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In A London Garden
by
“Now give me more of the poppy juice,” said the Princess.
“No,” said the man, “I have given you as much as you may take safely in one day.”
So the Princess pretended to be meek and obedient, and said it was very well and she would think no more about it, and perhaps now sleep would come to her at nights even if she did not drink the poppy juice. That had broken down the barrier of the garden of sleep, and now she would be able to enter the garden freely when she would.
“Perhaps,” said the man.
But when for many nights she tried and could not sleep, she grew rebellious, and going secretly to his apartments she procured the poppy juice he had prepared. With this treasure in her hand, she went back to the temple and stretched herself again on the bed of bracken. She drank the whole of the poppy juice.
“For,” she said aloud, “if the little death be so sweet, then–then—-“
And here she fell asleep.
For ten successive days I had forgotten to buy the weed-killer; therefore on the tenth day, which was a Wednesday, I went out to weed the gravel paths with my own hands. It is not a pleasant operation. It is, I believe, the thing in gardening that I loathe most.
The faint burble of water led me towards my fountain. It was playing joyously, and some careless person had left beside it a garden-chair and the current issue of Punch.
Any man with a sense of duty and a reasonable amount of will-power would have turned off the fountain and got to work.
The sun was shining brightly. The day was warm. I had not seen that number of Punch. And I did not turn off the fountain, I turned off the work.
But the next day I remembered to buy weed-killer. The commonest saying of the Spaniard is not duly appreciated in this country, and is especially useful in the summer-time.
CHAPTER V
THE STRUGGLE: AND THE STORY OF “ALFRED SIMPSON”
The garden is peaceful, and this is the more extraordinary because it is really the perpetual scene of the bloodiest warfare, and this warfare is the more acute in a London garden because in London there are more enemies. One has the fight of the gardener against natural conditions, his fight against the enemies of his plants, and the fight of the plants among themselves.
One season there was a prolonged drought and the leaves of the trees fell prematurely. “That’s due to the drought,” said the experts. The following year the season was very wet, and once more my trees shed their leaves before the time. “What else can you expect after all the rain we’ve had?” said the experts. And in both seasons the dairymen, who seem to have a touch of the expert about them, raised the price of milk. Perhaps one year I shall find the kind of season which exactly suits my London garden.
To fight the drought I got me a great length of hose, and made the usual arrangements with the Water Board. But once the question of a garden is raised, the Water Board also seems to be infected with the military spirit. I had a printed document from them, which was severe to the point of truculence. They reserve themselves rights. They do not guarantee. They are not responsible. They strictly forbid. With these and similar phrases they teach the man who dares to use a hose what a poor worm he is. They tell me that the hose must not be left unattended. What am I to do with it then? Am I to sit up all night with it and hold its nozzle? A wet season brings home to me the awful injustice of Water Boards. Nobody who can get rain for his garden will use the hard, less satisfactory, but highly valuable products of the Water Board. But in the wet season, as in the dry, the consumer must pay. In strict justice, the amount one pays for the water supply for the hose should in any season be in inverse proportion to the rainfall during that season.