the gardener. They had gotten melons at the table from the royal greenhouses that were so juicy and tasty.
“You must go to the royal gardener, dear Larsen, and get us some of the seeds of those priceless melons!”
“But the royal gardener got the seeds from us!” said the gardener, quite pleased.
“Well, then that man has the knowledge to bring fruit to a higher level of development!” said the master. “Each melon was remarkable.”
“Well, I can be proud then,” said the gardener. “I must tell your lordship that the royal gardener didn’t have luck with his melons this year, and when he saw how splendid ours were and tasted them, he ordered three of them for the castle.”
“Larsen! You’re not telling me those were melons from our garden?!”
“I think so!” said the gardener, who went to the royal gardener and got written confirmation that the melons on the kingly table came from the manor.
It really was a surprise for the master and his lady, and they didn’t keep quiet about the story. They showed the certificate, and melon seeds were sent around widely, just as the pear and apple grafts had been earlier.
And word was received that they grew and produced exceptional fruit, and these melon seeds were named after the noble estate, so that that name could now be read in English, German, and French.
No one could have imagined this!
“Just so the gardener doesn’t get a swollen head about this,” said the master and mistress.
But the gardener took it all in a different way. He just wanted to establish his name as one of the country’s best gardeners, to try each year to bring forth something superior in all the types of garden plants, and he did that. But often he was told that the very first fruits he had produced, the apples and pears, were really the best. All later types were inferior to them. The melons had certainly been very good, but that was something completely different. The strawberries could be called exceptional, but yet not better than those other noble families had, and when the radishes didn’t turn out one year, only those unfortunate radishes were discussed, none of the other good things that were produced.
It was almost as if the master and mistress felt a relief in saying, “Things didn’t work out this year, Larsen!” They were quite happy to be able to say, “It didn’t work out this year.”
A couple of times a week the gardener brought fresh flowers up to the living room, and they were always so beautifully arranged. The colors seemed to be more vibrant through the arrangement.
“You have taste, Larsen,” said the master and mistress. “It’s a gift, given by the Lord, not of your own doing.”
One day the gardener brought a large crystal saucer in which a lily pad was floating. On top of this was placed a shining blue flower, as big as a sunflower with its long thick stem trailing down in the water.
“The lotus of the Hindus!” exclaimed the master and mistress.
They had never seen such a flower, and during the day it was placed in the sunshine and in the evening under reflected light. Everyone who saw it thought it was remarkably lovely and rare. Even the most distinguished of the country’s young ladies said so, and she was a princess. She was both wise and good.
The master and mistress were honored to give her the flower, and it went with the princess to the palace. Then they went down into the garden to pick such a flower themselves, if one was still there, but they couldn’t find one. So they called the gardener and asked where he had gotten the blue Lotus.
“We’ve searched in vain,” they said. “We’ve been in the greenhouses and round about in the flower gardens.”
“No, it’s not to be found there,” said the gardener. “It’s just a simple flower from the vegetable garden! But isn’t it true that it’s beautiful? It looks like a blue cactus, but it’s only the blossom on the artichoke!”
“You should have told us that straight off!” said the master and mistress. “We thought it was a rare, foreign flower. You have disgraced us with the young princess! She saw the flower here, and thought it was beautiful and didn’t know what it was. She is very knowledgeable about botany, but her knowledge doesn’t have anything to do with vegetables! How could it occur to you, Larsen, to bring such a flower up to the house? It makes a laughing stock of us!”
And the beautiful, gorgeous blue flower, which had been picked in the vegetable garden, was taken out of the living room, where it didn’t belong.1 Then the master and mistress apologized to the princess and told her that the flower was just a kitchen herb that the gardener had wanted to display, but he had been sternly admonished about placing it on display.
“That’s a shame and not fair,” said the princess. “He has opened our eyes to a magnificent flower that we had not paid any attention to. He has shown us beauty where we did not think to seek it. As long as the artichokes are blooming, the royal gardener will bring one to my parlor every day.” And that’s what happened.
So then the master and mistress told the gardener that he could bring them a fresh artichoke flower again. “It is pretty after all,” they said, “quite remarkable!” And the gardener was praised. “Larsen likes that,” they said. “He’s a spoiled child!”
In the autumn there was a terrible storm. It started at night, and became so powerful that many big trees at the edge of the forest were torn up by the roots, much to the distress of the master and mistress. A great distress for them, but to the joy of the gardener, the two big trees with all the bird nests blew over. You could hear rooks and crows screaming at the height of the storm. People at the manor said that they flapped their wings against the windows.
“Well, now you’re happy, Larsen,” said the master and mistress. “The storm has knocked down the trees, and the birds have fled to the forest. Now nothing’s left from the old days here. Every sign and every allusion are gone! It’s very sad for us.”
The gardener didn’t say anything, but he thought about what he had long thought about—how to utilize the splendid sunny spot he didn’t have access to before. It would become the ornament of the garden, and the joy of his master and mistress.
The big fallen trees had crushed and completely destroyed the ancient box hedges, with their topiary. Here the
