my hands. But I had gone too far to
recede. They burned in my pocket for a few days, and I saw that I must
get them into the ground somewhere. I could not sleep with them in the
room. They were wandering shades craving at my hands a burial, and I
determined to put them where Banquo's ghost would not go,--down. Down
accordingly they went, but not symmetrically nor simultaneously. I faced
Halicarnassus on the subject of the beet-bed, and though I cannot say
that either of us gained a brilliant victory, yet I can say that I
kept possession of the ground; still, I did not care to risk a second
encounter. So I kept my seeds about me continually, and dropped them
surreptitiously as occasion offered. Consequently, my garden, taken as
a whole, was located where the Penobscot Indian was born,--"all along
shore." The squashes were scattered among the corn. The beans were
tucked under the brushwood, in the fond hope that they would climb
up it. Two tomato-plants were lodged in the potato-field, under the
protection of some broken apple-branches dragged thither for the
purpose. The cucumbers went down on the sheltered side of a wood-pile.
The peas took their chances of life under the sink-nose. The sweet-corn
was marked off from the rest by a broomstick,--and all took root alike
in my heart.

May I ask you now, O Friend, who, I would fain believe, have followed me
thus far with no hostile eyes, to glide in tranced forgetfulness through
the white blooms of May and the roses of June, into the warm breath of
July afternoons and the languid pulse of August, perhaps even into
the mild haze of September and the "flying gold" of brown October? In
narrating to you the fruition of my hopes, I shall endeavor to preserve
that calm equanimity which is the birthright of royal minds. I shall
endeavor not to be unduly elated by success nor unduly depressed by
failure, but to state in simple language the result of my experiments,
both for an encouragement and a warning. I shall give the history of the
several ventures separately, as nearly as I can recollect in the
order in which they grew, beginning with the humbler ministers to our
appetites, and soaring gradually into the region of the poetical and the
beautiful.

BEETS.--The beets came up, little red-veined leaves, struggling for
breath among a tangle of Roman wormwood and garlic; and though they
exhibited great tenacity of life, they also exhibited great irregularity
of purpose. In one spo