The Seven Gifts Read Online Free PDF Page A

the soil
and spoke to him over her shoulder.
    “Do you think he would?" she asked.
    “Well ... I can't think of any reason why he
should. But then I couldn't see why he wrecked the Snow Queen's
palace either."
    “But he didn't," said the Angel. “Why would
he go to all that trouble when he could have simply put a bomb in
it? And walked away unscathed."
    “Well alright," the boy muttered, “he
didn't; but his music did. He was responsible."
    “Oh yes," agreed the Angel, “he was
certainly responsible. But he had no idea of the effect his music
was going to have. He had played there before without all that
happening - during the time he had lived in the city. And by the
time he found out, it was a bit late: his music had grown a life of
its own. It responded to the feelings he had put in it.
    “But," she finished off, “I think he half
expected something to happen."
    The boy agreed: “I think he did." Then he
took the plunge. “But I don't know what the gift is."
    The Angel was unperturbed. “You will," she
said. Then she stood up and, taking his hand, walked him off down
the garden past the vegetables and fruit trees, the flowers, herbs
and shrubs that all mingled in an unexpected harmony.
    “Doesn't it look lovely?" she said.
    “Why does it look so nice?" he asked her. He
sensed a clue here somewhere.
    “I don't know," she said. “Look at it. Trees
here, bushes there; flowers and vegetables all over the place and
in amongst each other. It's a tangle of odds and ends, all mixed up
and higgledy-piggledy. There's no order to it at all. I don't know
why it looks so nice."
    “Mmm," the boy muttered pensively. “There
must be some sort of order to it. Order doesn't necessarily mean
regimentation though, does it?"
    “No," answered the Angel.
    “Then presumably you have a good reason for
putting everything where you have, even though it all seems
haphazard and disorganised." He looked around for an example. “That
celandine for instance. Why have you got it growing in amongst that
old rubble by the pig sty?"
    “That is the best place for it," said the
Angel. “Besides, nothing else would grow so well there. The
celandine likes rubbly old ground."
    “Well, that's a good enough reason I
suppose," said the boy. He looked around for more clues. “How about
those herbs in under the wall there? It's a bit stony for plants,
isn't it?"
    “The thyme and the sage? They like stony
ground and must be sheltered from the north winds. They don't like
the cold."
    “I see," said the boy thoughtfully. And he
thought he was beginning to see. “You haven't planted the garden to
suit yourself, you've planted it to suit itself." He paused and
looked around to confirm that he was on the right track.
    “It suits all of us," said the Angel. “It
suits the garden for obvious reasons, and it suits me because I
like to see it all grow to its fullest potential. Every individual
plant in my garden is more important to me than the garden itself;
yet if I care properly for each individual plant, they all seem to
care for the garden. The result is most effective, as you have
observed. You should remember that, because it doesn't work only
with gardens."
    The boy could see it now: the order in the
way that the Angel had put her garden together. Everything was in
the place best suited to it, regardless of tidiness. Snowdrops were
spread in a white blanket under the trees; a mass of giant burdocks
clustered closely around the manure heap and mustard had been
planted all about the beehives. Or perhaps the beehives had been
set down near the mustard. No matter; the principle was there. Now
the new geranium was going in the sunshine.
    Everything was in the right place and,
because of it, the whole garden prospered. That was what gave the
Angel's garden its strange and indefinable beauty. And a thought
occurred to the young boy, which he immediately voiced: “Coalhole
Custer's music wasn't in the right place, was it?"
    The Angel smiled and