"Just look," said the workman, pointing at the garden, "how delightful it is! One so seldom sees anything of the kind in New York."
Manasseh went nearer to the fence, and his eyes wandered thirstily over the green, flowering plants, just then in full beauty. I also looked at the garden. The things that grew there were unknown to me, and I was ignorant of their names. Only one thing had a familiar look—a few tall, graceful "moons" were scattered here and there over the place, and stood like absent-minded dreamers, or beautiful sentinels. And the roses were in bloom, and their fragrance came in wafts over the fencing.
"You see the 'moons'?" asked Manasseh, in rapt tones, but more to himself than to me. "Look how beautiful they are! I can't take my eyes off them. I am capable of standing and looking at them for hours. They make me feel happy, almost as if I were at home again. There were a lot of them at home!"
The operative sighed, lost himself a moment in thought, and then said:
"When I smell the roses, I think of old days. We had quite a large garden, and I was so fond of it! When the flowers began to come out, I used to sit there for hours, and could never look at it enough. The roses appeared to be dreaming with their great golden eyes wide open. The cucumbers lay along the ground like pussy-cats, and the stalks and leaves spread ever so far across the beds. The beans fought for room like street urchins, and the pumpkins and the potatoes—you should have seen them! And the flowers were all colors—pink and blue and yellow, and I felt as if everything were alive, as if the whole garden were alive—I fancied I heard them talking together, the roses, the potatoes, the beans. I spent whole evenings in my garden. It was dear to me as my own soul. Look, look, look, don't the roses seem as if they were alive?"
But I looked at Manasseh, and thought the consumptive workman had grown younger and healthier. His face was less livid, and his eyes shone with happiness.
"Do you know," said Manasseh to me, as we walked away from the garden, "I had some cuttings of rose-trees at home, in a basket out on the fire-escape, and they had begun to bud."
There was a pause.
"Well," I inquired, "and what happened?"
"My wife laid out the mattress to air on the top of the basket, and they were all crushed."