The leaves are of a dull green, and when
they fade, the whole plant is hardly to be distinguished from Mother
Earth--at least, not by a gardener's eye. If you will promise me not
to let the gardener meddle with them, unless you are there to look
after him, I will give you plants for your beds and borders, my boy."
"Oh, thank you," I said; "I like gardening very much. I should like to
garden like you. I've got a spade, and a hoe, and a fork, and I had a
rake, but it's lost. But I know papa will give me another; and I can
tidy my own beds, so the gardener need not touch them; and if there
was a wheelbarrow small enough for me to wheel, I could take my weeds
away myself, you know."
And I chattered on about my garden, for, like other children, I was
apt to "take up" things very warmly, in imitation of other people; and
Mr. Andrewes had already fired my imagination with dreams of a little
garden in perfect order and beauty, and tended by my own hands alone;
and as I talked of my garden, the parson talked of his, and so we
wandered from border to border, finding each other very good company,
Rubens walking demurely at our heels. A great many of Mr. Andrewes'
remarks, though I am sure they were very instructive, were beyond my
power of understanding; but as he closed each lecture on the various
flowers by a promise of a root, a cutting, a sucker, a seedling, or a
bulb, as the case might be, I was an attentive and well-satisfied
listener.
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