave you the plants."
"She's sure to speak about it the first time she sees him," said Phil
to the tempter.
"She is old and forgetful," answered the tempter. "Come, you had better
buy the plants now. They will be gone by Saturday perhaps, and then you
will be sorry. Come, let us at least go in and ask the price. That can
do no harm."
That is the way the tempter almost always acts. "That can do no harm,"
he says. "Let us just go a step further," and so he leads people on,
till the way down hill grows so steep that they need no more leading,
but run head-long down.
Phil followed the tempter into Mr. Ryan's shop, and then all at once he
saw who had been leading him, and what he had been going to do. What
was it that opened his eyes so suddenly? Just the sight of Miss Isabel
in her pretty gray dress and India striped shawl, the very dress she
had worn on Sunday, buying seeds at the counter. Just the sight of her
made Phil open the eyes of his conscience and see what he was going to
do. What would Miss Isabel think? What would his heavenly Father think?
"Miss Isabel won't know," said the tempter, making a last effort.
"But God will," said Phil, and then the tempter went away for that time.
"Why, Philip, is this you?" said Miss Isabel kindly. "How do you do,
and how is you grandmother this fine weather?"
Phil answered her questions, and then yen. Lured to ask one for himself.
"Please, Miss Isabel, what kind of seeds can I buy for five cents that
will make sweet-smelling flowers?"
"Why, let me see. You might have mignonette, or sweet alyssum, or sweet
peas."
"Is it sweet peas that are so many different colors—pink and white and
purple?" asked Phil eagerly.
"The very same. I think you will like them best. Mr. Ryan, how many
sweet peas can you afford to give this little boy for five cents?"
"Oh, quite a good handful," said Mr. Ryan, taking a little bag and
filling it from a drawer that stood open. "There, that will make you a
fine row, and very nice ones they are. Only if you want plenty of new
flowers, you must keep cutting the old ones. Flowers mostly, madam, are
like the riches of the man in the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' perhaps you
remember:
"'A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he cast away, the more he had.'"
"True," said Miss Isabel. "So you have a garden, Philip. I must come
and see it some day."
Phil paid for his seeds, and after buying his granny's medicine, he
went on his way home. Perhaps you think the tempter let him alone after
being defeated. Not at all. All the way home, he kept whispering, "How
silly you were! You might just as well have bought the plants as not.
Nobody would have known it." And Phil was just silly enough to listen
to him, and let himself be put out of humor.
The daisies with which Mr. Regan filled his basket were just as pretty
as they had been before, but somehow they looked like mean little
weeds compared to the plants he had seen at Ryan's. He almost thought
he would not set them out at all. He looked at the plants in the
green-house and stopped to watch Mr. Anderson's gardener planting the
odd-shaped flower beds in the lawn, and thought how small and rough his
own little garden looked by the side of this grand place; why the very
bed the gardener was filling with red geraniums was larger than his
whole garden. What was the use of poor people trying to do anything?
It was in a very bad humor that Phil arrived at home, and found granny
sitting on the bench in the sunshine. She exclaimed over the daisies;
they were just such as used to grow in the old country, she said, and
the sight of them warmed her very heart.
"'Twas very kind, entirely, to give them to you," said she.
"No such great kindness," answered Phil, rather shortly; "he was going
to throw them away if I hadn't taken them. But I suppose they are good
enough for poor folks."
"It's likely they are, seeing who made them," answered the old woman,
quietly. "Who did you see down town?"
"Nobody but Miss Isabel. Has any one been here?"
"Yes, Horace Maberly. His mother wants Mary to go up and help the cook
Saturday. It's a grand dinner they are to have."
"Just so she can't buy my new clothes!" said Phil. "It is just my luck.
Everything goes wrong that I want to do."
"Take care it isn't yourself that's going wrong," said granny. "It is
in a bad humor you are this afternoon. What's happened to you?"
Phil turned away without reply, and taking up his basket went to his
garden. As he turned round the corner of his house, he started and ran
as fast as he could go. The little gate which he had contrived with so
much pains and fastened with so much care was open. An old hen and a
flock of chickens were scratching in the fine newly-turned dirt, and
a white goat, which belonged to a neighbor, was just cropping off the
head of his beautiful geranium.
Now it is really one of the most vexatious things in the world to
have a neighbor's hens come in and scratch up one's flower garden. I
know, because I have tried it a great many times. Still I don't think
Phil would have sworn as he did if he had not been listening to those
whispers of the tempter all the morning. Nor would he have pounded the
poor little nanny-goat, who did not know any better, with such a big
stick; for he was very far from being a cruel boy, and he had not sworn
for a long time before—not since he had been in Miss Isabel's class.
He drove the animals out, pelting them with stones, laming two or three
of the poor little downy chicks, and killing one outright. It was
this last act which brought him to his senses a little. He picked the
chicken up and looked at it. The poor thing was not quite dead, and
as he held it in his hand, it opened the little round eyes which had
just been so bright, and looked at him as he thought with a glance of
reproach, made a piteous little peeping noise, and then its eye grew
dim and filmy, its little feet curled up—it was dead.
Phil stopped swearing, sat down on a stone, and cried as if his heart
would break—partly for the chicken, partly for his garden. He did not
despise it any more. Now that it was spoiled as he thought, it seemed
to him that nothing could be more precious than the little bit of
ground on which he had worked so hard. And then he was so sorry for the
chicken. How pretty it was, and how happy! It did not know that it was
doing anything wrong, and now he had killed it. And he had hurt the
poor little white nanny-goat too. It limped as it ran away. As if that
would bring back his geranium!
"What is it, dear?" said granny. She had heard the noise, and hobbled
round the house to see what was the matter, and was surprised and
alarmed when she saw the state Phil was in.
"What's the matter, dear?" she repeated as Phil did not answer. "What
has happened to make you cry so?"
Phil pointed to the garden.
"Oh, what a pity! What is it that's done it—the chickens?"
"The chickens and that white goat of Ryan's," answered Phil. "But they
couldn't have got in unless somebody had left the gate open."
"Maybe the goat opened it: they're full of cunning, them goats."
"She couldn't," answered Phil. "It was fastened with a wire as tight as
it could be. I don't see who would have done such a mean thing."
"She's a troublesome beast, that same white goat," said granny. "I'd
complain of her only she's all the dependence they have for the sickly
baby that has no mother, poor thing! But there, don't cry." For Phil
was crying harder than ever. "See, here's your best bed they haven't
touched at all."
Phil looked. It was true. The pansies had quite escaped. That was some
comfort. Perhaps they had not dug up quite all the seeds in the other
beds, though they had thrown down the sticks with their labels, so that
he would never know which was which. That did not matter so much if
only the plants grew. But then his geranium! Nothing could help that.
"I may as well pull it up and throw it away," said he, when he had made
all neat again and planted his sweet peas. "I can't bear to see the
poor thing."
"I wouldn't," said granny, who had sat on a stone in the sun watching
Phil at his work. "Maybe 'twill come out again. I've seen the gardeners
cut them down as close as that, and they grew all the better. Just
tread down the soil around it and give it some water. You mustn't be so
easy discouraged, dear. Sure everything has hitches in it sometimes."
"My things are all hitches I think," said Phil.
Granny did not reason with Phil just at that time. She saw that his
heart was as full as it could hold, and she was a wise woman, though
she could not read a word. There is a great deal of wisdom which does
not of books. She coaxed Phil to go into the woods and see if he could
not cut her a longer cane, as the end of hers was worn off.
"And maybe you'll find a pretty five-leaf vine to plant at the end of
your garden and run up on the rocks. Not the three-leaved mind: that's
poison, and will make your hands and face swell. And some of those
brakes would look pretty growing in with your flowers."
"Mr. Regan has them I know," said Phil. "Well, granny, I'll get you
your cane and the vine too, if I can find one. But it's no use: poor
folks can't have anything."
"You just put that notion right out of head, Phil O'Connor," says
granny severely, "It's envy makes you say that, and it's one of the
devil's own weeds, worse than the three-leaved poison vine that spoils
all it touches. Don't the poor have the blessed sunshine, and the sight
of the trees and green fields, and all the fine things that God has
made for all alike? Don't we have a roof over our heads, and plenty
to eat and drink and wear? And don't you have the best of teaching on
Sundays, and as good a chance to learn as anybody? Put all that out of
your head if you don't want it to poison everything for you. It's an
ill weed, and no plant of grace ever throve where it grew."
CHAPTER FOURTH.
FLOWERS.
AS I said, granny was a wise woman, though she could not write her own
name or read it when it was written. She knew that there was no use in
talking to Phil while his mind was so worked up and troubled with the
misfortune to his garden.
"Sure it was enough to vex a saint," said she to herself, "but when
the boy gets away from the sight of his trouble into the woods, and
sees all the pretty things growing, he'll be diverted, and feel better,
and then he'll be ready to hear reason. It's a real turn he has for
the gardening, and as soon as he learns to write and gets a bit more
learning in figures, I'll get Mr. Regan to look him up a place with
some nurseryman or gardener where he can learn the trade—that's what
we'll do. Pusheen!"
Granny always talked to animals as if they could understand every
word. Pusheen (that was the name of the tabby kitten) looked very wise
and solemn for just about half a minute, and then made a dive after
Silvertoe's tail. Silvertoe was the name of the black kitten, but Phil
called her Tozy "for short."