. I like my garden to "get
notice." As people drive by I hope they enjoy my phlox. I furtively glance
to see if they have an eye for the foxglove. I wonder if the calendulas
are so tall that they hide the asters. And if, as I bend over my weeding,
an automobile whirling past lets fly an appreciative phrase--"lovely
flowers--" "wonderful yellow of--" "garden there,"--my ears are quick to
receive it and I forgive the eddies of gasolene and dust that are also
left by the vanishing visitant.

About few things can one be so brazen in one's enjoyment of recognition.
One's house, one's clothes, one's work, one's children, all these demand a
certain modesty of demeanor, however the inner spirit may puff. Not so
one's garden. I fancy this is because, while I have a strong sense of
ownership in it, I also have a strong sense of stewardship. As owner I
must be modest, but as steward I may admire as openly as I will. Did I
make my phlox? Did I fashion my asters? Am I the artificer of my fringed
larkspur? Nay, truly, I am but their caretaker, and may glory in them as
well as another, only with the added touch of joy that I, even I, have
given them their opportunity. Like Paul I plant, like Apollos I water, but
before the power that giveth the increase I stand back and wonder.

But it is not alone the results of my stewardship that give me joy. Its
very processes are good. Delight in the earth is a primitive instinct.
Digging is naturally pleasant, hoeing is pleasant, raking is pleasant, and
then there is the weeding. For I am not the only one who sows seeds in my
garden. One of my friends remarked cheerfully that he had planted
twenty-seven different vegetables in his garden, and the Lord had planted
two hundred and twenty-seven other kinds of things.

This is where the weeding comes in. Now a good deal has been said about
the labor of weeding, but little about the gratifications of weeding. I
don't mean weeding with a hoe. I mean yanking up, with movements suited to
the occasion, each individual growing thing that doesn't belong. Surely I
am not the only one to have felt the pleasure of this. They come up so
nicely, and leave such soft earth behind! And intellect is needed, too,
for each weed demands its own way of handling: the adherent plantain
needing a slow, firm, drawing motion, but very satisfactory when it comes;
the evasive clover requiring that all its sprawling runners shall be
gathered up in one gentle, tactful pull; th