I had been in Bayside three weeks before I met him , although his farm adjoined the one where I boarded and I passed at a little distance from his house every day in my short cut across the fields to school . I even passed his garden unsuspectingly for a week , never dreaming that behind that rank of leafy , rustling poplars lay a veritable `` God 's acre '' of loveliness and fragrance . But one day as I went by , a whiff of something sweeter than the odours of Araby brushed my face and , following the wind that had blown it through the poplars , I went up to the white paling and found there a trellis of honeysuckle , and beyond it Uncle Dick 's garden . Thereafter I daily passed close by the fence that I might have the privilege of looking over it . It would be hard to define the charm of that garden . It did not consist in order or system , for there was no trace of either , except , perhaps , in that prim row of poplars growing about the whole domain and shutting it away from all idle and curious eyes . For the rest , I think the real charm must have been in its unexpectedness . At every turn and in every nook you stumbled on some miracle of which you had never dreamed . Or perhaps the charm was simply that the whole garden was an expression of Uncle Dick 's personality . In one corner a little green dory , filled with earth , overflowed in a wave of gay annuals . In the centre of the garden an old birch-bark canoe seemed sailing through a sea of blossoms , with a many-coloured freight of geraniums . Paths twisted and turned among flowering shrubs , and clumps of old-fashioned perennials were mingled with the latest fads of the floral catalogues . The mid-garden was a pool of sunshine , with finely sifted winds purring over it , but under the poplars there were shadows and growing things that loved the shadows , crowding about the old stone benches at each side . Somehow , my daily glimpse of Uncle Dick 's garden soon came to symbolize for me a meaning easier to translate into life and soul than into words . It was a power for good within me , making its influence felt in many ways . Finally I caught Uncle Dick in his garden . On my way home one evening I found him on his knees among the rosebushes , and as soon as he saw me he sprang up and came forward with outstretched hand . He was a tall man of about fifty , with grizzled hair , but not a thread of silver yet showed itself in the ripples of his long brown beard . Later I discovered that his splendid beard was Uncle Dick 's only vanity . So fine and silky was it that it did not hide the candid , sensitive curves of his mouth , around which a mellow smile , tinged with kindly , quizzical humour , always lingered .
His face was tanned even more deeply than is usual among farmers , for he had an inveterate habit of going about hatless XXXXX the most merciless sunshine ; but the line of forehead under his hair was white as milk , and his eyes were darkly blue and as tender as a woman 's .
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