John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein

Richard Stockton Frank

Description

pubOne.info present you this wonderfully illustrated edition. The garden did not belong to John Gayther; he merely had charge of it. At certain busy seasons he had some men to help him in his work, but for the greater part of the year he preferred doing everything himself.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819940319
• Langue: English

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John Gayther's Garden and
the Stories Told Therein


“Are you going to ask me to marry your husband ifyou should happen to die?”
John Gayther's Garden and
the Stories Told Therein
By Frank R. Stockton
ILLUSTRATED
JOHN GAYTHER'S GARDEN
The garden did not belong to John Gayther; he merelyhad charge of it. At certain busy seasons he had some men to helphim in his work, but for the greater part of the year he preferreddoing everything himself.
It was a very fine garden over which John Gaytherhad charge. It extended this way and that for long distances. Itwas difficult to see how far it did extend, there were so manyold-fashioned box hedges; so many paths overshadowed by venerablegrape-arbors; and so many far-stretching rows of peach, plum, andpear trees. Fruit, bushes, and vines there were of which the rollneed not be called; and flowers grew everywhere. It was one of thefancies of the Mistress of the House— and she inherited it from hermother— to have flowers in great abundance, so that wherever shemight walk through the garden she would always find them.
Often when she found them massed too thickly shewould go in among them and thin them out with apparentrecklessness, pulling them up by the roots and throwing them on thepath, where John Gayther would come and find them and take themaway. This heroic action on the part of the Mistress of the Housepleased John very much. He respected the fearless spirit which didnot hesitate to make sacrifices for the greater good, no matter howmany beautiful blossoms she scattered on the garden path. JohnGayther might have thinned out all this superfluous growth himself,but he knew the Mistress liked to do it, and he left for her glovedhands many tangled jungles of luxuriant bloom.
The garden was old, and rich, and aristocratic. Itacted generously in the way of fruit, flowers, and vegetables, asif that were something it was expected to do, an action to which itwas obliged by its nobility. It would be impossible for it toforget that it belonged to a fine old house and a fine oldfamily.
John Gayther could not boast of lines of longdescent, as could the garden and the family. He was comparatively anew-comer, and had not lived in that garden more than seven oreight years; but in that time he had so identified himself with theplace, and all who dwelt upon it, that there were times when astranger might have supposed him to be the common ancestor to thewhole estate.
John understood well the mysterious problems of thetillable earth, and he knew, as well as anybody could know, whatanswers to expect when he consulted the oracles of nature. He wasan elderly man, and the gentle exercises of the garden were suitedto the disposition of his mind and body. In days gone by he hadbeen a sailor, a soldier, a miner, a ranchman, and a good manyother things besides. In those earlier days, according to his ownaccount, John had had many surprising adventures and experiences;but in these later times his memory was by far the most active andvigorous of all his moving forces. This memory was like a hazelwand in the hands of a man who is searching for hidden springs ofwater. Whenever he wished it to turn and point in any particularplace or direction, it so turned and pointed.
THIS STORY IS TOLD BY
JOHN GAYTHER
AND IS CALLED
WHAT I FOUND IN THE SEA
I
WHAT I FOUND IN THE SEA
It was on a morning in June that John Gayther washoeing peas, drawing the fine earth up about their tender littlestems as a mother would tuck the clothes about her little sleepingbaby, when, happening to glance across several beds, and rows ofbox, he saw approaching the Daughter of the House. Probably she waslooking for him, but he did not think she had yet seen him. He putdown his hoe, feeling, as he did, that this June morning wasgetting very warm; and he gathered up an armful of pea-sticks whichwere lying near by. With these he made his way toward a littlehouse almost in the middle of the garden, which was his fortress,his palace, his studio, or his workshop, as the case might be.
It was a low building with a far-outreaching roof,and under the shade of this roof, outside of the little building,John liked to do his rainy-day and very-hot-weather work. From thecool interior came a smell of dried plants and herbs and bulbs andpotted earth.
When John reached this garden-house, the young ladywas already there. She was not tall; her face was very white, butnot pale; and her light hair fluffed itself all about her head,under her wide hat. She wore gold spectacles which greatly enhancedthe effect of her large blue eyes. John thought she was theprettiest flower which had ever showed itself in that garden.
“Good morning, John, ” she said. “I came here to askyou about plants suitable for goldfishes in a vase. My fishes donot seem to be satisfied with the knowledge that the plants throughwhich they swim were put there to purify the water; they are allthe time trying to eat them. Now it strikes me that there ought tobe some plants which would be purifiers and yet good for the poorthings to eat. ”
John put down his bundle of pea-sticks by the sideof a small stool. “Won't you sit down, miss? ” pointing to agarden-bench near by, “and I will see what I can do for you. ” Thenhe seated himself upon the stool, took out his knife, and picked upa pea-stick.
“The best thing for me to do, ” he said, “is to lookover a book I have which will tell me just the kind of water plantswhich your goldfish ought to have. I will do that this evening, andthen I will see to it that you shall have those plants, whateverthey may be. I do not pretend to be much of a water gardenermyself, but it's easy for me to find out what other people know. ”John now began to trim some of the lower twigs from apea-stick.
“Talking about water gardens, miss, ” he said, “Iwish you could have seen some of the beautiful ones that I havecome across! — more beautiful and lovely than anything on the topof the earth; you may be sure of that. I was reminded of them themoment you spoke to me about your goldfish and their plants. ”
“Where were those gardens? ” asked the young lady;“and what were they like? ”
“They were all on the bottom of the sea, in thetropics, ” said John Gayther, “where the water is so clear thatwith a little help you can see everything just as if it were out inthe open air— bushes and vines and hedges; all sorts of tenderwaving plants, all made of seaweed and coral, growing in the whitesand; and instead of birds flying about among their branches therewere little fishes of every color: canary-colored fishes, fisheslike robin-redbreasts, and others which you might have thought wereblue jays if they had been up in the air instead of down in thewater. ”
“Where did you say all this is to be seen? ” askedthe Daughter of the House, who loved all lovely things.
“Oh, in a good many places in warm climates, ” saidJohn. “But, now I come to think of it, there was one place where Isaw more beautiful sights, more grand and wonderful sights, underthe water than I believe anybody ever saw before! Would you like meto tell you about it? ”
“Indeed— I— would! ” said she, taking off herhat.
John now began to sharpen the end of his pea-stick.“It was a good many years ago, ” said he, "more than twenty— and Iwas then a seafaring man. I was on board a brig, cruising in theWest Indies, and we were off Porto Rico, about twenty milesnorthward, I should say, when we ran into something in the night, —we never could find out what it was, — and we stove a big hole inthat brig which soon began to let in a good deal more water than wecould pump out. The captain he was a man that knew all about thatpart of the world, and he told us all that we must work as hard aswe could at the pumps, and if we could keep her afloat until hecould run her ashore on a little sandy island he knew of not farfrom St. Thomas, we might be saved. There was a fresh breeze fromthe west, and he thought he could make the island before wesank.
“I was mighty glad to hear him say this, for I hadalways been nervous when I was cruising off Porto Rico. Do youknow, miss, that those waters are the very deepest in the wholeworld? ”
“No, ” said she; “I never heard that. ”
“Well, they are, ” said John. "If you should takethe very tallest mountain there is in any part of the earth and putit down north of Porto Rico, so that the bottom of it shall rest onthe bottom of the sea, the top of that mountain would be sunk cleanout of sight, so that ships could sail over it just as safely asthey sail in any part of the ocean.
“Of course a man would drown just as easily in acouple of fathoms of water as in this deep place; but it isperfectly horrible to think of sinking down, down, down into thevery deepest water-hole on the face of the whole earth. ”
“Didn't you have any boats? ” asked the younglady.
“We hadn't any, ” said John. "We had sold all ofthem about two months before to a British merchantman who had losther boats in a cyclone. One of the things our captain wanted to getto St. Thomas for was to buy some more boats. He heard he could getsome cheap ones there.
"Well, we pumped and sailed as well as we could, butwe hadn't got anywhere near that sandy island the captain wasmaking for, when, one morning after breakfast, our brig, which waspretty low in the water by this time, gave a little hitch and agrind, and stuck fast on something; and if we hadn't been lively intaking in all sail there would have been trouble. But the weatherwas fine, and the sea was smooth, and when we had time to thinkabout what had happened we were resting on the surface of the sea,just as quiet and tranquil as if we had been a toy ship in ashop-window.
"What we had stuck on was a puzzle indeed! As I saidbefore, our captain knew all about that part of the sea, and,although he knew we were in shallow soundings, he was certain thatthere wasn't any shoal or rock thereabout that we could get stuckon.
"We sounded al