At the close of the interview, a dozen bulbs and an extensive package of plants were put in the carriage for the young lady to take home, as a compliment to her interest in his favorite pursuit.
Mr. Benton’s front door-yard was given over to his horses, and sometimes the calves were allowed to share in the rich pasturage it furnished. Several ancient cedar trees, ragged and untrimmed, and two thrifty oaks stood on what should have been a lawn, and a straggling row of pomegranates grew along the line of fence on one side, apparently in defiance of cattle and all other exterminating influences.
On her return home, Patsy displayed her treasures to her mother, and was enthusiastic over her floral prospects.
“Papa,” said she, “you must give me space in the vegetable garden for the present, and Tom must prepare the ground.”
“It is perfect foolishness,” said Mr. Benton. “Old Thornton is such a stuck-up old goose that I hated to make him mad, otherwise I should not have brought these things home with me. The truth is I would not swap a row of cotton-plants in my field for everything that old man has got in all his grounds and greenhouses put together.”
“O father, everything he has is so beautiful!” said Patsy. “The summer-houses are like fairy-land, all covered over with roses and vines.”
“You keep cool, Pat, and don’t set your head on having a flower-garden. Your mother was just like you when I married her. The first thing she did was to set out some rose bushes in the front yard. Soon after she took sick and they all died, and she herself came mighty near doing the same thing; so she gave up the whole business, like a sensible woman. Tom is hoeing potatoes just now, and you must not call him from his work to plant this truck, which is of no account anyway. You’d better fling it all in the river. It would be far better than to go out on the damp ground wasting your time and labor.”
“No, indeed,” said Patsy, who had the dauntless energy of a true gardener; “I shall plant them myself—every one!”
She did so, and her treasures made themselves at home in the rich, mellow soil, and throve wonderfully in response to her careful tending. In a short time she gathered roses and violets, and her golden-banded lilies shot up several tall stems crowned with slender, shapely buds, which were watched with great solicitude. Every morning Patsy would say: “They will bloom to-morrow.”
Mr. Benton refused to “consider the lilies” of his daughter except in the light of a nuisance. Only the evening before, he had seen her standing in the bean-arbor with Walter Jones, who seemed lost in his admiration of the girl while she devoured the beauty of the flowers; and Mr. Benton was not happy at the sight.