Sarah Brooks - A Garden with House Attached

But to return to our own undertaking – our first task was the dislodgment of the stubborn tangle of persistent thimbleberry vines, sturdy saplings of ash and chestnut, and long-established waxberries. This done, we made, on the south, facing the "king's highway" and near enough to give delight and perfume to the foot-passenger, a brand new flower bed. In the middle of each square of lawn a raised circle, edged with stone, was made for the spring hyacinths and tulips (these to be succeeded later with cannas and bright summer flowers). Relegating the kitchen garden to a less conspicuous place, we prepared the cabbage-patch for our little rose-garden. All this heavy work done – "The Man with the Hoe" was, for the time, discharged.

Our Cambridge home had, for nearly two decades, been the property of one who in the Harvard Botanical Garden had "a friend at court" and had thus found it possible to secure for his grounds many choice shrubs and hardy herbaceous plants. Himself a skilled and enthusiastic horticulturist – after twenty years of painstaking cultivation, his garden close, with its mellow low-lying site and unobstructed southern exposure, had become a miracle of productiveness.

It had not, like the Medford garden, been "laid out." Flowers, fruit, and vegetables, were all in a riotous jumble; yet each the perfection of its kind. The marvel was that one small garden could carry such a load of growth!

Pears, early and late, of the juiciest and sweetest; big yellow quinces, currants, white and red, raspberries, thimbleberries, and blackberries by the bushel! And (crowning glory of all) a huge gravenstein with fruit fair as the famous golden apples tended by the "Daughters of the Evening Star." To this garden, for many years, my good husband had devoted his leisure hours. Two years before our removal to "The Garden with House Attached" he had left us for the far-off Unknown Land; and it was therefore with tender touch that we uprooted the shrubs and plants of his care – together with the flowers that I had tended. The cold frame was full of thrifty seedlings – Primroses, Iceland poppies, and other beauties. In the open, there were Lilies, Peonies – rose-pink and creamy white – big Drummond Phloxes, and Roses ad infinitum – two heaped cartloads in all – carried over by "The Third Son," and before the earliest frost, so well bestowed by his able hands, as to have rooted themselves in the mellow soil of the new garden.

Not one of these succumbed to the perils of transplantation – not even the five-year-old peach tree, whose certain dissolution all had prophesied, but which bravely withstood the risk of removal, and now, each spring, puts on its crown of pink splendor, which duly turns to juicy fruit beneath the sun that shines upon the grave of him whose hand, long years ago, planted its tiny stone.

Later on, we put in the tulip and hyacinth bulbs, and, when at last the entire garden, beneath its warm coverlet of dressing and leaves, composed itself for a long winter nap – like the poet's "goose-woman" – we

"Blessed ourselves, and cursed ourselves,

And rested from our labors."

Meantime, the dear "Lady" (who had anticipated our coming to the Mansion House, by a sudden resolve to commit her burden of housekeeping to younger and abler hands – and retain of her old establishment but a single personal attendant – as faithful friend, companion, and amanuensis) wheeled into the very thick of action – had watched with anxious eyes this removal of ancient landmarks – this general upheaval of things. An almost helpless invalid – wheeled daily through eight patient summers into her beloved garden – she had sat with her beautiful silver hair arranged in careful curls, a big white sun-bonnet shading her kind old face, to receive her friends (both gentle and simple) with a cordial hospitality, and an old-time courtesy in fine keeping with herself and her surroundings.

Innately conservative, the Lady was scarce in touch with innovation of any sort. A passionate lover of flowers, but scantily endowed with horticultural talent, and without a spark of creative genius, she smiled with dubious complacency on this awful devastation – comforting herself with the sweet anticipation of spring tulips and summer roses, in her very own garden! Dear Lady – her absolute trust in my gardening ability was indeed touching! One must "live up to the blue china" of one's reputation; so I did my very best; and when all was done, and the out-door darlings nestled safely beneath their winter coverlet, came the pleasure of looking after the house-plants – (by this time well-recovered from the vicissitudes of repotting and removal) and the bestowal of each in its winter quarters; and this leads me to a description of "The Conservatory."

In a warm southwestern angle of "The Mansion House" there nestled a narrow piazza-like structure – opening, by long French windows, from both drawing and sitting room, and leading by a short flight of steps into the old garden.

This erection – having been enclosed by sash-work of glass – and furnished with rugs, a big easy chair, a round table, and a penitential hair-cloth sofa, and supplied with rocking chairs, was, when the temperature permitted, the favorite lounging place of family and guest.

Though warmed only by the sun, it had always been known as "The Conservatory" (probably because herein every autumn, the Lady's geraniums and fuchsias, taken in from the early frost, stood on the corner table, recovering from the fall potting on their way to winter quarters on the broad ledge of a sunny south window of her own bed chamber). Through the winter this unwarmed place was neither available for plant or man.

Long before the possibility of ever moving to the Mansion House had entered my head, I had looked upon this conservatory with loving eyes, and, in fancy, pictured it, warmed and filled all winter long with lovely flowering plants.

A Conservatory had been the dream of my life! And when this fell to my lot, and, abolishing the stuffy cylinder stoves that had, heretofore, warmed the Mansion House, we put in a big furnace, I had directed the leading of a roomy pipe to this glass-enclosed quarter, and the out-door work well over, I pleased myself with arranging this new winter home for my darlings. The light sashes – warped by Time – had become "ram-shackly." I wedged them securely, and stuffing gaps with cotton batting carefully listed the outer door against

"The west wind Mudjekeewis,"

and when all was done delightedly watched the vigorous growth of my well-housed darlings. Alas! short and sweet was my day of content.

One fatal January night the mercury dropped suddenly to zero, and (as luck would have it) the furnace fire followed suit, and, in the morning, I awoke to find my precious plants stark and stiff against the panes.

We promptly showered them with ice-cold water ("a hair of the dog that bit you" advises the old proverb). In vain! The blighted foliage stood black and shriveled in the morning sunshine!

"All the King's horses and all the King's men

Couldn't bring Humpty Dumpty up again!"

All that could be done was to clip away the frost-bitten members, mellow the soil, and await a fresh supply of sap from the uninjured roots.

As a matter of course the slowly recuperating plants could no longer be left to the random winter gambols of tricky "Mudjekeewis," but must be relegated to the old-time safety of window-seat and flower-stand.

Thus ended my day-dream of a conservatory!

Under this dispensation I consoled myself by nursing the invalids back to health and comparative prosperity, and, in late February, they amply repaid my care by abundant leafage and wealth of bloom.