Two hungry, happy boys are a tonic at any
time, and for a time I buttered bread--though alack, the real necessity
for so doing has long since passed--when, on explaining father's absence
from the meal, Ian said abruptly, "Jinks! grandpa's gone the day before!
he told Tim _Tuesday_ at 'leven, I heard him!"
But, as it chanced, it was a slip of tongue, not memory, and I blessed
Timothy Saunders for his Scotch forbearance, which Evan insists upon
calling prudence.
My own time of trial came in the early afternoon. During the more than
ten years that I have been a gardener on my own account, I have
naturally tried many experiments and have gradually come to the
conclusion that it is a mistake to grow too many species of
flowers,--better to have more of a kind and thus avoid spinkiness. The
pink family in general is one of those that has stood the test, and this
year a cousin of Evan's sent me over a quantity of Margaret carnation
seed from prize stock, together with that of some exhibition single
Dahlias.
Late in February I sowed the seed in two of the most protected hotbeds,
muffled them in mats and old carpets every night, almost turned myself
into a patent ventilator in order to give the carnations enough air
during that critical teething period of pinks, when the first grasslike
leaves emerge from the oval seed leaves and the little plants are apt to
weaken at the ground level, damp off, and disappear, thinned them out
with the greatest care, and had (day before yesterday) full five hundred
lusty little plants, ready to go out into the deeply dug cool bed and
there wax strong according to the need of pinks before summer heat gains
the upper hand.
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