Chapter IX: Part 9

One thing must be remembered concerning wild grapes: they should be planted, if in the open sunlight, where they will be conspicuous up to late summer only, as soon after this time the leaves begin to grow rusty, while those in moist and partly-shady places hold their own. I think this contrast was borne in upon me by watching a mass of grape-vines upon a tumble-down wall that we pass on our way to the river woods. In August the leaves began to brown and curl at the edges, while similar vines in the cool lane shade were still green and growing. So you see, Mrs. Evan, that, in addition to our other treasure-trove, we are prepared to start a free vinery as well, and as our lucky star seems to be both of morning and evening and hangs a long while in the sky, Meyer, Larry's successor, we find, has enough of a labourer's skill at post setting and a carpenter's eye and hand at making an angled arch (this isn't the right term, but you know what I mean), so that we have not had to pause in our improvements owing to Amos Opie's rheumatic illness.

Not that I think the old man _very_ ill, and I believe he could get about more if he wished, for when I went down to see him this morning, he seemed to have something on his mind, and with but little urging he told me his dilemma. Both _The Man from Everywhere_ and Maria Maxwell have made him good offers for his farm, _The Man's_ being the first! Now he had fully determined to sell to _The Man_, when Maria's kindness during his illness not only turned him in her favour, but gave him an attachment for the place, so that now he doesn't really wish to sell at all! It is this mental perturbation, in his very slow nature, that is, I believe, keeping him an invalid!

_What_ Maria wants of the farm neither Bart nor I can imagine. She has a little property, a few thousand dollars, enough probably to buy the farm and put it in livable repair, but this money we thought she was saving for the so-called rainy day (which is much more apt to be a very dry period) of spinsterhood! Of course she has some definite plan, but whether it is bees or boarders, jam or a kindergarten, we do not know, but we may be very sure that she is not jumping at random. Only I'm a little afraid, much as I should like her for a next-door neighbour, that, with her practical head, she would insist upon making hay of the lily meadow!

"Straying away again from the horticultural to the domestic things," I hear you say. Yes; but now that the days are shortening a bit, it seems natural to think more about people again. If I only knew whether Maria means to give up her teaching this winter, I would ask her to stay with us and begin to train the Infant's mind in the way it should think, for my head and hands will be full and my heart overflowing, I imagine. Ah! this happy, blessed summer! Yes, I know that you know, though I have never told you. That's what it means to have real friends. But to the shrubs.

Will you do me one more favour before even the suspicion of frost touches my enthusiasm, that I may have everything in order in my _Garden Boke_ against a planting season when Time may again hold his remorseless sway. This list of eighteen or more shrubs is made from those I know and like, with selections from that Aunt Lavinia sent me. Is it comprehensive, think you? Of course we cannot go into novelties in this direction, any more than we may with the roses.

There is the little pale pink, Daphne Mezereum, that flowers before its leaves come in April. I saw it at Aunt Lavinia's and Mrs. Marchant had a great circle of the bushes. Then Forsythias, with yellow flowers, the red and pink varieties of Japanese quince, double-flowering almond and plum, the white spireas (they all have strange new names in the catalogue), the earliest being what mother used to call bridal-wreath (_prunifolia_), with its long wands covered with double flowers, like tiny white daisies, the St. Peter's wreath (_Van Houttei_) with the clustered flowers like small white wild roses, two pink species, Billardii and Anthony Waterer, beautiful if gathered before the flowers open, as the colour fades quickly, and a little dwarf bush, Fortune's white spirea, that I have seen at the florist's. Next the old-fashioned purple lilac, that seems to hold its own against all newcomers for garden use, the white tree lilac, the fragrant white mock orange or syringa (_Coronarius_), the Japanese barberry of yellow flowers and coral berries, the three deutzias, two being the tall _crenata_ and _scabra_ and the third the charming low-growing _gracilis_, the old-fashioned snowball or Guelder rose (_viburnum opulus sterilis_), the weigelias, rose-pink and white, the white summer-flowering hydrangea (_paniculata grandiflora_), and the brown-flowered, sweet-scented strawberry shrub (_calycanthus floridus_).

"Truly a small slice from the loaf the catalogues offer," you say. Yes; but you must remember that our wild nursery has a long chain to add to these.

In looking over the list of shrubs, it seems to me that the majority of them, like the early wild flowers, are white, but then it is almost as impossible to have too many white flowers as too many green leaves.

_September 15._ I was prevented from finishing this until to-day, when I have a new domestic event to relate. Maria, no longer a music mistress, has leased the Opal Farm, it seems, and will remain with me this winter pending the repairing of the house, which Amos Opie himself is to superintend. I wish I could fathom the ins and outs of the matter, which are not at present clear, but probably I shall know in time. Meanwhile, I have Maria for a winter companion, and a mystery to solve and puzzle about; is not this truly feminine bliss?

XVII

THE INS AND OUTS OF THE MATTER

Chronicled by the rays of light and sound waves upon the walls of the house at Opal Farm.

PEOPLE INVOLVED

_The Man from Everywhere_, keeping bachelor's hall in the
eastern half of the farm home.

_Amos Opie_, living in the western half of the house, the separating
door being locked on his side.

_Maria Maxwell_, who, upon hearing Opie is again ill, has
dropped in to give him hot soup and medicine.

Amos Opie was more than usually uncomfortable this particular September evening. It may have been either a rather sudden change in the weather or the fact that now that he was sufficiently well to get about the kitchen and sit in the well-house porch, of a sunny morning, Maria Maxwell had given up the habit of running over several times a day to give him his medicine and be sure that the kettle boiled and his tea was freshly drawn, instead of being what she called "stewed bitterness" that had stood on the leaves all day.

Whichever it was, he felt wretched in body and mind, and began to think himself neglected and was consequently aggrieved. He hesitated a few minutes before he opened the door leading to _The Man's_ part of the house, took a few steps into the square hall, and called "Mr. Blake" in a quavering voice; but no answer came, as the bachelor had not yet returned from the reservoir.

Going back, he settled heavily into the rocking-chair and groaned,--it was not from real pain, simply he had relaxed his grip and was making himself miserable,--then he began to talk to himself.

"_She_ doesn't come in so often now _he's_ come home, and _he_ fights shy o' the place, thinkin' mebbe _she's_ around, and they both wants to buy. _He's_ offered me thirty-five hundred cash, and _she's_ offered me thirty hundred cash, which is all the place's worth, for it'll take another ten hundred to straighten out the house, with new winder frames, floorin' 'nd plaster 'nd shingles, beams and sills all bein' sound,--when the truth is I don't wish ter sell nohow, yet can't afford to hold! I don't see light noway 'nd I'm feelin' another turn comin' when I was nigh ready ter git about agin to Miss'ss Penrose flower poles. O lordy! lordy! I wish I had some more o' that settling medicine Maria Maxwell brought me" (people very seldom spoke of that young woman except by her complete name). "If I had my wind, I'd yell over to her to come up! Yes, I vow I would!"

David, the hound, who had been lying asleep before the stove, in which the fire had died away, got up, stretched himself, and, going to his master, after gazing in his face for several minutes, licked his hands thoroughly and solemnly, in a way totally different from the careless and irresponsible licks of a joyous dog; then raising his head gave a long-drawn bay that finally broke from its melancholy music and degenerated into a howl.

Amos must have dozed in his chair, for it seemed only a moment when a knock sounded on the side door and, without waiting for a reply, Maria Maxwell entered, a cape thrown about her shoulders, a lantern in one hand, and in the other a covered pitcher from which steam was curling.

"I heard David howling and I went to our gate to look; I saw that there wasn't a light in the farm-house and so knew that something was the matter. No fire in the stove and the room quite chilly! Where is that neighbour of yours in the other half of the house? Couldn't he have brought you in a few sticks?"

"He isn't ter hum just now," replied Amos, in tones that were unnecessarily feeble, while at the same time an idea entered his brain that almost made him chuckle; but the sound which was quenched in his throat only came to Maria as an uncomfortable struggle for breath that hastened her exit to the woodpile by the side fence for the material to revive the fire. In going round the house, her arms laden with logs, she bumped into the figure of _The Man_ leading his bicycle across the grass, which deadened his footfall, as the lantern she carried blinded her to all objects not within its direct rays.

"Maria Maxwell! Is Opie ill again? You must not carry such a heavy load!" he exclaimed all in one breath, as he very quickly transferred the logs to his own arms, and was making the fire in the open stove almost before she had regained the porch, so that when she had lighted a lamp and drawn the turkey-red curtains, the reflections of the flames began to dance on the wall and cheerfulness suddenly replaced gloom.

Still Amos sat in an attitude of dejection. Thanking _The Man_ for his aid, but taking no further notice of him, Maria began to heat the broth which was contained in the pitcher, asking Amos at the same time if he did not think that he would feel better in bed.

"I dunno's place has much to do with it," he grumbled; "this can't go on no longer, it's doing for me, that it is!"

Maria, thinking that he referred to bodily illness, hastened the preparations for bed, and _The Man_, feeling helpless as all men do when something active is being done in which they have no part, rose to go, and, with his hand on the latch of the porch door, said in a low voice: "If I might help you in any way, I should be very glad; I do not quite like leaving you alone with this old fellow,--you may need help in getting him to bed. Tell me frankly, would you like me to stay?"

"Frankly I would rather you would not," said Maria, yet in so cordial a tone that no offence could be gathered from it in any way.

So the door opened and closed again and Maria began the rather laborious task of coaxing the old man to bed. When once there, the medicine given, and the soup taken, which she could not but notice that he swallowed greedily, she seated herself before the fire, resolving that, if Amos did not feel better by nine o'clock, she would have Barney come over for the night, as of course she must return to be near the Infant.

As she sat there she pictured for the hundredth time how she would invest her little capital and rearrange her life, if Amos consented to sell her the farm,--how best to restore the home without elaborating the care of it, and take one or two people to live with her who had been ill or needed rest in cheerful surroundings. Not always the same two, for that is paralyzing after a time when the freshness of energetic influence wears off; but her experience among her friends told her that in a city's social life there was an endless supply of overwrought nerves and bodies.

The having a home was the motive, the guests the necessity. Then she closed her eyes again and saw the upper portion of the rich meadow land that had lain fallow so long turned into a flower farm wherein she would raise blossoms for a well-known city dealer who had, owing to his artistic skill, a market for his wares and decorative skill in all the cities of the eastern coast. She had consulted him and he approved her plan.

The meadow was so sheltered that it would easily have a two weeks' lead over the surrounding country, and the desirability of her crop should lie in its perfection rather than rarity. Single violets in frames, lilies-of-the-valley for Easter and spring weddings, sweet peas, in separate colours, peonies, Iris, Gladioli, asters, and Dahlias: three acres in all. Upon these was her hope built, for with a market waiting, what lay between her and success but work?

Yes, work and the farm. Then came the vision of human companionship, such as her cousin Bartram and Mary Penrose shared. Could flowers and a home make up for it? After all, what is home?

Her thoughts tangled and snapped abruptly, but of one thing she was sure. She could no longer endure teaching singing to assorted tone-deaf children, many of whom could no more keep on the key than a cow on the tight rope; and when she found a talented child and gave it appreciative attention, she was oftentimes officially accused of favouritism by some disgruntled parent with a political pull, for that was what contact with the public schools of a large city had taught her to expect.

A log snapped--she looked at the clock. It was exactly nine! Going to the window, she pulled back the curtain; the old moon, that has a fashion of working northward at this time, was rising from a location wholly new to her.

She looked at Amos; he was very still, evidently asleep, yet unnaturally so, for the regular breathing of unconsciousness was not there and the firelight shadows made him look pinched and strange. Suddenly she felt alone and panic stricken; she forgot the tests so well known to her of pulse taking, and all the countryside tales of strokes and seizures came back to her. She did not hesitate a moment; a man was in the same house and she felt entirely outside of the strength of her own will.

Going to the separating door, she found it locked, on which side she could not be sure; but seeing a long key hanging by the clock she tried it, on general principles. It turned hard, and the lock finally yielded with a percussive snap. Stepping into the hall, she saw a light in the front of the house, toward which she hurried. _The Man_ was seated by a table that was strewn with books, papers, and draughting instruments; he was not working, but in his turn gazing at the flames from a smouldering hearth fire, though his coat was off and the window open, for it was not cold but merely chilly.

Hearing her step, he started, turned, and, as he saw her upon the threshold, made a grab for his coat and swung it into place. It is strange, this instinct in civilized man of not appearing coatless before a woman he respects.

"Amos Opie is very ill, I'm afraid," she said gravely, without the least self-consciousness or thought of intrusion.

"Shall I go for the doctor?" said _The Man_, reaching for his hat and at the same time opening the long cupboard by the chimney, from which he took a leather-covered flask.

"No, not yet; please come and look at him. Yes, I want you very much!" This in answer to a questioning look in his eyes.

Standing together by the bed, they saw the old man's eyelids quiver and then open narrowly. _The Man_ poured whiskey from his flask into a glass, added water, and held it to Amos's lips, where it was quickly and completely absorbed!

Next he put a finger on Amos's pulse and after a minute closed his watch with a snap, but without comment.

"You feel better now, Opie?" he questioned presently in a tone that, to the old man at least, was significant.

"What gave you this turn? Is there anything on your mind? You might as well tell now, as you will have to sooner or later, and Miss Maxwell must go home presently. You'll have to put up with me for the rest of the night and a man isn't as cheerful a companion as a woman--is he, Amos?"

"No, yer right there, Mr. Blake, and it's the idee o' loneliness that's upsettin' me! Come down ter facts, Mr. Blake, it's the offers I've had fer the farm--yourn and hern--and my wishin' ter favour both and yet not give it up myself, and the whole's too much fer me!"

"Hers! Has Miss Maxwell made a bid for the farm? What do you want it for?" he said, turning quickly to Maria, who coloured and then replied quietly--"To live in! which is exactly what you said when I asked you a similar question a couple of months ago!"

"The p'int is," continued Amos, quickly growing more wide awake, and addressing the ceiling as a neutral and impartial listener, "that Mr. Blake has offered me five hundred more than Maria Maxwell, and though I want ter favour her (in buyin', property goes to the highest bidder; it's only contract work that's fetched by the lowest, and I never did work by contract--it's too darned frettin'), I can't throw away good money, and neither of 'em yet knows that whichsomever of 'em buys it has got ter give me a life right ter live in the summer kitchen and fetch my drinkin' water from the well in the porch! A lone widder man's a sight helplesser 'n a widder, but yet he don't get no sympathy!"

_The Man from Everywhere_ began to laugh, and catching Maria's eye she joined him heartily. "How do you mean to manage?" he asked in a way that barred all thought of intrusion.

"I'm going to have a flower farm and take in two invalids--no, not cranks or lunatics, but merely tired people," she added, a little catch coming in her voice.

"Then you had better begin with me, for I'm precious tired of taking care of myself, and here is Amos also applying, so I do not see but what your establishment is already complete!"

Then, as he saw by her face that the subject was not one for jest, he said, in his hearty way that Mary Penrose likes, "Why not let me buy the place, as mine was the first offer, put it in order, and then lease it to you for three years, with the privilege of buying if you find that your scheme succeeds? If the house is too small to allow two lone men a room each, I can add a lean-to to match Opie's summer kitchen, for you know sometimes a woman finds it comfortable to have a man in the house!"

Maria did not answer at first, but was looking at the one uncurtained window, where the firelight again made opals of the panes. Then turning, she said, "I will think over your offer, Mr. Blake, if everything may be upon a strictly business basis. But how about Amos? He seems better, and I ought to be going. I do not know why I should have been so foolish, but for a moment he did not seem to breathe, and I thought it was a stroke."

"I'm comin' too all in good time, now my mind's relieved," replied the old man, with a chuckle, "and I think I'll weather to-night fer the sake o' fixin' that deed termorrow, Mr. Blake, if you'll kindly give me jest a thimbleful more o' that old liquor o' yourn--I kin manage it fust rate without the water, thank 'ee!"

_The Man_ followed Maria to the door and out into the night. He did not ask her if he might go with her--he simply walked by her side for once unquestioned.

Maria spoke first, and rather more quickly and nervously than usual: "I suppose you think that my scheme in wishing the farm is a madcap one, but I'm sure I could not see why you should wish to own it!"

"Yes and no! I can well understand why you should desire a broader, freer life than your vocation allows, but--well, as for reading women's motives, I have given that up long since; it often leads to trouble though I have never lost my interest in them.

"I think Amos Opie will revive, now that his mind is settled" (if it had been sufficiently light, Maria would have seen an expression upon _The Man's_ face indicative of his belief that the recent attack of illness was not quite motiveless, even though he forgave the ruse). "In a few days, when the deeds are drawn, will you not, as my prospective tenant, come and look over the house by daylight and tell me what changes would best suit your purpose, so that I may make some plans? I imagine that Amos revived will be able to do much of the work himself with a good assistant.

"When would you like the lease to begin? In May? It is a pity that you could not be here in the interval to overlook it all, for the pasture should be ploughed at once for next year's gardening."

"May will be late; best put it at the first of March. As to overseeing, I shall not be far away. I'm thinking of accepting cousin Mary's offer to stay with her and teach the Infant and a couple of other children this winter, which may be well for superintending the work, as I suppose you are off again with the swallows, as usual."

"Oh, no, you forget the reservoir and the tunnelling of Three Brothers for the aqueduct to Bridgeton!"

"Then let it be March first!" said Maria, after hesitating a moment, during which she stood looking back at Opal Farm lying at peace in the moonlight; "only, in making the improvements, please do them as if for any one else, and remember that it is to be a strictly business affair!"

"And why should you think that I would deal otherwise by you?" _The Man_ said quickly, stepping close, where he could see the expression of her face.

Maria, feeling herself cornered, did not answer immediately, and half turned her face away,--only for a moment, however. Facing him, she said, "Because men of your stamp are always good to women,--always doing them kindnesses both big and little (ask Mary Penrose),--and sometimes kindness hurts!"

"Well, then, the lease and all pertaining to it shall be strictly in the line of business until you yourself ask for a modification,--but be careful, I may be a hard landlord!" Then, dropping his guard, he said suddenly, "Why is it that you and I--man and woman--temperamentally alike, both interested in the same things, and of an age to know what in life is worth while, should stand so aloof? Is there no more human basis upon which I can persuade you to come to Opal Farm when it is mine? Give me a month, three months,--lessen the distance you always keep between us, and give me leave to convince you! Why will you insist upon deliberately keeping up a barrier raised in the beginning when I was too stupidly at home in your cousin's house to see that I might embarrass you? Frankly, do you dislike me?"

Maria began two different sentences, stumbled, and stopped short; then drawing herself up and looking _The Man_ straight in the face, she said, "I have kept a barrier between us, and deliberately, as you say, but--" here she faltered--"it was because I found you too interesting; the barrier was to protect my own peace of mind more than to rebuff you."

"Then I may try to convince you that my plan is best?"

"Yes," said Maria, with a glint of her mischievous smile, "if you have plenty of time to spare."

"And you will give me no more encouragement than this? No good wish or omen?"

"Yes," said Maria again, "I wish that you may succeed--" here she slipped her hand in the belt of her gown and drew out a little chamois bag attached to her watch, "and for an omen, here is the opal you gave me--you give it a happy interpretation and one is very apt to lose an unset stone, you know!"

But as neither walls nor leaves have tongues, Mary Penrose never learned the real ins and outs of this matter.

XVIII

THE VALUE OF WHITE FLOWERS

(Barbara Campbell to Mary Penrose)

_Oaklands, September 29._ Michaelmas. The birthdays of our commuters are not far apart. This being Evan's festival, we have eaten the annual goose in his honour, together with several highly indigestible old-country dishes of Martha Corkle's construction, for she comes down from the cottage to preside over this annual feast. Now the boys have challenged Evan to a "golf walk" over the Bluffs and back again, the rough-and-ready course extending that distance, and I, being "o'er weel dined," have curled up in the garden-overlook window of my room to write to you.

It has been a good gardener's year, and I am sorry that the fall anemones and the blooming of the earliest chrysanthemums insist upon telling me that it is nearly over,--that is, as far as the reign of complete garden colour is concerned. And amid our vagrant summer wanderings among gardens of high or low degree, no one point has been so recurrent or interesting as the distribution of colour, and especially the dominance of white flowers in any landscape or garden in which they appear.

In your last letter you speak of the preponderance of white among the flowering shrubs as well as the early blossoms of spring. That this is the case is one of the strong points in the decorative value of shrubs, and in listing seeds for the hardy or summer beds or sorting the bushes for the rosary, great care should be taken to have a liberal sprinkling of white, for the white in the flower kingdom is what the diamond is in the mineral world, necessary as a setting for all other colours, as well as for its own intrinsic worth.

Look at a well-cut sapphire of flawless tint. It is beautiful surely, but in some way its depth of colour needs illumination. Surround it with evenly matched diamonds and at once life enters into it.

Fill a tall jar with spires of larkspur of the purest blue known to garden flowers. Unless the sun shines fully on them they seem to swallow light; mingle with them some stalks of white foxgloves, Canterbury bells, or surround them with Madonna lilies, a fringe of spirea, or the slender _Deutzia gracilis_, more frequently seen in florists' windows than in the garden, and a new meaning is given the blue flower; the black shadows disappear from its depth and sky reflections replace them.

The blue-fringed gentian, growing deep among the dark grasses of low meadows, may be passed over without enthusiasm as a dull purplish flower by one to whom its possibilities are unknown; but come upon it backgrounded by Michaelmas daisies or standing alone in a meadow thick strewn with the white stars of grass of Parnassus or wands of crystal ladies' tresses, and all at once it becomes,--

"Blue, blue, as if the sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall!"

The same white setting enhances the brighter colours, though in a less degree than blue, which is, next to magenta, one of the most difficult colours to place in the garden. In view of this fact it is not strange that it is a comparatively unusual hue in the flower world and a very rare one among our neighbourly eastern birds, the only three that wear it conspicuously being the bluebird, indigo bird, and the bluejay.

It is this useful quality as a setting that gives value to many white flowers lacking intrinsic beauty, like sweet alyssum, candy-tuft, the yarrows, and the double feverfew. In buying seeds of flowers in mixed varieties, such as asters, verbenas, Sweet-William, pansies, or any flower in short that has a white variety, it is always safe to buy a single packet of the latter, because I have often noticed that the usual mixtures, for some reason, are generally shy not only of the white but often of the very lightest tints as well.

In selecting asters the average woman gardener may not be prepared to buy the eight or ten different types that please her fancy in as many separate colours; a mixture of each must suffice, but a packet of white of each type should be added if the best results are to be achieved.

The same applies to sweet peas when planted in mixture; at least six ounces of either pure white or very light, and therefore quasi-neutral tints harmonizing with all darker colours, should be added. For it is in the lighter tints of this flower that its butterfly characteristics are developed. Keats had not the heavy deep-hued or striped varieties in mind when he wrote of

"... Sweet Peas on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush: o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things
To bind them all about with tiny rings."

If you examine carefully the "flats" of pansies growing from mixed seed and sold in the market-places or at local florists', you will notice that in eight out of ten the majority of plants are of the darker colours.

There are white varieties of almost every garden flower that blooms between the last frost of spring and winter ice. The snowdrop of course is white and the tiny little single English violet of brief though unsurpassing fragrance; we have white crocuses, white hyacinths, narcissus, lilies-of-the-valley, Iris, white rock phlox, or moss-pink, Madonna and Japan lilies, gladiolus, white campanulas of many species, besides the well-known Canterbury bells, white hollyhocks, larkspurs, sweet Sultan, poppies, phloxes, and white annual as well as hardy chrysanthemums.

Almost all the bedding plants, like the geranium, begonia, ageratum, lobelia, etc., have white species. There are white pinks of all types, white roses, and wherever crimson rambler is seen Madame Plantier should be his bride; white stocks, hollyhocks, verbenas, zinnias, Japanese anemones, Arabis or rock cress, and white fraxinella; white Lupins, nicotiana, evening primroses, pentstemons, portulaca, primulas, vincas, and even a whitish nasturtium, though its flame-coloured partner salvia declines to have her ardour so modified.

Among vines we have the white wisteria, several white clematis, the moon-flower, and other Ipomeas, many climbing and trailing roses, the English polygonum, the star cucumber, etc., so that there is no lack of this harmonizing and modifying colour (that is not a colour after all) if we will but use it intelligently.

Aside from the setting of flower to flower, white has another and wider function. As applied to the broader landscape it is not only a maker of perspective, but it often indicates a picture and fairly pulls it from obscurity, giving the same lifelike roundness that the single white dot lends in portraiture to the correctly tinted but still lifeless eye.

Take for instance a wide field without groups of trees to divide and let it be covered only with grass, no matter how green and luxuriant, and there is a monotonous flatness, that disappears the moment the field is blooming with daisies or snowy wild asters.

Follow the meandering line of a brook through April meadows. Where does the eye pause with the greatest sense of pleasure and restfulness? On the gold of the marsh marigolds edging the water? or on the silver-white plumes of shad-bush that wave and beckon across the marshes, as they stray from moist ground toward the light woods? Could any gay colour whatsoever compete with the snow of May apple orchards?--the fact that the snow is often rose tinged only serving to accentuate the contrasting white.

In the landscape all light tints that at a distance have the value of white are equally to the purpose, and can be used for hedges, boundaries, or what may be called punctuation points. German or English Iris and peonies are two very useful plants for this purpose, flowering in May and June and for the rest of the season holding their substantial, well-set-up foliage. These two plants, if they receive even ordinary good treatment, may also be relied upon for masses of uniform bloom held well above the leaves; and while pure white peonies are a trifle monotonous and glaring unless blended with the blush, rose, salmon, and cream tints, there are any number of white iris both tall and dwarf with either self-toned flowers, or pencilled, feathered, or bordered with a variety of delicate tints, and others equally valuable of pale shades of lilac or yellow, the recurved falls being of a different tint.

Thus does Nature paint her pictures and give us hints to follow, and yet a certain art phase proclaims Nature's colour combinations crude and rudimentary forsooth!

Nature is never crude except through an unsuccessful human attempt to reproduce the uncopyable. Give one of these critics all the colour combinations of the evening sky and let him manipulate them with wires and what a scorched omelet he would make of the most simple and natural sunset!

While Nature does not locate the different colours on the palette to please the eye of man, but to carry out the various steps in the great plan of perpetuation, yet on that score it is all done with a sense of colour value, else why are the blossoms of deep woods, as well as the night-blooming flowers that must lure the moth and insect seekers through the gloom, white or light-coloured?

In speaking of white or pale flowers there is one low shrub with evergreen leaves and bluish-white flowers that I saw blooming in masses for the first time not far from Boston in early May. There was a slight hollow where the sun lay, that was well protected from the wind. This sloped gently upward toward some birches that margined a pond. The birches themselves were as yet but in tassel, the near-by grass was green in spots only, and yet here in the midst of the chill, reluctant promise of early spring was firmness of leaf and clustered flowers of almost hothouse texture and fragrance. Not a single spray or a dozen, but hundreds of them, covered the bushes.

This shrub is _Daphne cneorum_, a sturdier evergreen cousin of _Daphne mezereum_, that brave-hearted shrub that often by the south wall of my garden hangs its little pink flower clusters upon bare twigs as early as the tenth of March. Put it on your list of desirables, for aside from any other situation it will do admirably to edge laurels or rhododendrons and so bring early colour of the rosy family hue to brighten their dark glossy leaves, for the sight and the scent thereof made me resolve to cover a certain nook with it, where the sun lodges first every spring. I am planting mine this autumn, which is necessary with things of such early spring vitality.

Another garden point akin to colour value in that it makes or mars has, I may say, run itself into my vision quite sharply and painfully this summer, and many a time have I rubbed my eyes and looked again in wonder that such things could be. This is the spoiling of a well-thought-out garden by the obtrusive staking of its plants. Of course there are many tall and bushy flowers--hollyhocks, golden glow, cosmos--that have not sufficient strength of stem to stand alone when the weight of soaking rain is added to their flowers and the wind comes whirling to challenge them to a dizzy dance, which they cannot refuse, and it inevitably turns their heavy heads and leaves them prone.

Besides these there are the lower, slender, but top-heavy lilies, gladioli, carnations, and the like, that must not be allowed to soil their pretty faces in the mud. A little thinking must be done and stakes suitable to the height and girth of each plant chosen. If the purse allows, green-painted stakes of sizes varying from eighteen inches for carnations to six feet for Dahlias are the most convenient; but lacking these, the natural bamboos, that may be bought in bundles by the hundred, in canes of eight feet or more, and afterward cut in lengths to suit, are very useful, being light, tough, and inconspicuous.

In supporting a plant, remember that the object is as nearly as possible to supplement its natural stem. Therefore cut the stake a little shorter than the top of the foliage and drive it firmly at the back of the plant, fastening the main stem to the stake by loosely woven florist's string.

If, on the other hand, the plant to be supported is a maze of side branches, like the cosmos, or individual bushes blended so as to form a hedge, a row of stout poles, also a little lower than the bushes, should be set firmly behind them, the twine being woven carefully in and out among the larger branches, and then tightened carefully, so that the whole plant is gradually drawn back and yet the binding string is concealed.

If it is possible to locate cosmos, hollyhocks, and Dahlias (especially Dahlias) in the same place for several successive years, a flanking trellis fence of light posts, with a single top and bottom rail and poultry wire of a three inch mesh between, will be found a good investment. Against this the plants may be tethered in several places, and thus not only separate branches can be supported naturally, but individual flowers as well, in the case of the large exhibition Dahlias.

Practicable as is the proper carrying out of the matter, in a score of otherwise admirable gardens we have seen the results of weeks and months of preparation either throttled and bound martyrlike to a stake or twisted and tethered, until the natural, habit of growth was wholly changed. In some cases the plants were so meshed in twine and choked that it seemed as if a spiteful fairy had woven a "cat's cradle" over them or that they had followed out the old proverb and, having been given enough rope, literally hanged themselves. In other gardens green stakes were set at intervals (I noticed it in the case of gladioli and carnations especially) and strings carried from one stake to the other, leaving each plant in the centre of a twine square, like chessmen imprisoned on the board. But the most terrible example of all was where either the owner or the gardener, for they were not one and the same, had purchased a quantity of half-inch pine strips at a lumber yard and proceeded to scatter them about his beds at random, regardless of height or suitability, very much as if some neighbouring Fourth of July celebration had showered the place with rocket sticks.

If your young German has time in the intervals of tree-planting and trellis-making, get him to trim some of the cedars of a diameter of two or three inches and stack them away for Dahlia poles. Next season you will become a victim of these gorgeous velvet flowers, I foresee, especially as I have fully a barrel of the "potatoes" of some very handsome varieties to bestow upon you. Make the most of Meyer, for he will probably grow melancholy as soon as cool weather sets in and he thinks of winter evenings and a sweetheart he has left in the fatherland!

We have had several Germans and they all had _lieber schatz_, for jealousy or the scorn of whom they had left home, were for the same reason loath to stay away from it, and at the same time, owing to contending emotions, were unable to work so that they might return.

Are you not thinking about returning to your indoor bed and board again? With warm weather I fly out of the door as a second nature, but with a smart promise of frost I turn about again and everything--furniture, pictures, books, and the dear people themselves--seems refreshingly new and wholly lovable!

If you are thinking of making out a book list of your needs as an answer to your mother's or your "in-law's" query, "What do you want for Christmas?" write at the beginning--Bailey's _Cyclopædia of American Horticulture_, in red ink. Lavinia and Martin Cortright gave it to us last Christmas, the clearly printed first edition on substantial paper in four thick volumes, mind you, and it is the referee and court of appeals of the Garden, You, and I in general and myself in particular. Not only will it tell you everything that you wish or ought to know, but do it completely and truthfully. In short it is the perfect antidote to _Garden Goozle_!

XIX

PANDORA'S CHEST

(Mary Penrose to Barbara Campbell)

_Woodridge, October 10_. Nearly a month of pen silence on my part, during which I have felt many times as if I must go from one to another of our chosen trees in the river woods and shake the leaves down so that the transplanting might proceed forthwith, lest the early winter that Amos Opie predicts both by a goose bone and certain symptoms of his own shall overtake us. Be this as it may, the leaves thus far prefer their airy quarters to huddling upon the damp ground.

However, there is another reason for haste more urgent than the fear of frost--the melancholy vein that you predicted we should find in Meyer is fast developing, and as we wish to have him leave us in a perfectly natural way, we think it best that his stay shall not be prolonged. At first he seemed not only absorbed by his work and to enjoy the garden and especially the river woods, but the trees and water rushing by.

A week ago a change came over him; he became morose and silent, and yesterday when I was admiring, half aloud, the reflection of a beautiful scarlet oak mirrored in the still backwater of the river, he paused in the kneeling position in which he was loosening the grasp of a white flowering dogwood, and first throwing out his arms and then beating his chest with them, exclaimed--"Other good have trees and water than for the eye to see; they can surely hang and drown the man the heart of whom holds much sorrow, and that man is I!"

Of course I knew that it was something a little out of the ordinary state of affairs that had sent a man of his capability to tramp about as a vagrant sort of labourer, but I had no previous idea that melancholy had taken such a grip upon him. Much do I prefer Larry, with periods of hilarity ending in peaceful "shlape." Certain peoples have their peculiar racial characteristics, but after all, love of an occasional drink seems a more natural proposition than a tendency to suicide, while as to the relative value of the labour itself, that is always an individual not a racial matter.

I too am feeling the domestic lure of cooler weather. All the day I wish to be in the open, but when the earlier twilight closes in, the house, with its lamps, hearth fires, and voices, weaves a new spell about me, though having once opened wide the door of outdoors it can never be closed.

Do you remember the _Masque of Pandora_, and the mysterious chest?

"_Pandora_
Hast thou never
Lifted the lid?

_Epimetheus_
The oracle forbids.
Safely concealed there from all mortal eyes
Forever sleeps the secret of the Gods.
Seek not to know what they have hidden from thee
Till they themselves reveal it."

Bart was reading it aloud to me last night. Prose read aloud always frets me, because one's mind travels so much faster than the spoken words and arrives at the conclusion, even if not always the right one, long before the printed climax is reached; but with good poetry it is different--the thoughts are so crystallized that the sound of a melodious voice liberates them more swiftly.

Verily Pandora's Chest has been opened this season here in the garden; the gods were evidently not unwilling and turned the lock for me, though perhaps I have thrown back the cover too rashly, for out has flown, instead of dire disaster, ambition in a flock of winged ideals, hopes, and wishes masquerading cleverly as necessities, that will keep me alert in trying to overtake and capture them all my life long.

Last night, once again comfortably settled in the den, we took inventory of the season's doings, and unlike most ventures, find there is nothing to write upon the nether page that records loss. Of the money set aside for the improvement of the knoll half yet remains, allowing for the finishing of the tree transplanting. Into this remainder we are preparing to tuck the filling for the rose bed, a goodly store of lily bulbs, some flowering shrubs, an openwork wire fence to be a vine-covered screen betwixt us and the road, instead of the broken rattling pickets, a new harness for Romeo to wear when he returns home, as a thank offering for his comfortable services (really the bridle of the old one is quite scratched to bits upon the various trees and rough fence rails to which he has been tethered), and last of all, what do you think? Three guesses may be easily wasted without hitting the mark, for instead of, as we expected, tearing down the old barn, our summer camp, we are going to remodel it to be a permanent outdoor shelter. It is to have a wide chimney and fireplace at one end, before which our beds may be drawn campfire fashion if it is too cool, and adjustable shutters so that it may be either merely a roof or a fairly substantial cabin and at all possible seasons a study and playroom for us all. Then too we shall overlook "Maria Maxwell's Experiment," as Bart calls her scheme of running the Opal Farm. We were heartily glad to know that she had leased and not bought it, but we were much surprised to learn, first through the village paper, and not the man and woman concerned, that "Mr. Ross Blake, the engineer in charge of the construction of the new reservoir, believing in the future of the real-estate boom in Woodridge (we didn't know there was one), has recently purchased the Amos Opie farm as an investment, the deed being to-day recorded in the town house. He has already leased it for a young ladies' seminary, pending its remodelling, for which he himself is drawing the plans."

Dear _Man from Everywhere!_ much as I like Maria, I think he would be the more restful neighbour of the two. What a complete couple they might have made, but that is a bit of drift thought that I have put out of my head, for if any two people ever had a chance this summer to fall in love if they had the capacity, it was Maria and _The Man_, and the strange part of it is that as far as may be known neither is nourishing the sentiment of a melancholy past and no other present man or woman stands between; perhaps it is some uncanny Opal spell that stays them. Yet even as it is, in this farm restoration both are unconsciously preparing to take a peep into Pandora's Chest full of the unknown, so let us hope the gods are willing.

_Hallowe'en._ The Infant and Anastasia, her memories revived by Larry's voluble and personally adapted folk-lore, are preparing all sorts of traps and feasts for good luck and fairies, while Lady Lazy is content to look at the log fire and plan for putting the garden to sleep. Yesterday I finished taking up my collection of peonies, Iris, and hardy chrysanthemums that had been "promised" at various farm gardens beyond the river woods, and duly cleared off my indebtednesses for the same with a varied assortment of articles ranging from gladioli bulbs, which seem to multiply by cube root here, to a pair of curling tongs, an article long coveted by a simple-minded woman of more than middle age, for the resuscitation of her Sunday front locks, and which though willing to acquire by barter she, as a deacon's wife, had a prejudice against buying openly over the counter.

Meyer has gone, having relapsed into comparative cheerfulness a few days before his departure on the receipt of a bulky letter which, in spite of the wear and tear of travel, remained heavily scented, coupled with Bart's assurance that he could remain in America another four weeks and still be at a certain Baltic town of an unpronounceable name in time for Christmas.

In spite of heavy frosts my pansies are a daily cheer, but it is really of no use for even the flowers of very hardy plants to struggle on against nature's decree of a winter sleeping time; the wild animals all come more or less under its spell, and the dogs, the nearest creatures of all to man, as soon as snow covers the ground and they have their experience of ice-cut feet, drowse as near the fire as possible and in case of a stove almost under it. I wonder if nature did not intend that we also should have at least a half-drowsy brooding time, instead of making the cold season so often a period of stress and strain and short days stretched into long nights. If so, we have taken the responsibility of acting for ourselves, of flying in nature's face in this as in many other ways.

Does it ever seem to you strange that our contrariness began within the year of our legendary creation, when Eve came to misery not by gazing in a bonnet shop, but when innocently wandering in her garden, the most beautiful of earth? By which we women gardeners should all take warning, for though the Tree of Life may be found in every garden,

"Yet sin and sorrow's pedigree
Spring from a garden and a tree."

_December 10._ Snow a month earlier than last year, but we rejoice in it, for it will keep the winds from the roots of the trees not yet wholly settled and comfortable in their new homes. The young hemlocks are bewitching in their wreaths and garlands, and one or two older trees give warmth to the woods beyond the Opal Farm and sweep the low, snow-covered meadow, that looks like a crystal lake, with their feathery branches. The cedars were beautiful in the May woods and so are they now, where I see them through the gap standing sentinels against the white of the brush lot. It seems to me that we cannot have too many evergreens any more than we can have too much cheerfulness.

There are no paths in the garden now, a hint that our feet must travel elsewhere for a time, and I confess that Lady Lazy has not yet redeemed herself, and at present likes her feet to fall upon soft rugs. The Infant's gray squirrels, Punch and Judy, and the persistent sparrows have found their way to the house, taking their daily rations from the roof of the shed. Punch, stuffed to repletion, has a _cache_ under the old syringa bushes, the sparrows seeming to escort him in his travels to and fro, but whether for companionship or in hope of gain, who can say?

The plans for the remodelling of Opal Farm-house are really very attractive and yet it will be delightfully simple to care for. Maria and _The Man_ have agreed better about them than over anything I have ever heard them discuss; but then, as it is purely a business arrangement, I suppose that Maria feels free from her usual pernickety restraint.