A Cabbage As Big As Your Head

Daddy Doll pretends to hate flowers. His real motive is keeping anyone from prowling around in his study, making changes.

Lucinda the maid, jealous of all the flowers downstairs, has begged and begged him to let her put an arrangement in the study.

"No!" says Daddy. "I won't have my room being set up for the ladies' garden club meeting!"

"If I done it anyway, sir, just to see how it looks, would you sack me, sir?"

"Sack you? What do you mean, 'sack' you?"

"I mean, would you like fire me?" Lucinda has a mischievous side.

"Why, no," says Daddy, "I'd never go that far! You injure me, Lucinda! Have I ever mentioned firing anybody? Do I strike you as a cruel person, Lucinda? Have you ever seen or heard me make anyone unhappy? Doing violence to anyone's feelings?"

"No, sir," Lucinda lies.

She was finally permitted to put one blossom in the study.

"One blossom!" Daddy boomed. "Get one of those d__'d things from the kitchen garden--one of those cabbages as big as your silly head!"

Of course, they're not cabbages, but an old bush of cabbage roses that grow to gigantic size. When fully opened, they're bigger than a dinner plate. Lucinda was happy enough, so she stuck one big rose in the stein on top of the green bookcase--as instructed by Daddy. She had to use the library ladder to get up there, and nearly had a fall.

Other Stuff Around the House

The quilt on this bed was made by Grandma's cousin, a Mrs. Cleveland.

*

This is what Daddy mockingly calls "the kitchen garden!" The erstwhile* handyman, Billy Bones, occasionally plants herbs or something there, but his addiction to alcohol prevents his taking proper care of things, so they die. All except the cabbage rose which has been there all along.

*in the sense of "sometime"

*

If any spot around the house can be called a garden, this one on the other side of the house is it. Maybe you can't see him, but Dolly's pet turtle Aesop has escaped the house and is trying to climb into the pond.