Still I hadn’t found it all; a little later I came upon some wild mint beside the brook. The tansy I had long been friendly with; the scent of it seems to fit in so exactly with a hot summer day; and the wild thyme that grows on a sunny bank at one side of the orchard you couldn’t possibly miss, the bees have so much to say about it. Bushes of balm, that have possibly strayed away from the garden, are always at hand, to rub a leaf when desired.
But I think of all my favourites, the black peppermint has first place. I shall never forget the day I first discovered its dark shoots pushing up undaunted among the grass; not but what I had a long-standing friendship with peppermint—in my first childhood, as bull’s-eyes; in my second childhood, as peppermint creams.
But I hadn’t the slightest notion what it was like in its natural state. When once I found it, I soon realised that it stood alone among all the scented wonders. I put some of it at various corners about the garden, because I found it has remarkable healing powers. No matter how dispirited you may be or out of joint with the world, it is only necessary to take a leaf, rub it and sniff it, whereupon the world smiles again, and you realise that, in spite of all, it is good to be alive. You will understand, therefore, how essential it is to have it in handy places, so that weary people, even if they do not know of its unique qualities, may rub against it in passing, and unconsciously come under its spell.
It dies down in the winter, but when spring comes we always look eagerly for the first purple-black shoots pushing up cheerily from the soil.
It has only one fault; it suffers from zeal without discretion. It will not keep within proper bounds. At the present moment I am wondering whether it is better to dig up the bergamot or rout out the peppermint; they are having a hand-to-hand fight for supremacy in one particular flower corner.
I am afraid my needlework was a mere matter of form that morning. Who could glue their eyes to a piece of hemstitching with the whole earth fairly dancing with colour and light around them? I faintly (but not very earnestly) wished that I had brought knitting instead of sewing, because that doesn’t need to be looked at, and you can keep up a semblance of respectable industry while you are watching all the wild things.