Bucolic Beatitudes

by MacGregor Jenkins

And when the heat of summer comes, when cruel thirst is drying leaf and bud, there comes a twilight hour when hose is brought and tiny pots are filled and full libations poured. Then later in the darkness you may walk and smell once more the odor of damp earth, and you can really hear the little thankful noises of the plants.

These are some of the pleasures that I know, but over all, supreme and final, is the kinship that you feel for every growing thing. To have this in the full, again I say: be wary of too intimate a view. You do not pry into the secrets of your friends; you do not care to know the hidden things that make them what they are. If you are wise you let your children have some little chambers in their minds close-locked against intrusion, where the strange alchemy of life works out its mysteries.

So with my garden. There are many dark and shady little places where I do not pry, for here the sacred things are hid that I shall know in their fruition. If with a vulgar curiosity I poke about, expose them to the sun, and break the spell, I frustrate all the plans so quietly afoot. I watch it all and make my guess. I peep a little here and there, and smile when small reward results. I am quick to act when danger comes, but slow to bother when life runs in even tenor, and I try to coax my little garden to confide.

And when it once begins to tell its secrets to me, then no swain who wins at last his loved one’s confidence is more elate.

The early morning is the best. Not too early. I do not hold with those who, with the lark, attempt to catch a garden unawares. In decency, I mean, when all is ready, when the sweet languor of the night is past, but long before the business of the day has come—that is the time. When silver dewy webs are on the grass, when flower cups adroop are full, and leaves are damp. If you look close you’ll see a thousand secret things, exposed at night, not yet secluded from the sun. This and the evening hour are those of confidence.

All day the business of the little world goes on: the task of growth, of flowering and seed, the scented traffic of the toiling bee, the visits of the birds, the errands of the breeze, make for a busy time with little chance for secret enterprise. No man-made factory can compare with this in perfect unison, in calm control and harmony in work. I wish that every mortal who controls his fellows in their toil might have a garden to consult in time of strife, for if he did the strife would never be.

My right to have a garden is often tacitly questioned by those whose garden technique differs from mine. They may be right; I hold no brief for my unlettered manner. I am not wise; I do not know a thousand useful things; I try in vain to store my mind with countless facts that would enable me to hold my place in learned talk with experts at the game. But it is vain; I fail, as I have always failed, to know the niceties of any craft. I read and marvel that a mortal mind can compass all I find in garden books. I love to read them, for I feel a little sense of fellowship with those whose lore I envy, and I know they add new members to a goodly fellowship; but to claim I understand it all is vanity. The names alone! The strange and awful appellations which they give my homely friends! With what accustomed grace they handle them! I marvel at their erudition, and despair.

My own nomenclature is strange and weird. It serves my purpose, for I never try to talk of plants except between ourselves, and kindly members of my family condone my strange stupidity. Colors aid, and so does height of growth. What more convenient method could you ask? The tall white thing, the low one also white, the tall pink thing, its lower mate beyond—what could be better? And when we barter for new seeds or plants I leave all that to those who know the names which nurserymen and seedsmen use to dignify their wares. Then, too, the habit of the things assists: the happy and the sulky ones, the proud, the modest, timid, or abashed. How plainly every one will give you clue to name it by. Of course, a few good names remain all twisted up with childhood’s memories of other gardens, other kindly folk, who taught them to us when we first became aware that gardens are, alone, the places on this earth most worth the space they occupy.

A garden must have privacy—a wall, a hedge, something to keep the world away, for here the choicest hours will be spent. It must have shade, for here will come repose for mind and body more serene than can be found elsewhere. It should be small or have a part reserved for fellowship with growing things. There must be seats, not horrid wooden things upon which no one in his normal mind would sit. For pure effect against a wall of green they satisfy, but as a place to rest, a mockery and sham. Give me low seats with ample room for elbows and for legs, so low your hand may touch the grass, that matches may be thrust into the ground and not thrown heedlessly about. These are the only trappings that you need, save pool or basin for the birds to bathe.

Of course, man starts no enterprise, no undertaking for his betterment, without attack from myriads of foes. Just why this should be so, I do not know. Perhaps his ignorance is cause; perhaps he counts as foes a thousand things that help him though he know it not. But certainly it seems ordained that garden joys should pay the highest toll in watchfulness and toil. Why cannot things be beautiful without a battle for the right to live? Perhaps it is that pleasures lightly won are lightly held. If this be so, then any garden which has won its way should give its owner deepest gratitude.