Amateur Gardening

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Title:     Amateur Gardening
Author: Falconbridge [More Titles by Falconbridge]

"I don't see what in sin's become of them dahlias I set out this Spring," said Tapehorn, a retired slop-shop merchant, to his wife, one morning a month ago, as he hunted in vain among the weeds and grass of his garden, to see where or when his two-dollars-a-piece dahlia roots were going to appear.

"Can't think what's the matter with 'em," he continued. "Goldblossom said they were the finest roots he ever sold--ought to be up and in bloom--two months ago."

"Oh, pa, I forgot to tell you," said Miss Tapehorn, "that our Patrick, one morning last Spring, was digging in the garden there, and he turned up some things that looked just like sweet potatoes; mother and I looked at them, and thought they were potatoes those Mackintoshes had left undug when they moved away last winter!"

"Well, you-a--" gasped Tapehorn.

"Well, pa, ma and I had them all dug up and cooked, and they were the meanest tasting things we ever knew, and we gave them all to the pigs!"

Tapehorn looked like a man in the last stages of disgust, and jamming his fists down into his pockets, he walked into the house, muttering:

"Tut, tut, tut!--thirty-two dollars and the finest lot of dahlias in the world--gone to the pigs!"

[The end]
Falconbridge's short story: Amateur Gardening

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