By breakfast the trellis at the garden gate had already posted a tiny notice: climbing lessons for peas, one rung at a time. The first tendrils arrived while the latch was still cool. They tapped the nearest twig, waited for a leaf to nod, and only then took a single step toward the sun.
We asked the gardener who keeps the string taut. "They used to rush," she said, winding a spare bit of twine around her wrist. "Now they knock. The twigs like to know who is coming. I just remind the late ones that the top of the gate is not a race."
A neighbor swore the peas had hired a doorman. By evening it was only the same polite queue: a knock, a nod, a little green handhold, and the whole vine looking taller without ever seeming in a hurry.