"How about the big red ones?" said Converse.
"That's the tree-of-Eden. It has the best-tasting fruit in the world, and it seems to be harmless too. We ate lots of it. It seemed to make everybody happy and grateful. Some called it the stein plant on account of it grows a thing shaped like a pitcher or an old German beer stein."
"What does the bulldog bush do?" said Devore.
"It tries to bite, like one of those fly-catching plants on earth, only bigger. I wouldn't say to plant it if you got small babies. It might bite one hard enough to hurt."
"How about growing up and biting our heads off?" said Converse.
"No. It only grows so high, and the snappers about like so." Oakley described with his hands a biting organ about the size of a pair of human hands. "And it's not that strong. Now, how about it? Shall we have a little auction?"
There ensued a long low argument. More beer was drunk and hot dogs eaten. The sun went down; the neighborhood's bat came out and flew in circles over Mrs. Hort's party.
At last the three householders agreed each to pay Grant Oakley twenty-five dollars, for which Converse should get the three tree-of-Eden seeds, Vanderhoff all the bulldog-bush seeds, and Devore all the singing-shrub seeds. They had disputed whether each of them should try to raise specimens of all three species, but concluded that a single extra-terrestrial species apiece would be enough to handle. Vanderhoff would have preferred either the tree-of-Eden or the singing shrub, but his gardening friends put in their claims for these before he had a chance to and pressed them with such vigor that he gave way.
"Bring 'em in before frost," said Oakley, "if they haven't grown too big, that is. These came from the polar regions of Venus. Those are the only parts of the planet that aren't so hot a man has to wear a protective suit. It's about like the equator on earth. So the plants won't stand cold."
The seeds and money changed hands as Carl Vanderhoff's wife Penelope came up. Bill Converse saw her first and said: "Hello, gorgeous!" with the lupine expression he assumed in addressing his neighbors' wives.
Penny Vanderhoff simpered at him and said to her husband: "Carl, we really have to go. That sitter said she'd only stay till seven ..."
Vanderhoff slipped his seeds into his pocket and came.
"What were you talking with Mr. Oakley about?" said Penny Vanderhoff. "Venus?"
"He was telling us about the plants there," said Vanderhoff. He did not speak of his Venerian seeds because this would have started an argument. Penny would have scolded him for being eccentric, "just like that crazy Sydney Devore. I don't know what you see in that man ..."
In moments of fantasy, Carl Vanderhoff liked to imagine himself an ancient Semitic patriarch, sitting in a tent with a towel over his head, combing his beard and ordering his wives, children, and goats around. In practice he never got near this envied state, as his wife and children could and often did outshout him in familial arguments. Although he was willing to coerce his children by force, Penny always stood up for them. And in these days of easy divorce there was no question of using force on one's wife.
Penny was not so gorgeous as' Converse made her out with his leering compliments, being short and rather squarish of build, but still fairly pretty in a round-faced floral way.
Next morning at breakfast, Vanderhoff put on his firmest face and said: "I shall plant some new things today. There will be wire guards around them, and anyone who steps on one gets the derrière beat off him. Je suis tout à fait sérieux."
There was a chorus of affirmative grunts and vocables filtered through Corn Flakes. "And Dan," continued Vanderhoff, "you left your baseball equipment all over the floor again. Either you clean it up or there'll be no allowance ..."
After breakfast, Vanderhoff went out to plant his seeds. The neighborhood was waking into its usual Sunday-morning racket. The roar of power mowers was joined by the screech of the power saw in Mr. Hort's basement and the chatter of Mr. Zanziger's electric hedge trimmer. Mr. O'Ryan, hammering something in his garage, furnished the percussion effect.
Carl Vanderhoff walked about, wondering where to plant. If the bushes really bit, it would not do to plant them near the walks, as they might grab guests or men delivering things. He had had a qualm about accepting the seeds for fear they would endanger his children. But since his youngest, Peter, was four and active, he thought he was not running much risk, especially if he put up a guard heavy enough to keep plant and brat apart. Besides, if Peter did get nipped, it would teach him to obey orders in a way that Vanderhoff himself had never been able to do.
He decided to plant the seeds outside his picture window, in place of a mass of old jonquils that had practically ceased to flower and that he had been thinking of throwing away. He put on his rubbers, got out shovel and garden cart, and went to work.
When the jonquils were out of the way, he dug a hole for each of the six seeds, filled it with a mixture of mushroom soil and fertilizer, trod the earth hard, and finished off the surface with a slight bowl-shaped depression to catch the water. He watered the six places, stuck, a flat stake beside each site with a notation, and put cylindrical wire guards over the whole.
Three weeks after Vanderhoff had planted his seeds, five little yellow shoots appeared. Vanderhoff did not know that the sixth had just germinated when a beetle grub, inching its sluggish way through the soft earth, had come upon it and devoured it.
Vanderhoff diligently watered his plants. The clouds of Venus had turned out to be ordinary clouds of water-droplets, not of formaldehyde as had been feared, and the surface of the planet was quite as rainy as fictional speculators had portrayed it.
At the next session at Sydney Devore's house, Vanderhoff asked Devore and Converse how their Venerian plants were coming. Devore, who not only lived alone but further fractured convention by never speaking about his past or personal affairs, had a habit of throwing small penny-ante poker parties for the men of the neighborhood.
Vanderhoff was the most regular guest. As a thinking man he found Devore's company congenial. Converse was the next most regular, not because he was a thinking man but to get away from his wife. Not much poker was played, as they found more pleasure in drinking and talking.
Converse answered: "Only one of my three seeds sprouted, but the thing's a foot high already. Take a look next time you go by my place, Professor." Converse always called Vanderhoff "Professor" with a kind of leer.
"How about yours, Syd?" said Vanderhoff.
"They all came up, but I can't tell what they'll look like. I planted them down both sides of my front walk."
"You mean those little pink things we passed on the way in?"
"Yes. I moved the cactus to make room for them."
The azaleas went. The iris came and went. The peonies bloomed briefly and the tiger-lilies for a longer time. Vanderhoff's bulldog bushes grew with extra-terrestrial speed until one Saturday Penny said:
"Carl, what on earth are those things? They look like a Venus's-flytrap, but they're such a funny color and so big."
"Those are the plants I bought from Oakley."
"Who? Oh, you mean Mrs. Hort's brother who went to Venus. Are those Venus plants, then?"
"So he said. Tell the children not to poke their fingers at them or they'll get bitten."
"Why, Carl! I won't have such dangerous plants on the place."
"We're going to have these. Nobody'll get hurt if he does as he's told. I'm going to put heavier guards around them, and if they get out of hand I'll cut them down."
"What's that?" said Penny, turning her head. There was a sound like song birds. "It's funny, but it always sounds as if a lot of birds were singing at Devore's place, even when you can't see any."