Chapter XIII
THE ADVENT OF THE PILLIGS
The next day the painters left for good. Hard Cider had completed his tasks, Mike had no further need for his son Joe till haying time, and I no longer had an excuse for putting off my departure from Bert’s and my embarkation upon the dubious seas of housekeeping with Mrs. Pillig at the wheel and son Peter as cabin boy. So I sent word to Mrs. Pillig to be ready to come the next morning, asked Mrs. Bert to order for me the necessary stock of groceries from the village, and gave myself up to the joys of transplanting. It was a cloudy day, with rain threatening, so that Mike assured me I could not find a better time. Miss Goodwin worked by my side, her task consisting of a careful perusal of the seed catalogue and a planting table. What colour were the flowers? How far apart should the plants be set? How tall did they grow? My ignorance was as profound as hers. But perhaps that added to the pleasure. It did to mine, at any rate. I was experimenting with the unknown.
I’ve set many a seedling since and needed no table to tell me how, but I have never recaptured quite the glee of that soft, cloudy June morning, when my shiny new trowel transferred unknown plants to the flats on the wheelbarrow, and a voice beside me read:
“’Phlox Drummondi. This is one of the finest annuals, being hardy, easy of cultivation, and making as a summer bedding plant an effective and brilliant display. The flowers are of long duration and of most gorgeous and varied colours. One foot. One fourth ounce, special mixture; contains all the finest and most brilliant colours.’ Wait, now, P–ph–phlox–my, this is like the dictionary! Here we are! Plant twelve inches apart. My goodness, if you plant all those twelve inches apart, you’ll fill the whole farm! Where are you going to put them?”
“Why not around the sundial?” said I. “They appear to be low and of a superlative variety of brilliant colour. And they’re an old-fashioned posy.”
“Everything is superlative in a seed catalogue, I observe,” she smiled. “Peter Bell could never have written a successful catalogue, could he? Yes, I think they’d be lovely round the sundial, with something tall on the outside, in clumps. Something white, like the pillar, to show them off.”
We wheeled out the phlox plants and set them in the circular beds ringing the sundial, working on boards laid down on the ground, for my grass seed was sprouting, if rather spindly and in patches. Then we returned for something tall and white. Alas! we went over the catalogue once, twice, three times, but there was nothing in my seed bed which would do! The stock was little higher than the phlox. White annual larkspur would have served, if there had been any–but there wasn’t.
“It’s the last time anybody else ever picks my seeds for me!” I declared. “Gee, I’ll know a few things by next year.”
“Gee, but you must fill up those sundial beds, this year,” said she. “Oh, dear, I did want some tall clumps of white on the outside!”
“Well, here are asters. Asters are white, sometimes. See if these are. Giant comet, that sounds rather exciting. Also, débutante. They ought to be showy. Most débutantes are nowadays.”