The Practical Flower Garden

Through the opening of her hood, Helen could see that the sign on the First National Bank of Barrow read minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit. She sighed. The sign flashed two o'clock. The time of day did not really matter in a small town on the northern tip of Alaska in mid-December: the time until the next sunrise would be marked on a calendar, not a clock. The smattering of Christmas lights mixed in with the shop signs did little to cheer the nine year old girl. The winter streets were illuminated mostly by the perpetual yellow glare of the sodium lamps reflected off of the dirty snow. She waited for an Eskimo on a snowmobile to pass, and then she crossed the street to the Burger Giant.

She stood close to the window, so that the fake fur which lined her hood made a seal against the glass. As she looked in, she could feel a little radiant heat which warmed her face but not her feet--or her thoughts. Her father was helping a customer, and her older brother was manning the fry baskets. She thought about asking her father again. It had been almost a year since the last time she had asked--begged--her father to sell the franchise and move back to Oregon. That was all she wanted for Christmas: to move back to the real world, to have grass and trees and flowers in the back yard, to never see ice or tundra again.

Actually, she wanted one other thing for Christmas: a certain book. Helen shuffled down the street toward the used book store. She was a dark bundle of clothing, and nothing in her exterior features, or lack of features, served to distinguish her from any other Barrowite. She kicked her way through a small drift of snow, and walked up to the window of Barrow Books. The display was full of travel books about tropical islands. Her nose almost touched the glass as she looked at the cover photographs with their lush foliage, warm seas, and vibrant colors. She went to the door and pushed away the drifted snow which had accumulated; as was usual at this time of day, no one had passed through for several hours. Helen opened the door with a measured kick.

An old man sat on a stool behind the counter. An old cocker spaniel was sprawled on the glass counter top. The dog opened his eyes and looked toward the door. He started to wag his tail. The old man said "Hello Helen" before the girl even removed her hood. As she pulled the hood back, a mass of wavy blond hair spilled out. She hung the coat on the rack, and it looked like another person standing beside her. She seemed to have lost fifty pounds in shedding her coat, although she was still heavily bundled in sweaters and nylon-shelled coveralls that swished as she walked. She stepped up to the counter and petted the dog. "Hello Mr. Jones," she said to the dog. "Hello Martin," she said to the old man.

"How was school?" Martin asked.

Helen's cheeks were beginning to redden from the heat of the store. "It sucked," she replied.

Martin looked over his glasses at her. He closed his book and set it on the counter next to Mr. Jones. "That kind of language is neither appropriate nor becoming for such a beautiful young girl," he said with a smile. "Besides, it's not very descriptive. You should try saying, 'It was boring and tedious.' Or, 'It was unenlightening.' Or, 'It was dreary.'"

She looked up at him and smiled, making red apples of her cheeks. "Dreary is a good word. Dreary is a good word for all of Barrow."

"Now, Helen, have you ever really given this town a chance? Or did you start hating Barrow before you even left Oregon?"

Helen did not respond.

Martin continued, "You need to try and enjoy the good things about Barrow."

Helen snorted. "That's what my mother always says."

"Well, just because she's your mother, that doesn't mean she can't be right sometimes."

Helen shrugged.

"When you lived in Oregon, didn't you like to play in the snow?"

"Yes," she said, dipping her head to the left. "But that was different."

"How?"

"It wasn't thirty below zero."

Martin laughed. "Good point."

"And I knew that after the snow ended I would get spring and summer with grass and flowers instead of the muddy thawing-out around here."

"True."

"And I had a friend to play with."

Martin smiled ruefully. "Aren't there any kids around here that you like?"

"Oh they're okay. Except, most of them are Inupiats, which isn't bad, but they just seem to like different stuff than I do. And then there's a few other white kids, but--but I just haven't found a friend like Allison."

After a moment's silence, Martin said, "I guess Barrow pretty much sucks, doesn't it."

Helen smiled.

"But isn't there anything that you like about Barrow?"

"The book store. You and Mr. Jones." Then she looked toward the back corner of the store. "Quincy."

Martin nodded in that direction. "He's waiting for you."

As Helen swished off toward the rear of the store, Martin called after her, "so what'll it be? The usual?"

"Please," she replied, without looking back.

Martin ejected a Louis Armstrong tape from the player, and inserted a tape on which the well-worn label could barely be made out: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons.

In a nook between two tall book shelves was an overstuffed chair covered with a blanket. The calico cat on the blanket opened one eye and quickly closed it again. Then he stretched all four legs at once while lying on his side. Itzhak Perlman and the London Philharmonic began to play Vivaldi, softly. Helen pulled down the straps of her coveralls and removed the top two sweaters, laying them over the back of the chair. She stroked Quincy, who began to purr.

The shelves to the left of the chair contained gardening books. No dust had accumulated on the ledge in front of one particular book, and Helen pulled this one down. The gold, engraved lettering on the spine read The Practical Flower Garden. Helen scooped up Quincy, and settled into the chair. She replaced Quincy on her lap, but he had to stand up, circle about three times, tread upon her stomach with his front paws, and then flop down into his original position.

Once Quincy was settled, she cracked open her book. It fell open to her favorite picture, a half-tone print titled "At the foot of the Terrace." The place was marked with a glassine envelope containing a pair of fragile, crumbling leaves, or perhaps they were flower petals with their color drained by time. Helen could not tell from what sort of plant they came. The envelope must have been placed there by the original owner of the book, perhaps as early as 1911, the year of the book's publication.

Helen's favorite picture, in which she now immersed herself, was of a warm summer's day, or perhaps it was late spring. A grass field ran off to infinity, and the trees were fully leafed-out. A fence came forward from the horizon to join a stone wall, and in front of the wall were sheep. Lots of sheep. Warm, soft, fuzzy sheep, all facing the same way, grazing. Although the picture was in black and white, Helen could easily imagine the green of the grass. As she absentmindedly stroked the purring cat, Helen was transported back in time and thousands of miles away from the frozen streets of Barrow. She was almost smiling.

When "La primavera" and "L'estate" had played out, Martin turned the tape over for "L'autunno" and "L'inverno." Martin heard no stirrings from Helen's corner of the store. When someone kicked the front door open, Mr. Jones cracked open his eyes, but he quickly closed them again, and he did not wag his tail. The heavily bundled form pulled back its hood to reveal a woman whose gray hair was fixed in a pair of uneven pigtails. She looked at the dog on the counter as if she were about to scold him. She opened her mouth, looked over at Martin, reshaped her mouth into a saccharine smile, and said "Hellooo." Martin nodded and smiled politely. The woman looked about the store, seeming puzzled.

"Can I help you find something?" inquired Martin.

"Yeesss. I'm looking for a book called 'Inspired By The Light' or 'Illuminated By The Light' or 'Impaled By The Light' or soommmething like that." She looked puzzled again, but then she looked at Martin and snapped on her practiced smile.

"I rather doubt that we have it, but you're welcome to take a look. The Astrophysics section is along that wall," he said with a wave of his hand. "The Self-Help, Do-It-Yourself, Pop-Psychology, New-Age, Spirituality section is right there in front of you."

The woman looked at the shelves in front of her. After a moment, she looked over at Martin, but this time she forgot to smile.

"Of course," said Martin, "you might try the library at the corner of Okpik Street and Pigokak Avenue. They might have a more contemporary selection."

"Thank you," said the woman.

Martin sensed that she probably was not sincere. She snapped her hood back up over her head and walked out. Mr. Jones opened his right eye and looked at Martin.

"I know," answered Martin. "Business would probably be alot better if I didn't get smart with the customers."

Mr. Jones went back to sleep. Martin grabbed a stack of books and stepped out from behind the counter. He placed the books on the appropriate shelves, and as he worked his way toward Helen's corner, he could hear her reading certain passages out loud.

"Should those winter town-dwellers who are lovers of nature, and whose thoughts during the ice-bound months continually wander to their own gardens or to trees and green places which they know and love, chance to take a short trip in the near country in mid-March, a brightness and a touch of warmth in the sunshine, and certain awakenings of nature, will bring to them a thrill of delight in the knowledge that 'the winter is past.'"

Martin peeked through one of the shelves, and he could see that she was now standing before Quincy, reading to him as if she were giving a lecture. From his vantage point, he was unable to tell if Quincy was paying attention.

"Snow banks may be lingering in dark nooks; there may still be a fringe of ice upon the brooks that wander through the woods; but in marshy places the skunk cabbage is unfolding its broad leaves; the downy buds are expanding upon the willows; many maples show a tinge of the red of coming blossoms; grass that has been properly cared for is already emerald-green; crocuses and snowdrops are bravely blooming in sheltered places, and, if one gently lifts the covering of the beds where daffodils have slept through the winter, their slender green tips will be seen pushing through the brown earth. Frogs in sunny ponds are beginning to pipe their shrill song, the robins have come back, and the town-dweller returns to the noisy city of brick and stone possessed by the longing that spring calls forth, to be at work among the growing things and to watch nature as she comes to life again."

She read the passages fluidly, as if she had read them many times before, and she gave the prose a rhythm which made it sound like poetry. Martin sorted and resorted books that did not need sorting so that he could remain within eavesdropping range. Eventually, she came to a passage which seemed to appeal to her more than anything she had read yet.

"The white border is my greatest delight; the flowers grown in it are exquisite at night as well as in the day time."

She liked the sound of that verse so much that she read it again.

"The white border is my greatest delight; the flowers grown in it are exquisite at night as well as in the day time."

She fell silent after that, and Martin finished his spurious sorting and moved on to another shelf in order to avoid detection. He was out of earshot when Helen said, "I miss the daytime, Quincy."

A week later, the heat wave swept into Barrow. Overnight, the mercury soared to zero degrees, and a foot of new snow, fresh and clean, blanketed the moonlit landscape. As Helen awoke on the first day of Christmas break, she sensed the change immediately. She jumped out of bed and stood at the window. Usually, the rime on the outside of the window left only a tiny porthole through which to view the outside world, but on this morning the interior heat had cleared the entire window. She put her hand to the glass, and it was not nearly as cold as usual. She could not see very far into the darkness, but even within the range of the floodlight in the back yard, she could tell that new snow had fallen.

She was dressed in seconds, and she thundered down the stairs to the kitchen. "Good morning," she said to her mother. Her cheerful tone of voice must have caught her mother's attention, for she turned and looked at her daughter as if to see if this cheerful girl might be an impostor in place of her chronically-sullen daughter.

"Well, you must have gotten up on the right side of the bed for once."

Helen blushed slightly and remained silent as she looked in the refrigerator. She grabbed an apple and stuffed it in the pocket of her coveralls. As she poured a glass of orange juice, she could tell that her mother was still watching her. Finally, the question came.

"Are you this excited because school's out for three weeks?"

"No. I'm just glad that it snowed."

Her mother looked at her in disbelief.

"Really. You know what you said about me trying to enjoy the good things about Barrow? Well, I had this idea that if it warmed up and snowed then I could make some things in the snow." She gulped down her orange juice.

"That's great," her mother said, still looking bewildered. "What are you going to make?"

"You'll see. I'm going out now."

"Okay," said her mother.

As Helen pushed the kitchen door's screen door open, it carved an arc in the drifted snow. The snow had some weight to it, unlike the usual fine powder which dusted Barrow. "Yes!" she cried as she kicked her way out into the back yard.

Her mother watched from the kitchen window as Helen threw handfuls of sparkling snow into the air, letting it fall onto her hair. Helen scooped the snow into a tall, narrow cone. Then she stood back and looked at it. Her mother could not tell what it was supposed to be. Helen disappeared around the corner of the house, and she came back with some short pieces of dowel from the garage. She carefully inserted a thin stick into the top of the cone. Then she patted a ball of snow into a disk and stuck it on the end of the dowel. She stood back and laughed as she admired her work. Her mother laughed as well. She poured herself another cup of coffee, and brought a chair over to the window so that she could watch her daughter in this newfound joy.

By noon, the waning moon had dipped closer toward the northern horizon, and the southern sky began to glow where the sun lurked below the rim of the land. It would be several more weeks before it peeked above the Brooks Range, but the sun did lighten the sky enough to blot out most of the stars. By noon, Helen's mother had abandoned her post by the kitchen window. By noon, Helen had constructed a small courtyard of sculpted snow. By noon, her stomach had become a hollow, growling pit. She was glad when her mother opened the door to announce that lunch was ready.

As she and her mother ate grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, Helen explained her work in the back yard: "It's a Practical Flower Garden, like the one Helena Rutherfurd Ely writes about. I started with a white border. In the back are Bocconia cordata, the spireas, Aruncus and Gigantea, and the white hollyhocks. Then there are Lilium auratum, Lilium candidum, Hyacinthus candicans, and Physos. . . Physos. . . Physosomethingus Virginica."

Without quite turning to look, Helen could tell that her mother was beaming at her. "That's wonderful," cooed her mother. "What are those plants in the middle?"

"Japanese Iris, sweet sultan, Empress candytuft, snapdragons, asters, and gladioli. And behind all that is white Cosmos."

After lunch, they had hot chocolate while Helen explained to her mother all about flowers. She instructed that certain flowers needed to be started "under glass" because of their delicate natures. She told her mother how "it required more intelligence and ability. . . to keep an herbaceous border effective in color, and in good condition, than to run an orchid house." She also talked about the old book from which she had learned all about flowers and gardening. "I found it at Martin's book store. Stewart said he would get it for me for Christmas."

"That's nice of your brother," she replied, "but it sounds like you know the whole book by heart already."

Helen shrugged. "Not the whole book. Not yet, anyway."

Later, as the moon swung around toward the east, Helen sat alone by the window, looking out at her new garden. In her mind, she could almost erase the long shadows created by the floodlight, and she could nearly picture the real flowers under the bright dome of a sky capped by a warm sun. Her imaginings were interrupted by a commotion in the snapdragons. For an instant, she imagined a squirrel foraging among the green leaves, but then her eyes focused on her damaged snow sculpture. Then another white bomb came crashing into the lilies. She sprang out of her chair and rushed out the back door. The temperature had dropped rapidly after the snow storm had passed, and the sub-zero air stung her cheeks. She looked around. She spotted her brother who was laughing as he tried to pack another snowball.

"Stewart! I'll kill you!"

She charged him, but he knocked her to the snow with one hand. Then he lobbed his missile toward Helen's garden. The impact toppled the white Cosmos. He stopped laughing when he looked down and saw the hurt expression on Helen's face.

"Helen, I--" Before he could apologize, she was stomping off toward the house. She slammed the kitchen door. Stewart saw the light come on in her bedroom, and he heard that door slam too. After he took off his boots and jacket in the kitchen, Stewart went upstairs and stood outside Helen's door. He knocked softly. No answer.

"Helen, I'm sorry. I was just playing."

After a minute of silence, he opened her door slowly. Helen was lying face down on the quilted comforter with her arms laced over the pillow and her head buried underneath it. She still had her coveralls on, and her boots, which were dripping a puddle of water onto the bed. Stewart sat on the end of the bed and began to pull her boots off. She kicked at him once, but then she allowed his kindness.

"I'm sorry, okay?" He slapped her on the thigh, gently, playfully.

"Well, at least you got me what I wanted for Christmas," said Helen, her voice muffled by the pillow.

"What?" said Stewart.

Helen pulled her head out from under the pillow, imparting static to her hair and making it stand out in arcing rays like the Aurora Borealis. She smoothed it down with her hand, and looked at Stewart. "You don't fool me. I saw that the book was gone from the book store yesterday, so I know you must have bought it for me."

"Oh, right," he said, turning his face away from hers.

"So, can I have it now?"

"No. You have to wait until Christmas." He stood up and picked up her boots.

"But it's only five days."

"Then you won't have to wait very long, okay squirt?"

"Oh, alright."

Stewart smiled nervously at her. "I'll take your wet boots down to the kitchen for you."

She nodded. "Thanks."

Down in the kitchen, Stewart pulled on his boots and gloves and parka, and he ran out the door. He ran as fast as he could toward Ogrook Street. When he burst into Barrow Books and pulled off his hood, his face was red from the stinging wind. Mr. Jones wagged his tail, and Martin watched as the boy hung up his coat. Stewart looked around for a moment, and then came over to the counter.

"How do you do," said Martin, as Stewart petted the golden cocker spaniel.

"Fine. I'm looking for this one book, but I can't remember the name of it. I know it's about gardening or something, and I know you have it here because my sister comes in here all the time and reads it."

"Oh!" exclaimed Martin, his countenance brightening. "You must be Stewart. Yes, I see the resemblance now."

Stewart smiled. "So, you know the book I'm talking about?"

"I think so. Let's go over and take a look."

As Martin descended from his perch on the stool, his first few steps were stiff and slow. He led Stewart over to the gardening section, where Quincy acknowledged the presence of the intruders only by the rotation of his left ear. Martin pointed to the empty space on the shelf where the thick dust had been kept clear.

"This is where it was. The Practical Flower Garden it was called."

"Yes, that's the one," said Stewart, looking anxious. "Where is it?"

"Well," said Martin, turning his back on Stewart and walking back to the front counter. "It's not here. I think I might have sold it."

Stewart jumped around in front of him. "But you couldn't have sold it!"

"I think I must have." Martin stepped around him and continued toward the counter. "How long have you known that she wanted that book?"

"Oh, about three months or so."

Martin sat on the stool, and leaned forward to rest both palms on the glass counter top. He looked over his glasses at Stewart. "And you waited until five days before Christmas?"

Stewart shrugged.

"You'll have to think of something else, rather quickly."

"But she doesn't want anything else."

Martin shrugged, mocking Stewart (although Stewart seemed not to notice.)

"She's pissed at me already. If I don't get that book, she'll never speak to me again."

"What did you do?"

Stewart lowered his head, and kicked at one boot with the other. "She was making this snow sculpture, and I ruined part of it."

Martin rocked back on the stool, crossing his arms. "What did the sculpture look like?"

"I don't know. I guess it was some sort of small city, maybe. There were spires, and rows of tall things with wooden stems and balls, or disks, maybe, on top of the stems. . . ."

"Could it have been a garden?"

Stewart was silent for several moments. Then he shrugged. "I guess."

"Your little sister created a magical garden out of snow, and you destroyed it?"

"But I didn't know it was anything special."

Martin glowered. "And now you're not going to give her the one little book she wants?"

Stewart stared at the floor.

"You'd better think of something very special to make it up to her."

Stewart looked up. "Like what?"

"Maybe I could try to help you think of something. Are you sixteen?"

"Next May."

"You could promise to drive her wherever she wants to go."

"Nah. My mom and dad will probably make me do that anyway."

"True."

"Besides, everything's within walking distance in Barrow.

"True. Well, let's think of something else."

Stewart furrowed his brow as he mulled over the problem.

On Christmas morning, Helen awoke at five fifteen. She went to the window, where the rime was slowly creeping toward the middle of the pane, narrowing the view again. Thin, high clouds veiled the moon, limiting the light, and the floodlight for the back yard was off, so Helen could not see much of anything. She put her hand near the window, but she didn't need to touch the glass to feel that it was bitter cold outside. She dressed relatively lightly, in a tee-shirt and sweats, and headed downstairs.

She sat on the floor beside the Christmas tree, and started digging through the presents. She made a little pile of gifts for herself, and then she began to guess.

"Clothes," she said to herself, softly, and she set the first package aside.

"More clothes," she muttered, about the next package.

After going through the whole pile, she looked dissatisfied. None of the packages was the right shape, size, or weight.

"He must be bringing it down later," she whispered to herself. Then she put all the gifts back, mixing them in with the others.

As first her mom, then her dad, then her brother got up, Helen tried not to seem overly anxious. As everyone opened presents, Helen tried to seem pleased and grateful, although she obviously was not as excited about anything as Stewart was about his new video game cartridge.

As Stewart placed the last present on his pile of booty, he noticed that Helen was watching him.

"Hey Helen," he said. "Let's go up to your room."

She jumped up. "Okay." She was waiting by the door of her room before Stewart got out of his chair. When he and his mother finally got to the top of the stairs, Stewart said, "Go in and stand by the window." Helen rushed to the window and looked out. Her brother and mother stood behind her.

"Okay!" yelled Stewart, and downstairs, Helen's father flipped the switch. The floodlight lit up the snow in the back yard.

"'At the foot of the Terrace'," exclaimed Helen.

A stone wall was constructed out of snow, and in front of the wall were more than a dozen sheep, all facing north, all with their heads down, grazing on the snow-grass. The moon came out of the clouds, giving a bluish edge to the gold-tinted sheep.

Helen turned to Stewart. "How did you do it?"

Stewart smiled. "Dad and Martin helped me do it last night after you went to sleep. Martin remembered that it was your favorite picture. We fixed your flower garden, too, as best we could."

Helen looked down and saw that the white Cosmos had been restored to its former height, although it looked a little different. The other damage had been repaired, and the whole garden had been glazed with a thin sheet of ice.

"We sprayed it with the hose," Stewart explained. "The water froze instantly."

Helen gave Stewart a hug, which erased the tension from his forehead and brought a smile to his lips. Helen saw that her father had joined them in the room, and she hugged him as well.

Then Stewart said, "About the book, Helen, I--"

"I think," interrupted their mother, "that Santa might have left a book by the fireplace last night."

Helen charged downstairs to find her favorite book sitting beside a box of Paperwhite narcissi on the hearth. Her book was mixed in with some other old books, and it had escaped her attention earlier that morning. As she bent down to retrieve the book, she smelled the Paperwhites, and they smelled like sweet sunshine. As Stewart came down the stairs, she turned to him, smiling and hugging her book, and said, "Thank you."

He shrugged, looking bewildered. "You're welcome."

Helen spent the day perched by the kitchen window, reading her book, and looking out at the snowy sheep. Around noon, she saw the southern sky grow lighter. She imagined that the dawn might actually come, that spring could be just around the corner. She dreamed, and she read.

The happy owners of gardens know that now no day should be lost. With every new sun, the buds on trees and shrubs expand and the plants awaken, one by one. The ground must be prepared, seeds sown, and, in fact, the most delightful season in the gardener's life has come, for now she is inspired by hope. The many misfortunes that may overtake her garden in later months have now no place in her thoughts. Rose bugs, mildew, cut-worm, rust, and the dreadful summer drought, have for her, as yet, no existence. Every seed will germinate and become a sturdy plant which will blossom the season through. All the color arrangements planned will satisfy her anticipations; the spring, summer and early autumn are to her ample fruition for her present labors; for the blessed new birth of imagination and hope, which comes to the nature-lover in the youth of the year, makes all things seem possible.

Even an experienced gardener is often led away by the fascinating descriptions in the plant and seedsmen's catalogues, whose pictures both fire and bewilder the imagination. And what could be more heavenly for the woman gardener than to be able to grow all these flowers and plants, and to attain the marvelous results pictured in the catalogues; to have all the space she wanted in which to grow them, to have all the men she needed--really good and efficient men--to cultivate them, and a husband who never grumbled about the amount of manure or fertilizer she used!