We also experimented with lilies--lemon lilies for the shady north side of the house, tigers for the border beyond the pool, and two or three of the expensive Myriophyllums, just to show that we, too, could go in for the exotic, like our neighbours on the big estates. When the bulbs came, in October, we looked at the boxes sadly. "Whew!" said Stella, "you can't be lazy and have a garden, can you?" "I don't work to-morrow, I guess," said I. "Shall we ask Mike's Joe to help us?" "Never!" said my wife. "We'll put these bulbs in ourselves. If I had any help, I should feel like the Eckstroms, which God forbid!" So the next day at seven-thirty we began. We ringed the pool with German and Japanese iris, alternated for succession, and planted a few Japanese both below and above the pool, close to the brook. We set the _Narcissus poeticus_ bulbs where, if they grew, the flowers could look at themselves in the mirror below the dam. The Empress narcissus we placed on both sides of the pool just beyond the iris. On each side of the bench we placed a bulb of our precious Myriophyllums, and put the tigers into the borders close to the shrubbery on both sides. The hyacinths went into the sundial beds, the Darwins into the beds at the base of the rose aqueduct, a few crocuses into the sundial lawn, and the daffodils here and there all over the place, where the fancy struck us and the ground invited. "Now, I'm going to label everything, and put it on a map besides," cried Stella, "except the daffodils. I want to forget where they are. I want surprises in the spring. Oh, John, do you suppose they'll come up?" "Yes, I suppose they will," I laughed, "some of them. But do you suppose we'll ever get the kinks out of our backs?" "I'm willing to go doubled up the rest of my life, for a garden of daffodils all my own," she cried. "'And then my heart with pleasure thrills And dances with the daffodils----' It was very thoughtful of old Wordsworth, and Shakespeare, and Masefield, and all the rest to write nice things about the daffodils, wasn't it, John? I wonder if gardens would be so wonderful if it weren't for all their literary suggestions, and the lovely things they remind you of? Gardens have so much atmosphere! Oh, spring, spring, hurry and come!" I forgot my lame back in her enthusiasm, and later, when the apples were gathered, the potatoes dug, the beets and carrots in the root cellar, our own sweet cider foamed in a glass pitcher on our table, and the first snow spits of December whistled across the fields, we put a little long manure over the irises and other bulbs, and pine boughs over the remaining perennials, and wrapped the ramblers in straw, with almost as much laughing tenderness as you would put a child to bed.