A Bed of Japan Pinks.
The surrounding fences were entirely concealed by lilacs and syringas, interspersed with gigantic bushes of the fragrant, brown-flowered strawberry shrub; the four gates, two toward the road, one to the barn-yard,and one entering the wood lane, were arched high and covered by vines of Wisteria, while similar arches seemed to bring certain beds together that would have looked scattered and meaningless without them. In fact next to the presence of fragrant things, the artistic use of vines as draperies appealed to me most.
The border following the fence was divided, back of the house, by a vine-covered arbour, on the one side of which the medicinal herbs and simples were massed; on the other what might be classed as decorative or garden flowers, though some of the simples, such as tansy with its clusters of golden buttons, must be counted decorative.
The plants were never set in straight lines, but in irregular groups that blended comfortably together. Mrs. Marchant was not feeling well, Mrs. Puffin said, and could not come out, greatly to my disappointment; but the latter was only too glad to do the honours, and the plant names slipped from her tongue with the ease of long familiarity.
This patch of low growth with small heads of purple flowers was broad-leaved English thyme; that next, summer savory, used in cooking, she said. Then followed common sage and its scarlet-flowered cousinthat we know as salvia; next came rue and rosemary, Ophelia's flower of remembrance, with stiff leaves. Little known or grown, or rather capricious and tender here, I take it, for I find plants of it offered for sale in only one catalogue. Marigolds were here also, why I do not know, as I should think they belonged with the more showy flowers; then inconspicuous pennyroyal and several kinds of mints—spearmint, peppermint, and some great plants of velvet-leaved catnip.
Borage I saw for the first time, also coriander of the aromatic seeds, and a companion of dill of vinegar fame; and strangely enough, in rotation of Bible quotation, cumin and rue came next.
Caraway and a feathery mass of fennel took me back to grandmother's Virginia garden; balm and arnica, especially when I bruised a leaf of the latter between my fingers, recalled the bottle from which I soothe the Infant's childish bumps, the odour of it being also strongly reminiscent of my own childhood.
Angelica spoke of the sweet candied stalks, but when we reached a spot of basil, Martin Cortright's tongue was loosed and he began to recite from Keats; and all at once I seemed to see Isabella sitting among the shadows holding between her knees the flower-pot fromwhich the strangely nourished plant of basil grew as she watered it with her tears.
A hedge of tall sunflowers, from whose seeds, Mrs. Puffin said, a soothing and nourishing cough syrup may be made, antedating cod-liver oil, replaced the lilacs on this side, and with them blended boneset and horehound; while in a springy spot back toward the barn-yard the long leaves of sweet flag or calamus introduced a different class of foliage.
On the garden side the border was broken every ten feet or so with great shrubs of our lemon verbena, called lemon balm by Mrs. Puffin. It seemed impossible that such large, heavily wooded plants could be lifted for winter protection in the cellar, yet such Mrs. Puffin assured us was the case. So I shall grow mine to this size if possible, for what one can do may be accomplished by another,—that is the tonic of seeing other gardens than one's own. Between the lemon verbenas were fragrant-leaved geraniums of many flavours—rose, nutmeg, lemon, and one with a sharp peppermint odour, also a skeleton-leaved variety; while a low-growing plant with oval leaves and half-trailing habit and odd odour, Mrs. Puffin called apple geranium, though it does not seem to favour the family. Do you know it?
Bee balm in a blaze of scarlet made glowing colour amid so much green, and strangely enough the bluish lavender of the taller-growing sister, wild bergamot, seems to harmonize with it; while farther down the line grew another member of this brave family of horsemints with almost pink, irregular flowers of great beauty.
Southernwood formed fernlike masses here and there; dwarf tansy made the edging, together with the low, yellow-flowered musk, which Aunt Lavinia, now quite up in such things, declared to be a "musk-scented mimulus!" whatever that may be! Stocks, sweet sultan, and tall wands of evening primrose graded this border up to another shrubbery.
Of mignonette the garden boasts a half dozen species, running from one not more than six inches in height with cinnamon-red flowers to a tall variety with pointed flower spikes, something of the shape of the white flowers of the clethra bush or wands of Culver's root that grow along the fence at Opal Farm. It is not so fragrant as the common mignonette, but would be most graceful to arrange with roses or sweet peas. Aunt Lavinia says that she thinks that it is sold under the name of Miles spiral mignonette.
Close to the road, where the fence angle allows for a deep bed and the lilacs grade from the tall white of the height of trees down to the compact bushes of newer French varieties, lies the violet bed, now a mass of green leaves only, but by these Aunt Lavinia's eye read them out and found here the English sweet wild violet, as well as the deep purple double garden variety, the tiny white scented that comes with pussy-willows, the great single pansy violet of California, and the violets grown from the Russian steppes that carpeted the ground under your "mother tree."
From this bed the lilies-of-the-valley start and follow the entire length of the front fence, as you preach on the sunny side, the fence itself being hidden by a drapery of straw-coloured and pink Chinese honeysuckle that we called at home June honeysuckle, though this is covered with flower sprays in late August, and must be therefore a sort of monthly-minded hybrid, after the fashion of the hybrid tea-rose.
If I were to tell of the tea-roses grown here, they would fill a chronicle by itself, though only a few of the older kinds, such as safrano, bon silene, and perle, are favourites. Mrs. Puffin says that some of them, the great shrubs, are wintered out-of-doors, and othersare lifted, like the lemon balms, and kept in the dry, light cellar in tubs.
But oh! Mrs. Evan, you must go and see Mrs. Marchant's lilies! They are growing as freely as weeds among the uncut grass, and blooming as profusely as the bell-lilies in Opal Farm meadows! And all the spring bulbs are also grown in this grass that lies between the shorn grass paths, and in autumn when the tops are dead and gone it is carefully burned over and the turf is all the winter covering they have.
Does the grass look ragged and unsightly? No, because I think that it is cut lightly with a scythe after the spring bulbs are gone and that the patient woman, whose life the garden is, keeps the tallest seeded grasses hand trimmed from between the lily stalks!
Ah, but how that garden lingers with me, and the single glimpse I caught of the deep dark eyes of its mistress as they looked out of a vine-clad window toward the sky!
I have made a list of the plants that are possible for my own permanent bed of fragrant flowers and leaves, that I may enjoy them, and that the Infant may have fragrant memories to surround all her youth and bind her still more closely to the things of outdoor life.
I chanced upon a verse of Bourdillon's the other day. Do you know it?
"Ah! full of purest influenceOn human mind and mood,Of holiest joy to human senseAre river, field, and wood;And better must all childhood beThat knows a garden and a tree!"
(Barbara Campbell to Mary Penrose)
Oaklands, September 1.So you have been away and in going discovered the possibilities of growing certain pinks and carnations out-of-doors that, in America at least, are usually considered the winter specialties of a cool greenhouse!
We too have been afield somewhat, having but now returned from a driving trip of ten days, nicely timed as to gardens and resting-places until the last night, when, making a false turn, ten o'clock found us we did not know where and with no prospect of getting our bearings.
We had ample provisions for supper with us, including two bottles of ginger ale; no one knew that we were lost but ourselves and no one was expecting us anywhere, as we travel quitecon amoreon these little near-by journeys of ours. The August moon was big and hot and late in rising; there was a rick of old hay in a clean-looking field by the roadside that hadevidently been used as winter fodder for young cattle, for what remained of it was nibbled about the base, leaving a protruding, umbrella-like thatch, not very substantial, but sufficient shelter for a still night. Then and there we decided to play gypsy and camp out, literally under the sky. Evan unharnessed the horse, watered him at a convenient roadside puddle, and tethered him at the rear of the stack, where he could nibble the hay, but not us! Then spreading the horse-blanket on some loose hay for a bed, with the well-tufted seat of the buggy for a pillow, and utilizing the lap robe for a cover against dew, we fell heavily asleep, though I had all the time a half-conscious feeling as if little creatures were scrambling about in the hay beneath the blanket and occasionally brushing my face or ears with a batlike wing, tiny paws, or whisking tail. When I awoke, and of course immediately stirred up Evan, the moon was low on the opposite side of the stack, the stars were hidden, and there was a dull red glow among the heavy clouds of the eastern horizon like the reflection of a distant fire, while an owl hooted close by from a tree and then flew with a lurch across the meadow, evidently to the destruction of some small creature, for a squeal accompanied the swoop. A mysterious thing, this flightof the owl: the wings did not flap, there was no sound, merely the consciousness of displaced air.
We were not, as it afterward proved, ten miles from home, and yet, as far as trace of humanity was concerned, we might have been the only created man and woman.
Do you remember the old gypsy song?—Ben Jonson's, I think—
"The owl is abroad, the bat, the toad,And so is the cat-a-mountain;The ant and the mole both sit in a hole,And frog peeps out o' the fountain;The dogs they bay and the timbrels playAnd the spindle now is turning;The moon it is red, and the stars are fledBut all the sky is a-burning."
But we were still more remote, for of beaters of timbrels and turners of spindles were there none!
Your last chronicle interested us all. In the first place father remembers Mrs. Marchant perfectly, for he and the doctor used to exchange visits constantly during that long-ago summer when they lived on the old Herb Farm at Coningsby. Father had heard that she was hopelessly deranged, but nothingfurther, and the fact that she is living within driving distance in the midst of her garden of fragrance is a striking illustration both of the littleness of the earth and the social remoteness of its inhabitants.
Father says that Mrs. Marchant was always a very intellectual woman, and he remembers that in the old days she had almost a passion for fragrant flowers, and once wrote an essay upon the psychology of perfumes that attracted some attention in the medical journal in which it was published by her husband. That the perfume of flowers should now have drawn the shattered fragments of her mind together for their comfort and given her the foretaste of immortality, by the sign of the consciousness of personal presence and peace, is beautiful indeed.
Your declaration that henceforth one garden is not enough for your ambition, but that you crave several, amuses me greatly. For a mere novice I must say that you are making strides in seven-league horticultural boots, wherein you have arrived at the heart of the matter, viz.:—one may grow many beautiful and satisfactory flowers in a mixed garden such as falls to the lot of the average woman sufficiently lucky to own a garden at all, but to develop the best possibilities of any one family, like the rose, carnation,or lily, that is a bit whimsical about food and lodging, each one must have a garden of its own, so to speak, which, for the amateur, may be made to read as a special bed in a special location, and not necessarily a vast area.
This need is always recognized in the English garden books, and the chapter headings, The Rose Garden,—Hardy Garden,—Wall Garden,—Lily Garden,—Alpine Garden, etc., lead one at first sight to think that it is a great estate alone that can be so treated; but it is merely a horticultural protest, born of long experience, against mixing races to their mutual hurt, and this precaution, together with the climate, makes of all England a gardener's paradise!
What you say of the expansiveness of the list of fragrant flowers and leaves is also true, for taken in the literal sense there are really few plants without an individual odour of some sort in bark, leaf, or flower usually sufficient to identify them. In a recent book giving what purports to be a list of fragrant flowers and leaves, the chrysanthemum is included, as it gives out an aromatic perfume from its leaves! This is true, but so also does the garden marigold, and yet we should not include either among fragrant leaves in the real sense.
Hence to make the right selection of plants for the bed of sweet odours it is best, as in the case of choosing annuals, to adhere to a few tried and true worthies.
But at your rhapsody on the bed of carnations, I am also tempted to launch forth in praise of all pinks in general and the annual flowering garden carnation, early Marguerite, and picotee varieties in particular, especially when I think what results might be had from the same bits of ground that are often left to be overrun with straggling and unworthy annuals. For to have pinks to cut for the house, pinks for colour masses out-of-doors, and pinks to give away, is but a matter of understanding, a little patience, and the possession of a cold pit (which is but a deeper sort of frame like that used for a hotbed and sunken in the ground) against a sunny wall, for the safe wintering of a few of the tenderer species.
In touching upon this numerous family, second only to the rose in importance, the embarrassment is, where to begin. Is a carnation a pink, or a pink a carnation? I have often been asked. You may settle that as you please, since the family name of all, even the bearded Sweet-William, isDianthus, the decisive title of Linnæus, a word from the Greek meaning "flower of Jove," while the highly scented speciesand varieties of the more or less pungent clove breath remain under the old subtitle—Caryophyllus.
To go minutely into the differences and distinctions of the race would require a book all to itself, for in 1597, more than three hundred years ago, Gerarde wrote: "There are, under the name ofCaryophyllus, comprehended diuers and sundrie sorts of plants, of such variable colours and also severall shapes that a great and large volume would not suffice to write of euery one in particular." And when we realize that the pink was probably the first flower upon which, early in the eighteenth century, experiments in hybridization were tried, the intricacy will be fully understood.
For the Garden, You, and I, three superficial groups only are necessary: the truly hardy perennial pinks, that when once established remain for years; the half-hardy perennials that flower the second year after planting, and require protection; and the biennials that will flower the first year and may be treated as annuals.
The Margaret carnations, though biennials, are best treated as annuals, for they may be had in flower in three to four months after the sowing of the seed, and the English perennial border carnations, bizarres, and picotees will live for several years, but in thisclimate must be wintered in adry woodencold pit, after the manner of the perennial varieties of wallflowers, tender roses, and the like.
I emphasize the wordsdry woodenin connection with a cold pit from my experience in seeking to make mine permanent by replacing the planks, with which it was built and which often decayed, by stone work, with most disastrous results, causing me to lose a fine lot of plants by mildew.
The truly hardy pinks (dianthus plumarius), the fringed and clove-scented species both double and single of old-time gardens, that bloom in late spring and early summer, are called variously May and grass pinks. Her Majesty is a fine double white variety of this class, and if, in the case of double varieties, you wish to avoid the risk of getting single flowers, you would better start your stock with a few plants and subdivide. For myself, every three or four years, I sow the seed of these pinks in spring in the hardy seed bed, and transplant to their permanent bed early in September, covering the plants lightly in winter with evergreen boughs or corn stalks. Leaf litter or any sort of covering that packs and holds water is deadly to pinks, so prone is the crown to decay.
In the catalogues you will find these listed under thenames of Pheasant's Eye, Double Scotch pinks (Scotius), and Perpetual Pink (semperflorens). With this class belongs the Sweet-William (dianthus barbatus), which should be sown and treated in a like manner. It is also a hardy perennial, but I find it best to renew it every few years, as the flowers of young plants are larger, and in spite of care, the most beautiful hybrids will often decay at the ground. There is no garden flower, excepting the Dahlia, that gives us such a wealth of velvet bloom, and if you mean to make a specialty of pinks, I should advise you to buy a collection of Sweet-Williams in the separate colours, which range from white to deepest crimson with varied markings.
Directions for sowing the biennial Chinese and Japanese pinks were given in the chronicle concerning the hardy seed bed. These pinks are not really fragrant, though most of them have a pleasant apple odour that, together with their wonderful range of colour, makes them particularly suitable for table decoration.
In addition to the mixed colours recommended for the general seed bed, the following Japanese varieties are of special beauty, among the single pinks: Queen of Holland, pure white; Eastern Queen, enormousrose-pink flowers, Crimson Belle, dark red. Among the double, Fireball, an intense scarlet; the Diadem pink, Salmon Queen, and the lovely Oriental Beauty with diversely marked petals of a crêpy texture.
The double varieties of course are more solid and lasting, if they do not insist upon swelling so mightily that they burst the calyx and so have a dishevelled and one sided look; but for intrinsic beauty of colour and marking the single Chinese and Japanese pinks, particularly the latter, reign supreme. They have a quality of holding one akin to that of the human eye and possess much of the power of individual expression that belongs to pansies and single violets.
By careful management and close clipping of withered flowers, a bed of these pinks may be had in bloom from June until December, the first flowers coming from the autumn-sown plants, which may be replaced in August by those sown in the seed bed in late May, which by this time will be well budded.
"August is a kittle time for transplanting border things," I hear you say. To be sure; but with your water-barrel, the long-necked water-pots, and a judicious use of inverted flower-pots between tena.m.and fourp.m., there is no such word as fail in this as in many other cases.
Single and Double Pinks.
Upon the second and third classes you must depend for pinks of the taller growth ranging from one to two feet in height and flourishing long-stemmed clusters of deliciously clove-scented flowers. The hardy Margarets might be wintered in the pit, if it were worth the while, but they are so easily raised from seed, and so prone literally to bloom themselves to death in the three months between midsummer and hard frost, that I prefer to sow them each year in late March and April and plant them out in May, as soon as their real leaves appear, and pull them up at the general autumnal garden clearance. Upon the highly scented perpetual and picotee pinks or carnations (make your own choice of terms) you must depend for fragrance between the going of the May pinks and the coming of the Margarets; not that they of necessity cease blooming when their more easily perfected sisters begin; quite the contrary, for the necessity of lifting them in the winter gives them a spring set-back that they do not have in England, where they are the universal hardy pink, alike of the gardens of great estates and the brick-edged cottage border.
These are the carnations of Mrs. Marchant's garden that filled you with such admiration, and also awoke the spirit of emulation. Lavinia Cortright was correctin associating them with the lavish bloom of the gardens of Hampton Court, for if anything could make me permanently unpatriotic (which is impossible), it would be the roses and picotee pinks of the dear old stupid (human middle-class, and cold bedroom-wise), but florally adorable mother country!
The method by which you may possess yourself of these crowning flowers of the garden, forcoronations is one of the words from whichcarnation is supposed but to be derived, is as follows:—
Be sure of your seed. Not long ago it was necessary to import it direct, but not now. You may buy from the oldest of American seed houses fifty varieties of carnations and picotees, in separate packets, for three dollars, or twenty-five sorts for one dollar and seventy-five cents, or twelve (enough for a novice) for one dollar, the same being undoubtedly English or Holland grown, while a good English house asks five shillings, or a dollar and a quarter, for a single packet of mixed varieties!
Moral—it is not necessary that "made in England" should be stamped upon flower seeds to prove them of English origin!
If you can spare hotbed room, the seeds may be sown in April, like the early Margarets, and transplanted into some inconspicuous part of the vegetable garden, where the soil is deep and firm and there is a free circulation of air (not between tall peas and sweet corn), as for the first summer these pinks have no ornamental value, other than the pleasurable spectacle made by a healthy plant of any kind, by virtue of its future promise. Before frost or not later than the second week in October the pinks should be put in long, narrow boxes or pots sufficiently large to hold all the roots comfortably, but with little space to spare, watered, and partly shaded, until they have recovered themselves, when they should be set in the lightest part of the cold pit. During the winter months they should have only enough water to keep the earth from going to dust, and as much light and air as possible without absolutely freezing hard, after the manner of treating lemon verbenas, geraniums, and wall-flowers.
By the middle of April they may be planted in the bed where they are to bloom, and all the further care they need will be judicious watering and the careful staking of the flower stalks if they are weak and the buds top-heavy,—and by the way, as to the staking of flowers in general, a word with you later on.
In the greenhouse, pinks are liable to many ailments, and several of these follow them out-of-doors,three having given me some trouble, the most fatal being of a fungoid order, due usually to unhealthy root conditions or an excess of moisture.
Rustis one of these, its Latin name being too long for the simple vocabulary of The Garden, You, and I. It first shows itself in a brown spot that seems to have worked out from the inner part of the leaf. Sometimes it can be conquered by snipping the infected leaves, but if it seizes an entire bed, the necessary evil of spraying with Bordeaux mixture must be resorted to, as in the case of fungus-spotted hollyhocks.
Thrip, the little transparent, whitish fly, will sometimes bother border carnations in the same way as it does roses. If the flowers are only in bud, I sprinkle them with my brass rose-atomizer and powder slightly with helebore. But if the flowers are open, sprinkling and shaking alone may be resorted to. For the several kinds of underground worms that trouble pinks, of which the wireworm is the chief, I have found a liberal use of unslaked lime and bone-dust in the preparation of the soil before planting the best preventive.
Other ailments have appeared only occasionally. Sometimes an apparently healthy, full-grown plant will suddenly wither away, or else swell up close to the ground and finally burst so that the sap leaksout and it dies like a punctured or girdled tree. The first trouble may come from the too close contact of fresh manure, which should be kept away from the main roots of carnations, as from contact with lily bulbs.
As to the swelling calledgout, there is no cure, so do not temporize. Pull up the plant at once and disinfect the spot with unslaked lime and sulphur.
Thus, Mary Penrose, may you have either pinks in your garden or a garden of pinks, whichever way you may care to develop your idea. "A deal of trouble?" Y-e-s; but then only think of the flowers that crown the work, and you might spend an equal amount of time in pricking cloth with a steel splinter and embroidering something, in the often taken-in-vain name of decorative art, that in the end is only an elaborated rag—without even the bone and the hank of hair!
(Mary Penrose to Barbara Campbell)
Woodridge, September 10.Your chronicle of the Pink Family found me by myself in camp, dreaming away as vigorously as if it was a necessary and practical occupation. After all, are we sure that it is not, in a way, both of these? This season my dreams of night have been so long that they have lingered into the things of day andvice versa, and yet neither the one nor the other have whispered of idleness, but the endless hope of work.
Bart's third instalment of vacation ends to-morrow, though we shall continue to sleep out of doors so long as good weather lasts; the remaining ten days we are saving until October, when the final transplanting of trees and shrubs is to be made; and in addition to those for the knoll we have marked some shapely dogwoods, hornbeams, and tulip trees for grouping inother parts of the home acres. There are also to be had for the digging good bushes of the early pink and clammy white azalea, mountain-laurel, several of the blueberry tribe, that have white flowers in summer and glorious crimson foliage in autumn, white-flowered elder, button-bush, groundsel tree, witchhazel, bayberry, the shining-leaved sumach, the white meadow-sweet, and pink steeplebush, besides a number of cornels and viburnums suitable for shrubberies. As I glance over the list of what the river and quarry woods have yielded us, it is like reading from the catalogue of a general dealer in hardy plants, and yet I suppose hundreds of people have as much almost at their doors, if they did but know it.
The commercial side of a matter of this kind is not the one upon which to dwell the most, except upon the principle of the old black woman who said, "Chillun, count yer marcies arter every spell o' pain!" and to-day, in assaying our mercies and the various advantages of our garden vacation, I computed that the trees, shrubs, ferns, herbaceous wild flowers, and vines (yes, we have included vines, of which I must tell you), if bought of the most reasonable of dealers, would have cost us at least three hundred dollars, without express or freight charges.
The reason for my being by myself at this particular moment is that Bart, mounted on solemn Romeo, has taken the Infant, astride her diminutive pony, by a long leader, for a long-promised ride up the river road, the same being thefinaleof the celebration of his birthday, that began shortly after daylight. The Infant, in order to be early enough to give him the first of his thirty-three kisses, came the night before, and though she has camped out with us at intervals all summer, the novelty has not worn off. She has a happy family of pets that, without being caged or in any way coerced or confined, linger about the old barn, seem to watch for her coming, and expect their daily rations, even though they do not care to be handled.
Punch and Judy, the gray squirrels of the dovecote, perch upon her shoulders and pry into the pockets of her overalls for nuts or kernels of corn, all the while keeping a bright eye upon Reddy, the setter pup, who, though he lies ever so sedately, nose between paws, they well know is not to be trusted. While as for birds, all the season we have had chipping-sparrows, catbirds, robins, and even a wood-thrush, leader of the twilight orchestra, all of whom the little witch has tempted in turn by a bark saucer spread withleaves and various grains and small fruits, from strawberries to mulberries, for which she has had a daily hunt through the Opal Farm land the season through.
Toward the English sparrow she positively declines to harden her heart, in spite of my having repeated the story of its encroachments and crimes. She listens and merely shakes her head, saying, "We 'vited them to come, didn't we, mother? When we 'vites people, we always feed 'em; 'sides, they're the only ones'll let me put them in my pocket," which is perfectly true, for having learned this warm abiding-place of much oats and cracked corn, they follow her in a flock, and a few confiding spirits allow themselves to be handled.
At the birthday dinner party, arranged by the Infant, a number of these guests were present. We must have looked a motley crew, in whose company Old King Cole himself would have been embarrassed, for Bart wore a wreath of pink asters, while a gigantic sunflower made my head-dress, and the cake, made and garnished with red and white peppermints, an American and an Irish flag, by Anastasia, was mounted firmly upon a miscellaneous mass of flowers, with a superstructure of small yellow tomatoes, parsley,young carrots, and beets, the colour of these vegetables having caught the Infant's eye.
The pony, Ginger, had a basket of second-crop clover flowers provided for him; Reddy some corned-beef hash, his favourite dish, coaxed from Anastasia; while for Punch, Judy, and as many of their children as would venture down from the rafters, the Infant had compounded a wonderful salad of mixed nuts and corn. As the Infant ordained that "the childrens shan't tum in 'til d'sert," we had the substantial part of our meal in peace; but the candles were no sooner blown out and the cake cut than Ginger left his clover to nibble the young carrots, the squirrels got into the nut dish bodily and began sorting over the nuts to find those they liked best, with such vigour that the others flew in our faces, and Reddy fell off the box upon which the Infant had balanced him with difficulty, nearly carrying the table-cloth with him, while at this moment, the feast becoming decidedly crumby, we were surrounded by the entire flock of English sparrows!
Now this is not at all what I started to tell you; quite the contrary. Please forgive this domestic excursion into the land of maternal pride and happenings. What I meant to write of was my conviction, that came through sitting on the hay rafters and looking down upon the garden, that as a beautiful painting is improved by proper framing, so should the garden be enclosed at different points by frames, to focus the eye upon some central object.
Though the greater part of the garden is as yet only planned and merely enough set out in each part to fix special boundaries, as in the case of the rose bed, I realize that as a whole it is too open and lacks perspective. You see it all at once; there are no breaks. No matter in what corner scarlet salvia and vermilion nasturtiums may be planted, they are sure to get in range with the pink verbenas and magenta phlox in a teeth-on-edge way.
From other viewpoints the result is no better. Looking from the piazza that skirts two sides of the house, where we usually spend much time, three portions of the garden are in sight at once, and all on different planes, without proper separating frames; the rose garden is near at hand, the old borders leading to the sundial being at right angles with it. At the right, the lower end of the knoll and the gap with its bed of heliotrope are prominent, while between, at a third distance, is the proposed location of the white-birch screen, the old wall rockery, etc. The rockery and rose garden are in their proper relation, but the other portions should be given perspective by framing, and the result of my day-dreams is that this, according to nature, should be done by the grouping of shrubs and the drapery of vines.
I now for the first time fully understand the uses of the pergola in landscape gardening, the open sides of which form a series of vine-draped frames. I had always before thought it a stiff and artificial sort of arrangement, as well as the tall clipped yews, laurel trees in tubs, and marble vases and columns that are parts of the usual framework of the more formal gardens. And while these things would be decidedly out of place in gardens of our class, and at best could only be indulged in via white-painted wooden imitations, the woman who is her own gardener may exercise endless skill in bringing about equally good results with the rustic material at hand and by following wild nature, who, after all, is the first model.
The silver maple by the lane gate.
I think I hear Evan laughing at my preachment concerning his special art, but the comprehension of it has all come through looking at the natural landscape effects that have happened at Opal Farm owing to the fact that the hand of man has there been stayedthese many years. On either side of the rough bars leading between our boundary wall and the meadow stands a dead cedar tree, from which the dry, moss-covered branches have been broken by the loads of hay that used to be gathered up at random and carted out this way. Wild birds doubtless used these branches as perches of vantage from which they might view the country, both during feeding excursions and in migration, and thus have sown the seed of their provender, for lo and behold, around the old trees have grown vines of wild grapes, with flowers that perfume the entire meadow in June. Here the woody, spiral-climbing waxwork holds aloft its clusters of berries that look like bunches of miniature lemons until on being ripe they open and show the coral fruit; Virginia creeper of the five-pointed fingers, clinging tendrils, glorious autumn colour, and spreading clusters of purple blackberries, and wild white clematis, the "traveller's joy" of moist roadside copses, all blending together and stretching out hands, until this season being undisturbed, they have clasped to form a natural arch of surpassing beauty.
Having a great pile of cedar poles, in excess of the needs of all our other projects, my present problem is to place a series of simple arches constructed onthis natural idea, that shall frame the different garden vistas from the best vantage-point. Rustic pillars, after the plan of Evan's that you sent me for the corners of the rose garden, will give the necessary formal touch, while groups of shrubs can be so placed as not only to screen colours that should not be seen in combination, but to make reasons for turns that would otherwise seem arbitrary.
Aunt Lavinia has promised me any number of Chinese honeysuckle vines from the little nursery bed of rooted cuttings that is Martin Cortright's special province, for she writes me that they began with this before having seed beds for either hardy plants or annuals, as they wished to have hedges of flowering shrubs in lieu of fences, and some fine old bushes on the place furnished ample cuttings of the old-fashioned varieties, which they have supplemented.
Aunt Lavinia also says that the purple Wisteria grows easily from the beanlike seed and blossoms in three years, and that she has a dozen of these two-year-old seedlings that she will send me as soon as I have place for them. Remembering your habit of giving every old tree a vine to comfort its old age, and in particular the silver maple by the lane gate of your garden, with its woodpecker hole and swinginggarniture of Wisteria bloom, I have promised a similar cloak to a gnarled bird cherry that stands midway in the fence rockery, and yet another to an attenuated poplar, so stripped of branches as to be little more than a pole and still keeping a certain dignity.
A curtain to the side porch.
The honeysuckles I shall keep for panelling the piazza, they are such clean vines and easily controlled; while on the two-story portion under the guest-room windows some Virginia creepers can be added to make a curtain to the side porch.
As for other vines, we have many resources. Festooned across the front stoop at Opal Farm is an old and gigantic vine of the scarlet-and-orange trumpet creeper, that has overrun the shed, climbed the side of the house, and followed round the rough edges of the eaves, while all through the grass of the front yard are seedling plants of the vine that, in spring, are blended with tufts of the white star of Bethlehem and yellow daffies.
In the river woods, brush and swamp lots, near by, we have found and marked for our own the mountain fringe with its feathery foliage and white flowers shaded with purple pink, that suggest both the bleeding heart of gardens and the woodland Dutchman's breeches. It grows in great strings fourteen or fifteenfeet in length and seems as trainable as smilax or the asparagus vine. Here are also woody trailers of moonseed, with its minute white flowers in the axils of leaves that might pass at first glance for one of the many varieties of wild grapes; the hyacinth bean, with its deliciously fragrant chocolate flowers tinged with violet, that is so kind in covering the unsightly underbrush of damp places. And here, first, last, and always, come the wild grapes, showing so many types of leaf and fruit, from the early ripening summer grape of the high-climbing habit, having the most typical leaf and thin-skinned, purple berries, that have fathered so many cultivated varieties; the frost grape, with its coarsely-toothed, rather heart-shaped, pointed leaf and small black berries, that are uneatable until after frost (and rather horrid even then); to the riverside grape of the glossy leaf, fragrant blossoms and fruit.
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 atumble-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 manveryill, 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. BothThe Man from Everywhereand Maria Maxwell have made him good offers for his farm,The Man'sbeing the first! Now he had fully determined to sell toThe 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! Itis this mental perturbation, in his very slow nature, that is, I believe, keeping him an invalid!
WhatMaria 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 myGarden Bokeagainst 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 beforethe 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 tallcrenataandscabraand the third the charming low-growinggracilis, 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 withme 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?
Chronicledby 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 theeastern half of the farm home.Amos Opie, living in the western half of the house, the separatingdoor being locked on his side.Maria Maxwell, who, upon hearing Opie is again ill, hasdropped 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 toThe Man'spart 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.
"Shedoesn't come in so often nowhe'scome home, andhefights shy o' the place, thinkin' mebbeshe'saround, and they both wants to buy.He'soffered me thirty-five hundred cash, andshe'soffered 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 settlingmedicine 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 ofThe Manleading 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. ThankingThe Manfor 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 timeif 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, andThe 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 thenight, 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 itsperfection 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 Manwas 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 incivilized 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?" saidThe 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 Manpoured 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 willhave 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 knowsthat 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 Everywherebegan 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 summerkitchen, 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 Manfollowed 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'msure 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 uponThe Man'sface 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 Mansaid 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 ahard 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 lookingThe Manstraight 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.