“There, don’t you take no notice of them; they ain’t tears, they ain’t; that isn’t crying, that’s a sort o’ watery weakness in the eyes through always being a gardener all your life, and out in the wet. Only, you know, when I get talking about some things living do all you can to kill ’em—such as weeds, you know, and daisies; and of some things not living, do all you can to make ’em, like balsams in frosty springs, you know—I think about my boy, as was always such a tender plant, do all I would, and about all the plans I’d made for him, and all cut short by one o’ the sharp frosts as the good Master of all sends sometimes in every garden, whether it’s such a one as this, with good shelter, and a south aspeck, and plenty of warm walls for your trained trees, or the big garden of life, with the different human trees a-growing in it; some fair plants growing to maturity, and sending out fine green leaves, well veined and strong, well-shaped blossoms of good colour and sweet smell, fair to look upon, and doing good in this life; sturdy, well-grown trees of men, and bright-hued, tender, loving plants of women; some with tendrils and clinging ways—the fruitful vines upon your house—and many clustering blossoms of children; and bad weeds, and choking thorns, and poison-berries, and all. Life’s just one big garden, and when I stick my spade in like this here, and rest my foot on it, and my elber on the handle, and my chin on my hand, I get thinking about it all in a very strange way, oftens and oftens.
“Say I get a bit of ground ready, and put seed in. That’s faith, ain’t it? I put those little tiny brown grains in, and I know in all good time, according as the great God has ordained, those tiny grains will come up, and blow, and seed in their turns. Not all though; some gets nipped, and never comes to anything, spite of all your care, some slowly shrivels away, and those that do are generally the best.
“That’s the watery weakness again. Don’t you take no notice of that; only, you know, whatever I get talking about seems, somehow or other, to work round to my poor boy as we’ve laid in the earth over yonder by the old church—a human seed, sowed in corruption, to be raised in incorruption, eh? Those are the words, ain’t they, ma’am? And that’s faith, too, you’ll say.
“We were quite old folks when we married, you see, not being able to afford it early in life, and when that boy was born, being an odd, old-fashioned gardener of a man, I was always looking upon him as a sort of plant sent to me to bring up to as near perfection as we can get things in a garden that isn’t Eden. And there I used to sit at dinner hours or teas having my pipe, as made the little thing sneeze, but kept away blight, you know: and then I used to plot and plan as to how I’d work him; how, every now and then, I should, as he grew, carefully loosen all the earth about his tender young fibres, and give him some of the best, well-mixed, rich soil when I repotted him, shaking it well in amongst his roots, giving him room to grow, every now and then, by putting him in a larger pot, watching carefully for blight, taking away all green moss, giving him proper light and air, and all the time while it was nursery gardening, treating him as his tender nature required.
“Light, rich, loamy soil I meant him to have as soon as he was fit to go on a border, and then I meant to train him; ah, that I did! I’d made up my mind that no one else should touch him, but that I’d train him myself. A weed shouldn’t come near him, nor slug, nor snail neither, if I knew it, but I’d cover him over, and shelter him from all frosts, and then watch him grow and grow in the light and warmth of God’s beautiful sunshine. And let me tell you that you people who live in your big towns don’t know the real pleasure there is in seeing a young plant grow day by day, putting forth its wonderful leaves from out some tiny bud, where they have lain snugly shut up from the winter’s frosts, then the beautifully-painted flowers with their sweet scents. There, when I go to bed every night, in my humble fashion I thank God that I was made a gardener, with the chance through life of watching His wondrous works, and how He has ordained that man, by industry and skill, can change the wild, worthless weed or tree into the healthy, life-supporting vegetable or fruit. And yet I don’t know but what I’m doing you town-dwellers a wrong, for I’ve seen many a pale face in your close, crowded courts watching patiently over some sickly, sun-asking flower in a broken pot, watering it, maybe, with a cracked jug, and then I’ve longed to put that pale face down in such a place as my garden here—I call it mine, you know, though it’s master’s—to watch it brighten, and see, as I’ve often seen before now, the tears of joy come into the eyes of that pale face because things were so beautiful.
“There’s nothing like gardens, ma’am, to make people good and pure-hearted, for there’s something about flowers that leads the thoughts up and up, higher and higher. I pity you folks in London. There’s religion in gardens, and I think if you put beautiful flowers within reach of people, you do them more good than by showing them grand buildings and sights. There’s a something in flowers that makes its way to the heart—not only in the grandest blossoms, but in the simplest; and I ain’t going to set up for a prophetic person, but I mean to say that as long as this world lasts there will always be a tender love in every human heart for the little, gentle, sweet-scented violets. I’ve lived in big towns myself, and seen the girls with their baskets full of fresh-gathered blossoms, nestling amongst green leaves, with the water lying upon them in big, bright beads, and when, being only a poor man, I’ve spent my penny in a bunch of the fragrant little blossoms, and held it to my face, what have I breathed in?—just the scent of a violet? Oh, no! but God’s bright country—far away from the smoke, and bricks, and mortar—and health and strength, and then it would be that a great longing would come on me to be once again where the wind blew free and the sun shone brightly.
“That was, you know, when I went up to London to better myself, and didn’t; thinking, you know, to get to be gardener to some great man, or in one of the societies, but there wasn’t room for me.
“I’ve heard about some poet saying something about a man to whom a primrose by the river’s brim was a yellow primrose, and nothing more. I wonder what sort of a man that was, who could look upon the simplest flower that grows, and not see in it wonder, majesty, grandeur—a handiwork beside which the greatest piece of machinery made by man seems as it were nothing. But there, that’s always the way with violets and primroses, they always have a tendency towards bringing on that watery weakness. They do it with hundreds, bless you, if given at the right times. They’re so mixed up with one’s early life, you see, and with days when everything looked so bright and sunny; and with some people, I suppose, that is the reason why they act so upon them; while with me, you see, there’s something else, for when I think of them, I can always see two little bunches lying upon a little breast, with never a breath to stir them,—bright blossoms, smelling of the coming spring-time, but soon to be shut from the light of heaven, and buried deep, deep with that seed to be raised where chill winds never come, where the flowers are never-fading, and where the light of love shines ever upon those thought worthy to enter into that garden of life everlasting, amen!
“For it was all in vain, it was not to be. I made all my plans, I took all the care I could, I meant to train and prune and cut out all foreright and awkward growths, I meant that boy to be something to be proud of; but it was not to be: he was not to blossom here,—this did not seem to be his climate; and though I wouldn’t see it, there was the plain fact, that there was a canker somewhere out of sight where it could not be got at; and though I tried, and the doctor tried, all we knew, it was of no use, and at last I was obliged to own that my little fellow was slowly withering away. I used to have him in his little chair in a sheltery spot, where there was sunshine, and give him a bunch of flowers to play with; but at last he grew too weak to be taken out, so I used to take him some flowers home, and it was always the same, he would hold them in his hand till they withered away, and then cry to see how they were faded.
