"No, ma'am; you see it's rheumatiz just in the small, through the rain on it sometimes, and the sun on it sometimes, and the perspiration on it always, along o' that bit o' lawn swade. Nice bit o' green swade, though, as any in the county--spongy, and springy, and clean. Deal o' worrit though, to get it to rights, what with the worms a-throwing up their casties, and them old starlings pegging it about and tearing it to rags, and then the daisies coming up all over it in all directions. There ain't nothing like daisies: cut their heads off, and they like it; spud 'em up, and fresh tops come; stop 'em in one place, and they comes up in another. I can't get riddy of 'em. That bit o' lawn would be perfect if it wasn't for the daisies; but they will come up, and like everything else in this life, that there lawn ain't perfect. They will come, you know: they will live, and you can't kill 'em. They ain't like some things in this life that won't live, do all you can to make 'em. "There, don't you take no notice of them; they ain't tears, they ain't; that isn't crying, that's a sort o' watery weakness in the eyes through always being a gardener all your life, and out in the wet. Only, you know, when I get talking about some things living do all you can to kill 'em--such as weeds, you know, and daisies; and of some things not living, do all you can to make 'em, like balsams in frosty springs, you know--I think about my boy, as was always such a tender plant, do all I would, and about all the plans I'd made for him, and all cut short by one o' the sharp frosts as the good Master of all sends sometimes in every garden, whether it's such a one as this, with good shelter, and a south aspeck, and plenty of warm walls for your trained trees, or the big garden of life, with the different human trees a-growing in it; some fair plants growing to maturity, and sending out fine green leaves, well veined and strong, well-shaped blossoms of good colour and sweet smell, fair to look upon, and doing good in this life; sturdy, well-grown trees of men, and bright-hued, tender, loving plants of women; some with tendrils and clinging ways--the fruitful vines upon your house--and many clustering blossoms of children; and bad weeds, and choking thorns, and poison-berries, and all. Life's just one big garden, and when I stick my spade in like this here, and rest my foot on it, and my elber on the handle, and my chin on my hand, I get thinking about it all in a very strange way, oftens and oftens. "Say I get a bit of ground ready, and put seed in. That's faith, ain't it? I put those little tiny brown grains in, and I know in all good time, according as the great God has ordained, those tiny grains will come up, and blow, and seed in their turns. Not all though; some gets nipped, and never comes to anything, spite of all your care, some slowly shrivels away, and those that do are generally the best.