This was on
a Wednesday--the second Wednesday in July, as he was always
particular to mention. (And I have heard him tell the story a score
of times.)
"On the Sunday week, at half-past three in the afternoon, my father
had finished his pipe and was laying it down, before covering his
head (as his custom was) with a silk handkerchief to protect his
slumber from the flies, when, happening to glance towards the
shrubbery, he espied a remarkably fine crimson hollyhock overtopping
the laurels. He rubbed his eyes. He had invested in past years many
a shilling in hollyhock seed, but never till now had a plant bloomed
in his garden.
"He rubbed his eyes, I say. But there stood the hollyhock.
He rushed from the room, through the back-doorway and down the
garden. My excellent mother, aroused from her siesta by the slamming
of the door, dropped the Family Bible from her lap, and tottered in
pursuit. She found my father at the angle of the shrubbery, at a
standstill before a tangled mass of vegetation. Hollyhocks,
sunflowers, larkspurs, lilies, carnations, stocks--every bulb, every
seed which the dead man had failed to cultivate--were ramping now and
climbing from his grave high into the light.
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