tree that stands alone in the sun--groups of crocuses, daffodils,
narcissus, hyacinths, and tulips, among such flowering shrubs
and trees as Pirus Malus spectabilis, floribunda, and coronaria;
Prunus Juliana, Mahaleb, serotina, triloba, and Pissardi;
Cydonias and Weigelias in every colour, and several kinds
of Crataegus and other May lovelinesses. If the weather behaves
itself nicely, and we get gentle rains in due season, I think
this little corner will be beautiful--but what a big "if" it is!
Drought is our great enemy, and the two last summers each
contained five weeks of blazing, cloudless heat when all
the ditches dried up and the soil was like hot pastry.
At such times the watering is naturally quite beyond the strength
of two men; but as a garden is a place to be happy in,
and not one where you want to meet a dozen curious eyes at
every turn, I should not like to have more than these two,
or rather one and a half--the assistant having stork-like
proclivities and going home in the autumn to his native Russia,
returning in the spring with the first warm winds.
I want to keep him over the winter, as there is much to be done
even then, and I sounded him on the point the other day.
He is the most abject-looking of human beings--lame, and afflicted
with a hideous eye-disease; but he is a good worker and plods
along unwearyingly from sunrise to dusk.

"Pray, my good stork," said I, or German words to that effect,
"why don't you stay here altogether, instead of going home and rioting
away all you have earned?"

"I would stay," he answered," but I have my wife there in Russia."