Just beyond lay the truly enchanted part of the garden, where a captive
princess might have passed her time happily enough. We were accustomed
to read in our fairy-stories of the Garden of the Hesperides and other
remarkable places where grew apples of pure gold and glittering precious
stones in the form of peaches and plums. But what were these cold, stony
and thoroughly indigestible objects compared with the warm, glowing, and
luscious fruit of “Green Peace”? Moreover, the magic supply of this was
inexhaustible. For, after frosts had settled the business of the last
grapes on the trellis and the last lingering apples on the trees, the
fruit of the garden was by no means exhausted. You had but to peep into
the shallow drawers in the pear-room to see supplies of delicious winter
pears—Easter Beurré’s and winter Nellis, to say nothing of barrels of
glorious golden-russet apples. In the center of the garden was a sort of
shrine to Pomona, consisting of a hothouse and bowling-alley, with
school-house (later used as a pear-room) adjoining.
There were at least four strawberry-beds filled with different varieties
of the fruit, also raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries of many
colors, plums, nectarines, peaches, apples, quinces, and, last but not
least, pears.
Of the last-named fruit my father was especially fond. He cultivated
with the greatest care many varieties of these. In recent years I have
learned that the delicious French pears for which the neighborhood of
Boston is famous were brought there by the French Huguenots.
Our parents often had bowling parties in our childhood, and it amused us
to observe the different ways in which the players handled the balls.
Inexperienced persons would choose a small ball and toss it up in the
air in a delightfully ridiculous way, instead of rolling it swiftly
along the floor of the alley. I seem to remember Mr. Seguin, the famous
authority on idiots, thus maneuvering with a small ball. My father had
brought him to South Boston to assist in the work of starting the
Massachusetts School for Idiots, the first to be established in America.
“The dogs,” as they were called generically, guarded this paradise from
urchins over-appreciative of the flavor of the celestial fruit. The
backbone of this canine police force was a very large and not thoroughly
amiable Newfoundland dog, named Arthur. An enemy dog called Lion lived
in Boston, and would occasionally cross the bridge and take a two-mile
trot over to “Green Peace” to try conclusions with Arthur. A battle
royal would thereupon ensue, the gardener and my father or another
employee each holding one of the combatants by the tail and belaboring
him until he consented to let go of his enemy. We watched the encounter
from a respectful distance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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