IT MUST have been some time last August that Mrs. Tarryer decided that there were no grass gardens conducted on legitimate principles, and resolved to make a show of hers. She took full counsel with Lady Schnipticket, Parson Camperdown, and M'Tavish came into the scheme when the trouble with the Parson's lawn blew over.

Lady Schnipticket pushed the affair with her whole soul and bank account. She staid at home from no end of summer resorts, opened all the cool springs she could hear of for miles around, and provided big jars and stands of cut-glass tumblers for them.

As usual with such local affairs, invitations were sent to the Empress of India, all the crowned heads of Europe, the President of the United States, heads of departments, farm colleges, state boards of Agriculture, education and health, directors of experiment stations, editors of newspapers, governors of states, et cetera.

This was right in the stickiest time for postage stamps with bogus gum on them, when a cat, after a nap among the official papers in our Managing Committee Room, had to be steamed to detach the stamps from her fur.

"None of these great people will come," Lady Schnipticket said, "but this is the easiest way to wake up and ring in our neighbors, who will presently be cordially invited. For our own safety - let alone comfort - we need to put a stop to fooling with grass in this vicinity by a better knowledge of it".

Betwixt the heads of this concern a select list of under-botanists, gardeners, alert clericals, mechanics and a few newspaper men (all hard-worked fellows) was made out, who Lady Schnipticket said "must come, if free passes, expenses and cash for substitutes would fetch them." She knew everybody, and remembered to good purpose her husband's way of fixing legislative committees.

Our house was jammed full of the happiest busy people I ever saw together. Some of Mrs. Tarryer's graduates were called back for the occasion. A number of efficient spinster and widow ladies ("what the Colonel would have called 'our reserves,' " Lady Schnipticket said, and what M'Ta-vish did call "forty old-maid power") were enlisted. The repressed energy spent upon this enterprise was immense, and multiplied enormously by its exercise.

The "grass" part of Mrs. Tarryer's garden covers something more than an acre, but the adjacent tillage and "campus" lands, for her always large family, are much more extensive, so that the prospective scene of operations could scarcely be over-crowded by any number of well behaved people. The population of the whole earth might be buried in one of our smallest states, they say, without making the soil any too rich for skillful gardening purposes.

Two guests came to this show who were not invited, except in spirit. These were "Uncle Sam" and " Brother Jonathan." To make room for them I had to vacate my favorite quarters, a shaded ell of the house, formerly a large kitchen when our family was larger, with a big fire-place, an outside chimney and an upstairs room or two communicating with the capacious garret of the whole house. In effect, here was a museum of our left-over arts and sciences - books, implements, tools and utensils of our former lives and industries, and what is most rare in these days of museums, the ancient things were not a mouldy Or rusty old lot, but in good order - bright, usable, handy and home-like. You would wish to be basting a joint or a fowl on that polished spit; the poker looked fit to temper a mug of flip, and the toaster invited slices of bread. The old gentlemen came early in these proceedings, and staid a good while, but to tell how they spent their time and enjoyed themselves nights and Sundays would be too much for this letter. During this preliminary business I never thought of anything strange, but now I am convinced that not everybody saw these old characters as plain I did.

While the boys and girls were weeding, trimming and giving everything in the gar-den its best looks for the great day, Brother Jonathan in his tights and Uncle Sam in his seersucker trowsers were constantly mixing in with what was going on, and I supposed everybody saw them. As for Mrs. Tarryer and Lady Schnipticket - but who knows what women see or don't see ?

Those old fellows did a great deal of writing and over-hauling of books, ancient and modern, and they were always whittling something while they talked. Whether in their snuggery at night, where they had the shaving horse and rived timber, or whether out of doors somewhere, they always made something by their labor or play. Look at those handles for all sorts of purposes left behind them in proof of this. Nearly every fence-post and top-rail around the garden that was fit to whittle shows the marks of their jack-knives. You wouldn't think Uncle Sam was a sculptor, but look at the pair of woman's legs, modestly crossed, cut as natural as life in the top of those bar-posts, and judge for yourself. They are wonderful specimens of mediaeval art. And if any State Pomologist will explain why Brother Jonathan - in this scarce year for apples - should lodge a neat cider-tap in so many of those post-boles, I should like to have htm !

The date of the show was first talked of for the first goodness of the moon in September, but for the sake of displaying the weird effects of artificial lights on the fine fabrics of the grass garden in the early evening, it was judged best to have the moon rise on them a little later. By this time the Associated Press had hold of the affair and was working its wires out of love to "grass," or news, and ready to move at a wink from either Mrs. Tarryer or Lady Schnipticket. The show must be at its best, whatever the convenience of the public might be. That could take its chances.

As the time drew near, M'Tavish was in his glory. He is a great manager (with a woman to tell him what to do).- I'll say that for him ! There were horses and carriages to bay or hire, and teams to match and train for the procession ; gangs of carpenters and decorators to engage and control. A company of electric and other fire-workers were to arrive by the last train. Mrs. Tarryer and Lady Schnipticket both declared they wouldn't have the fire-skeletons and scaffolding around by daylight, and some said there was a regiment of trained balloon builders camped in the woods near-by for a week. By an ingenious arrangement of wires, an electric sun was suspended directly over the center of the grass garden. All things were done, as we read of, without the stroke of a hammer, and Mrs.