ay, and needed replacing; there a shutter hung loose, and wanted
a hinge; abundance of glass needed setting; and as to painting and
papering, there was no end to that. Then my wife wanted a door cut here,
to make our bed room more convenient, and a china closet knocked up
there, where no china closet before had been. We even ventured on
throwing out a bay window from our sitting room, because we had luckily
lighted on a workman who was so cheap that it was an actual saving of
money to employ him. And to be sure our darling little cottage did lift
up its head wonderfully for all this garnishing and furbishing. I got up
early every morning, and nailed up the rosebushes, and my wife got up
and watered geraniums, and both flattered ourselves and each other on
our early hours and thrifty habits. But soon, like Adam and Eve in
Paradise, we found our little domain to ask more hands than ours to get
it into shape. So says I to my wife, "I will bring out a gardener when I
come next time, and he shall lay the garden out, and get it into order;
and after that, I can easily keep it by the work of my leisure hours."

Our gardener was a very sublime sort of man,--an Englishman, and, of
course, used to laying out noblemen's places,--and we became as
grasshoppers in our own eyes when he talked of lord this and that's
estate, and began to question us about our carriage drive and
conservatory; and we could with difficulty bring the gentleman down to
any understanding of the humble limits of our expectations: merely to
dress out the walks, and lay out a kitchen garden, and plant potatoes,
turnips, beets, and carrots, was quite a descent for him. In fact, so
strong were his aesthetic preferences, that he persuaded my wife to let
him dig all the turf off from a green square opposite the bay window,
and to lay it out into divers little triangles, resembling small pieces
of pie, together with circles, mounds, and various other geometrical
ornaments, the planning and planting of which soon engrossed my wife's
whole soul. The planting of the potatoes, beets, carrots, etc.., was
intrusted to a raw Irishman; for, as to me, to confess the truth, I
began to fear that digging did not agree with me. It is true that I was
exceedingly vigorous at first, and actually planted with my own hands
two or three long rows of potatoes; after which I got a turn of
rheumatism in my shoulder, which lasted me a week. Stooping down to
plant beets and radishes gave me