Article November 13, 1978 Issue

A garden parable

Frances M. Gibson

No one planted the little vine. It just came up right by the front porch, quickly grew across the flower bed, and topped the shrub at the end. After we made it turn around, it wandered right back across and up the ironwork by the door. We called it the wonder vine, because we wondered what kind of vine it was.

After a while large yellow blooms appeared, and then pumpkins —two of them. They grew all summer—one on the ground and the other on a perch made for it on the ironwork. By fall they both became fine yellow pumpkins and smiling jack o'-lanterns.

We learned a lesson from the little vine: it was never bothered by anyone's wondering what it would be. It just kept on growing. All the while it contained within itself what it was to be—a pumpkin vine. Not a pine nor an oak nor a cucumber, but a pumpkin. That was all it could be—what came from within. Isn't the same true of you and of me?

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