The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1873-06-25
Gardening.

We suppose there is a time that
comes to every man when he feels he
should like to have a garden. If he
takes snch notion, he will tell his wife
of 1t. This is the first mistake that he
makes, and the ground thus lost is
never fully recovered. She draws her
chair up to his, and lays one hand on
his knee, and purses up her lips into a
whistle OF expectation-the vixen-and
tells about her mothers garden, and
how nice it is to have vegetables fresh
from the vines every morning, and she
will go right out and plan the whole
thing herself. And so she does. He
takes his spade, and works himself in
to perspiration. and she tramps
around under frightful sun bonnet.
and gets under his feet and shrieks at
the worms, and losses her shoe; and
makes him first vexed, and then mad,
and then ferocious.
After the garden is spaded he gets
the seed and finds she has been thought
full enough to open the papers and
empty thirteen varieties of different
vegetables into one dish. This leads
him to step out doors where he COM
munes with nature alone for moment.
Then he takes up the seed and a hoe,
and line, and two pegs, and starts
for the garden. And then she puts on
that awful bonnet, and brings up the
rear with a long-handled rake, and
pocket full of beans and petunia seed,
and dahlia bulbs.
While he is planting the corn she
stands on the cucumber hills and rakes
over the seed pan. Then she puts the
rake handle over her shoulder, and the
rake teeth into his hair, and walks
over the other beds. He doesn't find
the squash seed until she moves, and
then he digs them out of the earth with
his thumb. She plants the beet seed
herself, putting about two feet of earth
upon them. Then she takes advan-
tage of his absorption in other matters,
and puts them down in another place.
The beans she conceals in the earth
wherever she can find a place, and puts
the bulbs IN the cucumber hills. Then
she tips over the seed pan again, and
apologies, and steps on two of the
best tomato plants, and says, "Oh,
my" which in no way resembles what
he says.
About this time she discovers bet
ter place for the petunia seed, but hav-
ing forgotten where she last put them,
she proceeds to find them, and within
an incredibly brief space of time sue
ceeds in unearthing pretty much every
thing that has been put down. After
confusing things so there is no earthly
possibility of ever unraveling them
again, she says the sun is killing her,
aud goes over to the fence, where she
stands for hours, telling the woman
next door about an aunt of hers who
was confined to her bed for eleven
Years, and had eight doctors from the
city, but nothing could give her relief
until an old lady-but you have heard
it before.
The next day man comes to his Of
fee to get the pay for a patent seed
sower which his wife has ordered, and
he no more than gets away before the
patentee of a new lawn-mower comes
in with an order for ten dollars, and he
in turn is followed by the corn-sheller
man, and the miserable gardener starts
for home to head off the robbers, and
finds his wife at the gate, with his own
hat on, and just about to close bar
gain with a smooth faced individual
for two hundred dollar moving ma
chine, and pearl handled aud ivory
mounted hay cutter. He first knocks
the agricultural implement man on the
head, and then drags the miserable wo-
man into the house, and, locking the
door, gives himself up to his emotions.
= Danbury News.