My garden has been visited by a High Official Person. President Gr-nt
was here just before the Fourth, getting his mind quiet for that event
by a few days of retirement, staying with a friend at the head of our
street; and I asked him if he wouldn't like to come down our way Sunday
afternoon and take a plain, simple look at my garden, eat a little lemon
ice-cream and jelly-cake, and drink a glass of native lager-beer. I
thought of putting up over my gate, “Welcome to the Nation's Gardener;”
but I hate nonsense, and did n't do it. I, however, hoed diligently on
Saturday: what weeds I could n't remove I buried, so that everything
would look all right. The borders of my drive were trimmed with
scissors; and everything that could offend the Eye of the Great was
hustled out of the way.
In relating this interview, it must be distinctly understood that I am
not responsible for anything that the President said; nor is he, either.
He is not a great speaker; but whatever he says has an esoteric and an
exoteric meaning; and some of his remarks about my vegetables went very
deep. I said nothing to him whatever about politics, at which he seemed
a good deal surprised: he said it was the first garden he had ever been
in, with a man, when the talk was not of appointments. I told him that
this was purely vegetable; after which he seemed more at his ease, and,
in fact, delighted with everything he saw. He was much interested in my
strawberry-beds, asked what varieties I had, and requested me to send
him some seed. He said the patent-office seed was as difficult to raise
as an appropriation for the St. Domingo business. The playful bean
seemed also to please him; and he said he had never seen such impressive
corn and potatoes at this time of year; that it was to him an unexpected
pleasure, and one of the choicest memories that he should take away with
him of his visit to New England.
N. B.--That corn and those potatoes which General Gr-nt looked at I
will sell for seed, at five dollars an ear, and one dollar a potato.
Office-seekers need not apply.
Knowing the President's great desire for peas, I kept him from that part
of the garden where the vines grow. But they could not be concealed.
Those who say that the President is not a man easily moved are knaves
or fools. When he saw my pea-pods, ravaged by the birds, he burst into
tears. A man of war, he knows the value of peas. I told him they were an
excellent sort, “The Champion of England.” As quick as a flash he said,
“Why don't you call them 'The Reverdy Johnson'?”
It was a very clever bon-mot; but I changed the subject.
The sight of my squashes, with stalks as big as speaking-trumpets,
restored the President to his usual spirits. He said the summer squash
was the most ludicrous vegetable he knew. It was nearly all leaf and
blow, with only a sickly, crook-necked fruit after a mighty fuss. It
reminded him of the member of Congress from...; but I hastened to change
the subject.
As we walked along, the keen eye of the President rested upon some
handsome sprays of “pusley,” which must have grown up since Saturday
night. It was most fortunate; for it led his Excellency to speak of the
Chinese problem. He said he had been struck with one, coupling of the
Chinese and the “pusley” in one of my agricultural papers; and it had a
significance more far-reaching than I had probably supposed. He had made
the Chinese problem a special study. He said that I was right in saying
that “pusley” was the natural food of the Chinaman, and that where
the “pusley” was, there would the Chinaman be also. For his part, he
welcomed the Chinese emigration: we needed the Chinaman in our gardens
to eat the “pusley;” and he thought the whole problem solved by this
simple consideration. To get rid of rats and “pusley,” he said, was
a necessity of our civilization. He did not care so much about the
shoe-business; he did not think that the little Chinese shoes that he
had seen would be of service in the army: but the garden-interest was
quite another affair. We want to make a garden of our whole country:
the hoe, in the hands of a man truly great, he was pleased to say, was
mightier than the pen. He presumed that General B-tl-r had never taken
into consideration the garden-question, or he would not assume the
position he does with regard to the Chinese emigration. He would let
the Chinese come, even if B-tl-r had to leave, I thought he was going to
say, but I changed the subject.
During our entire garden interview (operatically speaking, the
garden-scene), the President was not smoking. I do not know how the
impression arose that he “uses tobacco in any form;” for I have seen
him several times, and he was not smoking. Indeed, I offered him a
Connecticut six; but he wittily said that he did not like a weed in a
garden,--a remark which I took to have a personal political bearing, and
changed the subject.
The President was a good deal surprised at the method and fine
appearance of my garden, and to learn that I had the sole care of it. He
asked me if I pursued an original course, or whether I got my ideas
from writers on the subject. I told him that I had had no time to read
anything on the subject since I began to hoe, except “Lothair,” from
which I got my ideas of landscape gardening; and that I had worked the
garden entirely according to my own notions, except that I had borne in
mind his injunction, “to fight it out on this line if”--The President
stopped me abruptly, and said it was unnecessary to repeat that remark:
he thought he had heard it before. Indeed, he deeply regretted that he
had ever made it. Sometimes, he said, after hearing it in speeches,
and coming across it in resolutions, and reading it in newspapers, and
having it dropped jocularly by facetious politicians, who were boring
him for an office, about twenty-five times a day, say for a month, it
would get to running through his head, like the “shoo-fly” song
which B-tl-r sings in the House, until it did seem as if he should go
distracted. He said, no man could stand that kind of sentence hammering
on his brain for years.
The President was so much pleased with my management of the garden,
that he offered me (at least, I so understood him) the position of head
gardener at the White House, to have care of the exotics. I told him
that I thanked him, but that I did not desire any foreign appointment.
I had resolved, when the administration came in, not to take an
appointment; and I had kept my resolution. As to any home office, I was
poor, but honest; and, of course, it would be useless for me to take
one. The President mused a moment, and then smiled, and said he would
see what could be done for me. I did not change the subject; but nothing
further was said by General Gr-nt.
The President is a great talker (contrary to the general impression);
but I think he appreciated his quiet hour in my garden. He said it
carried him back to his youth farther than anything he had seen lately.
He looked forward with delight to the time when he could again have his
private garden, grow his own lettuce and tomatoes, and not have to get
so much “sarce” from Congress.
The chair in which the President sat, while declining to take a glass of
lager I have had destroyed, in order that no one may sit in it. It
was the only way to save it, if I may so speak. It would have been
impossible to keep it from use by any precautions. There are people who
would have sat in it, if the seat had been set with iron spikes. Such is
the adoration of Station.