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.