"Oh, them's marguerites, white and yellow. I got Mr Wright up at the 'All to give me them cuttings. They wanted a bit of water this morning so I give it em."
I pressed my finger on the sodden soil of the box that held the drooping cuttings. "They have had too little, and now you have given them too much," I said sternly. How could I trust my precious seeds to this old murderer? "Griggs, if you would only love the flowers a bit, they would grow with you."
"Bless you! they'll grow, they 'aven't took no hurt. Let's look at your seeds. Anti—rrh—well, what's this name?"
"Snapdragon."
"Oh, and violas and polyan—thus. Well, we can get 'em in. I've a box or two."
But I grabbed all my packets quickly.
"All right, get the boxes ready and I will come and sow them myself."
The boxes were filled with a light soil, mixed with sand and leaf mould. I turned it over myself to look for worms or other beasts, and very, very thinly, as I thought, I scattered the tiny seeds over the surface and gave them a good watering. Then out with some of the scraggiest of Griggs's plants and in with my precious boxes.
I felt Griggs's hands must not touch them. He had something wrong about him, for a gardener, that is to say. He always broke the trailing branch he was supposed to be nailing up; he always trod on a plant in stepping across a border; if he picked a flower he did it with about an inch of stalk and broke some other stem; no blessing flowed from his hand when he planted out the flowers.