As I work among my flowers, I find myself talking to them, reasoning and remonstrating with them, and adoring them as if they were human beings. Much laughter I provoke among my friends by so doing, but that is of no consequence. We are on such good terms, my flowers and I.

Like the musician, the painter, the poet and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made.

Last week, when I went early into my garden, a rose-breasted grosbeak was sitting on the fence. Oh, he was beautiful as a flower. I hardly dared to breathe, I did not stir, and we gazed at each other fully five minutes before he concluded to move.

This very act of planting a seed in the earth has in it to me something beautiful. I always do it with a joy that is largely mixed with awe.

There shall be an eternal summer in the grateful heart.

Look to the East, where up the lucid sky; the morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair.

So deeply is the gardener's instinct implanted in my soul, I really love the tools with which I work; the iron fork, the spade, the hoe, the rake, the trowel, and the watering pot are pleasant objects in my eyes.