seemed to me a very simple thing, this
gardening; but it opens up astonishingly. It is like the infinite
possibilities in worsted-work. Polly sometimes says to me, "I wish you
would call at Bobbin's, and match that skein of worsted for me, when you
are in town." Time was, I used to accept such a commission with alacrity
and self-confidence. I went to Bobbin's, and asked one of his young men,
with easy indifference, to give me some of that. The young man, who is
as handsome a young man as ever I looked at, and who appears to own the
shop, and whose suave superciliousness would be worth everything to a
cabinet minister who wanted to repel applicants for place, says, "I have
n't an ounce: I have sent to Paris, and I expect it every day. I have
a good deal of difficulty in getting that shade in my assortment." To
think that he is in communication with Paris, and perhaps with Persia!
Respect for such a being gives place to awe. I go to another shop,
holding fast to my scarlet clew. There I am shown a heap of stuff, with
more colors and shades than I had supposed existed in all the world.
What a blaze of distraction! I have been told to get as near the shade
as I could; and so I compare and contrast, till the whole thing seems to
me about of one color. But I can settle my mind on nothing. The affair
assumes a high degree of importance. I am satisfied with nothing but
perfection. I don't know what may happen if the shade is not matched. I
go to another shop, and another, and another. At last a pretty girl, who
could make any customer believe that green is blue, matches the shade in
a minute. I buy five cents worth. That was the order. Women are the
most economical persons that ever were. I have spent two hours in this
five-cent business; but who shall say they were wasted, when I take the
stuff home, and Polly says it is a perfect match, and looks so pleased,
and holds it up with the work, at arm's length, and turns her head one
side, and then takes her needle, and works it in? Working in, I can see,
my own obligingness and amiability with every stitch. Five cents is dirt
cheap for such a pleasure.

The things I may do in my garden multiply on my vision. How fascinating
have the catalogues of the nurserymen become! Can I raise all those
beautiful varieties, each one of which is preferable to the other?
Shall I try all the kinds of grapes, and all the sorts of pears? I have
already fifteen varieties of strawberries (vines); and