"I feel like the lady from Minnesota who came on a visit to Richmond and was so overcome by the magnolia trees. She remarked: 'I have never seen such large rubber plants.' But don't these palmetto trees have a strange swishy sound? They make me feel like 'somebody's a-comin',' kind of creepy."
Dee was peering into a garden belonging to one of the old houses that had not known paint since the Revolution. The garden, however, was not neglected but evidently cared for with loving hands. There were borders of snowdrops and violets; purple and white hyacinths primly marked the narrow gravel walk, and clumps of rhododendron and oleander were so well placed that one felt that a landscape gardener must have had the planting of them. Two large palmetto trees stood like sentinels on each side of the wrought-iron gate, which was hung from great square brick pillars. A massive brick wall surrounded the garden with an uninviting coping of ferocious spikes.
We had our faces close to the grille trying to see a little more of the garden while the above conversation was going on. All of us longed to get in like Alice in Wonderland. How to do it was the problem!
If that we could see was so enchanting, what we couldn't see must be even more so.
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore ye pipes play on."
No doubt it was very rude of us to stand there peering in, but we were so enthralled by the beauty of the garden and so filled with the desire to get in that we forgot Mr. Manners entirely. Just as Dee said that the palmetto trees made her feel like somebody was coming, somebody did come. We heard a voice, a very irate voice indeed, behind the wall declaiming in masculine tones:
"There is no use in discussing the matter further, Claire! I tell you I shall never give my consent to Louis' going into such a profession. Planting gardens, forsooth! That is work for negroes, negroes directed by women."
"But, papa, it is a very honorable profession, and Louis has such a love for flowers and such marvelous taste in arranging them. Just see what he has done for our garden! He could do the same for others, and already he is being sought by some of the wealthy persons of Charleston to direct the planting of their gardens."
The second voice evidently belonged to a young girl. There was a sweet girlishness about it and the soft, light accent of the Charlestonian was very marked. I don't know how to give an idea of how she said Charleston, but there was no R in it and in its place I might almost put an I. "Chailston" is as near as I can come and that seems 'way off.
"Bah! Pish! Nouveau riches! Parvenues! What business have they to ask a Gaillard to dig in their dirt? It is not many generations since they have handled picks themselves and now they want to degrade one of the first Charleston families."