"Not as gardener!"
"No; but he can't live on his other earnings. No, Mary, put your best foot foremost and make something of old Griggs and the garden and the five pounds. And now take this bulb catalogue. I have not had time to look it through, and perhaps it may not be too late to get some things in for the spring. But don't spend all the five pounds on bulbs," he shouted after me as I left the study.
And so I plunged into gardening, a very Ignoramus of the Ignorami, and what is herein set down will be written for the edification, instruction, warning and encouragement of others belonging to that somewhat large species.
I opened the bright-coloured catalogue. Oh! what fascination lurks in the pages of a bulb catalogue. The thick, highly-glazed leaves turn with a rich revelation on both sides. It scarcely needs the brilliant illustrations to lift the imagination into visions of gorgeous beauty. Parterres of amazing tulips, sheets of golden daffodils, groups of graceful, nodding narcissus, the heavy, sweet scent of hyacinths comes from that glorious bloom "excellent for pot culture"; and here in more quiet letters grow the early crocus—yellow, white, blue and mixed—and snowdrops. Ah! snowdrops, coming so early, bringing the promise of all the rich glory that is to follow. And scillas, aconites, chionodoxa or "Glory of the Snow"!
What were all those lovely, to me half unheard-of names that could be had for two shillings and sixpence, three shillings or four shillings and sixpence a hundred? They bloomed in February and March, they were hardy and throve in any soil. Oh! how they throve in the pages of that catalogue.
And anemones! My mind rushed to the joys of the Riviera, revealed in occasional wooden boxes, mostly smashed, sent by friends from that land of sunshine, and whose contents, when revived, spoke of a wealth of colour forever to be associated with the name of anemone. To grow them myself, rapture! "Plant in October or November." It was still November; they must be ordered at once, "double," "mixed," "single," "fulgens"; they were "dazzling," "effective," "brilliant," and began to flower in March.
I was plunged into a happy dream of month succeeding month, bringing each with it its own glory of radiant bloom, very much after the manner of Walter Crane's picture-books. Life was going to be well worth living.