A Girl'S Garden

Source

Source: Project Gutenberg eBooks #3021 (A Boy's Will, 1913), #3026 (North of Boston, 1914) and #29345 (Mountain Interval, 1916) Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3021 Public domain basis: Complete texts of Frost's first three books. Public domain (published 1913–1916). Coverage: Complete individual poem extracted from parent edition frost-early-poems at bytes 168443-170028; checksum 3ad72d907910e417269d59bc162c112931fe3d550079040e1df6a1511ea433ad.

# A Girl'S Garden

A Girl'S Garden

A neighbor of mine in the village Likes to tell how one spring When she was a girl on the farm, she did A childlike thing.

One day she asked her father To give her a garden plot To plant and tend and reap herself, And he said, "Why not?"

In casting about for a corner He thought of an idle bit Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood, And he said, "Just it."

And he said, "That ought to make you An ideal one-girl farm, And give you a chance to put some strength On your slim-jim arm."

It was not enough of a garden, Her father said, to plough; So she had to work it all by hand, But she don't mind now.

She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow Along a stretch of road; But she always ran away and left Her not-nice load.

And hid from anyone passing. And then she begged the seed. She says she thinks she planted one Of all things but weed.

A hill each of potatoes, Radishes, lettuce, peas, Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn, And even fruit trees.

And yes, she has long mistrusted That a cider apple tree In bearing there to-day is hers, Or at least may be.

Her crop was a miscellany When all was said and done, A little bit of everything, A great deal of none.

Now when she sees in the village How village things go, Just when it seems to come in right, She says, "I know!

It's as when I was a farmer----" Oh, never by way of advice! And she never sins by telling the tale To the same person twice.