Waldvogel tiptoed in without turning on the light. It seemed as though hours of imaginary gardening passed before Mrs. She saw herself touching their tiny bells, waxed white, fluted, and breathing the ravishing fragrance they gave off because Louis had absently walked through her border again, dragging his shovel, crushing them with his big, careless feet. Lying there, sleepless, she imaged their white venous roots, a mass of them fastening together, forming new shoots below the earth, unfurling their stiff leaves. The Beet Queen Hardcover 26 February 1987 by Louise Erdrich (Author) 91 ratings See all formats and editions Hardcover 34.34 1 Used from 145.00 1 New from 34.34 Paperback 36.15 2 Used from 37.64 11 New from 27.95 Mass Market Paperback 543.00 4 Used from 12.31 1 New from 543.00 Audio, Cassette from 19. After this shocking abandonment, Mary settles in the small North Dakota town of Argus with relatives while Karl chooses a more transient lifestyle. The tiny spears of their leaves would be showing soon. The Beet Queen is a critically acclaimed novel that follows the lives of Mary and Karl Adare after their mother abandons them at a fair to benefit orphaned children.

'To be planted points upward,' said a leaflet in the directions. They looked like shelled acorns, only tinier. She'd put on her deerskin gloves and, on her knees, using a hand trowel, dug a shallow trench along the border of her blue Dwarf iris. Just last fall, before the hard freeze, when she was feeling back to normal, the pips had arrived in a little white box. She had planted real lilies of the valley because she liked them so much as a perfume.

The faint odor of that flower, so pure and close to the earth, was comforting. Before she left, she had remembered to perfume her wrist with Muguet. “Sita closed her eyes and breathed into her cupped hands.

The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich