John Gaythers Garden and the Stories Told Therein

John Gayther's Garden and the
Stories Told
by Frank R.
Stockton

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Title: John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein
Author: Frank R. Stockton
Release Date: September 23, 2007 [EBook #22737]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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GAYTHER'S GARDEN ***

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John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein

[Illustration: "Are you going to ask me to marry your husband if you
should happen to die?"]

John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein By Frank
R. Stockton
ILLUSTRATED
Charles Scribner's Sons
New York 1902
Copyright, 1902, by Charles Scribner's Sons
Published November, 1902
THE DEVINNE PRESS

CONTENTS
PAGE
John Gayther's Garden 3
I What I Found in the Sea 9 Told by John Gayther
II The Bushwhacker Nurse 39 Told by the Daughter of the House
III The Lady in the Box 71 Told by John Gayther
IV The Cot and the Rill 109 Told by the Mistress of the House

V The Gilded Idol and the King Conch-shell 155 Told by the Master of
the House
VI My Balloon Hunt 201 Told by the Frenchman
VII The Foreign Prince and the Hermit's Daughter 223 Told by
Pomona and Jonas
VIII The Conscious Amanda 249 Told by the Daughter of the House
IX My Translatophone 279 Told by the Old Professor
X The Vice-consort 307 Told by the Next Neighbor
XI Blackgum ag'in' Thunder 341 Told by John Gayther

ILLUSTRATIONS
"Are you going to ask me to marry your husband if you should happen
to die?" Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
The gardener began promptly 74
"I made him dig up whole beds of things" 148
The great beast was drawing up his hind legs and was climbing into the
car 214
Miss Amanda listened with the most eager and overpowering attention
258
And dreamed waking dreams of blessedness 294
"Do you mean," I cried, "that you would make him a better wife than I
do?" 336

"Abner, did you ever hear about the eggs of the great auk?" 356

JOHN GAYTHER'S GARDEN

JOHN GAYTHER'S GARDEN
The garden did not belong to John Gayther; he merely had charge of it.
At certain busy seasons he had some men to help him in his work, but
for the greater part of the year he preferred doing everything himself.
It was a very fine garden over which John Gayther had charge. It
extended this way and that for long distances. It was difficult to see
how far it did extend, there were so many old-fashioned box hedges; so
many paths overshadowed by venerable grape-arbors; and so many
far-stretching rows of peach, plum, and pear trees. Fruit, bushes, and
vines there were of which the roll need not be called; and flowers grew
everywhere. It was one of the fancies of the Mistress of the House--and
she inherited it from her mother--to have flowers in great abundance, so
that wherever she might walk through the garden she would always
find them.
Often when she found them massed too thickly she would go in among
them and thin them out with apparent recklessness, pulling them up by
the roots and throwing them on the path, where John Gayther would
come and find them and take them away. This heroic action on the part
of the Mistress of the House pleased John very much. He respected the
fearless spirit which did not hesitate to make sacrifices for the greater
good, no matter how many beautiful blossoms she scattered on the
garden path. John Gayther might have thinned out all this superfluous
growth himself, but he knew the Mistress liked to do it, and he left for
her gloved hands many tangled jungles of luxuriant bloom.
The garden was old, and rich, and aristocratic. It acted generously in
the way of fruit, flowers, and vegetables, as if that were something it
was expected to do, an action to which it was obliged by its nobility. It

would be impossible for it to forget that it belonged to a fine old house
and a fine old family.
John Gayther could not boast of lines of long descent, as could the
garden and the family. He was comparatively a new-comer, and had not
lived in that garden more than seven or eight years; but in that time he
had so identified himself with the