Page:Letters of Life.djvu/400

388 know how to garner their fruits. As it is, my harvest of grapes is bountiful. Besides the claims of hospitality, and the pleasure of friendly gifts, the clusters may be so packed as to form an agreeable dessert during a part of the winter; and I mingle the expressed juice of others with sugar and water, producing by fermentation a wine which may be presented to the advocates of Temperance without reproof. My surplus currants and blackberries, in which some portion of the ground is fruitful, are also sometimes subjected to a similar vintage, for I have a natural desire to be a producer.

Of the flowers which spring up quite sparsely, I have no boast to make. There are a few roses, a flaunting piony, some lilies of the valley, flowering almonds, and a syringa bush. By their aid, with the evergreen from the hedge, I can fill mantel vases, or construct a homely bouquet. I have ceased to plant rare seeds, for they seldom come up; and if they do, the worms eat them. My principal show is from plants sheltered in the house through the winter, geraniums, orange trees, and varieties of the Cactus Speciossimus, which enjoy their vernal emancipation.

So that is my garden. You can laugh at the epithet if you choose. I fancy I hear you asking, Have you no trees? Trees, to be sure! Yes, and some of them notable ones. Look at that weeping-willow. It is not remarkable for grace, but has an aristocratic pedigree. It is a descendant from Pope's willow at