Euphemia tied up
the rose-vines, trimmed the bushes, and with a little rake and hoe
she prepared a flower-bed in front of the parlor-window. This
exercise gave us splendid appetites, and we loved our new home more
and more.
Our German girl did not suit us exactly at first, and day by day
she grew to suit us less. She was a quiet, kindly, pleasant
creature, and delighted in an out-of-door life. She was as willing
to weed in the garden as she was to cook or wash. At first I was
very much pleased with this, because, as I remarked to Euphemia,
you can find very few girls who would be willing to work in the
garden, and she might be made very useful.
But, after a time, Euphemia began to get a little out of patience
with her. She worked out-of-doors entirely too much. And what she
did there, as well as some of her work in the house, was very much
like certain German literature--you did not know how it was done,
or what it was for.
One afternoon I found Euphemia quite annoyed.
"Look here," she said, "and see what that girl has been at work at,
nearly all this afternoon. I was upstairs sewing and thought she
was ironing. Isn't it too provoking?"
It WAS provoking. The contemplative German had collected a lot of
short ham-bones--where she found them I cannot imagine--and had
made of them a border around my wife's flower-bed. The bones stuck
up straight a few inches above the ground, all along the edge of
the bed, and the marrow cavity of each one was filled with earth in
which she had planted seeds.
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