he further transplanting of Martin Cortright from his
city haunts. At Meadow's End, though he works in the garden in a
dilettante sort of way with Lavinia, takes long walks with father, and
occasionally ventures out for a day's fishing with either or both of my
men, he is still the bookworm who dives into his library upon every
opportunity and has never yet adapted his spine comfortably to the
curves of a hammock! In short he seems to love flowers historically--more
for the sake of those in the past who have loved and written of them
than for their own sake.

But here, even as I began to write to you, Mary Penrose, entrenched in a
nook among the steep rocks between the cottage and the sea, a figure
coming up the sand bar, that runs northward and at low water shows a
smooth stretch a mile in length, caught my eye. Laboriously but
persistently it came along; next I saw by the legs that it was a man, a
moment later that he was lugging a large basket and that a potato fork
protruded from under one arm, and finally that it was none other than
Martin Cortright, who had been hoeing diligently in the sand and mud for
a couple of hours, that his guests might have the most delectable of all
suppers,--steamed clams, fresh from the water, the condition alone under
which they may be eaten _sans peur et sans reproche_!

XII

THE TRANSPLANTING OF EVERGREENS

(Mary Penrose to Barbara Campbell)

_Woodridge, August 8._ Back again in our camp, we thought to pause
awhile, rest on our oars, and drift comfortably with the gentle summer
tide of things. We have transplanted all the ferns and wild herbs for
which we have room, and as a matter of course trees and shrubs must wait
until they have shed their leaves in October. That is, all the trees
that _do_ shed. The exceptions are the evergreens, of which the river
woods contain any number in the shape of hemlocks, spruces, and young
white pines, the offspring, I take it, of a plantation back of the
Windom farm, for we have not found them anywhere else.

The best authorities upon the subject of evergreens say that trees of
small size should be transplanted either in April, before they have
begun to put on their dressy spring plumes, or, if the season be not too
hot and dry, or the distance considerable, in August, after this growth
has matured, time thus being given for them to become settled in the
ground before winter.

We weighed the matter well. The _pros_ in favour of sprin