Mary Ann’s Garden
Mary Ann was gazing out of her kitchen window looking at the garden. She could see that spring was in the air and evenings were getting longer and brighter. Little birds were busy gathering twigs and moss to build their nests. Snowdrops peeped out from under tree trunks making a carpet of white and crocus and cyclamen added a splash of colour underneath the hedgerows. Any colour at this time of year is welcome but the vegetable patch looked so bleak. In a few months’ time it would be different.
“There is so much to be done,” she said to Tabby, her cat. Tabby curled her tail around Mary Ann’s legs in a gesture of comfort.
“I will have to get help. I will never be able to do this on my own,” she muttered to herself.
In a panic, she thought of all the work there was to do. She had to prepare the ground, dig it over, build ridges and sow the seeds. Next evening, she scanned the local magazine looking for a gardener, and spied an advertisement “Gardener willing to do small jobs in and around the village”.
The next morning she visited the village shop and hoped to get some information about the gardener from old Peg, who ran the shop and knew everybody.
“Oh, that’s Willie John,” she said, he has been a gardener all his life. He’s one of the old timers who loves pottering about in the gardener.”
Mary Ann wasted no time in getting in touch with Willie John. To her delight he was sitting at her kitchen table the following morning having tea and scones. After tea, he said, “I will take a walk around the garden and see what needs doing.”
Sometime later he returned and told her he could start the following day. Hedges were cut and the tops trimmed, gooseberry and blackberry bushes pruned. A month later ridges were dug, cabbage and shallots were planted as well as some early potatoes. It looked like a work of art. Time passed so quickly and summer was now lurking around the corner. Mary Ann joined Willie John in the garden one sunny afternoon.
“I hope he’ll notice the look of appreciation on my face,” she thought to himself as she looked at him when he arrived. “Let’s have a cuppa to celebrate, or better still, a drop of the cratur,”she said
Some five years later Willie John n was still around. One day she said to her friend Daisy, “We have a lot in common and have become very good friends. This year Willie John bought a garden seat so we could sit and enjoy the peace and the fruits of the garden together.”
When she went into the village shop, Mary Ann said to old Peg,” I have to say, that gardener advertisement was one of the better ads the local magazine carried. Finding Willie John was a godsend. I found myself a gardener – a friend – and who knows – a soul mate.”
Looking at Willie John that evening, she smiled, and said, “Have you noticed what a great team we make, WJ?”
Willie John smiled back and said “Is that a proposal?”
Sally Moss
This lovely short stories was first published in ‘Word Weavers’ Strabane U3A Writers 2014
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