However, we were rewarded at last by the unmistakable appearance of cultivated plants. Nearly every seed sent up its little green shoot, and for a few days we were most unpleasantly proud, and treated our friends with contemptuous pity, while we visited and measured the plants almost every half-hour, to see if they had grown in the interval. But our joy was short lived, for from some cause or another, either the strong sun, the lack of water, or the poor soil, all our plants withered before they put forth flowers.
At first we refused to believe our ill fortune; we told one another that it was always thus at first with delicate plants, that they must have more water and less sun. We covered them over in the heat of the day with waste paper baskets, topees, and cunningly erected tents of straw, and we risked our lives a hundred times, by running out in the hot sun to replace these, when the wind blew them away. We talked bravely of being able soon to gather bunches of daffodils, and to send our neighbours baskets of sweet peas. But we each felt all the time in our heart of hearts, that our hopes were doomed to disappointment.
At last we could keep up the delusion no longer, and owned the fact of our failure to one another; and being now sadder and wiser folk, threw away the withered plants, and made a new garden, following this time the advice of our neighbours.
The only plants which did prosper in this first garden were the nasturtiums (I verily believe they will flourish anywhere) and for several hours a tiny bed round the foot of a tree at the bottom of the compound veritably blazed with the colour afforded by four flourishing nasturtiums; but while we were at the Club that evening, the crows pecked off all the petals of the flowers, and our only success was but a short lived one.
The kitchen garden, which we consigned to the care of Po Sin, our head boy, was rather more successful, our radishes, and mustard and cress being the wonder of the country side.
Then we had good hopes for the peas too; there was one row about ten inches high which looked really promising, and as we sat on the veranda in the evenings contemplating this cheerful sight, we talked longingly of the time when we should have a dish of our own peas for dinner.
But alas for the vanity of human expectations. One morning, my sister had sallied forth to inspect the garden, when I was startled by the despairing cry of "Come, come at once, the peas are flowering;" and upon hurrying to the spot I found it too true; our precocious peas were already in flower, and nothing could be done to discourage them. After a few days the petals fell away, and miniature pea pods, containing microscopic peas appeared in their place. Our wishes were fulfilled; we had a dish, (a very small one) of our own peas for dinner, but alas it consisted of the produce of the entire row.
Another source of much interest was our strawberry plant. I took 100 strawberry runners out with me from England, but, unfortunately, only one survived, which put forth three new shoots, and appeared for a time quite healthy, but never bore fruit. Still, it may yet do so; and in the meantime it is much admired by all the inhabitants of Remyo.
Our second garden, happily, being prepared with more regard to the demands of the climate, was a success, and wiped out the stain of our first failure.