Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1858-11-05
II ] s c Il l i 4 \ Y.
OyR BACK GARDEN.

OUR BACK GARDEN.
We married, .inst six years ago, upon less
than the minimum income allowed by the
Times correspondents to be sufficient for
frugal young couple, and we are still in the
flesh-and in good deal Of it. The bitterest
cup which we have yet had to drain is that
OF Messrs Bass " Company; and |, for my
part-and | think | may say the same in
more mitigated sense, Of Mrs. P.-have ever
drained it cheerfuly. Work-hous relief has
not yet been applied for to meet any peculiar
emergency in our domestic economy. The
titled aristocracy Of our native land do not
indeed, cultivate our personal friendship so
much, perhaps, as we Especially Mrs. P.) ,
ut the time we We're first united, anticipated;
but we are now content to believe that this
is their loss rather than ours.
Still, it must be confessed, there are little
unpleasantries inseparablc from II little house
and a little income which do not happen to
my neighbor (in very profane sense) the
Duke of Bredlington. | allude more partic-
ularly to our back garden. 1t is probable
that his grace is unacquainted with any such
spot, except through the medium of romance
and poetry or he may have heard Mr.. Rob
son, of Wynch street, London, inform the
audience, with his accustomed precision, that
the garden where Wilkins met his Dinah
was the back garden, and yet not have accu-
rately realized what back garden is lie
may have imagined, q am speaking of his
grace,) as we did, dainty piece of yerdant
lawn, set with parterrcs of flowers, with an
arbor, perhaps, hung with honey suckle, or
other swcet-smclling blossom of that nature
with may be, a fish-pond, or even an mex
pensivc fountain in the middle of il.
Wherever we are" we thought, - no
Inn Ia fbn I,J 1ot, I,,.
dear little bit of garden at the back of the
house.
Well, we have got our little bit OF garden
in that position, and decidedly Il dear one.
1t is lust the spot we had pictured to our
selves in the way of seclusion, because all the
back windows IN our terrace and all the
front lanes in the next street command it,
1t does not possess any erection that can well
be called an arbour. 1t has no fish pond
nor fountain nor stalactite cave which
might just as well be expected as the other
two) at the end or in any part of it. We
did q great deal with it, at first, in horicul-
ture but nothing ever came of that to speak
Of Besides several daisies, quite den of
dandelions, and handful of mustard and
cress with j. and A. p. in cipher) under
the north WALL there are but three marigolds
a crown imperial, and very limited extent
of miguonette. Vegetables will not grow in
our back garden Fruits would be sure to
be feloniously abstracted before they could
attain maturity. Grass only hourishes here
and there from motives which do not un-
derstand.) in minute green patches, and is
scant and NANCY everywhere else. In some
places it is so short that it looks as if it had
been moved with saw only yesterday :;
in others is quite long enough to make
very tolerable hay.
The proprietors of other back gardens in
our vicinity seem aware, either from exper
ience or instinct, that nothing can be made
Of these retreats, and leave them Just as they
find them. They call them with an honesty
which we cannot yet quite bring ourselves to
emulate, back greens as gardens they bear
almost exclusively, clothes props and empty
bottles
Upon our first coming into possession of
our territory, we prided ourselves upon its
having in it an elderbush-the only tree visi-
ble in the horizon-but we now regret that
circumstance. This shrub forms the natural
staircase by which a thousand cats make,
into our back garden, their exits and their
entrances. 1t is the trystng-place Of the
young, the battlefield of the old, and the
spot peculiarly devoted to their general re-
ireshment; and hithcr, as to a pic mic, they
each carry their peculiar deicacy and never
bone. Whether it is they who bring the
spirit bottles which we find there in the NOR
ming, broken, whether those are chucked
over the wall by our neighbors, ] do not
rightly know but the drunken choruses
which are unquestionably INDUCED in by oui
feline visitors incline me to the former OPP
inion. At all events, that back garden, in
which we had placed such tender hopes, i,
rendered, by these various influences, til,
home Of desolation and riot,
Our income being, as | have described ,bu
limited, it behooyes us much to practise econ
omy, and my beloved wife is always striking
out some new line OF domestic conduct by
which vast sums are to be saved. Many
of these have appeared to me to be so un
promising that have declined ever to Civ,
them a fair chance. 1t may have becI
cheaper-she said it was-to supply ourselye
with pork without the intervention of {
butcher (the hams we had bought, indeed
had all been failures, and not Westphalia
either, but still | could not bring myself T.
keen pig in our back garden and what
ever quantity the child-a very thriving on
might require of new milk, was not goin
10 undertake, in that extremely limite'
space, the sole management of a COW. Evel
fowls, although the price Of a trussed chick
en- sometimes staggered me, was determin
ed not to maintain alive at the back of tn
house, to keep me up all night-as they dl
some poultry proprietor Ewatching owe
their personal safety with blunderbuss.
However, opposed as am to change, m
better half assisted by her unscrupulous ally
the cook, persuaded me once to deal no longt
at the market but with peculiarly homes
farmer, in most picturesque part OF III
country, and where the air is especiall
adapted for the fattening of fowls. II
birds were to come dead, but in their ieatl
ers by wonderful cheap carriers cart,
that they would be delivered at our own doc
for almost nothing.
This scene would doubtless have turnt
out admirably but that the picturesque far
was such long way off, and the wonderful
ly cneap carrier so slow in his movement
that the two couple of economical ehickel
would not stand the treatment, but ma'
, themselves offensive to the whole house III
cook persisted that they would still be vel
nice and tender in the eating, but it W
u.itI "a faltoring voice and she made no re