Every day seemed to mellow and beautify this place, and the wild garden dotted with lovely cypresses and flowering shrubs, mingled with every kind of fruit-tree that my father and Morgan had been able to get together. Over trellises, and on the house facing south, grape-vines flourished wonderfully. Peaches were soon in abundance, and such fruits familiar to English people at home as would bear the climate filled the garden.
My father’s estate extended for a considerable distance, but the greater part remained as it had been tilled by nature, the want of assistance confining his efforts to a comparatively small garden; but he used to say to me, in his quiet, grave way—
“We might grow more useful things, George, but we could not make the place more beautiful.”
And I often used to think so, as I gazed out of my window at the wild forest, and the openings leading down to the stream and away to the swamp, where I could hear the alligators barking and bellowing at night, with a feeling half dread, half curiosity, and think that some day I should live to see one that I had caught or killed myself, close at hand.
Now and then Morgan used to call me to come and see where a ’gator, as he called it, had been in the night, pointing out its track right up to the rough fence of the garden.
“You and I’ll have a treat one of these days, my lad.”
“Yes,” I used to say; “but when?”
“Oh, one of these days when I’m not busy.”
“Ah, Morgan,” I used to say, impatiently, “when you’re not busy: when will that be?”
“Be? One o’ these days when we’ve cut down all the wood, and turned all that low flat swamp into plantation. You see I’m so busy just now.”