We planted many dream gardens that winter. Splendid catalogues came every little while, and each had its magic of color and special offers "Six rare roses for a dollar," "Six papers of seeds for ten cents" six of anything to make the heart happy, for a ridiculously small sum. The rich level behind the barn was to us no longer hard with frost and buried beneath the drifts, but green and waving. Some days we walked out to look over the ground a little and pick the places where we would have things, but our imagination seemed to work better in the house by the big fireplace, especially when we rattled the buff-and-green seed-packets that presently 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 or substance, in flower and fruit, the glorious harvest of radiant summer days.
IV Then came Bella and Gibbs
But Hunka-munka Bella, I mean had resources. Her specialties were Kipling and deep-dish apple pie. We could have worried along without Kipling, but her deep-dish pie with whipped cream on it was a poem that won our hearts. I must be fair. Hunka-munka's cooking was all good, as to taste, and if her vision had been a bit more extended it might have been of better appearance. I suppose the steam collected on her super-thick glasses and she had to work somewhat by guess. Never mind I still recall her substantial and savory dinners with deep gratitude, especially the pie of the deep dish with whipped cream atop.
Gibbs came when we acquired Lord Beaconsfield and the furnace. My gifts do not run to the care of a horse and an egg-coal fire. I don t know where Gibbs had matriculated, but he professed to have taken high degrees in those functions, and thus became a part of our establishment.
I think he overestimated his powers in the directions named, but he was not without talents. He could wash and wipe dishes and, incredible as it may seem, he was also literary. Like attracts like, by some law past understanding. To me it still seems a wonderful thing that this little waif of a man with a taste for Tolstoy and a passion for long words should have just then landed upon us.
Gibbs had a warm and fairly snug room in the barn "a veritable bijou of an apartment," he called it, though it was, I think, something less, and he declared that the aroma of the hay and the near presence of Lord Beaconsfield gave him a "truly bucolic emotion" that was an inspiration. Nevertheless, Gibbs could not resist Bella and her domain. This was proper enough. He was convenient to hand her things, to help with the dishes and to discuss deeply and at length their favorite authors. When our meals were in preparation or safely over there was more literature, five to one, in the kitchen than in any other part of the house.