The gardener was a simple person who took life as it came and watched it as it went. He lived in a little town in Southwestern Ontario near the banks of the Kahyonhatátye, and he busied himself with the toil of his gardens, which were small but lively. Perhaps because of his good-humoured nature, or perhaps merely out of chance, the gardener ended up seeing and hearing many peculiar things. As a result, he had many tales to tell.

I met him a few years ago when I was passing through the town on my way back home, and I asked if he might share with me some of his experiences.

He was surprised at my interest, for he said the things he had seen and heard were just little things and they were hardly very interesting. Nevertheless, he was more than happy to share. I have done my best to tell it accurately as it was told to me, and I hope you’ll find in them the same strange joy I found those few short years ago.

One of these tales that the gardener told was called The Drummer in the Drain, and it went like this…

One day, while the gardener was weeding away in his small side garden of Lily of the Valley, he heard a loud pattering coming from the drain that ran down from his eaves. It was early May or so and there had been several days of heavy rain, even as the sun was shining through the clouds. It was proving to be a beautiful spring that year. It had rained just that morning, and the water had run off heavily from the eaves and down the drain, and was now dripping steadily.

The gardener thought nothing of it at first. The coursing sounds of the fallen rain were as welcome and as common as the scurry of chipmunks and squirrels in the leaves, as pleasant as the songs of sparrows and robbins and the soft cooing mourning dove in the trees.

But as the gardener continued weeding among the young green lilies, he noticed that he was ever so subtly bobbing his head along to the patter of the rain drops. In fact, it was more than a minor bobbing of his head to some mere noise of dripping in an aluminum drain. He was tilting and bobbing and even swaying his shoulders a little to a rather distinct and unique drumming. Some manner of beat and tap and ting that came together into a lively rhythm.

The gardener paused in his work and put down his trowel inside his weeding bucket. He stood up with a small groan at the stiffness in his knees, and stepped widely out of the garden. He walked around the side of his house to where the eavestrough drain ran down and off into the yard. The drumming was even louder and livelier now, like the full running solo in the middle of a band section song. The gardener walked to the end of the drain and knelt down with his hands on his knees and peered inside.

“Oh hello,” he said.

The little drummer screamed at once and tossed his sticks in the air.

“I’m sorry,” the gardener said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The little drummer clapped his hand to his heart, taking deep breaths and saying, “By golly, my goodness…”

If you can believe it, and the gardener himself was rather astounded, there was indeed a tiny little drummer sitting inside the drain with a three-piece drum set and a little stool that might have been an acorn.

The gardener thought it truly quite the sight to behold, and I’ll be honest when he told me this tale, I was naturally full of my own doubts. But this is what he said happened…

The little drummer picked up his scattered drumsticks and settled back on his stool. Then he peered up at the gardener with a rather ferocious little look on his face.

“Do you always frighten people like that?” he asked.

“Oh, I certainly hope not,” said the gardener.

“You should be more mindful when you go about. What do you think this is a playground? A circus?”

“I’m terribly sorry,” the gardener said. “It’s just that I heard your drumming, and I was very curious where it was coming from.”

“Well, there’s no sense wondering about it now,” said the little drummer. “You threw me right off, and I was just getting into it.”

“I really am quite sorry about that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…”

“Do you always play your drums in my drain?”

“Oh, now it’s your drain is it? I suppose you own the wind and the rain, too, don’t you?”

“Well, it’s just that the drain is attached to my house.”

The little drummer leaned forward over his snare drum as if to gaze outside the drain to the height of the gardener’s house beyond.

“And it’s just that I’ve never heard your drumming here before,” the gardener added.

“Yeah, well, I never stay in one place for long. I go where the winds take me. Some might say, I’m on tour.”

“That sounds like a lonely thing to be.”

The little drummer snapped a hard look up at the gardener. “Lonely? Who said anything about being lonely? I just like doing my own thing, and going with the flow on my own is the best way to do that.”

“But do you not like the idea of having a home and staying there?”

“What’s so good about having a home? Look at you. You live here in this giant old house, all by yourself, you must be the lonely one.”

The gardener admitted to me in his telling of this tale that he had never really thought about whether he was lonely, but that the little drummer had given him something to consider…

“I suppose there is a kind of loneliness in being at home, as there is in being away.”

“So now we’re both lonely hearts?” the little drummer chided. “Sounds like a conspiracy to me.”

“Oh, I don’t know about any conspiracies,” the gardener said.

“Sure you do, you just don’t realize,” the little drummer said, and then, “Now here’s the skinny. Today, I’m playing my drum in this here drain. And tomorrow I’ll go play my drum in some other drain. And all across the world in every little drain there is another little drummer playing when it rains. And if all the little drummers in the world came together one day, not one of them would ever say they were the same. Even though all we do is drum away in the drain. From a distant ear, we are exactly the same. But if you listened very closely, you would discover that all of them are truly different, each one has got their own rhythm, their own pattern, their own beat. And even though we are out there alone, flying with the winds, none of us are lonely, because we know that we’re all together, at home even, knowing we’re the same in being different. You know what I mean?”

“Oh, I would very much like to,” said the gardener.

The gardener explained to me later that he had had trouble following what the little drummer had said to him, but somehow the little drummer’s perplexing words had made him feel good. It had reminded him of his gardens and all the little flowers.

“So, will you continue to play your drums in this drain?” the gardener asked. “The day is still very young.”

“Well, I suppose I could try to get back into it.”

“I would be happy to hear your rhythm again. I was enjoying it before.”

“Just don’t sneak up and startle me again. You have no idea how big you look to a little drummer like me.”

“I’ll be mindful,” said the gardener.

And so the little drummer settled back on his little stool and took up his drum sticks and started to play. The gardener went back to his side garden and stepped lightly and knelt down to his task of weeding between the lilies. And he spent the rest of the day listening to the little drummer, drumming away in the drain, as the sun slowly warmed the air and the morning rain dried from the day, and then at one point the gardener realized that the little drummer’s rhythm had stopped.

He stood from his work and went back to the drain, careful not to startle the little artist, even making a quiet cough in his throat to announce himself.

“Excuse me,” he said.

But when he knelt down and peered inside the drain, the little drummer was gone. All that remained was the drummer’s little stool that was now very clearly an acorn.

The gardener said it was indeed one of the oddest experiences of his life, but that’s what happened.

He said he still sometimes thinks about what the little drummer said, though he can never fully recall the full sense and clarity of it. Something about difference and togetherness and loneliness, and a funny feeling of the whole world happening at once. And, of course, a feeling about his gardens.

He didn’t mind at all if I didn’t believe his tale, but I told him I enjoyed hearing it and thanked him for sharing.

And the truth is, I don’t know if I believe it or not…

Nevertheless, whenever I hear rain running and pattering in the eaves and in the drains, I like to believe there is a little drummer in there, playing their own unique song.

END