It's shaded by papyrus And reeds and grasses tall, Just a little land-locked harbor Beside the garden wall.
"They talked of water-lilies And lotus pink and white— We didn't dare to say a word But we wished with all our might, For how could we manœuvre The submarine we've got, If they go and clutter up the place With all that sort of rot.
"But mother said she thought perhaps We'd wait another year, 'It's such a lovely place to play, We ought to keep it clear.' So there's nothing but a goldfish Who has to be a Hun, I don't suppose he likes it, But gee, it's lots of fun!"
Some day we are going to have a sun dial. J—— thought of a wonderful motto in the best Latin, and now he can't remember it, which is harrowing, because it would be so stylish to have a perfectly original one. It was something about not wanting to miss the shady hours for the sake of having all sunny ones. At any rate, we are resolved not to have "I count none but sunny hours."
There are all kinds of responsibilities in life, and picking the right shade of paint for a house you have to live in is a most wearing one. Painting the trimming of ours in connection with the garden was very agitating. I had sample bits of board painted and took them about town, trying them next to houses I liked, and at last decided on a wicked Spanish green that the storms of winter are expected to mellow. As I saw it being put on the house I felt panic-stricken. For a nice fresh vegetable or salad, yes, but for a house—never!
And yet it is a great success! I don't know whether it has "sunk in," as the painter consoled me by predicting, or whether it is that we are used to it; at any rate, every one likes it so much that I have cheerfully removed smears of it from the clothing of all the family, including the puppies' tails.
As to ourselves in the rôle of gardeners—there were not two greener greenhorns when we first resolved to stay in California; we still are, though I think I do J—— an injustice in classing him with me. We can make geraniums grow luxuriantly, but we don't want to. I wish they would pass a law in Southern California making the growing of red geraniums a criminal offense. So many people love to combine them with bougainvillia and other brilliant pink or purple flowers, and the light is hard enough on eyes without adding that
horror. We are resolved to progress from the geranium age to the hardy perennial class, and are industriously studying books and magazines with that end in view. The worst of garden literature is that it is nearly all written for an Eastern climate. Once I subscribed for a garden magazine, lured by a bargain three months' offer. Never again! At the end of the time, when no regular subscription came in from me, letters began to arrive. Finally one saying, "You probably think this is another letter urging you to subscribe. It is not; it is only to beg that you will confidentially tell us why you do not." I told him that all our conditions here are so different from those in the East. People want Italian and Spanish gardens, and there is the most marvellous choice of flowers, shrubs, and vines with which to
get them, but we want to be told how, and added to this, it is heart-breaking to love a fountain nymph in the advertisements and to find that her travelling expenses would bankrupt you.
One marvellous opportunity we have—the San Diego Exposition, whose gardens are more lovely than ever, though soldiers and sailors are feeding the pigeons in the Plaza de Panama instead of tourists. The real intention of that exposition was to show people in this part of the world what they could do with the great variety of plants and shrubs that thrive here.