The Garden, You, and I | Page 3

The first
bloodroot is always found at the foot of some natural windbreak, while
the shad-bush, that ventures farther afield and higher in air than any, is
usually set in a protecting hedge, like his golden forerunner the
spice-bush.

If Nature looks to the ways of the wind when she plants, why should
not we? A bed of the hardiest roses set on a hill crest is a folly. Much
more likely would they be to thrive wholly on the north side of it. A
garden set in a cut between hills that form a natural blowpipe can at
best do no more than hold its own, without advancing.
But there are some things that belong to the never-never land and may
not be done here. You may plant roses and carnations in the shade or in
dry sea sand, but they will not thrive; you cannot keep upland lilies
cheerful with their feet in wet clay; you cannot have a garden all the
year in our northern latitudes, for nature does not; and you cannot
afford to ignore the ways of the wind, for according as it is kind or
cruel does it mean garden life or death!
"Men, they say, know many things; But lo, they have taken wings,--
The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that blows
Is all that anybody knows."
--THOREAU.

II
THE BOOK OF THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I
April 30. Gray dawn, into which father and Evan vanished with their
fishing rods; then sunrise, curtained by a slant of rain, during which the
birds sang on with undamped ardour, a catbird making his début for the
season as soloist.
It must not be thought that I was up and out at dawn. At twenty I did so
frequently, at thirty sometimes, now at thirty-five I can do it perfectly
well, if necessary, otherwise, save at the change of seasons, to keep in
touch with earth and sky, I raise myself comfortably, elbow on pillow,
and through the window scan garden, wild walk, and the old orchard at
leisure, and then let my arm slip and the impression deepen through the
magic of one more chance for dreams.

9 o'clock. The warm throb of spring in the earth, rising in a potent mist,
sap pervaded and tangible, having a clinging, unctuous softness like the
touch of unfolding beech leaves, lured me out to finish the
transplanting of the pansies among the hardy roses, while the first
brown thrasher, high in the bare top of an ash, eyes fixed on the sky,
proclaimed with many turns and changes the exact spot where he did
not intend to locate his nest. This is an early spring, of a truth.
Presently pale sunbeams thread the mist, gathering colour as they filter
through the pollen-meshed catkins of the black birches; an oriole
bugling in the Yulan magnolias below at the road-bend, fire amid snow;
a high-hole laughing his courtship in the old orchard.
Then Lavinia Cortright coming up to exchange Dahlia bulbs and
discuss annuals and aster bugs. She and Martin browse about the
country, visiting from door to door like veritable natives, while their
garden, at first so prim and genteel, like one of Lavinia's own frocks,
has broken bounds and taken on brocade, embroidery, and all sorts of
lace frills, overflowed the south meadow, and only pauses at the stile in
the wall of our old crab-apple orchard, rivalling in beauty and refined
attraction any garden at the Bluffs. Martin's purse is fuller than of yore,
owing to the rise in Whirlpool real estate, and nothing is too good for
Lavinia's garden. Even more, he has of late let the dust rest peacefully
on human genealogy and is collecting quaint garden books and herbals,
flower catalogues and lists, with the solemn intent of writing a book on
Historic Flowers. At least so he declares; but when Lavinia is in the
garden, there too is Martin. To-day, however, he joined my men before
noon at the lower brook. Fancy a house-reared man a convert to fishing
when past threescore! Evan insists that it is because, being above all
things consistent, he wishes to appear at home in the company of
father's cherished collection of Walton's and other fishing books. Father
says, "Nonsense! no man can help liking to fish!"
[Illustration: "THE MAGNOLIAS BELOW AT THE ROAD-BEND."]
Toward evening came home a creel lined with bog moss; within, a
rainbow glimmer of brook trout, a posy of shad-bush, marsh marigolds,
anemones, and rosy spring beauties from the river woods,--with three

cheerfully tired men, who gathered by the den hearth fire with coffee
cup and pipe, inside an admiring but sleepy circle of beagle hounds,
who had run free the livelong day and who could doubtless impart the