As I guessed he would, my father-in-law came outside to watch while I planted his rosebush this morning. He'd have heard the barrow rattling with tools as I wheeled it past his window, and I daresay he observed me taking out the first spadefuls of earth while he put on his hat and coat and found his walking-stick. He's old and infirm, but nothing much escapes him. Aware that he was shuffling very slowly toward me over the drenched lawn, I thrust the spade into the ground and leaned on it, waiting for him. He caught my eye, grinned, and then began again to win each painful and unsteady step of the distance between us.

He'd been looking forward to this. Five weeks ago, at the beginning of October, he and my mother-in-law had moved down from London into the annex of our house. I'd been busy since then. This was the first chance I'd had to attend to the rosebush he'd insisted on my digging up from his small, meticulous garden and bringing with the rest of their belongings. The Saturday they arrived, well after dark, I removed all the leaves from the bush, lightly pruned it, and heeled it temporarily into some moist compost in the shelter of the garden wall. If necessary, it could have stayed there until the spring; but on several occasions he'd asked obliquely when I thought I could get around to putting it into its permanent station. "Fair planting weather," he'd said, on a couple of consecutive evenings, as I garaged the car after work; and "Early autumn's the favorite time for getting off to a good start," he'd said yesterday, while I was clearing the leaves from their back path.

"The soil still looks warm from summer," he said to me