The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1886-07-08
BALL NYE.s GARDEN.

always enjoyed vegetable garden,
and through the winter look forward to
the spring days when l will take my cob
pipe and hoe and go joyously a6eld. |
like to toy with the moist earth, the com
mon squash bug of the work-a-day world.
1t is pleasure also to irrigate the garden,
watering the sauerkraut plant and the
timid tomato vine, as though they were
children asking for drink. / am never
happier than when irrigating my tropical
garden or climbing my neighbor with
hoe when he shuts off my water supply
by sticking an old pair of pantaloons into
the canal that leads into my squash con-
servatory.
One day man shut off my irrigation
that way and damned the water to such
a degree that IAhut off his air supply,
and, | was about to say damned him up
also. We had quite a scuffie. Up to that
time we had never exchanged a harsh
word. That morning l noticed that my
early-rising horse-radish and my army
worms were looking little au revoir,
and wondered what was the matter. l
had been gone several days, and was
grieved to learn that my garden had
kind Of blase air, as though it needed air
and change of scene.
The Poland China eggplant looked up
to me and seemed to say, Pardner,
don't you think it's long time between
drinks?" The watermelon seemed to have
dark-brown taste in its mouth, and
there was an air of gloom all over the
garden.
hot
door neighbor at the ditch on the corner
lie was singing softly to himself:
"Oh yes, I'll meet you;
I'll meet you when the eun goes down"
lie was jamming an old pair of Rem
brandt pants into the canal where they
would cut off my water supply. He
stood with his back toward me, and Just
as he said he would meet me when the
sun went down." smote him across the
back of the neck with my hoe handle,
and before he could recover from the first
dumb surprise and wonder, pulled the
dripping pantaloons out of the ditch and
tied them in lovers knot around his
neck. He began to look black in the face
and his struggles soon ceased altogether.
AT that same moment his wife came out
and shrieked two purely womanly shricks,
and hissed in my ear: You have killed
my husband 20
| said, possibly had. If so, would she
please send me the bill, and | would ad-
just it at an early day. | said that in
bantering tone Of voice, and raising my
hat to her in that polished way of mine,
started to go, when something fell with a
dull thud on the greensward.
1t was the author of these lines | did
not know till two days afterwards that
my neighbours wife wore moire antique
rolling-pn under her apron. did not
suspect it until it was too late. The affair
was kind of hushed up on account of the
respectability of the parties.
BY the time had recovered the garden
seemed to melt away in thin air. My
neighbor had it all his own way While
his proud hollyhocks and little Johnny
jump-ups reared their heads to drink the
mountain water at the twilight hour, my
little low-neck summer squashes curled up
and died.
Most every year l make a garden l
pay man 50 to plow it. Then l pay
$3.50 for garden seed, and in July give
the same man $3 to fallow the whole thing
while go and buy my vegetables from a
Chinaman named Wun Lung. Pve done
this for eight years, and owe my robust
health ana rich olive complexion to the
fact that Ive got garden and do just as
little in it as possible
Parties desiring dozen or more of my
early Shanghai egg-plants to set under an
ordinary domestic hen, can procure the
same by writing to me and enclosing lock
of hair and 80.