Marys Meadow | Page 8

in Uncle Charley's Jap.
picture. There were some sections too, but they were sections of
greenhouses, not of any kinds of mills or machinery.
The odd thing was that it turned out a kind of help to Arthur after all.
For we got so much interested in it that it roused us up about our
gardens. We are all very fond of flowers, I most of all. And at last
Arthur said he thought that miniature mills were really rather
humbugging things, and it would be much easier and more useful to
build a cold frame to keep choice auriculas and half-hardies in.
When we took up our gardens so hotly, Harry and Adela took up theirs,
and we did a great deal, for the weather was fine.
We were surprised to find that the Old Squire's Scotch Gardener knew
Miller's Gardener's Dictionary quite well. He said, "It's a gran' wurrk!"

(Arthur can say it just like him.)
One day he wished he could see it, and smell the russia binding; he said
he liked to feel a nice smell. Father was away, and we were by
ourselves, so we invited him into the library. Saxon wanted to come in
too, but the gardener was very cross with him, and sent him out; and he
sat on the mat outside and dribbled with longing to get in, and thudded
his stiff tail whenever he saw any one through the doorway.
The Scotch Gardener enjoyed himself very much, and he explained a
lot of things to Arthur, and helped us to put away the Dictionary when
we had done with it.
When he took up his hat to go, he gave one long look all round the
library. Then he turned to Arthur (and Saxon took advantage of this to
wag his way in and join the party), and said, "It's a rare privilege, the
free entry of a book chamber like this. I'm hoping, young gentleman,
that you're not insensible of it?"
Then he caught sight of Saxon, and beat him out of the room with his
hat.
But he came back himself to say, that it might just happen that he
would be glad now and again to hear what was said about this or that
plant (of which he would write down the botanical name) in these noble
volumes.
So we told him that if he would bring Saxon to see us pretty often, we
would look out anything he wanted to know about in Miller's
Gardener's Dictionary.
CHAPTER IV.
Looking round the library one day, to see if I could see any more books
about gardening, I found the Book of Paradise.
It is a very old book, and very queer. It has a brown leather back--not
russia--and stiff little gold flowers and ornaments all the way down,

where Miller's Dictionary has gold swans in crowns, and ornaments.
There are a good many old books in the library, but they are not
generally very interesting--at least not to us. So when I found that
though this one had a Latin name on the title-page, it was written in
English, and that though it seemed to be about Paradise, it was really
about a garden, and quite common flowers, I was delighted, for I
always have cared more for gardening and flowers than for any other
amusement, long before we found Miller's Gardener's Dictionary. And
the Book of Paradise is much smaller than the Dictionary, and easier to
hold. And I like old, queer things, and it is very old and queer.
The Latin name is Paradisi in sole, Paradisus terrestris, which we do
not any of us understand, though we are all learning Latin; so we call it
the Book of Paradise. But the English name is--"Or a Garden of all
sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be
noursed up;" and on the top of every page is written "The Garden of
Pleasant Flowers," and it says--"Collected by John Parkinson,
Apothecary of London, and the King's Herbarist, 1629."
I had to think a minute to remember who was the king then, and it was
King Charles I.; so then I knew that it was Queen Henrietta to whom
the book was dedicated. This was the dedication:--
"TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
"MADAME,--Knowing your Majesty so much delighted with all the
fair flowers of a Garden, and furnished with them as far beyond others
as you are eminent before them; this my Work of a Garden long before
this intended to be published, and but now only finished, seemed as it
were destined to be first offered into your Highness's hands as of right,
challenging the propriety of Patronage from all others. Accept, I
beseech your Majesty, this speaking Garden, that may inform you