That's the way with enthusiasts. For finishing a job, give me the plodder whose imagination is subordinate to his hoe. You see, he is a one-idea man, and the idea may not be his own; but the fellow with the genius for starting things is very seldom there at the finish. He dreams large and turns the details over to more successful men. This new thing I started concerns the front plot of garden around the porch. It was a disorganized thing as it stood. I cut out a ditch in front of it, piled all the dirt back against the house and toted baskets of hard stones from a neighboring lot. These I leaned against the sides of the ditch and hammered them in, or cut out the earth and set, making a stone wall that would retain the earth, hold a certain amount of water for irrigation and at the same time be ornamental. It took two hours to make as many yards of this stuff, and several friends called attention to the trouble I was taking for no necessary purpose. Well, that may be so--and probably is--but it is so stupid to be always doing the necessary things, living on the obvious, plugging along on the course of existence that is common to all. NINTH PERIOD By the time I had worn my finger nails to a state of complete dishabille--happy thought!--and had become a hopeless problem for the most sanguine manicurist, I began to learn things really. For instance, this is how a lawn ought to be made: First, grade your ground, then remove all stones and stumps; next roll it and then put on a couple of inches of top soil; then roll that until there isn't a bump in it, sow your grass seed and water constantly, prayerfully. In making our lawn those are the things they didn't do. I don't dare rake our lawn, because the minute I start, out will come a lot of bolders, leaving terrific yawns in the sod. I'm sure the Duke will forgive me for getting peeved about that lawn, when he understands that there are callouses in my hands and knots in my lawn mower. Also, why on earth, after throwing on the grass seed, do the men drive wagons over it and make ruts and jam their heels into it and make holes, where my vagrant sprinklings with the hose create lakes and puddles and produce never a single grass? With a little preliminary exercise, pushing the big road-roller on Garrison avenue and shoving marble blocks out of the Courthouse, I tackled our lawn with a new mower, put together by myself in accordance with instructions. Our lawn mower is painted a beautiful green on the blades, to keep out the rust. Also, it was never intended to cut. It would never do, in an emergency, to shave with. Musically, our lawn mower for the first ten feet sang to my soul a song of sweet, rural peace and contentment. Then it struck a snag and changed the tune.