"So you dug them up?" he probed.

"Not them--just _it_--just one. That's why I marked the place. I didn't
want to keep disturbing different ones. Now what _are_ you laughing at?
Wouldn't you have wanted to know? And you wouldn't want to dig up
different ones all the time! I don't know much about gardening, but--"

"I'm not laughing," said Jonathan. "Of course I should have wanted to
know. And it is certainly better not to dig up different ones. There!
Have I put your Mizpah back right?"

* * * * *

A few days later Jonathan wheeled into the yard and over near where I
was kneeling by the phlox. "I saw a lady-slipper bud almost out
to-day," he said.

"Did you? Look at my sweet alyssum. It's grown an inch since yesterday,"
I said. "Don't you think I could plant my cosmos and asters now?"

"Thunder!" said Jonathan; "don't you care more about the pink
lady-slipper than about your blooming little sweet alyssum?"

"Why, yes, of course. I _love_ lady-slippers. You know I do," I
protested; "only--you see--I can't explain exactly--but--it seems to
make a difference when you plant a thing yourself. And, oh, Jonathan!
Won't you _please_ come here and tell me if these are young pansies or
only plantain? I'm so afraid of pulling up the wrong thing. I do wish
somebody would make a book with pictures of all the cotyledons of all
the different plants. It's so confusing. Millie had an awful time
telling marigold from ragweed last summer. She had to break off a tip of
each leaf and taste it. Why do you just stand there looking like that?
Please come and help."

But Jonathan did not move. He stood, leaning on his wheel, regarding me
with open amusement, and possibly a shade of disapproval.

"Lord!" he finally remarked; "you've got it!"

"Got what?" I said, though I knew.

"The garden germ."

* * * * *

Yes. There was no denying it. I had it. I have it still, and there is
very little chance of my shaking it off. It is a disease that grows with
what it feeds on. Now and then, indeed, I make a feeble fight against
its inroads: I will not have another flower-bed, I will not have any
more annuals, I will have only things that live on from year to year and
take care of themselves. But--

"Alas, alas, repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then--and then--came spring--"

and the florist's catalogues! And is any one who has once given w