There was a willow tree mother had planted, which now swept the ground with its long, graceful branches.

There were quantities of rose and lilac bushes, a walled spring of delicious water in the cellar, and a whole world of wealth; but the potato lot looked up in despair--a patch of yellow clay.

Mother put a twelve years' accumulation of coal ashes on it, and thus proved them valuable both as a fertilizer and a preventive of potato-rot, though at first her project met general opposition.
William did the heavy work and was proud of it.

He was in splendid health, for his insubordination had, from a very early age, saved him from drugging either mental or physical.

The lighter gardening became part of my treatment for consumption.