A Girl's Garden
A neighbor 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 Of 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 has long mistrusted That a cider apple tree In bearing there to-day 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.
Now when she sees in the village How village things go, Just when it seems to come in right, She says, ‘I know!
It’s as when I was a farmer--’ Oh, never by way of advice! And she never sins by telling the tale To the same person twice.