Margaret's Garden

Margaret Elliot had kept a garden for forty-three years on the same plot of ground beside the house on Rideau Street. She knew every corner of it: where the clay was heavy, where the light came late, which patch the cats favoured and which the rabbits had found in 1987 and never forgotten.

When her knees began to protest the kneeling, she did not stop gardening. She sat on a low stool and moved it along the rows. When the stool became impractical, she directed operations from the back step while her granddaughter Ellie pulled what Margaret told her to pull and planted what Margaret handed her.

Ellie was twelve and had opinions about everything, including the arrangement of the vegetable beds, which she felt could be improved with better planning. Margaret listened carefully to each suggestion, said "I'll think about that," and then did things as she had always done them. But she noticed that Ellie kept coming back.

By September, Ellie could identify seven varieties of tomato by sight and had begun to describe herself as someone who gardened. Margaret did not point out that she had helped her along to that description. She simply sent her home with a paper bag of seeds for next year and said she hoped she would be back to help.

The garden did not look like much in October. But Margaret knew what was underneath, waiting. She had always found that the most important things were.