The Garden, You, and I | Page 5

boys are a tonic at
any time, and for a time I buttered bread--though alack, the real
necessity for so doing has long since passed--when, on explaining
father's absence from the meal, Ian said abruptly, "Jinks! grandpa's
gone the day before! he told Tim Tuesday at 'leven, I heard him!"
But, as it chanced, it was a slip of tongue, not memory, and I blessed
Timothy Saunders for his Scotch forbearance, which Evan insists upon
calling prudence.
My own time of trial came in the early afternoon. During the more than
ten years that I have been a gardener on my own account, I have
naturally tried many experiments and have gradually come to the
conclusion that it is a mistake to grow too many species of
flowers,--better to have more of a kind and thus avoid spinkiness. The
pink family in general is one of those that has stood the test, and this
year a cousin of Evan's sent me over a quantity of Margaret carnation
seed from prize stock, together with that of some exhibition single
Dahlias.
Late in February I sowed the seed in two of the most protected hotbeds,
muffled them in mats and old carpets every night, almost turned myself
into a patent ventilator in order to give the carnations enough air during
that critical teething period of pinks, when the first grasslike leaves
emerge from the oval seed leaves and the little plants are apt to weaken

at the ground level, damp off, and disappear, thinned them out with the
greatest care, and had (day before yesterday) full five hundred lusty
little plants, ready to go out into the deeply dug cool bed and there wax
strong according to the need of pinks before summer heat gains the
upper hand.
The Dahlias had also thriven, but then they are less particular, and if
they live well will put up with more snubs than will a carnation.
Weather and Bertel being propitious, I prepared to plant out my pets,
though of course they must be sheltered of nights for another half
month. As I was about to remove one of the props that held the sash
aloft, to let in air to the Dahlias, and still constitute it a windbreak, I
heard a violent whistling in our grass road north of the barn that divides
the home acres from the upper pastures and Martha's chicken farm. At
first I thought but little of it, as many people use it as a short cut from
the back road from the Bluffs down to the village. Soon a shout came
from the same direction, and going toward the wall, I saw Mr.
Vandeveer struggling along, his great St. Bernard Jupiter, prize winner
in a recent show and but lately released from winter confinement,
bounding around and over him to such an extent that the spruce New
Yorker, who had the reputation of always being on dress parade from
the moment that he left bed until he returned to it in hand-embroidered
pink silk pajamas, was not only covered with abundant April mud, but
could hardly keep his footing.
At the moment I spied the pair, a great brindled cat, who sometimes
ventures on the place, in spite of all the attentions paid her by the
beagles, and who had been watching sparrows in the barnyard, sprang
to the wall. Zip! There was a rush, a snarl, a hiss, and a smash! Dog and
what had been cat crashed through the sash of my Dahlia frame, and in
the rebound ploughed into the soft earth that held the carnations.
The next minute Mr. Vandeveer absolutely leaped over the wall, and
seeing the dog, apparently in the midst of the broken glass, turned
almost apoplectic, shouting, "Ah, his legs will be cut; he'll be ruined,
and Julie will never forgive me! He's her best dog and cost $3000 spot
cash! Get him out, somebody, why don't you? What business have

people to put such dangerous skylights near a public road?"
Meanwhile, as wrath arose in my throat and formed ugly words, Jupiter,
a great friend of ours, who has had more comfortable meals in our
kitchen during the winter than the careless kennel men would have
wished to be known, sprang toward me with well-meant, if rough,
caresses,--evidently the few scratches he had amounted to nothing. I
forgave him the cat cheerfully, but my poor carnations! They do not
belong to the grovelling tribe of herbs that bend and refuse to break like
portulaca, chickweed, and pusley the accursed. Fortunately, just then, a
scene of the past year, which had come to me by report, floated across
my vision. Our young hounds, Bob and Pete, in the heat of
undisciplined rat-catching (for these dogs when young and unbroken
will chase anything