the great American garden, and we will combine to produce it."

"What about Nickols' plans?" I asked, trying hard to raise indignation
in my heart and voice at the thought of Nickols Morris Powers' work,
for which the people of wealth in the North were beginning fairly to
clamor, being criticized and laid aside at the inspiration of the
Methodist parson across the lilac hedge. And I succeeded better than I
expected, for I saw father lose color and tremble with his own rage,
which he always quells with drink.

"That sunken garden is Italian, and I'm going to tear it out and
put--Oh, my daughter; forgive me, but I forgot, in this queer nature
frenzy that has come over me of late and which I do not at all
understand, that the garden is yours, was your mother's and
grandmother's. So far the plans have just been begun, and nothing that
you and Nickols have done--Dabney, pour me three fingers of the 1875
Bourbon." And in a second I saw father grow white and shaking with
mortification at what he felt to be an unmannerly trespass upon
another's rights. My father has been a drunkard for nearly twenty years,
but he is still a great gentleman. Slowly he drank the whiskey, every
drop of which seemed to go to my heart like cold lead.

"But, father!" I exclaimed, determined to win him back. Dabney was
putting the silver stopper in the decanter over by the sideboard, and I
thought I saw a sob shake his bent old shoulders as his black hands
trembled. "I'd like to know if I'm not as purely American as you are,
and have I not the same right to want, demand and work for an American
nationalism, even in a garden, as you have? I'll have you know, sir,
that the future of the nation is in the hands of the women. We can
produce pure Americans or let the whole country go hybrid." And as I