"The Gardener"
by Sarah Stewart

Student Edition
Unit 3, pp. 284–297

Realistic fiction is a made-up story that could happen in real life. What parts of this Snapshot could really happen?

Lydia Grace Finch loved flowers. She and Grandma spent many hours working in their garden at home. Now, Lydia Grace was going to live with Uncle Jim in the city. The year was 1935, in the heart of the Great Depression. She would stay with Uncle Jim until Papa found work and times got better at home. She took a train ride by herself to get there.
Lydia Grace was excited when she saw Uncle Jim's place. There were window boxes! She would be able to plant flowers, after all. She had feared that the city would have no place for plants to grow.
Lydia Grace was supposed to help Uncle Jim in the bakery, but she didn't know how to knead bread. Emma and Ed Beech, who worked there, offered to teach her about baking. In return, Emma wanted to learn from Lydia Grace about plants.
Almost every night, Lydia Grace wrote to Mama, Papa, and Grandma while Uncle Jim tried not to doze off as he read his paper. In her letters, Lydia Grace told them about the bakery and its window boxes. She usually asked them about Uncle Jim. She wondered if he had a sense of humor, because he never laughed or even smiled.
For Christmas Mama and Papa and Grandma sent her seed catalogues. Grandma also sent her flower bulbs to plant so they would bloom in the spring.
Throughout the winter, Lydia Grace planned for the spring planting of the window boxes. One day, when she was exploring the bakery building, she found a wonderful flat roof. Recognizing that it was a perfect place for a city garden, Lydia Grace became excited. She collected cups and dented cake pans and other containers to use as flowerpots. She brought up good soil from a vacant lot down the street. She planted bulbs and seeds in her new secret place.
Spring brought days of warm sun and soft rain showers. This was just what the plants needed to grow. Tiny plants began sprouting in the window boxes and in the containers in the rooftop garden. Before long, flowers were blooming everywhere.
One day in May, Lydia Grace told Emma about the secret place, and Emma began to help her with the garden. Mama and Papa and Grandma sent tiny plants from home. Neighbors and customers brought in containers and even plants from their own gardens. Lydia Grace was now called "the gardener." But still Uncle Jim hadn't smiled.
Lydia Grace had not told Uncle Jim about the rooftop garden. She planned to surprise him with it as part of their Fourth of July celebration with Emma and Ed. On the holiday Lydia Grace led Uncle Jim to the rooftop garden. She was sure the beauty of the hundreds of blooms would bring a smile to his face. It didn't.
But one day the very next week, Uncle Jim closed the bakery at lunch time. He sent Emma, Ed, and Lydia Grace up to the rooftop to wait for him. Now it was his turn to give a surprise.
He brought them a cake covered in flowers to thank them for the garden. Lydia Grace said in a letter home that his cake was worth a thousand smiles.
Uncle Jim had other news too. Lydia Grace's papa had finally found work. She was going home! She would give all of her plants to Emma and be back to help Grandma garden at home.
And she would always remember the garden that had made Uncle Jim happy.

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart. Text copyright © 1997 by Sarah Stewart. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Copyright © Pearson Education.