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Ella's Garden

Mrs. Ella Lacey had a perennial garden. In spring she weeded and seeded, pruned and lovingly tended it. In summer she watered and watched and occasionally sat in a comfortable wicker chair with a cooling drink and rested and enjoyed it. In the fall she pruned again, different things this time, and mulched and fussed so that in winter she could put it from her mind till spring came round again with daffodils and tulips and goodness knows what else that would gladden the heart.

All the neighbors thought her gardening obsessive. They noted that when her husband had been alive he had tended the garden carefully and kept it very neat while she had been more of a potterer. Their yard, front and back had always looked good. Now that she had become a widow she was out there all the time, working and working away. If anything it was becoming more rambling and less manicured the more she toiled.

Many years ago in England Ella's mother had grown a most wondrous garden. Little Ella had wandered as a four year old among her mother's hollyhocks and delphiniums; she had talked to the water irises by the gold fish pond and played in the soil under the buddleia bush. Sometimes she had disappeared for an hour at a time to the vegetable garden where the calendula cavorted around the cabbages with their musky scent and the mustardy nasturtiums navigated the compost heap. Here too, grew the wicked monkshood, the deadly herb of witches. Her mother would come and find her and scold her for going near it and would bring her back to play outside the kitchen door again where she could be watched.

All this ended when school began. Ella simply grew out of it. And yet the magic of the garden was never entirely forgotten. Memories that fade with time often still lurk at the edge of the mind. And so Ella grew up, and gardened too, and one day, at the time of this story, there was a small miracle. It happened when a family moved in next door with two children. I was one of those children.

We were newly arrived from England. My father was starting a new job in this small town in rural Ontario, Canada. It was so exciting. I considered it a huge adventure but my young brother, only two years old, seemed distressed by the move judging by his continual wailing! To escape this noise I went exploring. I loved our new home inside but the back yard was arid; an empty desert, parched in the hot August sun. The low back fence overlooked a field of corn, unfamiliar to my eyes. On our left

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