A mile from our house is a roadside restaurant in a spectacular garden setting. For years, on my morning walk, I’ve stopped to gaze over the hedge at beds of roses, peonies, asters, an acre or more of color changing with the seasons. Who couldn’t have a beautiful garden, I’ve thought, with the gardening staff they must have here!

I’d always gone by too early to see any of them at work. Then one day, when I had to handle a big mailing project single-handedly, I didn’t get out to walk until afternoon. As I passed the garden, a stocky middle-aged man came from the restaurant basement carrying a tray of begonias. Seeing me stop, he waved me inside the hedge. He had to spell his last name before I caught it: Joseph Csomor. "Are you the head gardener?" I asked. Mr. Csomor shook his head. "Just the assistant".

He’d come here from Hungrary 27 years ago, he went on. The restaurant hired him as a cleaning man, but when he was through sweeping and scrubbing, he’d spent his free time digging around the roots of the potted geraniums that were the only flowers on the place. Seeing the geraniums thrive, the owner had let him plant some rosebushes out back.

My puzzlement grew as Mr. Csomor told how year after year he’d planted a lilac bush here, a marigold border there, until the garden became the showplace it is today. If he’d done all this … "Then what does the head gardener do?"

Mr. Csomor pointed a stubby finger skyward. "He makes the flowers grow."

When the job is a big one, Lord, remind me again that I’m "just the assistant".

Elizabeth Sherrill