Читать книгу Weeding the Flower-Patch - Flora Klickmann - Страница 7

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A question soon arose among my two assistant weeders: what was to become of the plants that were not usually classified as weeds, and yet could not remain in the borders? Some of them were big husky shrubs that were stifling every low-growing plant near them, and eating every bit of food they could find in the ground.

There were armies of evening primrose; big clumps of tree lupins; Michaelmas daisies in their hundreds; buddleias had become trees; forsythias—surely one of the loveliest of spring beauties—had thrown out branches and layered them free gratis, in every direction; I was able to give rooted plants to any friend desiring them.

Many of the real weeds (though I’m not certain where one should draw the dividing line) are charming. A big spread of comfrey was doing its best to extinguish a white moss rose; which certainly could not be allowed, though admitting the beauty of the comfrey in full flower. The blossoms of the blue crane’s bill are an exquisite colour; yet its long, weak, jointed stems, flopping over primulas and pansies, and spreading into the paths, can become a trial. While such overwhelming adherents as balm, hairy mint, tarragon, peppermint, penny royal, and even winter heliotrope bid fair in my beds to become—well, a menace!

I was summoned to decide whether all should go on the bonfire, or what? A cruel question! For I am one of those feeble-minded persons who cannot bear to consign any living or growing thing to destruction, if it can be avoided. I know it is necessary at times, but I prefer to be out of the way on such occasions.

Many a time I have gone to the rubbish piles (after the gardener has gone home) when the beds have been overhauled, and I have sorted out all sorts of small rooted bits, and scraps from prunings that might serve as cuttings, giving them a chance to live, in pots on my upstairs veranda, or in sunny windows indoors. Rather a pathetic collection at first; but most of them take fresh courage, rewarding me with unlimited interest.

Unfortunately, when the rescued oddments have grown to normal size, I seldom know where to put them, in a garden that is generally far too full.

Virginia and Ursula are afflicted with a similar mania for rescuing the perishing, and after a summer’s evening spent in sorting over the bonfire heap, and each selecting what she decides “it’s a pity to throw out”, it sometimes looks as though the man might as well have left the garden as it was, if, eventually, he has to find room to put the throw-outs back again! Though he is too polite to tell us so!

Being determined not to sacrifice unnecessarily a single plant that contributed anything in the way of beauty or perfume, they called me out to say what I thought of a suggestion: why not transplant anything worth saving to the open spaces in the woods, and on the hillside where I had been compelled (most reluctantly) to have trees felled for fuel, since coal was so difficult to get, despite the fact that we are only a few miles from plentiful coal in the Forest of Dean? The ground where the trees had stood was thick with leaf-mould, and would accommodate a good many of the plants.

In every case where one tree is cut down, I have two youngsters planted to replace it—an excellent rule, which I found in force in Canada. Of course new trees are not put exactly where the old ones stood, for the ground there will be more or less exhausted. But wherever trees can be advantageously planted, I see to it that trees are put in.

I have known more than one estate bought cheaply when death duties compelled the owner to sell; and so soon as the price of timber has soared, as in war-time, the newcomer has had every tree cleared from the land, young as well as mature, not a sapling left. In a year or two, what was once a glorious wood of noble trees has become a jungle of briars, thistles, nettles, and small stuff only fit for kindling. Yet it could all have been avoided if the felling had been done with vision instead of greed.

An old clergyman, who had retired to a small house in the district, made it his hobby to plant baby trees in his field. A friend asked him: “Why are you so keen on this? You will never live to see them grown up!”

“No,” he replied, “but someone else will.”

Having decided on suitable spots, and the items most likely to flourish thereon, there was no need for me to supervise the work; I therefore went down the hill to inspect a beech tree which had blown down in a gale, and might obstruct the public footpath.

This path, very steep and narrow, tips down the hillside through one of the loveliest little woods in the kingdom. On one side of the path the ground rises sharply; on the other side it drops down at the same rate. All the land here in the Wye Valley goes either up or down. Locally this little wood is known as the Ruffet. Whether this is a corruption of the Rough Bit, I don’t know, though it well might be, for it was hard going before a proper path was made amid the rocks, for those who needed to climb the hill.

As I was making my way downwards I saw someone toiling up from below. Getting nearer, I recognized Mrs. Redd, not one of my favourites perhaps, but she had as much right to use the footpath as I had; the only difference being that I had to see it was kept in good order, and safe from falling trees, with none of the stone steps loose, or any other risk of danger to the public; while Mrs. Redd could use it as often as she pleased, free of charge and free from all responsibility.

She did not belong to the village originally, she and her husband being among various outsiders wafted to the district during the previous war, for some wise official reason hidden from the tax-payer and never since revealed. They did not do much work during that war, and still less since, until the latest conflagration set in—when they again found money flowing like water!

Mrs. Redd had a conspicuous talent for spotting items which might be extracted from other people, and promptly belittling them as soon as secured.

Hearing accidentally that a resident, who owned a few fowls, had put down some eggs in water-glass for winter use, Mrs. Redd appeared at her door, disreputably clad to indicate extreme poverty, and holding an empty basin.

“Could you let me have eight eggs for my Christmas pudding?”

“Eight eggs!” the lady exclaimed. “In war-time! And in any case it is only October!”

“I always put eight in mine; shouldn’t call it a Christmas pudding with less. And I always make mine early,” with smug superiority.

Being the soul of generosity, the lady gave her eight eggs.

Two hours later, Mrs. Redd returned, holding another empty basin.

“Two of those eggs you gave me were bad,” she explained, waiting expectantly.

“Were they? What a pity. But it would be useless for me to give you any more—they might be bad, too!”

The basin returned home empty.

One day, before the war, she came to my door with a long, pathetic yarn about her need of a dress skirt. Could I possibly—etc.

The only one I could spare was far too good to give away; but I reflected that perhaps she needed it more than I did, and handed it over.

After glancing at it casually, she said: “If you’re sure you really haven’t any further use for it—and you wouldn’t be likely to wear it again”—regarding it with sniffy contempt—“I don’t mind accepting it, under the circumstances, I daresay I could find some use for it,” her look and tone implying that perhaps it might serve in an emergency for a house-flannel!

A week or two later, she came to my door, arrayed in her Sunday best, ostensibly to ask if she could get anything for me, as she was going into Monmouth. But actually to enable her to say she really must get herself a new costume, as she hadn’t a rag fit to wear.

When I saw her climbing up the Ruffet, she was evidently returning from shopping by the look of her basket. We met at a very narrow part of the path; and though it would not necessarily have been serious had either of us dropped a few feet over the downward side, it might have sprained an ankle.

To let her pass, I rested my back against an oak tree on the upper side, though I guessed she would pause—and she did. Not from joy at meeting me, nor from any desire to hear my views on the world in general; she stopped because I made an excuse for stopping. And when one is climbing up that path, any reason is good enough, if it enables one to pause and get one’s breath. I said: “Good morning”; and, in order to give her time to recover respiration, I was about to add the brilliant and original observation, that it looked like rain. But Mrs. Redd forestalled me, snapping out her words in the semi-defiant manner she always adopts, as though convinced she was going to be “put upon” and determined to kick against it to the last shoe button.

“I suppose you’ve heard that we are going to have amenities now,” she began.

“Oh? That will be nice,” I replied, rather inanely, wondering what she meant.

“Yes; the rich aren’t going to have everything any longer; it’s our turn now”—more aggressively—“and we are to have amenities, we’re entitled to them.”

I began to see daylight. I remembered that an amateur politician had been haranguing the valley, and promising the whole earth to any who were simple enough to believe him.

“Can anybody have them?” I asked Mrs. Redd.

“Yes, if they are poor; it’s their due.”

“That is very interesting. Where can they be bought? And what do they cost?”

“They don’t have to be bought; they are amenities.”

“Yes, I know, you said that before. But would you mind telling me: what are amenities?”

“Why, you know! Up the garden.”

“Oh! I see! Amenities is just a new name for—er—for the ‘Up the Garden’? But I thought you had one?”

“Of course we have. But the amenities will be indoors, in a bathroom.”

“That will be very useful, with the boys coming home soon.”

“Oh, but I shan’t let anyone use it. There’s no need to waste the one up the garden, and we’ve always washed in the kitchen. But the bathroom will be nice to look at, when they build it.”

“I’m sure it will be.”

“And we’re going to have a refrigerator too,” with a further air of triumph.

“I should have thought we would be frozen enough in the winter, as we can’t get coals! But as I haven’t one, perhaps I had better see about it. Where do I apply for one?”

“You don’t apply. They bring it to you. Though I don’t suppose they would let you have one. It’s only the poor who are to have amenities now.”

I did not remind her that her husband was said to be getting £12 a week at war-work! I merely said:

“Then as I am poor, I’m surely entitled to one?”

She looked at me incredulously. “You can’t be poor. This wood belongs to you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. But I can’t eat it, can I? Nor exchange it for points. And they won’t look at it when I offer it for clothing coupons!”

Suddenly she became all animation, her eyes gleamed, as a bright thought struck her—“I wonder if you could let me have a few coupons? I’m dreadfully hard up for stockings!”