The Chrysanthemums

The Chrysanthemums Summary | Detailed Summary

The story takes place in the Salinas Valley of California on a gray December day. Elisa Allen, the 35-year-old wife of a foothill rancher, is working in her flower garden. As she prepares to plant some new chrysanthemums, she watches her husband, Henry, talking with two men in suits down in the tractor shed. Elisa is cutting down the previous year's chrysanthemum stalks and examining the plants for insects and other pests.

The white farmhouse where Elisa and Henry live is very neat with geraniums growing high around its polished windows. Even the doormat is clean and clear of mud. There is little work to do on the ranch in December. The hay has been cut and stored away, and the orchards have already been plowed up in expectation of rain. The cattle are ranging over the foothill slopes and growing shaggy in their winter coats.

Elisa is snipping away powerfully at the chrysanthemums with little sharp scissors. She is a strong woman with a lot of energy, and the task she has set herself does not require anything close to the limits of her strength. She looks for cutworms and sow bugs among the plant stems, but she knows she will not find any because she destroys them before they become established.

When her husband is finished talking with the men he joins her in her garden. He leans on a wire fence designed to keep out the cattle, chickens and dogs. He watches her working and comments on the strength of the new growth. Both Elisa and Henry take pride in her chrysanthemums, the strongest and largest in the neighborhood. Henry comments that her talent in growing things is a gift and wishes that she would work in the orchard to grow apples as large as her chrysanthemums. Elisa replies that she would be able to do that. She says she has "planter's hands" just like her mother before her.

Elisa asks Henry about his conversation with the men at the tractor shed. He tells her that there were buyers for the Western Meat Company and that he sold them thirty steers at nearly his asking price. He suggests they celebrate by going into town for dinner and a movie. He jokes that there will be prize fights in town and asks if she would like to see them. Elisa declines the invitation to the fights saying she wouldn't like them, but she agrees that going to town for dinner at the Cominos Hotel is a good idea. Henry says he will take the hired hand, Scotty, to round up the steers and be back in a few hours, and then they will go to town. Elisa responds that this will give her time to transplant a few sets of chrysanthemums before they go.

Elisa has prepared a sandy bed for rooting her chrysanthemums. She is wearing a corduroy apron with four large pockets in front that carry her tools and other things she needs for transplanting. She watches Henry and Scotty ride up the hills in search of the steers, then digs in the soil with her trowel, smoothes the earth, and pats it down firmly. She makes trenches for the sets, pulls out shoots from the bed, trims their leaves with her scissors and places them in a neat pile.

While working, she hears the sounds of a wagon traveling along the road by the river. She expects it to pass by, but it turns into her drive. A mismatched team comprising an old horse and a small burro pulls the wagon. A rangy dog follows behind, walking between the wagon's rear wheels. Driving the wagon is a big man, not old, but with graying hair and beard. He is wearing a wrinkled and worn black suit marked with grease spots. A hand-painted sign on the wagon announces that he mends pots and sharpens tools. His dog runs ahead of the wagon and meets up with the two ranch shepherds who intimidate him so that he retreats under the wagon with his tail lowered. The man makes a joke about how the dog is quite a fighter once he gets started. Elisa joins in the joke, asking how long it might take him to get started.

The man climbs down from the wagon and asks Elisa for directions, saying he has gotten off his main road. Elisa tells him the fastest route back to the highway, but he says he is not in a hurry. He explains that he travels from Seattle to San Diego and back every year, following the nice weather. Elisa remarks that sounds like a nice way to live. Despite the fact that Elisa has put her scissors back in her pocket, the man senses an opening and asks if she has any pots that need mending or any tools that need sharpening. She resists the sales pitch and says she doesn't have any work for him, that her scissors are sharp.

The man complains to her that he has not had any work that day and that he might have to do without supper that night. On his regular road, he says, he knows people who will do business with him because they know how good his work is. He sees that she is going to be a "tough sell," then notices that she has been gardening and begins to ask her questions about her chrysanthemums.

She brightens up immediately and becomes more talkative. She enthusiastically describes her plants and how good she is at growing them. The man tells her about a lady he knows down the road who has a good garden with many types of flowers but no chrysanthemums. He says that the lady asked him to bring her some seeds for these flowers if he ever found any.

Elisa scoffs at the idea of seeds, saying that it is much easier to grow the flowers from little shoots like the ones she has been planting. She offers to give him some to take to the lady. She is excited to share her flowers and her knowledge with someone who appears to appreciate them. Elisa runs to the house to get a big flowerpot. She fills the pot with sandy soil and plants some of the shoots she had prepared for herself. She instructs the peddler about how to handle the plantings so he can pass the information along to his customer.

Elisa believes the peddler shares her enthusiasm and tries to describe to him what it is like to have "planter's hands" that know the right things to do to make the garden thrive. She says her hands just take over, making no mistakes, and that she can't do anything wrong. She asks him if he can understand any of this. He says, self-consciously, that he does and describes how he sometimes feels at night in the wagon. Elisa remarks that even though she has never lived like he does she knows what he means, that on a bright starlit night she has a feeling of rising up into the sky until every pointed star is driven into her body. She is kneeling on the ground in front of the man while she says this and reaches out to so that she almost touches the cloth of his trouser legs, then pulls back. The peddler agrees that such nights are nice and just like she described, only if he hasn't had any supper, the night isn't so nice after all.

This breaks the spell for Elisa who stands up and hands over the pot of chrysanthemums before saying that maybe she can find some work for him to do after all. She goes to a pile of cans behind her house and brings back two old pans for him to fix. His behavior changes and becomes totally professional as he works to mend the pans.

While he is working, Elisa repeats that it must be nice to live like he does, sleeping and working in the wagon and traveling up and down the road. He says it is nice but no life for a woman. Elisa becomes somewhat angry at this statement and asks him how he would know that. He pacifies her and tells her his price for fixing the pans. As she pays, she says he might be surprised at what a woman might do. She says she can sharpen scissors and mend pots too and maybe someday he might have some competition on the road. He replies that it would be a lonely life for a woman and a frightening one too because of the animals that creep under the wagon all night.

When he packs up to leave, she reminds him to keep the sand damp in the pot of chrysanthemum shoots. He says he will. Then he turns the wagon and travels out onto the road along the river. Elisa watches the wagon drive away, whispering goodbye as the peddler goes. Then she enters the house to begin preparations for her dinner in town.

She takes a bath and scrubs off the dirt with energy. While drying herself afterwards, she looks at her body, front and back, in the mirror. She dresses slowly, putting on her nicest things, and does her hair and makeup carefully. Before she is done, she hears her husband come home. She tells him to hurry and bathe because it is getting late. While he is in the tub, she lays out his town clothes for him. Then she sits on the porch to wait. She looks out toward the willow trees along the river. The yellow of the trees is the only color evident in the gray of the late afternoon. She thinks they look like a band of sunshine.

Henry is surprised at her appearance when he sees her sitting on the porch. He tells her she looks nice, and she asks him what he means by that. Her bristling attitude surprises him and he tries to explain that she seems different somehow, strong and happy. She replies that she is strong and that she had not realized before just how strong she is.

They drive to town along the road by the river. After a while, Elisa sees a dark speck in the road ahead. She knows what it is and tries not to look at it as the car passes, but she must. She recognizes the damp sand and chrysanthemum shoots she had given to the peddler. He had kept the clay flowerpot but had emptied its contents onto the road as he traveled. She thinks that he could have at least dumped it on the side of the road. She turns to face her husband who is driving so she won't have to look at the peddler as the car passes him in the road.

Elisa tells her husband that it will be good to eat in town and asks him if they can have wine with their dinner. He readily agrees, and then she asks him about the prizefights going on in town. She asks if the men hurt each other in the fights. She says she has read that there is a lot of blood at the fights, and that sometimes the boxing gloves get soggy with blood. Henry is surprised that she has read such things, but offers to take her to the fights if she wants to go. She turns away from him and says no, she is sure that she doesn't want to go, that she wouldn't like the fights. She says she will be satisfied if they can have wine at dinner. Elisa then turns up the collar of her coat so her husband will not see that she is crying, like an old woman.