ugh garden boots. Miss Editha's cock's-combs strutted in a
gorgeous row down the east walk, and what could have been a greater
surprise than that handed me by a row of jolly round squash, though I
had been sure we had picked the last languishing fluted fruit from the
vine the last week of August? But there lay long green vines completely
resuscitated by the September rains; and nestled among their draperies
of huge leaves were squash and squash, also big yellow blossoms and
small green-yellow buds, I was so perfectly delighted at the recovery of
my friends that I reached down and patted one of their head branches
with its green tendril curls. There were a lot of gorgeous nasturtiums
under the window of the living-room; but, of course, nobody expects more
of nasturtiums than for them to be faithful unto death by frost.
However, I did pick off a red one and proceed to chew it up with the
deepest appreciation of its peppery flavor. And as I chewed with
smarting tongue I cast my eyes along a row of beans that was fairly
loaded with snaps, which made my thumb smart in anticipation of their
gathering, until my gaze was suddenly arrested by something that sent me
flying down the walk to the south end of the garden.

Now, a few weeks after I had hastily planted those hollyhock seeds Sam
and I had sentimentalized over, I had found in Grandmother Nelson's book
that hollyhocks never bloom their first season, but have to root and
grow about twenty-four months before they blossom; and, somehow, that
depressed me because everything in the world seemed slow at that time.
How did I know where I would be after all that time, or that I would
ever see them bloom, though they were making great leafy heads which
both Sam and I strenuously ignored, while every time I went to dig
around their roots somebody had done it before me! There they were,
perfectly huge with their great fluted leaves, and right at the end of
the row an extra-large plant had sent up a tall, green spike on the end
of which a great, pink doll-blossom was shaking out her rosy skirts in
the afternoon sun. I stood for a minute looking at her in utter rapture.
Then I reached out my arms and gathered her in and put a kiss right in
the center of her sweet heart. After that I fled to the barn in search
of the fledgling.

I found him sheltering in his small jacket five little late chicks that
would insist in running out from under the old hen, who was busily
engaged hatching ou