A GIRL'S GARDEN

A NEIGHBOUR of mine in the village

likes to tell how one spring

When she was a girl on the farm, she did

A childlike thing.

One day she asked her father

To give her a garden plot

To plant and tend and reap herself,

And he said, "Why not ?"

In casting about for a corner

He thought of an idle bit

Or walled-off ground where a shop had stood,

And he said, "Just it."

And he said, "That ought to make you

An ideal one-girl farm,

And give you a chance to put some strength

On your slim-jim arm".

It was not enough of a garden,

Her father said, to plough;

So she had to work it all by hand,

But she don't mind now.

She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow

Along a stretch of road;

But she always ran away and left

Her not-nice load,

And hid from anyone passing.

And then she begged the seed.

She says she thinks she planted one

Of all things but weed.

A hill each of potatoes,

Radishes, lettuce, peas,

Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn.

And even fruit trees.

And yes, she was long mistrusted

That a cider apple tree

In bearing there today is hers,

Or at least may be.

Her crop was a miscellany

When all was said and done,

A little bit of everything,

A great deal of none.