"Alas," I cried (in my dream), "whither shall I turn? Is there no spot on earth where I can die in peace?"
Then, O joy! it occurred to me (in my dream) that I owned the thirty-three feet back of the dear old home. Two years' taxes were due on it, but it was still mine--all mine!
"The snow is deep and clean and hospitable there," I cried (still in my dream), "and it is all mine own! To that snowbank will I make my way, and there will I lie down to sleep my last sleep."
But just then I awoke to discover that it was only a dream. Had I been of a superstitious nature I might have read in this dream divers premonitions and strange significances. As it was, it merely confirmed me in my belief that I had done wisely in securing that thirty-three-foot strip.
Mr. Black went back home next day, and nothing more was said for the nonce about a "will" or a "life estate," or any matter thereunto appertaining, and disagreeable to Alice and to me alike. The cold weather having melted away into sunshine and warmth, I once more began to be deeply interested in horticulture and floriculture, and this, too, in spite of the ineffaceable scars which the spade-wielding vandals had left in the large front yard in the alleged interest of the sewer, water, and gas-pipes.
This enthusiasm of mine in behalf of matters of which I knew absolutely nothing was retired by my respected neighbor, Fadda Pierce, who is so learned in all affairs involving flowers and shrubbery that I actually believe that what he does n't know about them is n't worth knowing. Fadda's cottage is covered with every variety of dainty and luxurious vine, and in his yard bloom all kinds of rare and beautiful flowers. He is so famed for his fondness for and luck with flowers that I felt grateful to the dear old gentleman when he visited me with a view to advising me as to the kind of flowers I ought to plant in my lawn and around the house.
It was then that I learned of the existence of shrubs, vines, and flowers of which I had never before heard. It is indeed amazing that an ordinarily intelligent man can reach the age of forty-five years without being able to profess truthfully a more or less intimate acquaintance with hydrangeas, fuchsias, taraxacums, syringas, sisymbriums, gilliflowers, kentaphyllons, maydenheer, chrysanthemums, orchids, geraniums, lichens, laburnums, jasmines, heliotropes, gentians, eucalyptuses, crocuses, carnations, dahlias, cactuses, billybuttons, anemones, anthropomorphons, amaranths, etc., etc. Fadda Pierce did not chide me for my heathenish ignorance; he seemed to take it for granted that I had been too busy acquiring knowledge in other lines to have time to devote to research in botany. He was much more considerate than neighbor Roth was when he pulled up his team in front of my house one day and asked me how far it was to Glencoe. I answered that I did not know; whereupon he shrugged his shoulders and muttered: "I thought as much, by gosh! You can tell how fur 't is to the sun, the moon, an' the stars, but you can't tell how fur 't is to Glencoe!"