y began to come and were kept
handy in the sideboard drawer.

Our former garden had been so small that we feared we should not have
enough for these new areas, and almost daily we increased certain
staples and discovered something we had overlooked, some "New Wonder"
tomato, or "Murphy's Miracle" melon. Being strong for melons, I pinned
my faith to Murphy's Miracle, and ordered several packets of the seeds
that would produce it. Then I began to have doubts. I said if half those
seeds sprouted and did half as well as the catalogue promised, the level
behind the barn would fall a prey to Murphy and become just a heap of
melons. Elizabeth suggested that I add another acre and devote my summer
vacation to peddling them.

Elizabeth was mainly for salads. Anything that could be served with
French dressing or mayonnaise found a place on her list. She got a new
copy of her favorite Iowa catalogue, and when she found in it a special
combination offer of "Twelve new things to eat raw" (it had formerly
been nine) she was moved almost to tears.

In the matter of sweet corn and beans our souls were as one--a sort of
spiritual succotash, as it were--and we encouraged one another in any
new departure that would increase or prolong this staple supply. Flowers
we would have pretty much every-where--hollyhocks in odd corners;
delphinium and foxglove along the stone walls; bunches of calliopsis and
bleeding-heart and peonies; borders of phlox and alyssum; beds of
sweet-williams and corn-flowers and columbines--all those lovely,
old-fashioned things, with the loveliest old-fashioned names in the
world. Where did they get those names, I wonder? for they are among the
most wonderful in the language--each one a strain of word music. We
ordered hollyhock roots and hollyhock seed, and delphinium roots and
delphinium seed, and all the others in roots and seeds that could be had
in both ways, and roses and roses and roses, till I found it desirable
to lay aside the fascinating catalogues now and then for certain
industries in the little room behind the chimney, which I called my
study, in order to be able to provide the "inclosed stamps or check, in
payment for the same."

But I believe there is no money that one spends so willingly as that
invested in garden seeds. That is because the normal human being is a
visionary, a speculator in futures, a dealer in dreams. For every penny
he spends in winter he pictures an overflowing return in beauty