house peeking up, a crazy little barn tumbling down, and a dozen or so
fruit-trees that might do either as opportunity offered, and I set out
on my triumphal march from the city of my birth to the estate of my
adoption. Triumphal indeed! My pathway was strewed with roses. Feathery
asparagus and the crispness of tender lettuce waved dewy greetings from
every railroad-side; green peas crested the racing waves of Long Island
Sound, and unnumbered carrots of gold sprang up in the wake of the
ploughing steamer; till I was wellnigh drunk with the new wine of my own
purple vintage. But I was not ungenerous. In the height of my innocent
exultation, I remembered the dwellers in cities who do all their
gardening at stalls, and in my heart I determined, when the season
should be fully blown, to invite as many as my house could hold to
share with me the delight of plucking strawberries from their stems and
drinking in foaming health from the balmy-breathed cows. Moreover, in
the exuberance of my joy, I determined to go still farther, and despatch
to those doomed ones who cannot purchase even a furlough from burning
pavements baskets of fragrance and sweetness. I pleased myself with
pretty conceits. To one who toils early and late in an official Sahara,
that the home atmosphere may always be redolent of perfume, I would send
a bunch of long-stemmed white and crimson rose-buds, in the midst of
which he should find a dainty note whispering, "Dear Fritz: Drink this
pure glass of my overflowing June to the health of weans and wife, not
forgetting your unforgetful friend." To a pale-browed, sad-eyed woman,
who flits from velvet carpets and broidered flounces to the bedside
of an invalid mother, whom her slender fingers and unslender and most
godlike devotion can scarcely keep this side the pearly gates, I would
heap a basket of summer-hued peaches smiling up from cool, green leaves
into their straitened home, and, with eyes, perchance, tear-dimmed, she
should read, "My good Maria: The peaches are to go to your lips, the
bloom to your cheeks, and the gardener to your heart." Ah me! How much