... I have a wonderful lot of gardening on my shoulders, for we have no gardener—only get a soldier to work in the kitchen garden—so I have had to make my plans and arrange my crops for the kitchen garden, as well as look after my own. We have really two charming bits—a little, hot, sunny, good soil, vegetable plot—and quite away from this—by the house, my flower garden. Two round beds and four borders, with a high fence and two little gates, I have nearly got this tidy. The last occupant had never used it. It is a great enjoyment to me, and does me great good, I think, by keeping me out of doors. Rexie has given me a dear little set of tools—French ones, like children's toys, but quite enough for me. They form the subject of one of the little rhymes that Hector and I make together, and that I croon to the bull-doge to his great satisfaction.
"The little Missus with the little spade
Two little beds in the little garden has made.
The Bull-doge watches (for he can't work)
How she turns up the earth with her little fork.
Then she takes up the little hoe
And into the weeds doth bravely go,
At last with the smallest of little rakes
Quite smooth and tidy the beds she makes."
Another that was made in bed on the occasion of one of his raids on my invalid breakfast was—
"'Tis the voice of the Bull-doge, I hear him complain,
'You have fed me but lately: I must grub again.'
As a pauper for pudding—so he for his meat—
Gapes his jaws, and there's nothing a Bull-doge can't eat."
We sing these little songs together—and then I let him look in the glass, when he gowly powls and barks dreadfully at the rival doge....
To H.K.F.G.
May 18, 1868.
... I am awfully busy with my garden, and people are very kind in giving me things. To-morrow we go to the Rowans, and I am to ransack his garden! I do think the exchange of herbaceous perennials is one of the joys of life. You can hardly think how delicious it feels to garden after six months of frost and snow. Imagine my feelings when Mrs. Medley found a bed of seedling bee larkspurs in her garden, and gave me at least two dozen!!! I have got a whole row of them along a border, next to which I think I shall have mignonette and scarlet geraniums alternately. It is rather odd after writing Reka Dom, that I should fall heir to a garden in which almost the only "fixture" is a south border of lilies of the valley!...
To Miss E. Lloyd.