When, by an unlooked-for sequence of events, I became manager of "The Garden with House Attached" (as an important preliminary) along with "The Third Son"[1] I went over from Cambridge to take account of its possibilities. And here be it stated that from the time of his first trousers "The Third Son" had been my assistant gardener; and in all my horticultural enterprises, might still be counted in as "aider and abettor."
"Mother," said this astute young person—on our return from this inspection—"It is a big job; but there is yet another week of my vacation. Let us make a beginning."
In shaping the ground plan of this quaint old garden, its long-dead projectors had shown a capability which came within an ace of genius itself! Hence, so far as laying out went, there was absolutely no call for improvement.
All had been so well and effectively outlined, that the landscape gardener himself must have approved.
The long South walk—leading past the front door of the "Mansion House"—passing orchard and kitchen garden on its way up the long, gradual ascent towards the western boundary of the estate, and then turning a corner, followed the low stone wall hedged with sturdy purple lilacs (free to all the country round) and making a second turn, skirted the low northern ledge, where in June the locust hangs its tassels of perfumed snow, and, in autumn time, the wild barberry perfects its coral clusters. There, all summer long, the wind blows cool and sweet, and, resting on low, mossy boulders, you may sight, on the left, Middlesex Fells, and, across the blue distance, glimpse Tufts College on its broad, grassy hill, with the Mystic River (if the tide be in) creeping leisurely between you and that ancient seat of learning.
Following the walk down the lazy declivity, you take a turn with it beneath two aged pines, with the big lily-of-the-valley patch nestling in their shade; and (hard by) the well-appointed triangular flower plot, from time immemorial "bedded out" with "The Lady's" house plants. Turning on your track, you take a stroll through "The Lover's Walk"—a little, lilac-embowered pathway—and turning, follow, past the back of the house, the long, rocky ledge, with its glorious crown of white lilac trees—their tall tops touching the very ridge-pole of the roof.
There orange toadstools, like fairy parasols, push up through the damp mosses. There a giant Norway spruce drops its cones and spreads its brown carpet of needles; and in summer-time you may dream away the hours upon the cool stone steps and, harkening to an ancient pine singing its slow song, may
"Eat of the lotus, and dream, and forget."
The rough wagon road on the East takes you from the high road to the big old-fashioned barn, beneath whose eaves, year after year, the punctual swallow nests; while, high among the rafters within, immemorial pigeons rear their toothsome squabs.
The flower-borders of this garden—anciently edged with box (which, of late, gave up, piece by piece, the long struggles of existence)—had, no doubt, in their prime, been well worth seeing. Lovely blue-eyed Periwinkle yet wandered among the tangled shrubs. A persistent Day-lily and a stunted Flowering Almond still held their own; and in May-time a single root of double English Violet made shift to perfect a scented flower or two,—"dim, but sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes."
Thrifty old-time shrubs still flourished in the wide borders. Alicanthus sent far and wide its fruity odor. Yellow Globe flowers straggled here and there. Waxberry bushes stoutly thrived, and, in early springtime, an aged Pyrrhus Japonica put on its blaze of scarlet bloom. Big domes of Tartarean Honeysuckle—all rosy pink with bloom—yet held their own. Creamy Syringas made sweet the summer air, and as for Lilacs (white and purple) they were like "the rats of Bingen," everywhere—dominating the entire grounds!
It was a blessed day for us all when, in the sixteenth century, this darling Persian shrub was introduced into English gardens. In Persia they called it the "lilag" (which means simply a flower) and from this we have our word Lilac. Surely, "by no other name"—save by the dear country one of laylock—would it "smell as sweet."
The native West Indian has a pretty superstition in regard to this familiar flower. He holds that lilac branches, when in blossom, if hung up around the room, protect from malignant influences. He believes that the "jumbies," or evil spirits, will not enter a house where there are lilac blooms. I like to borrow from the pagan this harmless belief; and, each morning throughout their flowering time, I cut big "bowpots" of blown lilacs, and setting them about the house, idly fancy that—thus kept at bay—no evil thing "with spell or charm" may enter the dear home. And, further to guard it, I have named our place "The Lilacs."
A garden is hardly complete without the restful shade of trees—the loveliness of interchanging sunshine and shadow.
Therefore was it good to find trees, many and thrifty, hobnobbing together in our new holding.
A big sturdy hornbeam, with song-birds nesting high among its branches, shaded the eastern lawn, while close beside the kitchen porch a graceful rose-acacia reared its slender trunk, and every May-time wove its garlands of rosy bloom.
All about us grew maple and ash trees. Tall pines to hold the song of the wind among their boughs. Spruces and Arbor Vitæs (these absolutely upon their last legs, but still persistent), and, fairest of them all, two glorious tulip-trees towering upward, like sturdy masts, towards the blue heaven, flinging to the winds their high leafy boughs, like pale green pennants, picked out (in blooming time) with shapely miracles of color.
Here and there an apple or a pear tree had strayed from orchard to lawn; and in the very midst of things a huge cherry tree rendered its yearly tale of juicy blackhearts—enough and to spare for neighbors and robins, and for our own preserve jars. On a bleak northern rise behind the house, an ancient juniper (like another "Cleopatra's needle") stood slenderly against the sky—as perfect a pyramid as if shaped by the gardener's shears, instead of the keen-edged winter wind.
As before our advent at the "Mansion House" the man-of-all-work—after a long administration of its out-door affairs in the soft service of an easily-gratified mistress (the dear "Lady of the Wheeled Chair") had been abstracted from the family circle, the first step in our gardening was to call in the local "Man with the Hoe." This useful personage (let it here be said) was not—like Mr. Markham's terrible hero—"Brother to the ox." His "jaw" and "forehead" were all right, and, owing to the use of a hoe with proper length of handle, "The Weight of the Centuries" had not disturbed the contour of his back. One could not swear that he knew his "Plato" (alas, how few of us do!) and as to "The Swing of the Pleiades," it was not his immediate concern.
His it was, rather, to interest himself with the hoeing and edging of graveled walks, the weeding of kitchen and flower-gardens, the pruning of shrubs and vines, and the "making of two" lilies "grow where but one grew before." And so far from being (like Markham's man) "fraught with menace to the universe" our "Man with the Hoe"—in that small section of it within his immediate radius—was considered a positive blessing! Was it not on his good right arm that we—"the deserving poor"—to whom Providence had apportioned vegetable patches, flower-borders, and bits of lawn with intersecting graveled paths, and denied the luxury of a resident "hired man"—depended for the presentability of our "outdoors"? Poor Millet! one fancies his astonishment at Markham's terrible presentation of his peasant model! Himself of their guild, he painted his brother peasants in all honesty; and being neither pessimist nor anarchist, but working simply from the standpoint of the artist, has so made them immortal.
But to return to our own undertaking—our first task was the dislodgment of the stubborn tangle of persistent thimbleberry vines, sturdy saplings of ash and chestnut, and long-established waxberries. This done, we made, on the south, facing the "king's highway" and near enough to give delight and perfume to the foot-passenger, a brand new flower bed. In the middle of each square of lawn a raised circle, edged with stone, was made for the spring hyacinths and tulips (these to be succeeded later with cannas and bright summer flowers). Relegating the kitchen garden to a less conspicuous place, we prepared the cabbage-patch for our little rose-garden. All this heavy work done—"The Man with the Hoe" was, for the time, discharged.
Our Cambridge home had, for nearly two decades, been the property of one who in the Harvard Botanical Garden had "a friend at court" and had thus found it possible to secure for his grounds many choice shrubs and hardy herbaceous plants. Himself a skilled and enthusiastic horticulturist—after twenty years of painstaking cultivation, his garden close, with its mellow low-lying site and unobstructed southern exposure, had become a miracle of productiveness.
It had not, like the Medford garden, been "laid out." Flowers, fruit, and vegetables, were all in a riotous jumble; yet each the perfection of its kind. The marvel was that one small garden could carry such a load of growth!
Pears, early and late, of the juiciest and sweetest; big yellow quinces, currants, white and red, raspberries, thimbleberries, and blackberries by the bushel! And (crowning glory of all) a huge gravenstein with fruit fair as the famous golden apples tended by the "Daughters of the Evening Star." To this garden, for many years, my good husband had devoted his leisure hours. Two years before our removal to "The Garden with House Attached" he had left us for the far-off Unknown Land; and it was therefore with tender touch that we uprooted the shrubs and plants of his care—together with the flowers that I had tended. The cold frame was full of thrifty seedlings—Primroses, Iceland poppies, and other beauties. In the open, there were Lilies, Peonies—rose-pink and creamy white—big Drummond Phloxes, and Roses ad infinitum—two heaped cartloads in all—carried over by "The Third Son," and before the earliest frost, so well bestowed by his able hands, as to have rooted themselves in the mellow soil of the new garden.
Not one of these succumbed to the perils of transplantation—not even the five-year-old peach tree, whose certain dissolution all had prophesied, but which bravely withstood the risk of removal, and now, each spring, puts on its crown of pink splendor, which duly turns to juicy fruit beneath the sun that shines upon the grave of him whose hand, long years ago, planted its tiny stone.
Later on, we put in the tulip and hyacinth bulbs, and, when at last the entire garden, beneath its warm coverlet of dressing and leaves, composed itself for a long winter nap—like the poet's "goose-woman"—we
Meantime, the dear "Lady" (who had anticipated our coming to the Mansion House, by a sudden resolve to commit her burden of housekeeping to younger and abler hands—and retain of her old establishment but a single personal attendant—as faithful friend, companion, and amanuensis) wheeled into the very thick of action—had watched with anxious eyes this removal of ancient landmarks—this general upheaval of things. An almost helpless invalid—wheeled daily through eight patient summers into her beloved garden—she had sat with her beautiful silver hair arranged in careful curls, a big white sun-bonnet shading her kind old face, to receive her friends (both gentle and simple) with a cordial hospitality, and an old-time courtesy in fine keeping with herself and her surroundings.
Innately conservative, the Lady was scarce in touch with innovation of any sort. A passionate lover of flowers, but scantily endowed with horticultural talent, and without a spark of creative genius, she smiled with dubious complacency on this awful devastation—comforting herself with the sweet anticipation of spring tulips and summer roses, in her very own garden! Dear Lady—her absolute trust in my gardening ability was indeed touching! One must "live up to the blue china" of one's reputation; so I did my very best; and when all was done, and the out-door darlings nestled safely beneath their winter coverlet, came the pleasure of looking after the house-plants—(by this time well-recovered from the vicissitudes of repotting and removal) and the bestowal of each in its winter quarters; and this leads me to a description of "The Conservatory."
In a warm southwestern angle of "The Mansion House" there nestled a narrow piazza-like structure—opening, by long French windows, from both drawing and sitting room, and leading by a short flight of steps into the old garden.
This erection—having been enclosed by sash-work of glass—and furnished with rugs, a big easy chair, a round table, and a penitential hair-cloth sofa, and supplied with rocking chairs, was, when the temperature permitted, the favorite lounging place of family and guest.
Though warmed only by the sun, it had always been known as "The Conservatory" (probably because herein every autumn, the Lady's geraniums and fuchsias, taken in from the early frost, stood on the corner table, recovering from the fall potting on their way to winter quarters on the broad ledge of a sunny south window of her own bed chamber). Through the winter this unwarmed place was neither available for plant or man.
Long before the possibility of ever moving to the Mansion House had entered my head, I had looked upon this conservatory with loving eyes, and, in fancy, pictured it, warmed and filled all winter long with lovely flowering plants.
A Conservatory had been the dream of my life! And when this fell to my lot, and, abolishing the stuffy cylinder stoves that had, heretofore, warmed the Mansion House, we put in a big furnace, I had directed the leading of a roomy pipe to this glass-enclosed quarter, and the out-door work well over, I pleased myself with arranging this new winter home for my darlings. The light sashes—warped by Time—had become "ram-shackly." I wedged them securely, and stuffing gaps with cotton batting carefully listed the outer door against
"The west wind Mudjekeewis,"
and when all was done delightedly watched the vigorous growth of my well-housed darlings. Alas! short and sweet was my day of content.