AN OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN. A WALK UP AND DOWN IT. Published in The Independent, August 1, 1861, page 6.
Come, walk with me in an old-fashioned Kitchen Garden.
Do not object that it is prosaic and homely. You do not half divine its attractions.
You wouldn't discover the gate at all, but for a gap in the wild rose bushes that hedge in the garden. Pulling at a picket that seems to be in the fence itself, this independent sort of a gate (that disdains both latch and handle) admits you, and before you are fairly in, closes upon your heels with a bang! You look about to see what makes the gate so snappish, and discover, swinging from it by a rope, something heavy -- you can't tell what. A person who has traveled much and seen a variety of strange things, asked if it was a gun! Another inquired if it was a horn! In truth, it is about two feet of iron pipe that served in connection with a pipe before it was promoted to a clapper of the garden gate. Perhaps you smile at this economical and not very graceful arrangement ; but nobody cares, so long as it does its duty and keeps the hens out.
Having, I hope, gotten over your surprise at the mode if entrance, your attention rests upon a rampant hop-vine which has climbed a post and now thrusts its snaky heads in and out of the windows of a bird-house. This house is a ruin, having lost its steeple, roof, and part of the upper story walls in a northwest gale. Like all ruins, it is picturesque, and with the hop-vine rollicking over it, not so prosaic after all.
If you have passed your life in the city and at fashionable watering places, you will probably ask, "What is this that borders the walks so prettily?" But if you ever played, when a child, in your father's vegetable garden, you will recognize an old acquaintance. You know the dear little old dwarf beans, and stooping, will turn aside the leaves to reveal the crisp pods biding for to morrow's dinner. (By the way, we had one Kate O'Brien, fresh from the lakes of Killarney, with us last season, and when directed to prepare string-beans for dinner, she literally strung them like apples for drying!).
This is July, and the feathery asparagus is higher than your head, loaded with green berries. A foreign gentleman of much learning said to me the other day, "What is this singular plant?"
"Asparagus," I replied, and he looked as much puzzled as if I had called a lily a fig-tree, not in the least recognizing
that green plumage as the pale esculent that rejoices hotel tables early in May.
See these beats -- their leaves, streaked with red veins, betraying the bright blood that enriches their tubers. Notice, too, the bed is bordered with rosettes of yellow-green lettuce. Is it not a pretty contrast? Honest John has some eye to the beautiful, though his vocation is not a flower-garden.
Can anything refresh your eye more than this patch if curled parsley, unless, indeed, that long bed of carrots with its green fringes?
You say you prefer a paler green? Then regale your eyes with those peas. Can the shops giver you a purer shade of pea green?
What think you of those blue-green cabbages? Coarse things? Not a bit of it. They are more like roses than anything in the garden, so nicely as their leaves are folded.
Here is a medicine-bed. Catnip for babies, saffron for measles, balm for fevers, tansy for bitters, fennel for such as to go to sleep in meeting. Did you ever see so pretty an apothecary's store? How nicely it all smells!
You think there is some nicer perfume near by? Why, bless you ! there is a line of raspberries just beyond the herbs -- real Franconias -- the fragrant thimbles are just reading to tumble into your hands ; and beyond are bushes so loaded with great egg-shaped gooseberries that the branches rest upon the ground. Up and down and around is a line of currants, some white, some red. The mistress will tell you she has made her jelly and wine for this year, yet every bush seems to hold as many strings of the modest fruit as it can carry.
At your left are the grape-vines -- Isabellas and Catawbas rejoicing in hot July weather.
You say you prefer grape-vines in October? Even so ; but has the season of promise no interest? Is it not our privilege to contemplate the vine -- type of bounty, humility, cheerfulness, and grace -- so honored by our Head as to be almost the symbol of our holy religion? Jesus Christ deigns to say, I am the true vine," and again, "I am the vine and ye are the branches." Even his precious blood, shed for the remission of sins, he symboled under the fruit of the vine, and consecrated it an everlasting memento of himself to all of his followers until they shall drink again with him at the promised feast in his Father's kingdom. The sacred historian, when he would picture the peace and glory of Solomon's reign, does it in these words : "And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon." Again, when the prophet Micah, would paint the peace, glory, and victory of the church in those last days, when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more, he uses the same figure : "But they shall sit every man under his own vine and fig-tree and none shall make them afraid."
We are nearly at the foot of the garden, and what have we come to now? A grassy circle devoted to six white bee-hives -- those thrifty little tenants that pay their rent, not in filthy lucre, but in the sweetest coin landlord ever received -- in nectar, in food fit for the gods. If you are sucking from life only its bitterness, its sourness, its nausea, come taste this honey, and learn that the happy bee gathers it from the same flowers from which the spider draws poison. We will return by a side path. Here we are in the presence of more good things. Melons running about in unruly luxuriance ; tomatoes in such a hurry to grow, they haven't decided whether to be vines or bushes, parsnips and salsify biding their time till next March. And what is this? Ah ! here is the children's garden ! Bordered by snowy white shells, it reveals itself suddenly -- a glad surprise. Nothing but the free fancy of a child could have arranged the plants in such defiance of uniformity and utility. The glowing blossoms of a scarlet verbena lie in the embrace of a hairy cucumber vine. Ragged sailors stand, the uncomfortable neighbors of a thorny gooseberry bush ; and the seat of honor, the very center of the bed, is surrendered to a mammoth cauliflower that keeps all minor plants at a respectful distance.
I notice a middle-aged man and woman walk in this garden every evening about sunset. When they come to this spot they always stop, smile, exchange glances, and talk together in a low tone. To them this is the poem of the whole garden. To the little workers that plant and rake and water it, it has proved the first page in the instruction-book of life. It has even reclaimed a very young skeptic. Those parents had a very young girl who was greatly averse to saying her prayers. She had a large brain and keen reasoning faculties ; but they tried in vain to give her an idea of God. She seemed a little born infidel. Ask her, "Who made you Emily?"
"Why Papa, of course," she would reply. "I remember when he had almost finished he said, Hold still now, Emily, I'm putting in your eyes !" When taught to say "Now I lay me down to sleep," she would laugh and shake her unbelieving head, saying "I can't see God, and I know he can't hear me with that door shut." Being asked, when it thundered, "What is that, Emily?"
"I suppose it is Linda (a very fat woman) tumbled downstairs, or some such thing."
Not wishing to connect terror with her first impression of God, they resolved to reveal him by his gentle manifestations. The spring that she was three and a half years old, they gave her this little garden. In it she was directed to plant some beans, corn, and potatoes, and was told that God would make them come up and grow. She looked doubtful, but visited them patiently every day. One morning she discovered the beans backing up their crooked necks ; then the spires of corn appeared. She looked surprised and thoughtful. At last the black leaves of the potato satisfied her doubtful mind. She ran to her mother, with glowing cheeks and shining eyes. "Mamma, the
great and good God has made my beans, corn, and potatoes all grow. When I saw they were all up, I said very loud, 'I thank you' for I mean to be very polite to GOd, and I'll say my prayers every time I go to bed, for I know now he is about all night, making my garden grow and me too." Emily is now nine years old, and when her two younger brothers dig here with her, she teaches them to be as orthodox as the Cathecism.
We have walked nearly an hour. I hope you are not tired. We are at the humble gate again. Good evening.
RODENSE.