These three, their patient nurse, myself, the gardener,
and the gardener's assistant, are the only people who ever
go into my garden, but then neither are we ever out of it.
The gardener has been here a year and has given me notice
regularly on the first of every month, but up to now has
been induced to stay on. On the first of this month he came
as usual, and with determination written on every feature told
me he intended to go in June, and that nothing should alter
his decision. I don't think he knows much about gardening,
but he can at least dig and water, and some of the things
he sows come up, and some of the plants he plants grow,
besides which he is the most unflaggingly industrious person
I ever saw, and has the great merit of never appearing
to take the faintest interest in what we do in the garden.
So I have tried to keep him on, not knowing what the next one
may be like, and when I asked him what he had to complain
of and he replied "Nothing," I could only conclude
that he has a personal objection to me because of my eccentric
preference for plants in groups rather than plants in lines.
Perhaps, too, he does not like the extracts from gardening books I
read to him sometimes when he is planting or sowing something new.
Being so helpless myself, I thought it simpler, instead of explaining,
to take the book itself out to him and let him have wisdom
at its very source, administering it in doses while he worked.
I quite recognise that this must be annoying, and only my anxiety
not to lose a whole year through some stupid mistake has given
me the courage to do it. I laugh sometimes behind the book
at his disgusted face, and wish we could be photographed,
so that I may be reminded in twenty years' time, when the garden
is a bower of loveliness and I learned in all its ways,