e Vice-consort 307
Told by the Next Neighbor

XI Blackgum ag'in' Thunder 341
Told by John Gayther

ILLUSTRATIONS

"Are you going to ask me to marry your husband
if you should happen to die?" Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The gardener began promptly 74

"I made him dig up whole beds of things" 148

The great beast was drawing up his hind legs
and was climbing into the car 214

Miss Amanda listened with the most eager and
overpowering attention 258

And dreamed waking dreams of blessedness 294

"Do you mean," I cried, "that you would make
him a better wife than I do?" 336

"Abner, did you ever hear about the eggs of the
great auk?" 356

JOHN GAYTHER'S GARDEN

JOHN GAYTHER'S GARDEN

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.

It was a very fine garden over which John Gayther had charge. It
extended this way and that for long distances. It was difficult to see
how far it did extend, there were so many old-fashioned box hedges;
so many paths overshadowed by venerable grape-arbors; and so many
far-stretching rows of peach, plum, and pear trees. Fruit, bushes, and
vines there were of which the roll need not be called; and flowers grew
everywhere. It was one of the fancies of the Mistress of the House--and
she inherited it from her mother--to have flowers in great abundance, so
that wherever she might walk through the garden she would always find
them.

Often when she found them massed too thickly she would go in among them
and thin them out with apparent recklessness, pulling them up by the
roots and throwing them on the path, where John Gayther would come and
find them and take them away. This heroic action on the part of the
Mistress of the House pleased John very much. He respected the fearless
spirit which did not hesitate to make sacrifices for the greater good,
no matter how many beautiful blossoms she scattered on the garden path.
John