"Greg and Jim"

In the Spring, a married man’s fancy turns to thoughts of gardening

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jimmy Frise, April 23, 1938.

“Fifty-fifty,” said Jimmie Frise. “You help me with my garden and I help you with yours.”

“I don’t know,” I hesitated. “A garden is a curiously personal and intimate sort of thing. I doubt if there is much I could trust you to do in my garden.”

“Well,” said Jim, “there is plenty you could do for me in my garden. The leaves off that poplar have drifted in all the corners like snowdrifts. I’ve got a program in mind for shifting several of my flowering bushes to make room for annuals.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” I admitted. “But how would it be fifty-fifty if I have nothing for you to do and you have so much for me?”

“Aren’t you doing any rockery projects this spring?” asked Jim. “Aren’t you building any trellises or anything that I am pretty handy at?”

“No,” I stated, “I have my garden set. It’s just the way I like it. All am going to do is fork it and spade it a little, to let in the spring sunshine and the soft April rains. Loosen the mould around the tulips and iris. Shake a little life-giving air in around the waking roots of the delphiniums and perennial phlox.”

“You have a swell garden,” said Jim wistfully. “That is why I was asking you to give me a hand with mine. I envy you your garden. Your gardening sense.”

“Ah,” I said, “that’s different. You are appealing to me as a master.”

“I am appealing to your better nature, too,” pleaded Jim. “There are some men who seem to have a power. They seem to have life in their very hands. What they touch thrives.”

“Ah,” I said, gratefully.

“I feel,” said Jim, earnestly, “that if I could get you to come into my garden, to touch the soil and bend over the places in the earth where the little plants are sleeping now, their roots weak and thin, why, it would be like the Pied Piper, calling the flowers from the earth, to come and bloom.”

Mmmm,” I said, delighted.

“You come down to-night after supper,” said Jim, “and I’ll pay you back. I’ll come and do some forking and spading for you.”

“No, sir,” I assured him. “Nobody does any forking around my garden. You’d puncture all the bulbs and uproot all the perennials. I’ve had people help me before. No, sir, a garden is a one-man job. But…”

“But what?” inquired Jim eagerly.

“In view of the fact,” I submitted, “that you have been intelligent enough to recognize certain talents I have in relation to earth and sky and rain and flowers. I will be glad to come down this evening and give you a little of my time.”

“Great,” cried Jimmie. “Great. I can see my garden blooming already. All my garden needs is a visitation. From somebody that has the power.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” I informed him, mysteriously, as if I had at my beck and call all the forces of nature. It is a nice feeling to be looked up to; especially if you are a short man.

White-Collar Garden

So after supper I strolled down to Jim’s in the limpid April air and found him busy transporting tools, rakes, spades from the cellar up into the garden.

Jim’s garden is the average garden. It has various shrubs, such as lilac and spiraea spaced at normal intervals around the edge, with the usual dense clumps of iris, badly thinned and rapidly going back in quality and quantity; a few perennial phlox stick their tender shoots up, already looking for the blight that is sure to catch them; and scattered in between these mathematically spaced familiars are sundry odds and ends that Jim cannot remember whether they are the relics of forgotten perennials or maybe annuals that feebly seeded themselves last fall. One thing Jim is always sure of. And that is golden glow.

In the corners of the wire fence are great matted heaps of poplar leaves blown down in the fall from those handsome trees which developers of new home-sites always plant because they grow so quickly and lend a treey look to the property. And in due time these poplars have to come down, thus restoring the original treeless nature of the property, because they shed a thick and imperishable leaf, their great roots, like subterranean pythons, go seeking for moist drains and the corners of houses, where they devilishly heave and thrust. Ah, the poplar is not my idea of a tree, except for the sound of it on a drowsy summer’s day, or the shine of it in the glorious sunset of June, and maybe as a good place to look for deer along about November with a rifle cocked over the crook of the arm.

“Skoal,” cried Jimmie.

“Muzzle-toff,” I replied, which is a form of greeting.

“I’m just getting out the tools,” gasped Jimmie, exertionally.

“So I observe,” I admitted, feeling the need of a rustic chair or garden chair, none of which Jimmie had yet brought up from the cellar.

“Let’s look around first,” said Jim, taking my arm. “Let’s see what I’ve got.”

“You’ve got,” I said, surveying the garden, “the usual white-collar garden. A lot of conventional junk, like bushes that flower for a week and then relapse to sullen green growing. A few tulips and iris that, in a brief burst, will bloom much paler and smaller than the seed catalogue pictures, and then will settle down to a hearty summer of eating up all the nourishment in your borders.”

“I’ll put in some verbenas and things, for summer,” explained Jim.

“Yes, but these hardy perennials,” I explained, “will crowd and elbow, those timid strangers of a brief summer… your perennials are the real residents of this garden. Why not put in summer-looking perennials?”

“No,” said Jim; “no more permanent stuff. You see, this feeling about a garden only lasts with me for a couple of weeks about this time of year. In another month I won’t have the slightest interest. By June 20 I will come out after supper, turn on the hose, rest the nozzle on a brick and let her flow. I’ll be interested in something else by then. I don’t want anything in here I have to fret over all summer.”

“I thought you invited me down here,” I said stiffly, “in the capacity of a consultant. I can stand here and lay out for you a garden as nice as my own, with something in it to bloom every week of the year, from frost to frost.”

“Nnn, nnn,” said Jim, shaking his head. “You fit a garden to me; don’t try to fit me to a garden. I envy you your garden, of course. I think you do wonders. But I don’t want to be enslaved by any garden.”

“Who’s enslaved?” I demanded indignantly.

“No, no; don’t misunderstand me,” cried Jim anxiously, leading me slowly around by the arm towards the stack of shovels and rakes against the back kitchen wall. “Some men are holus bolus and others are just casual. All I want to do is satisfy this temporary feeling I’ve got to make a nice little garden. I thought, after we rake up and burn these leaves¹, see, that maybe we might shift that spiraea over there into that bare corner where the dogs killed a dandy pink spiraea I had, and then, that lilac…”

“Never shift a lilac,” I disagreed.

“Let’s get the leaves piled up,” said Jim, letting go of my arm and seizing a toothed rake with one hand and a bamboo grass rake with the other. He proffered me the iron rake.

“That bamboo rake is no good for leaves,” I protested. “That’s for combing over a lawn.”

“I can scoop them up with this,” cried Jim, heading for the first corner. “Watch.”

But I got him to take a spade instead, and while he loosened up the matted heaps I raked them out on to a bare patch of the garden lawn near the back of the garden, where a fire would do the least harm.

Jim dug and pattered and ran in twice to answer the telephone, though both times somebody got there ahead of him. He also found things on the ground which several times required his close attention, so that he had to lean on his spade and stare intently. One of the neighbors was in his own garden and Jim had to get into two or three spirited little passages of conversation, though the neighbor, fortunately, was a real garden enthusiast and did not have any time to waste in gossip. In short, Jim used the spade as little as possible in the half hour it took me to rake the leaves ready for burning. But there is a profound satisfaction in seeing through people that sometimes repays a man for doing a little extra work.

“Hey,” cried Jim suddenly, “you’ve got it all done! My dear chap, I didn’t invite you down here to do all my work.”

“I left that one spot for you,” I replied, handing Jim the unexpected rake and pointing out a particularly mucky and matted pile of leaves tangled in under a section of the wire fence.

“Aw, we can skip that bit,” said Jim.

“I’ll light the fire,” I said, “while you hoke those out to one side until we get a good fire going that will burn them.”

So very unhappily Jim set to work raking out the pile I had carefully preserved for him, and he grunted and sighed a good deal, while I, having a small fire started, kept an eye on him; and he knew it.

The leaves caught and a nice flame danced.

“Ah,” said Jim, joyously letting the rake handle drop. “The odor of spring. Leaves burning.”

“You can have a nice garden, Jim,” I said. “All you need is the ambition. Now, on this rose arbor you want to buy a good Paul Scarlett or a Blaze.”

That arbor has a jinx on it,” said Jim. “I’ve tried three different ramblers on it, and they either don’t ramble at all or they do nothing but ramble and never bloom.”

“How much do you pay?” I inquired.

“Fifteen cents,” said Jim, “the regular price.”

“Hmmmf,” I laughed. “Can you imagine paying five dollars for a rose bush?”

“I certainly can’t,” said Jim.

Then you can’t imagine a garden,” I informed him, “Now, over here, along this fence, you have an ideal border of delphiniums, with tall yellow marigolds in front of them and red or henna verbenas, scrambling along the foreground.”

And we strolled along the border, still flattened and cracked by winter and spring and no sign of a fork in it, while behind us the leaf fire crackled cheerily and fragrant smoke wafted around.

“Hey,” said Jim, “the arbor!”

The leaf fire had taken hold of Jim’s pile of leaves next to mine and had actually caught on to the cedar sticks of the fragile rose arbor.

“Quick,” I said; the hose.”

He was already half way to the back door. In a jiffy he was returning, uncoiling the old black hose as he ran. I seized the nozzle.

“Quick, my lad.” I said, “turn it on.”

Jim dashed back to the kitchen door and down the cellar steps. I could hear him shouting. I could also hear the sharp crackle of the arbor and a steadily increasing roar as the fire took hold of it. The flames leaped bright and gay and the first of 40 little boys of the neighborhood vaulted the fence.

“See what Mr. Frise is yelling,” I commanded.

Everything Works for the Best

The little boy listened down the cellar steps.

“He says,” called the boy, “that he has to shift the storm windows. They’re stacked right  where the tap is that turns on the hose.”

“Tell him to hurray,” I called.

“Hurry, Mr. Frise,” communicated the little boy, while bicycles began to arrive and neighbors began to come running.

The water came. I felt the hose stiffen and struggle. But none came out the nozzle. Jim leaped up the cellar stairs.

“Ach,” he cried, “the connections!”

All the water was running slobbily out of, one of those brass joints that are in the hoses of most people who dabble at gardening.

“Join her up.” I yelled.

Jim grabbed the hose at the joint and tried to screw it together. Water squirted in all directions and I got a couple of irresponsible jets out of the nozzle.

“Hurry,” I shouted. “Jam it in and hold it.”

“Pah,” protested Jim, water showering him.

He got the joint together and knelt, holding it grimly. A couple of violent and explosive squirts came out the nozzle and then it quit again.

“The other joint,” shouted Jim, running back towards the house where another joint had pushed open.

“Oh, well,” I called, “it’s too late now, anyway.”

Jim knelt by the other joint and looked. The arbor was now rising in slender and merry red and orange feathers and ribbons of flame. It was crackling with joy, as if, from the very beginning of time, this particular cedar wood had been predestined to burn rather than to spend its life supporting roses.

“Watch out,” shouted Jim, grabbing the hose in two hands. Again he vanished in a smother of irresponsible spray. Again the hose coughed violently a couple of times, threw a couple of wild squirts and then gurgled and quit.

“The other joint again,” I pointed out.

And indeed the first joint had again pushed itself open.

So Jim ran in and got a pail from the cellar and slowly filled it from the smoothly running but useless rubber hose, and by the time he got the pail full 19 little boys, all breathless off bicycles, had succeeded in batting and stamping and patting out the fire in the rose arbor which, except for a couple of blackened stakes, now lay coiling in embery ecstasy of destiny on the ground, as cedar wood does.

“Oh, well,” said Jim, “that arbor always did have a jinx on it. Maybe the next arbor will be lucky.”

“Anyway, wood ashes are very good for the soil,” I agreed. “And you can dig in some nice ashes here.”

“Now I come to think of it,” said Jim, surveying the ruins, “I don’t believe I’ll have an arbor there. That arbor always looked kind of useless. I think I’ll just plant another spiraea bush there. And maybe a couple of iris roots.”

“Everything works out for the best in most people’s gardens,” I suggested.

“Yes, sir,” said Jim, “a nice spiraea bush.”

“O.K., said, I, handing him the nozzle of the hose, which he proceeded to coil back up and put down cellar for the time being, there being no watering to do for some weeks yet.

Editor’s Notes: There was one strange thing with the printing of this story, that only someone very familiar with the stories would notice. Every story I’ve looked at always says “Illustrated by James Frise”, whereas this one says “Jimmy Frise”. Also, though typos are occasional in stories can happen, this one had a whole paragraph repeated. Perhaps there was an inexperienced typesetter this week? Or an inexperienced editor looking at the proofs?

Also, I haven’t brought up Canadian vs. American spelling before. I often see what I would consider American spelling these older stories (like “Arbor” over “Arbour”). It seems that while British spelling was common in the 19th century and earlier, the 20th century used more American spelling. I’m not sure when the switch commonly changed, but I do see that American spelling could occur up to the 1960s. For Greg in particular, he could have published a story in the 1960s with American spelling, but when it was collected into a book in the 1970s, Canadian spelling was substituted.

1. Burning leaves became illegal in the 1960s. ↩︎