Where Lilacs Still Bloom (15 page)

“We’ll approach a riffle before long.” Fred pointed to an area ahead where the early morning sun shimmered over water wrestling with rocks beneath the surface. “The captain knows how to maneuver around it.”

I stood with Fritz, listening to Fred Wilke wax about the ships and the excitement of work on the river. His eyes lit up as he spoke, and Lizzie, standing off to the side, smiled in admiration of her husband. That’s as it should be. A husband needs his partner to take pleasure in his interests, to know that he provides. Her generosity of spirit adds to his confidence and to her own security.

Nell Irving and Frank talked of cows, and the girls soon carried on with their own conversations inside, with other passengers sipping tea at tables covered with white linens. They sat out of the breeze so they didn’t have to hang on to their hats, but I liked the feel of the wind on my face, breathing in the river smells and all the emerald foliage along the banks. It calmed me. All the organizing to make this trip happen had frazzled. And truth told, I missed Bobby and my plants, even though I had all the flesh and blood that should
have been enough to fill me up right here beside me. Finding five petals spurred me on, and I wished I could be there working for more.

Mallards scooted their way near the shoreline, and I watched an eagle swoop over the steamer, making a wild dash to the water, then slowly skim the riffles, gaining lift to help carry his cargo, a small steelhead. I turned to signal Fritz and bumped into Frank, who’d apparently been leaning against the wheelhouse door.

“Did you see that eagle?” I asked him.

“I did.” Frank walked to me, patted my shoulder, then leaned on the rail beside me. His silence was a comfort. We were like two old oaks growing up next to each other, basking in each other’s shade, making room for the acorns that will come after us. “This is nice, isn’t it? All the
Kinder
here, whole family. On an outing.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“We don’t do enough of this. We work together, but to just play? I’m not sure you really know how to do that.”

“I relax.” I adjusted my hat. “I thoroughly enjoy my time in the garden.”

“But you make work of it. Dozens of details to tend to, notes to make on plants, starts to dig and plant or toss out, what all. Do you ever really just smell your roses and dahlias and lilacs that you work so hard to grow?”

“I get satisfaction when I can clip blooms and give them
to the girls or the neighbors or someone else,” I said. “Or when I discover that extra petal. Did I tell you that one of the Lemoine-crossed lilacs had a bloom with five petals instead of four? Oh, surely I told you that.”

“More than once.”

I felt my face grow warm. “That’s a joy I can’t find in watching a baseball game or even going to a Fourth of July celebration.”

“I submit, I like having us all together here, the whole family without any plants. It’s good to have cheer more than only once a year at Christmas.” He grinned.

“I did think of it, this trip. Don’t I get credit for that?” Frank patted my hand. “Though I did wonder at the trouble caused by my suggestion.”

“I thought Emil and Tillie said they’d come over, do watering and whatnot.”

“Yes, they will, and I wrote out what I wanted them to do. But, oh, I don’t know. I feel bereft away from them. What if a storm brews? What if the river rises unexpectedly? I won’t be there to rescue my charges.”

“These next few days you’ll have to let the good Lord look after them,” Frank said. “He’s in control of them, anyway, despite all your effort.”

“Now you sound like Barney Reed.”

“Never. Barney’s mixed up God-given creativity with a view that everything man-influenced is somehow bad or wrong.”

“Everything woman-influenced too,” I said.

Frank laughed again. His good disposition was contagious, and I kissed him, a quick peck on the cheek so as not to embarrass the children. “Now see, I’m capable of a little fun now and then.”

“That you are,” Frank said. He grabbed me and kissed me, a sweet lingering touch.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I pushed back, but not far. “What will the children think?”

“That their parents love each other. The best gift we could ever give them, better even than lilac starts for their own gardens.” I punched his shoulder. “That and a good time with us all together in one place.”

T
he Agricultural Palace, as the building was known, looked like something out of
Arabian Nights
. Spires and fountains and greenery marked the edifice that Nell Irving said was built of sticks under plaster and not meant to last. Inside were examples of produce from the Northwest, how the industry hoped to meet the Orient’s needs, touting that we were closer in Washington and Oregon to Asia than producers back east.

Several nurserymen showed off their wares, and I picked up catalogs to see what new varieties of bulbs and starts they might have for sale. Copies of
Sunset
magazine were available for a nickel, including older issues from 1901. I skimmed a series featuring Luther Burbank’s work, saving this deeper reading for my winter’s pleasure. In another section of the palace, the United States Department of Agriculture handed
out seed packets for free, and I took one of everything they had. I thought it a good use of our tax dollars that the government encouraged people to grow their own food, take pleasure in plants. Mr. Burbank and I had this in common, a belief that the more experimenting done by individuals, the more information we’d all have about how plants mutated or crossed and what that might mean for bigger melons or broccoli that could be shipped more easily to areas where it didn’t grow well at all. I imagined the nurserymen didn’t like it that individuals had free seeds to experiment with, but it was less expensive than having universities do all the research, and it allowed amateurs like me to make discoveries. I accepted with glee the latest pepper seed and a new variety of tomato. There were few flower seeds, and that saddened me.

Our family separated during the day so each could take in the pavilion that most interested them. I cooled myself with a fan Frank bought me, a lithograph advertising the exposition pasted onto a stick. In the evenings, we all met at the bandstand illuminated by electric balls that arced out like a bouquet held by a child’s hand. The band played four times a day. The view was spectacular, looking over the lake toward the Bridge of Nations and the Government Building. As the sun set and evening like a slow violin song eased into darkness, we hardly noticed because of the massive light displays.

“It’s true,” I whispered to Frank. “You can’t see the stars.”

We listened to the band and looked out over the lake,
then meandered to the Fairmount Hotel, where we sank into plush chairs in the lobby and told stories of our day.

I listened to my children and our two sons-in-law talk of what had impressed them. I wished I’d asked for permission to bring Ruth and Nelia along that they might have seen this extravaganza.

My children and their husbands discussed the economics of the exposition and whether it would make money for the investors or be a blight on the reputation of Portland. I failed to see how anything so grandly designed could possibly be a black mark on a city. But most of all, I saw that these young people had interests and wisdom. They were discerning people who assessed facts but also had passion for dreams. I couldn’t have been prouder. I felt grateful for their lives and the happiness I saw reflected in their faces. Tears pooled, and I blinked them back. I looked across the room at Frank, and he winked at me. I swear that man can read my mind.

On the last day we visited the Japanese pavilion again. Nell Irving said he’d read that the Japanese had spent more than a million dollars on it, but it wasn’t as large as the Italian display that included marble statues. The Japanese exhibit was certainly impressive, with its pagodas and women dressed in costumes of vibrant-colored silk. They had a silk exhibit with displays of flowers, some varieties I’d never seen before. I wandered one last time into the Agricultural Palace and was stopped by a sign: Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women.

“Look here, Martha.” The two of us walked arm in arm, with Fritz and Frank keeping pace behind us, my husband carrying the two-foot tall monkey puzzle tree we picked up at the Chilean exhibit. I pointed with my fan. “There’s a school about horticulture for women. Imagine that.”

Martha read the brochure. “They haven’t been around all that long. It opened in 1901. Two women run it.”

“Still, just imagine working with plants all day long, inhaling the smells of the potting sheds.” I sighed.

“You already do that.”

“You should go to that college, Martha.” She shook her head. Plants were my obsession. A curriculum identified the names of instructors and lecturers, a few of whom were men; the rest women. Photographs of the grand estate in Groton, Massachusetts, suggested professionalism, with the female students in the hothouses wearing long wrappers to protect their clothing, and a surveyor’s transit on a tripod overseen by three women staking out a new planting area. I could see shovels and how they’d cleared an area hoping for the best drainage.

“I would have loved to go to such a school.”

“We take women of all ages,” said a soft-spoken woman standing behind a counter and holding greenery. Behind her were flowering plants on wooden stands and more photographs revealing life at Lowthorpe School. “I’m one of the lecturers. Miss L. L. Hetzer.” She held out her hand, and I shook it like a man. “You have a special interest in landscape architecture?”

“My mother is quite an enterprising horticulturist,” Martha said.

“Oh, let’s not go that far.” I looked at the brochure. “I’ve had no special training. Just an eighth-grade education finished north of here in little Woodland.”

“But she developed a crisper, bigger apple,” Martha said. “And she can spot a lilac bloom turning toward cream and the following spring can pollinate it with another, hoping to achieve the perfect creamy white one day.”

“I adore lilacs,” Miss Hetzer said. “Of course, Massachusetts has quite a different climate than your tepid Northwest.”

“Rainy, tepid Northwest,” I said. “Lilacs are a favorite across the country, though, and I’ve always longed for creamy white or one with more than four petals. I’m working on it. Just this year I had a bloom with five.”

“That’s wonderful!” I loved her enthusiasm. We discussed varieties then and how I’d crossed the plants. We must have chatted for half an hour or more. I lost track of time. Martha had wandered off, or maybe she went to get Frank because I heard him come up beside me, showed me his watch, the monkey puzzle tree riding on his hip.

“Looks like I’m wanted.” I introduced Frank.

“I wish you well. Perhaps you’ll visit us.”

“Oh, that’s not likely. I don’t go too far from my gardens. This is the first outing we’ve had in, oh, ten years or more. But I’ll keep your card, and when I get that perfect bloom, I’ll send you a letter. Perhaps we can share notes on pruning.”

“Speaking of pruning,” Miss Hetzer said. Frank raised an eyebrow.

“Just one second more.”

“We’re heading off to the dock,” Frank said.

“I’ll be along, I will. What did you want to say about pruning?” I asked Miss Hetzer.

“I wonder if you’d care to share with me what you do with older lilacs, to prune. A young woman who writes a column for the newspaper asked me about that, and I told her of our approach, but of course, we’re in a different region in Massachusetts. She’s in California.”

“I prune after the bloom, but before July Fourth. I’ve also heard that in late winter, February or so, one can cut the entire plant back to six to eight inches above the ground, especially with older shrubs. Hardest thing I have to do is cut something back, but it’s a reminder of the nature of a garden, teaching us about life. To grow healthier and larger, we have to be pruned now and then. Lilacs too.” I spoke too much to this stranger, but she nodded agreement.

“What, then?” she asked.

“With the lilacs? Or life?” I teased.

“Lilacs. I’ll extrapolate from that about living.”

I vowed to ask Martha what
extrapolate
meant but continued. “The pruning will result in many new shoots, so during the second season, you’ll have to identify the hardiest ones and retain those, while cutting back the others to ground level. And head the lilacs you’ve decided to keep just above a
bud. That will encourage branching.” I spoke with my hands, showing a horizontal cut through the air and holding an imaginary bud in my hand as precious as a newborn. “If it’s an old hedge, it’ll feel like you’ve exposed them to the elements pruning them back so far, and if they’ve become a windbreak, well, what’s behind it will be battered by the elements for a time too, until the plants emerge to take their place as sentinels once again.”