Backyard Read Online Free Page A

Wouldn’t stand for it!
    Marta kept shooting worried glances over her shoulder. A car trundled by on Payne Avenue, then a clanking pickup towing a trailer loaded with lawn mowers and trimmers.
    â€œMaybe we should go now,” Marta whispered so close to Dr. Sproot’s ear that it tickled.
    â€œNonsense! We’re too far gone now to turn back. Finish the job!” They approached a trellis. It was artfully constructed and stained with a thin, washed-looking white, smothered in pink and red roses climbing on their canes to the top, the buds ready to burst out in all their glory.
    â€œWhat a charming trellis!” Marta said. “And it will be covered from top to bottom with such wonderful roses any day now!”
    â€œSo what?” said a testy Dr. Sproot, annoyed by Marta’s awestruck and worshipful tone. “Anyone can do roses. Just put them in bright sunshine, water them, then let nature do the rest. And no yuccas or coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend anywhere to be seen. Who can win a contest without—ouch!”
    Dr. Sproot had pushed a finger into one of the cane’s sharp thorns until it broke the skin and a drop of blood oozed out. Marta smiled meekly, as if privately enjoying the sight of her blood.
    As they continued their slow traverse of the backyard, Marta quietly exulted in the simple, expansive, and varied beauty of the gardens, while Dr. Sproot labored to commit to memory every plant, flowering bloom, and pencil point of green pushing up through the carefully raked soil, and every little arbor and rock garden.
    â€œThe judges will see this as a cluttered mess when a carefully conceived and formatted concentration of the proper types of flowers—such as mine on yuccas and coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend—is what really matters.”
    Marta nodded noncommittally.
    With the rose trellises on their right, they inspected a luxuriant bed of hosta. Dr. Sproot shook her head in disdain.
    â€œThe true sign of a novice,” she said. “Anyone can do hosta. You have to almost try to kill hosta.”
    It was at that point that a wonderful thought occurred to Dr. Phyllis Sproot. Since the Fremonts were obviously not connected to Livia’s gardening circles, wasn’t there a good chance they would not be informed of whatever contest it was that was coming up? Or, maybe, even if informed, they would have no interest in it? Who would be sponsoring this contest anyway? Might it be Burdick’s? Really, that would be the only possibility, as Burdick’s was the only gardening emporium of the requisite size in Livia. It wouldn’t be any of the gardening clubs; she had membership in all of those. It must be Burdick’s and why hadn’t she been told it was Burdick’s? Marta wasn’t saying. She insisted that she was bound by oath to tell no more.
    They walked on toward a split-rail fence and the rather elaborate arbor and patch of woods beyond.
    â€œWhat in heaven’s name is that thing? ” said Dr. Sproot, as they both stopped to examine a lifelike, painted woodcarving that reared up suddenly between them and the house.
    â€œWhy, it’s a tree sculpture,” said Marta. “Someone carved it out of a tree trunk. I wonder who it’s supposed to be. Isn’t that something?”
    â€œIt is grotesque,” Dr. Sproot barked as they continued on through the swinging fence gate. “If that’s not stark testimony to these people’s bad taste, I don’t know what is. To blot their gardens with such a monstrosity. Well, I never . . .”
    Having arrived at the strip of woods that marked the end of the gardens, Dr. Sproot and Marta turned to look back in silence on what they had just passed. Spreading out across the hill that sloped gently down to the street was a wonderland of the gardener’s craft. Who could do better? Marta sighed. Dr. Sproot scowled.
    What was this? To Dr. Sproot’s left were two