Brownsmith's Boy: A Romance in a Garden

by George Manville Fenn

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

  LEARNING MY LESSONS.

  Next morning the old gentleman talked at breakfast-time about thepolice, and having the young scoundrels sent to prison. Directly after,he went down the garden with me and nine cats, to inspect the damages,and when he saw the trampling and breaking of boughs he stroked atom-cat and made it purr, while he declared fiercely that he would notlet an hour pass without having the young dogs punished.

  "They shall be caught and sent to prison," he cried.

  "Poor old Sammy then.--I'll have 'em severely punished, the youngdepredators.--Grant, you'd better get a sharp knife and a light ladder,and cut off those broken boughs--the young villains--and tell Ike tobring a big rake and smooth out these footmarks. No; I'll tell him.You get the knife. I shall go to the police at once."

  I cut out the broken boughs, and Ike brought down the ladder for me andsmoothed over the footmarks, chatting about the events of the past nightthe while.

  "He won't get no police to work, my lad, not he. Forget all about itdirectly. Makes him a bit raw, o' course," said Ike, smoothing awaywith the rake. "Haw! haw! haw! Think o' you two leathering of 'em. Iwish I'd been here, 'stead of on the road to London. Did you hit 'emhard?"

  "Hard as I could," I said. "I think Shock and I punished them enough."

  "So do I. So do he. Rare and frightened they _was_ too. Why, o'course boys will steal apples. I dunno how it is, but they alwayswould, and will."

  "But these were pears," I said.

  "All the same, only one's longer than t'other. Apples and pears. Hewon't do nothing."

  Ike was right, for the matter was soon forgotten, and Mrs Dodley hishousekeeper used the pillow-case as a bag for clothes-pegs.

  Those were bright and pleasant days, for though now and then sometrouble came like a cloud over my life there was more often plenty ofsunshine to clear that cloud away.

  My uncles came to see me, first one and then the other, and they hadvery long talks with Mr Brownsmith.

  One of them told me I was a very noble boy, and that he was proud of me.He said he was quite sure I should turn out a man.

  "Talks to the boy as if he felt he might turn out a woman," OldBrownsmith grumbled after he was gone.

  It was some time after before the other came, and he looked me all overas if he were trying to find a hump or a crooked rib. Then he said itwas all right, and that I could not do better.

  One of them said when he went away that he should not lose sight of me,but remember me now and then; and when he had gone Old Brownsmith said,half aloud:

  "Thank goodness, I never had no uncles!" Then he gave me a comicallook, but turned serious directly.

  "Look here, Grant," he said. "Some folk start life with their gardensalready dug up and planted, some begin with their bit of ground allrough, and some begin without any land at all. Which do you belong to?"

  "The last, sir," I said.

  "Right! Well, I suppose you are not going to wait for one uncle to takea garden for you and the other to dig it up?"

  "No," I said sturdily; "I shall work for myself."

  "Right! I don't like boys to be cocky and impudent but I like a littleself-dependence."

  As the time went on, Old Brownsmith taught me how to bud roses andprune, and, later on, to graft. He used to encourage me to askquestions, and I must have pestered him sometimes, but he never seemedweary.

  "It's quite right," he used to say; "the boy who asks questions learnsfar more than the one who is simply taught."

  "Why, sir?" I said.

  "Well, I'll tell you. He has got his bit of ground ready, and iswaiting for the seed or young plant to be popped in. Then it begins togrow at once. Don't you see this; he has half-learned what he wants toknow in the desire he feels. That desire is satisfied when he is told,and the chances are that he never forgets. Now you say to me--What isthe good of pruning or cutting this plum-tree? I'll tell you."

  We were standing in front of the big red brick wall one bright winter'sday, for the time had gone by very quickly. Old Brownsmith had a sharpknife in his hand, and I was holding the whetstone and a thin-bladed sawthat he used to cut through the thicker branches.

  "Now look here, Grant. Here's this plum-tree, and if you look at it youwill see that there are two kinds of wood in it."

  "Two kinds of wood, sir?"

  "Yes. Can't you tell the difference?"

  "No, sir; only that some of the shoots are big and strong, and some arelittle and twiggy."

  "Exactly: that is the difference, my lad. Well, can you see any moredifference in the shoots?"

  I looked for some moments, and then replied:

  "Yes; these big shoots are long and smooth and straight, and the littletwiggy ones are all over sharp points."

  "Then as there is too much wood there, which had we better cut out.What should you do?"

  "Cut out the scrubby little twigs, and nail up these nice long shoots."

  "That's the way, Grant! Now you'll know more about pruning after thisthan Shock has learned in two years. Look here, my lad; you've falleninto everybody's mistake, as a matter of course. Those fine long shootswill grow into big branches; those little twigs with the points, as youcall them, are fruit spurs, covered with blossom buds. If I cut themout I should have no plums next year, but a bigger and a more barrentree. No, my boy, I don't want to grow wood, but fruit. Look here."

  I looked, and he cut out with clean, sharp strokes all those long shootsbut one, carefully leaving the wood and bark smooth, while to me itseemed as if he were cutting half the tree away.

  "You've left one, sir," I said.

  "Yes, Grant, I've left one; and I'll show you why. Do you see this oldhard bough?"

  I nodded.

  "Well, this one has done its work, so I'm going to cut it out, and letthis young shoot take its place."

  "But it has no fruit buds on it," I said quickly.

  "No, Grant; but it will have next year; and that's one thing wegardeners always have to do with stone-fruit trees--keep cutting out theold wood and letting the young shoots take the old branches' place."

  "Why, sir?" I asked.

  "Because old branches bear small fruit, young branches bear large, andlarge fruit is worth more than twice as much as small. Give me thesaw."

  I handed him the thin-bladed saw, and he rapidly cut out the old hardbough, close down to the place where it branched from the dumpy trunk,and then, handing me the tool, he knelt down on a pad of carpet hecarried in his tremendous pocket.

  "Now look here," he said; and taking his sharp pruning-knife he cut offevery mark of the saw, and trimmed the bark.

  I looked on attentively till he had ended.

  "Well," he said, "ain't you going to ask why I did that?"

  "I know, sir," I said. "To make it neat."

  "Only partly right, Grant. I've cut that off smoothly so that no rainmay lodge and rot the place before the wound has had time to heal."

  "And will it heal, sir?"

  "Yes, Grant. In time Nature will spread a ring of bark round that,which will thicken and close in till the place is healed completelyover."

  Then he busily showed me the use of the saw and knife among the bigstandard trees, using them liberally to get rid of all the scrubby,crowded, useless branches that lived upon the strength of the tree anddid no work, only kept out the light, air, and sunshine from those thatdid work and bear fruit.

  "Why it almost seems, sir," I said one day, "as if Nature had made thetrees so badly that man was obliged to improve them."

  "Ah, I'm glad to hear you say that, my lad," he said; "but you are notright. I'm only a gardener, but I've noticed these things a great deal.Nature is not a bungler. She gives us apple and plum trees, and theygrow and bear fruit in a natural and sufficient way. It is because manwants them to bear more and bigger fruit, and for more to grow on asmall piece of ground than Nature would plant, that man has to cut andprune."

  "But suppo
se Nature planted a lot of trees on a small piece of ground,"I said, "what then?"

  "What then, Grant? Why, for a time they'd grow up thin and poor andspindly, till one of them made a start and overtopped the others. Thenit would go on growing, and the others would dwindle and die away."

  The time glided on, and I kept learning the many little things about theplace pretty fast. As the months went on I became of some use to myemployer over his accounts, and by degrees pretty well knew hisposition.

  It seemed that he had been a widower for many years, and Mrs Dodley,the housekeeper and general servant all in one, confided to me one daythat "Missus's" bonnets and shawls and gowns were all hanging up intheir places just as they had been left by Mrs Brownsmith.

  "Which it's a dead waste, Master Grant," she used to finish by saying,"as there's several as I know would be glad to have 'em; but as tothat--Lor' bless yer!"

  It was not often that Mrs Dodley spoke, but when she did it was toinveigh against some oppression or trouble.

  Candles were a great burden to the scrupulously clean woman.

  "Tens I says," she confided to me one day, "but he will have eights, andwhat's the consequence? If I want to do a bit of extry needle-work Imight light up two tens, but I should never have the heart to burn twoeights at once, for extravagance I can't abear. Ah! he's a hard master,and I'm sorry for you, my dear."

  "Why?" I said.

  "Ah! you'll find out some day," she said, shaking her head and thenbustling off to her work.

  I had not much companionship, for Ike was generally too busy to say aword, and though after the pear adventure Shock did nothing moreannoying to me than to stand now and then upon his head, look at meupside down, and point and spar at me with his toes, we seemed to get tobe no better friends.

  He took to that trick all at once one day in a soft bit of newly dugearth. He was picking up stones, and I was sticking fresh labels at theends of some rows of plants, when all at once he uttered a peculiarmonkey-like noise, down went his head, up went his heels, and I staredin astonishment at first and then turned my back.

  This always annoyed Shock; but one day when he stood up after his quaintfashion I was out of temper and had a bad headache, so I ran to him, andhe struck at me with his feet, just as if they had been hands, only hecould not have doubled them up. I was too quick for him though, andwith a push drove him down.

  He jumped up again directly and repeated the performance.

  I knocked him down angrily.

  He stood up again.

  I knocked him down again.

  And so on, again and again, when he turned and ran off laughing, and Iwent on with my work, vexed with myself for having shown temper.

  Every now and then a fit of low spirits used to attack me. It wasgenerally on washing-days, when Mrs Dodley filled the place with steamearly in the morning by lighting the copper fire, and then seeming to bemaking calico puddings to boil and send an unpleasant soapy odourthrough the house.

  Doors and chair backs were so damp and steamy then that I used to beglad to go out and see Shock, whom I often used to find right away inthe little shed indulging in a bit of cookery of his own.

  If Shock's hands had been clean I could often have joined him in hisfeasts, but I never could fancy turnips boiled in a dirty old sauce-pan,nor tender bits of cabbage stump. I made up my mind that I would someday try snails, but when I did join Shock on a soaking wet morning whenthere was no gardening, and he invited me in his sulky way to dinner,the only times I partook of his fare were on chat days.

  What are chat days? Why, the days when he used to have a good fire ofwood and stumps, and roast the chats, as they called the little refusepotatoes too small for seed, in the ashes.

  They were very nice, though there was not much in one. Still they werehot and floury, and not bad with a bit of salt.

  Wet days, though, were always a trouble to me, and I used to feel a kindof natural sympathy with Mr Brownsmith as he set his men jobs in thesheds, and kept walking to the doors to see if the rain had ceased.

  "That's one thing I should like to have altered in nature," he said tome with one of his dry comical looks. "I should like the rain to comedown in the night, my boy, so as to leave the day free for work. Alwayswork."

  "I like it, sir," I said.

  "No, you don't, you young impostor!" he cried. "You want to be playingwith tops or marbles, or at football or something."

  I shook my head.

  "You do, you dog!" he cried.

  I shook my head again.

  "No, sir," I said; "I like learning all about the plants and thepruning. Ike showed me on some dead wood the other day how to graft."

  "Ah, I'll show you how to do it on live wood some day. There's a lotmore things I should like to show you, but I've no glass."

  "No," I said; "I've often wished we had a microscope."

  "A what, Grant?"

  "Microscope, sir, to look at the blight and the veins in the plants'leaves."

  "No, no; I mean greenhouses and forcing-houses, where fruit andvegetables and flowers are brought on early: but wait a bit."

  I did wait a bit, and went on learning, getting imperceptibly to know agood deal about gardening, and so a couple of years slipped away, whenone day I was superintending the loading of the cart after seeing thatit was properly supported with trestles. Ike was seated astride one ofthe large baskets as if it were a saddle, and taking off his old hat hebegan to indulge in a good scratch at his head.

  "Lookye here," he exclaimed suddenly, "why don't you go to market?"

  "Too young," I said, with a feeling of eagerness flashing through me.

  "Not you," he said slowly, as he looked down at me and seemed to measureme with his eye as one of my uncles did. "There's a much littler boythan you goes with one of the carts, and I see him cutting about themarket with a book under his arm, looking as chuff as a pea on a shovel.He ain't nothing to you. Come along o' me. I'll take an old coat forwrapper, and you'll be as right as the mail. You ask him. He'll letyou come."

  Ike was wrong, for when I asked Old Brownsmith's leave he shook hishead.

  "No, no, boy. You're too young yet. Best in bed."

  "Too partickler by half," Ike growled when I let him know the result ofmy asking. "He's jealous, that's what he is. Wants to keep you all tohisself. Not as I wants you. 'Tain't to please me. You're young andwants eddicating; well, you wants night eddication as well as dayeddication. What do you know about the road to London of a night?"

  "Nothing at all, Ike?" I said with a sigh.

  "Scholard as you are too," growled Ike. "Why, my figgering and writingain't even worth talking about with a pen, though I am good with chalk,but even I know the road to London."

  "He'll let me go some day," I said.

  "Some day!" cried Ike in a tone of disgust. "Any one could go by day.It's some night's the time. Ah! it is a pity, much as you've got tolearn too. There's the riding up with the stars over your heads, andthe bumping of the cart, and the bumping and rattle of other carts, asyou can hear a mile away on a still night before and behind you, andthen the getting on to the stones."

  "On to the stones, Ike?" I said.

  "Yes, of course, on to the paving-stones, and the getting into themarket and finding a good pitch, and the selling off in the morning.Ah! it would be a treat for you, my lad. I'm sorry for yer."

  Ike's sorrow lasted, and I grew quite uneasy at last through beinglooked down upon with so much contempt; but, as is often the case, I hadleave when I least expected it.

  We had been very busy cutting, bunching, and packing flowers one day,when all at once Old Brownsmith came and looked at my slate with thetotal of the flower baskets set down side by side with the tale of thestrawberry baskets, for it was in the height of the season.

  "Big load to-night, Grant," the old gentleman said.

  "Yes, sir; largest load you've sent up this year," I replied, in all mynewly-fledged importance as a young clerk.
>
  "You had better go up with Ike to-night, Grant," said the old mansuddenly. "You are big enough now, and a night out won't hurt you.Here, Ike!"

  "Yes, master."

  "You'll want a little help to-morrow morning to stand by you in themarket. Will you have Shock?"

  "Yes, master, he's the very thing, if you'll send some one to hold him,or lend me a dog-collar and chain."

  "Don't be an idiot, Ike," said Old Brownsmith sharply.

  "No, master."

  "Would you rather have this boy?"

  "Would I rather? Just hark at him!"

  Ike looked round at me as if this was an excellent joke, but OldBrownsmith took it as being perfectly serious, and gave Ike a series ofinstructions about taking care of me.

  "Of course you will not go to a public-house on the road."

  "'Tain't likely," growled Ike, "'less he gets leading me astray andtakes me there."

  "There's a coffee-shop in Great Russell Street where you can get yourbreakfasts."

  "Lookye here, master," growled Ike in an ill-humoured voice, "ain't Ibeen to market afore?"

  "I shall leave him in your charge, Ike, and expect you to take care ofhim."

  "Oh, all right, master!" said Ike, and then the old gentleman gave me anod and walked away.

  "At last, Ike!" I cried. "Hurrah! Why, what's the matter?"

  "What's the matter?" said Ike in tones of disgust; "why, everything'sthe matter. Here, let's have a look at you, boy. Yes," he continued,turning me round, and as if talking to himself, "it is a boy. Any oneto hear him would have thought it was a sugar-stick."