United States or New Zealand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The cook on her part had taken such a fancy to Clare that she did not want him set to garden-work; she would have him at once into the house, and begin training him for a page. Now Miss Tempest was greatly desiring the same thing, but in dread of what the cook would say, and was delighted, therefore, when the first suggestion of it came from Mrs. Mereweather herself.
Instead of being a part of the general thrift of the valley a not unworthy contribution to that which, in the sum, was all important to the village life those little jobs which the labourer does at home, including his garden-work, have no relation now to anything save his private necessities, because now the dominant interests of the valley are those of a different sort of people who care nothing for such homely things.
Another monk, who was fond of more secular occupations, such as wood-carving and garden-work, and not at all attached to habits of prayer, seeing this, thought that he would do the same; and he too used to slip away from a service, in order to return to the business that he loved better.
"But my garden is sadly out of order, and I must have something done to it. You don't dislike gardening, do you?" "Well, I beant a right good hand at garden-work," answered the old man, with some embarrassment, scratching his gray head with a troubled scratch. There was more in this than met the ear; but what, I could not conjecture. I would press the point a little. So I took him at his own word.
Then go to work with hoe and rake, and reduce it to the last possible degree of fineness, working the fertilizer you make use of into it in such a manner that both are perfectly blended. There is no danger of overdoing matters in this part of garden-work. The finer the soil is the surer you may be of the germination of the seed you put into it.
Old Abercrombie of Preston Pans, as we have already seen, reached the age of eighty. Walpole, though I lay no claim to him as farmer or gardener, yet, thanks to the walks and garden-work of Strawberry Hill, lived to the same age. Philip Miller was an octogenarian.
An old man, who saved himself from the almshouse in such ways, came daily to do the rougher part of the garden-work in John Darby's stead. He was aged and decrepit; his muscles seemed able to perform their appointed tasks only through the accumulated inertia of a patiently toilsome life in the same tracks.
Garden-work is the best possible kind of medicine for overtaxed nerves. It makes worn-out women over into healthy, happy women. "I thank God, every day, for my garden," one of these women wrote me, not long ago. "It has given me back my health. It has made me feel that life is worth living, after all. I believe that I shall get so that I live in my garden most of the time.
They were not particularly ascetic, these Benedictines, and insisted much on manual labour in the open air. Probably at first the monks did their farm-work as well; but as they grew richer, they employed labourers, and themselves fell back on simpler and easier garden-work.
She was twenty-four, and nearing her twenty-fifth birthday. Of late, she had had anxieties and vigils, and the life of a novice of Saint Ursula-of-the-Lake was not lived on down or roses: but the tranquil years of simple food, of water-drinking, of garden-work, of quiet thinking and praying had passed over her like the years in dreams, which last no longer than moments.
Word Of The Day