2. II.
“A house with a fine garden and extensive shrubbery,
in a genteel neighborhood,” were, if I remember
rightly, the general terms of an advertisement
which once decided my choice of a dwelling. I
should add that this occurred at an early stage of my
household experience, when I placed a trustful reliance
in advertisements. I have since learned that
the most truthful people are apt to indulge a slight
vein of exaggeration in describing their own possessions,
as though the mere circumstance of going into
print were an excuse for a certain kind of mendacity.
But I did not fully awaken to this fact until a much
later period, when, in answering an advertisement
which described a highly advantageous tenement, I
was referred to the house I then occupied, and from
which a thousand inconveniences were impelling me
to move.
The “fine garden” alluded to was not large, but
contained several peculiarly-shaped flower beds. I
was at first struck with the singular resemblance
which they bore to the mutton-chops that are usually
brought on the table at hotels and restaurants—a resemblance
the more striking from the sprigs of parsley
which they produced freely. One plat in particular
reminded me, not unpleasantly, of a peculiar
cake, known to my boyhood as a bolivar. The
owner of the property, however, who seemed to be
a man of original æsthetic ideas, had banked up one
of these beds with bright-colored sea-shells, so that
in rainy weather it suggested an aquarium, and offered
the elements of botanical and conchological
study in pleasing juxtaposition. I have since thought
that the fish geraniums, which it also bore to a surprising
extent, were introduced originally from some
such idea of consistency. But it was very pleasant,
after dinner, to ramble up and down the gravelly
paths, (whose occasional boulders reminded me of
the dry bed of a somewhat circuitous mining stream,)
smoking a cigar, or inhaling the rich aroma of fennel,
or occasionally stopping to pluck one of the holly-hocks
with which the garden abounded. The prolific
qualities of this plant alarmed us greatly, for
although, in the first transport of enthusiasm, my
wife planted several different kinds of flower seeds,
nothing ever came up but hollyhocks; and although,
impelled by the same laudable impulse, I procured
a copy of
Downing's Landscape Gardening, and a few
gardening tools, and worked for several hours in the
garden, my efforts were equally futile.
The extensive shrubbery consisted of several
dwarfed trees. One was very weak young weeping
willow, so very limp and maudlin, and so evidently
bent on establishing its reputation, that it had to be
tied up against the house for support. The dampness
of that portion of the house was usually attributed
to the presence of this lachrymose shrub. And
to these a couple of highly objectionable trees, known,
I think, by the name of Malva, which made an inordinate
show of cheap blossoms that they were continually
shedding, and one or two dwarf oaks, with
scaly leaves and a generally spiteful exterior, and
you have what was not inaptly termed by one Milesian
handmaid “the scrubbery.”
The gentility of our neighbor suffered a blight
from the unwholesome vicinity of McGinnis Court.
This court was a kind of cul de sac that, on being
penetrated, discovered a primitive people living in
a state of barbarous freedom, and apparently spending
the greater portion of their lives on their own
door-steps. Many of those details of the toilette which
a popular prejudice restricts to the dressing-room in
other localities, were here performed in the open court
without fear and without reproach. Early in the week
the court was hid in a choking, soapy mist, which
arose from innumerable wash-tubs. This was followed
in a day or two later by an extraordinary exhibition
of wearing apparel of divers colors, fluttering
on lines like a display of bunting on ship-board,
and whose flapping in the breeze was like irregular
discharges of musketry. It was evident also that the
court exercised a demoralizing influence over the
whole neighborhood. A sanguine property-owner
once put up a handsome dwelling on the corner of
our street, and lived therein; but although he appeared
frequently an his balcony, clad in a bright
crimson dressing-gown, which made him look like
a tropical bird of some rare and gorgeous species, he
failed to woo any kindred dressing-gown to the vicinity,
and only provoked opprobrious epithets from
the
gamins of the court. He moved away shortly after,
and on going by the house one day, I noticed a
bill of “Rooms to let, with board,” posted conspicuously
on the Corinthian columns of the porch. McGinnis
Court had triumphed. An interchange of
civilities at once took place between the court and
the servants' area of the palatial mansion, and some of
the young men boarders exchange playful slang with
the adolescent members of the court. From that moment
we felt that our claims to gentility were forever
abandoned.
Yet, we enjoyed intervals of unalloyed contentment.
When the twilight toned down the hard outlines
of the oaks, and made shadowy clumps and
formless masses of other bushes, it was quite romantic
to sit by the window and inhale the faint, sad
odor of the fennel in the walks below. Perhaps this
economical pleasure was much enhanced by a picture
in my memory, whose faded colors the odor of
this humble plant never failed to restore. So I often
sat there of evenings and closed my eyes until the
forms and benches of a country school-room came
back to me, redolent with the incense of fennel covertly
stowed away in my desk, and gazed again in silent
rapture on the round, red cheeks and long black
braids of that peerless creature whose glance had often
caused my cheeks to glow over the preternatural
collar, which at that period of my boyhood it was my
pride and privilege to wear. As I fear I may be
often thought hypercritical and censorious in these
articles, I am willing to record this as one of the advantages
of our new house, not mentioned in the advertisement
nor chargeable in the rent. May the
present tenant, who is a stock-broker, and who impresses
me with the idea of having always been called
“Mr.” from his cradle up, enjoy this advantage,
and try sometimes to remember he was a boy!
