The Idyl of Twin Fires Part 20

"'_Phlox Drummondi_. This is one of the finest annuals, being hardy, easy of cultivation, and making as a summer bedding plant an effective and brilliant display. The flowers are of long duration and of most gorgeous and varied colours. One foot. One fourth ounce, special mixture; contains all the finest and most brilliant colours.' Wait, now, P--ph--phlox--my, this is like the dictionary! Here we are! Plant twelve inches apart. My goodness, if you plant all those twelve inches apart, you'll fill the whole farm! Where are you going to put them?"

"Why not around the sundial?" said I. "They appear to be low and of a superlative variety of brilliant colour. And they're an old-fashioned posy."

"Everything is superlative in a seed catalogue, I observe," she smiled.

"Peter Bell could never have written a successful catalogue, could he? Yes, I think they'd be lovely round the sundial, with something tall on the outside, in clumps. Something white, like the pillar, to show them off."

We wheeled out the phlox plants and set them in the circular beds ringing the sundial, working on boards laid down on the ground, for my gra.s.s seed was sprouting, if rather spindly and in patches. Then we returned for something tall and white. Alas! we went over the catalogue once, twice, three times, but there was nothing in my seed bed which would do! The stock was little higher than the phlox. White annual larkspur would have served, if there had been any--but there wasn't.

"It's the last time anybody else ever picks my seeds for me!" I declared. "Gee, I'll know a few things by next year."

"Gee, but you must fill up those sundial beds, _this_ year," said she.

"Oh, dear, I did want some tall clumps of white on the outside!"

"Well, here are asters. Asters are white, sometimes. See if these are.

Giant comet, that sounds rather exciting. Also, debutante. They ought to be showy. Most debutantes are nowadays."

She scanned my box of empty seed envelopes. "Oh, dear, the giant comets are mixed," she said. "But"--with a look at the catalogue--"the debutantes are white. They grow only a foot and a half, but they are white."

"Well, they'll have to fox trot round the dial, then," said I.

I dug them up, and we put them in clumps in the irregularities on the outside edges of the beds, first filling the holes part full of water, as I had seen Mike do with the cauliflower plants.

"Let me do some," she pleaded. "Here I've been reading the old catalogue all the morning, while you've been digging in the nice dirt."

She kneeled on the board, holding a plant caressingly in her hand, and with her naked fingers set it and firmed it in the moist earth. Then she set a second, and a third, holding up her grimy fingers gleefully.

"Oh, you nice earth!" she finally exclaimed, digging both hands eagerly in to the wrists.

After dinner we spaded up little beds at the foot of each pillar of the rose arch, and put flowers in each of them, facing the house, set a row of _Phlox Drummondi_ along the line where the grape arbour was to be, to mark more clearly the western edge of the lawn, and finally took a load of the remaining seedlings, of various sorts, down to the brook, just below the orchard, where I planned some day to build a pool and develop a lovely garden nook. Here the soil was black and rich for a foot or more in depth, and after spading and raking out the weeds and gra.s.ses we had four little beds, though roughly and hastily made, two on each side of the stream, with the future pool, as it were, in the centre. These we filled with the remaining seedlings, helter skelter, just for a splash of colour, and watered from the brook itself.

Then we straightened our stiff backs, and scurried for shelter from the coming rain. We reached Bert's just as the first big drops began to fall.

"Nice rain!" she cried, turning to look at it from under the porch.

"You'll give all the flowers a drink, and they'll live and be beautiful in the garden of Twin Fires."

"Do you like flowers as well as philology, really?" I asked.

"I don't see what's to prevent my liking both," she smiled, as she disappeared up the stairs.

The next day it was still raining. I set off alone to make ready for the arrival of the Pilligs. I was standing on my kitchen porch talking to Mike when they arrived. It was a memorable moment. I heard the sound of wheels, and looked up. A wagon was approaching, driven by an old man. Beside him, beneath a cotton umbrella, sat a thin woman in black, with gray hair and a worried look. Behind them, on a battered trunk, sat Peter, who was not thin, who wore no worried look, and who chewed gum. Beneath the wagon, invisible at first, trotted a mud-bespattered yellow pup. The wagon stopped.

"Good morning, Mr. Upton," said Mrs. Pillig. "This is me and Peter."

"Where's Buster?" said Peter.

At the word Buster, the yellow pup emerged from beneath the cart, wagging the longest tail, in proportion to the dog, ever seen on a canine. It would be more correct to say that the tail wagged him, for with every excited motion his whole body was undulated to the ears, to counterbalance that tail.

I went out and aided Mrs. Pillig to alight, and then Mike and I lifted the trunk to the porch. I looked at the dog, which had also joined us on the porch, where he was leaving muddy paw marks.

"Do I understand that Buster is also an arrival?" said I.

"Oh, dear me, Mr. Upton, you must excuse me," Mrs. Pillig cried anxiously. "Mrs. John Barker's boy Leslie gave Buster to Peter a month ago, and of course I sent him right back, but he wouldn't stay back, and yesterday we took him away again, and this morning he just suddenly appeared behind the wagon, and I told Peter he couldn't come, and Peter cried, and Buster wouldn't go back, and I'll make Peter take him away just as soon as the rain stops."

"Well, I hadn't bargained on Buster, that's a fact," said I. I didn't like dogs; most people don't who've never had one. But he was such a forlornly muddy mongrel pup, and so eloquent of tail, that I spoke his name on an impulse, and put out my hand. The great tail wagged him to the ears, and with the friendliest of undulations he was all at once close to me, with his nose in my palm. Then he suddenly sat up on his hind legs, dangled his front paws, looked me square in the eyes, and barked.

That was too much for me. "Peter," said I, "you may keep Buster."

"Golly, I'd 'a' had a hard time not to," said that young person, immediately making for the barn, with Buster at his heels.

Mrs. Pillig and I went inside. While she was inspecting the kitchen, Mike and I carried her trunk up the back stairs.

"I hope your bed comes to-day," said I, returning. "You see, the house is largely furnished from my two rooms at college, and there was hardly enough to go around."

Mrs. Pillig looked into the south room. "Did you have all them books in your two rooms at college?" she asked.

I nodded.

"They must 'a' been pretty big rooms," she said. "Books is awful things to keep dusted."

"Which reminds me," I smiled, leading her over to my desk, at which I pointed impressively. "Woman!" said I, in sepulchral tones, "that desk is never to be dusted, never to be touched. Not a paper is to be removed from it. No matter how dirty, how littered it gets, _never touch it under pain of death!_"

She looked at me a second with her worried eyes wide open, and then a smile came over her wan, thin face.

"I guess you be n't so terrible as you sound," she said. "But I won't touch it. Anything else I'm not to touch?"

"Yes," I answered. "The ashes in those two fireplaces. _The ashes there are never to be taken out_, no matter if they are piled a foot thick, and spill all over the floor. A n.o.ble pile of ashes is a room's best recommendation. Those are the only two orders I have. In all else, I'm at your mercy. But on those two points you are at mine--and I have none!"

"Well, I reckon I'll wash the kitchen windows," said Mrs. Pillig.

I was sawing up a few more sticks from the orchard, when the express man drove up with the beds, the crockery, and so on. I called son Peter, who responded with Buster at his heels. "Peter," said I, "you and I'll now set up the beds. You ought to be in school, though, by the way.

Why aren't you?"

"Hed ter bring maw over here," said Peter.

"That's too bad. Aren't you sorry?"

Peter grinned at me and slowly winked. I was very stern. "Nevertheless, you'll have a lesson," I said. "You shall tell me the capitals of all the states while we set up your bed."

Peter and I carried the beds, springs, and mattresses upstairs, and while we were joining the frames I began with Ma.s.sachusetts and made him tell me all the capitals he could. We got into a dispute over the capital of Montana, Peter maintaining it was b.u.t.te, and I defending Helena. The debate waxed warm, and suddenly Buster appeared upon the scene, his tail following him up the stairs, to see what the trouble was. He began to leave mud tracks all over the freshly painted floor, so that we had to grab him up and wipe his paws with a rag. Peter held him while I wiped, and we fell to laughing, and forgot Montana.

"You'll have to get rubbers for him," said I.

This idea amused Peter tremendously. "Gee, rubbers on a dog!" he cried.

"Buster'd eat 'em off in two seconds. Say, where's Buster goin' to sleep?"

We had to turn aside on our way downstairs for more furniture to make Buster a bed in a box full of excelsior in the shed. We put him in it, and went back to the porch. Buster followed us. We took him back, and put him in the box once more. He whacked the sides with his tail, as if he enjoyed the game--and jumped out as soon as we turned away.

"Gee, he's too wide awake now," said Peter.