Orthodoxy is at a low ebb. Only two clergymen accepted my offer to
come and help hoe my potatoes for the privilege of using my vegetable
total-depravity figure about the snake-grass, or quack-grass as some
call it; and those two did not bring hoes. There seems to be a lack
of disposition to hoe among our educated clergy. I am bound to say
that these two, however, sat and watched my vigorous combats with the
weeds, and talked most beautifully about the application of the
snake-grass figure. As, for instance, when a fault or sin showed on
the surface of a man, whether, if you dug down, you would find that
it ran back and into the original organic bunch of original sin
within the man. The only other clergyman who came was from out of
town,--a half Universalist, who said he wouldn't give twenty cents
for my figure. He said that the snake-grass was not in my garden
originally, that it sneaked in under the sod, and that it could be
entirely rooted out with industry and patience. I asked the
Universalist-inclined man to take my hoe and try it; but he said he
had n't time, and went away.
But, jubilate, I have got my garden all hoed the first time! I feel
as if I had put down the rebellion. Only there are guerrillas left
here and there, about the borders and in corners, unsubdued,- Forrest
docks, and Quantrell grass, and Beauregard pig-weeds. This first
hoeing is a gigantic task: it is your first trial of strength with
the never-sleeping forces of Nature. Several times, in its progress,
I was tempted to do as Adam did, who abandoned his garden on account
of the weeds. (How much my mind seems to run upon Adam, as if there
had been only two really moral gardens,--Adam's and mine!) The only
drawback to my rejoicing over the finishing of the first hoeing is,
that the garden now wants hoeing the second time. I suppose, if my
garden were planted in a perfect circle, and I started round it with
a hoe, I should never see an opportunity to rest. The fact is, that
gardening is the old fable of perpetual labor; and I, for one, can
never forgive Adam Sisyphus, or whoever it was, who let in the roots
of discord. I had pictured myself sitting at eve, with my family, in
the shade of twilight, contemplating a garden hoed. Alas! it is a
dream not to be realized in this world.
My mind has been turned to the subject of fruit and shade trees in a
garden. There are those who say that trees shade the garden too
much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be
something in this: but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of
the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring from my
face, I should be grateful for shade. What is a garden for? The
pleasure of man. I should take much more pleasure in a shady garden.
Am I to be sacrificed, broiled, roasted, for the sake of the
increased vigor of a few vegetables? The thing is perfectly absurd.
If I were rich, I think I would have my garden covered with an
awning, so that it would be comfortable to work in it. It might roll
up and be removable, as the great awning of the Roman Coliseum was,--
not like the Boston one, which went off in a high wind. Another very
good way to do, and probably not so expensive as the awning, would be
to have four persons of foreign birth carry a sort of canopy over you
as you hoed. And there might be a person at each end of the row with
some cool and refreshing drink. Agriculture is still in a very
barbarous stage. I hope to live yet to see the day when I can do my
gardening, as tragedy is done, to slow and soothing music, and
attended by some of the comforts I have named. These things come so
forcibly into my mind sometimes as I work, that perhaps, when a
wandering breeze lifts my straw hat, or a bird lights on a near
currant-bush, and shakes out a full-throated summer song, I almost
expect to find the cooling drink and the hospitable entertainment at
the end of the row. But I never do. There is nothing to be done but
to turn round, and hoe back to the other end.
Speaking of those yellow squash-bugs, I think I disheartened them by
covering the plants so deep with soot and wood-ashes that they could
not find them; and I am in doubt if I shall ever see the plants
again. But I have heard of another defense against the bugs. Put a
fine wire-screen over each hill, which will keep out the bugs and
admit the rain. I should say that these screens would not cost much
more than the melons you would be likely to get from the vines if you
bought them; but then think of the moral satisfaction of watching the
bugs hovering over the screen, seeing, but unable to reach the tender
plants within. That is worth paying for.
I left my own garden yesterday, and went over to where Polly was
getting the weeds out of one of her flower-beds. She was working
away at the bed with a little hoe. Whether women ought to have the
ballot or not (and I have a decided opinion on that point, which I
should here plainly give, did I not fear that it would injure my
agricultural influence), 'I am compelled to say that this was rather
helpless hoeing. It was patient, conscientious, even pathetic
hoeing; but it was neither effective nor finished. When completed,
the bed looked somewhat as if a hen had scratched it: there was that
touching unevenness about it. I think no one could look at it and
not be affected. To be sure, Polly smoothed it off with a rake, and
asked me if it was n't nice; and I said it was. It was not a
favorable time for me to explain the difference between puttering
hoeing, and the broad, free sweep of the instrument, which kills the
weeds, spares the plants, and loosens the soil without leaving it in
holes and hills. But, after all, as life is constituted, I think
more of Polly's honest and anxious care of her plants than of the
most finished gardening in the world.