P. S.—I forgot to tell you that if you had pinched out the eyes of the tubers in that first experiment, while you would have had less potatoes, you might not have had any more honeysuckles."
A.
That certificate was fully prepared. If we know anything about our mother tongue, the qualifications of the applicant were fully set out. Singularly enough, she has never applied in person for the document.
The almond tree is worthy of a place in every garden, even if it never fruits. The pale blush of its blossoms is the herald of Spring. In the warm days of February it puts on a pink dress, and is glorified. The bees come out, lured evidently by the scent of its flowers; but they flit about in a fugitive way, as if not satisfied with what they had found. There are small resources of honey in the almond blossoms; so much might be learned from the spiteful way in which the humming-birds darted off after sounding a little with their long bills. Something like one almond came to maturity for every thousand buds which unfolded in the early Spring. Two or three hundred "paper shells" clung to the tree hard by the library door, in the late Autumn. Whatever had been the fortune of other almond growers, here was a crop by an amateur. It was of no consequence that there had been a great discrepancy between flowers and fruit. Precious things are never abundant. No, by no manner of means, were these almonds to grace any Thanksgiving table. Let thanks be given for the brown shells clinging to the tree, and for whatever of internal good this outwardness might suggest. And not least, for the humming-bird's nest on the end of a pendent limb, so like a warty excrescence of the tree as not to be observed by careless eyes—and for that mutual confidence when curly-headed children were lifted up, and birds and children communed face to face, chirruped, and were glad.
"What became of the almonds?" There was a case of misplaced confidence. It was well enough that the finch, the linnet, the chat and the sparrow, had plucked the cherries, sampled the plums, and had taken kindly to the mellow side of the pears. December had come. Only here and there a fugitive gross-beak flitted about—a bird with a wonderful capacity for mellow song, but silent, as if never a note had gone out of his capacious throat and chubby bill. Perhaps they could be induced to sing in midwinter if confidence could be established. Half a dozen almonds were laid on the walk, which a pair of gross-beaks "shucked" with wonderful facility. That stout, short beak is fitted for a nut eater. Half an hour afterward there were twenty gross-beaks on that almond tree; and forty minutes later, they had stored every almond in their crops, cutting away the shells as deftly as one could do with a sharp knife. So tame and bold were they that one could have nearly reached them with his hand. Not a note was given in return, nothing but a twitter, as much as to say, "This is a royal dinner; there were just enough nuts to go round." And then they went off silently into the blue sky.
The first man, being historically and traditionally perfect, had a garden as his noblest allotment. The farther the race drifts away from the cultivation of the soil, the nearer it gets to barbarism. The Apache is not a good horticulturist, and therefore there is no gentleness in his blood. Teach him to love and cultivate a garden, and he is no longer a savage. The best thought and the best inspiration may come to one when all the gentler ministries of his garden wait upon him—when the soul of things is concurrent with his own, and bee and almond blossom, the rose, and the smallest song-sparrow in the tree-top, are revelators and instructors.
THE HOMESTEAD BY THE SEA.