| caption: |
Chapter nine. First-Fruits Festival |
| caption: |
return to Laisong; water supply; garden |
| text: |
(71) By the end of August everything was still quiet, and we were allowed back to Laisong at last. |
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We found that the gardener and caretaker had kept the place up, and that a water-supply had been laid on, at the S.D.O.'s orders by running an extension down from the lower morung's pipeline. Now only the garden remained to be made, but Samrangba the gardener's initial efforts with it were not encouraging. Where there should have been rows of carrot and cabbage there was an aching desert of stony soil, raked into humps and innocent of manure. We cherished several small green things for a week before finding them all to be weeds, and then dug the whole thing up and started again; but patience and manure triumphed, and by mid-September the peas and beans were up and flourishing and the garden never looked back. |
