Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1907 — BOWSER AS GARDENER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BOWSER AS GARDENER

Things He Planted Havg a Hard Time of It. WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. There Are No Flowers or Vegetables, but a Good Crop of Almost Everything Else—Poor Man Is Heartbroken Over the Affair. [Copyright, 1907, by Homer Sprague.] The first robin had scarcely made Its appearance in the last days of March when Mr. Bowser returned home from the office one evening bringing a package under his arm. When questioned as to its contents he replied: “I have been Investing In garden seeds. Last spring I waited too long before planting anything, but I am not to be caught that way again.” “But our back yard does not get sun enough,” protested Mrs. Bowser, “and you know the soil is full of brickbats and mortar. I don’t believe you will ever make anything grow there.” “But I will show you to the contrary. I met a gardener today who gave me a few valuable tips- I’ll have a garden this year to deMght the heart. I not only need the exercise, but I have tired of buying wilted vegetables at the grocery. I want my fresh radishes, lettuce and tomatoes with the dew on them. I want things to look homelike around me. We are penned up here like a~lot of savages, with no sentiment to appeal to us, and sometimes I feel I

TOLD THAT IF SHE AS MUCH AS PUT HER FOOT ON ONE OF THOSE BEDS HEB DOOM WAS BUBE. am returning to barbarism. I want flowers and vegetablls. I want to seem a part of them. I want my tenderness ans goodness to come back.” Did Not Discourage Him. Mrs. Bowser didn’t encourage or discourage. She knew that Mr. Bowser would be opposed by cats and boys and tramps and thunderstorms and late frosts, but at the same time she hoped that Providence might be on his side. As soon as the frost was out of the ground Mr. Bowser bought a spade and began work. He struck brickbats. He struck cobblestones. He struck clothespins and clothes props. He struck wire clotheslines that bad mysteriously disappeared years ago and had never been heard of since. Boys cheered him from back windows and threw old boots at him. Cats walked the fence on all sides of the yard and made stenographic notes of the Tramps came along the alley and stopped at the gate to ask him if he had murdered his wife and was preparing a grave. And it snowed, and it hailed, and it rained, and there were thunderstorms. He got wet. and he was covered with mud, and he blistered his hands, but he hung to bis job. He had set out to make a garden, and nothing could daunt him. On twenty different occasions while he was making the flower and vegetable beds Mrs. Bowser besought him to give up the work, but he Invariably struck his left palm with his right fist and replied: “Give up nothing! Mrs. Bowser, you don’t know me yet. lam a determined man. I- said I would make a garden, and a garden I will make though the heavens fall.” Mr. Bowser bought a shovel, a rake and a hoe. He bought a load of rich soil from n farmer to mingle with his brickbats. He bought guano from th! He bought compost from the livery stable. There were two hours’ work for him every evening after dinner. Before the month of April bad ended his back began to hump and his Shoulders to lop, and he grew hollow eyed, and his voice was hoarse, but when Mrs. Bowser begged him to give It up and go fishing he replied: 4 v No fishing for fish. I have set out to Accomplish something, and I’ll accomplish it or die in my tracks.” He sowed lettuce and radish seeds. HO sowed onion seed and bought tomato sprouts. He provided for pumpkins and hollyhocks. He planted watermelon and cantaloupe seeds, and he arranged for summer squashes. The clotheslines were boosted up, and the Cook was told that If she as much as put her foot on one of those beds her doom was sure. Last of all, he went about the yard planting sunflower seed wherever there was a vacant spot. The sunflower particularly appealed to him. It was an emblem of Innocence. It had no guile about It. It was ingenuous and frank. It turned its honest face to the sub every morning and was not afraid of an Investigation. Mr. Bowser would have

COO of them In his garden, and as be walked among them at eventide with his hands behind his back he would be at peace with all inankind. . < Refused to Buy. Dating the month of spading, shoveling, hoeing, raking and sowing and planting Mr. Bowser was called on by men who wanted to sell him new milk cows and who had hogs and hens to dispose of, but be turned them away. Parties wanted to sell him automobilea and balloons, but he shook his head and planted more sunflower seeds. He was offered stock In oil wells and copper mines at ridiculously low figures, but he waved them Members of the Gay Old Boys* club called to ask him to deliver an address, but the address he delivered made their hair stand up. It was only when the month pf May was ten days old that Mr. Bowser finished his work and waited for results. He had done his share, and now nature must do the rest. There came frosts and thunder showers. Boys Invaded the yard and galloped over the beds. Dogs got in and dug for bones, and cats scratched up the soil in search of treasure, but he was not discouraged. It was when he began to call out in his sleep nightly and talk about flowers and vegetables that Mrs. Bowser felt that she ought to call the doctor In. He was sent for. He declared that Mr. Bowser had lost fifty pounds of flesh in six weeks and that if he did not cease working he would not be long for this world. He found one shoulder lopped down four Inches and one leg contracted six, and he estimated that the spine was six inches out of plumb, lie said all this and much more, and Mr. Bowser listened in grim silence and then answered: Doctor. I’ll have a garden if I have to walk around in it after I’m dead.” Green Shoots Appear. One evening in the latter days of May there were some green shoots to be observed on one of the beds. Mrs. Bowser and the cook were brought out to view them, and Mr. Bowser turned his head away to conceal his tears. The garden was coming on. Nature was reaching out her hand for a shake. That night he got out of bed five different times to go to the back window and see that the green shoots were all right, and in his sleep he called out that he would murder the human hyena who dared to rob him of them, Alas, when morning came those green shoots were no more! Two or three dogs in search of prime beef bones had entered the yard between times and dug and scratched and pawed until “nothing r_ Wleft Mrs. Bowser looked for an outbreak, but none followed. Mr. Bowser’s face simply took on a new grimness, and he made and replanted the beds. A week later there were other green things showing up all over the garden. A warm rain had popped everything out of the ground* like rapid transit. That evening Mr. Bowser smiled and laughed for the first time in many days. He had fought the fight and felt that he had won. He could even identify the hollyhocks from the sunflowers. He went to bed like a man who has done a good deed and sees his reward in view, and the cook made up her mind that if he was a paranoiac he was not dangerous. Garden Was Ruined. That night came a thundershower, but Mr. Bowser slept and recked not The thunderbolts spared his garden, but still when he arose in the morning he looked upon a scene of devastation. A prowling dog had discovered a cat in the alley at midnight and run her into the Bowser garden and across and around it. Other cats had come to her assistance; other dogs had mixed In. Amid the flashes and the reverberations a great battle bad been fought. No matter which side won, all had escaped with their lives. It was the garden that had been ground between two millstones. Not a green thing remained. Sunflowers, hollyhocks, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers—all had been squashed to squash and trampled into the mud to be seen never again. Mr. Bowser looked from a back window and turned away. Mrs. Bowser patted him softly on the back, and he lay down on the lounge and closed his eyes. He was a walloped man.

M. QUAD.