knox] THE BEST SCHOOL GARDEN I KNOW 35 



The garden space is small and there is not a great deal of sun- 

 light to make it thrive, but there are big-hearted people interested 

 in our garden and the sunshine of these warm hearts and ready 

 hands "would make any garden successful. 



The teachers of this school and their friends have all taken an 

 interest in making this garden the best that we know, for, many of 

 the children who play in it have never seen any other. And so 

 we have brought into it violets and columbine, anemones and 

 spring beauties; Jack-in-the-pulpits, hepatica, dog-tooth violets 

 and ferns. All these in their season have introduced themselves 

 shyly to the eager children who were permitted to look but not 

 to touch these frail little visitors. 



The next season the children watched anxiously for the return 

 of the flowers that had come last year and oh, what rejoicing 

 when they were rewarded with a glimpse of the baby leaves 

 peeping forth. When they saw Jack get up again in his pulpit 

 and when they heard him preach from it they learned his text 

 by heart, and this was it : "Make the best of little things." Then 

 his sermon was full of the good things that this little garden has 

 done in the years that it has been growing. 



He reminded them of the Arbor Day celebration some years 

 before when they had put in a baby tree, and he pointed his finger 

 to it and said, "There it stands growing, not very big and strong 

 like a country tree, but still smiling and cheerful, making the best 

 of its little corner in our garden. 



He reminded them of the poor tired bird, a flicker, making its 

 way southward one breezy October day, that had dropped down 

 into our old ailanthus tree for a moment's rest and how frightened 

 it was until it discovered that our boys and girls were all friends, 

 not foes, and as real bird-lovers they had helped it away on its 

 southward journey. 



He reminded them, too, of last spring's beautiful garden. He 

 told how the children had saved their pennies usually spent for 

 chewing gum or candy and that all the children from the kinder- 

 garten to the highest class of big boys and girls, fourteen years 

 old, had some share in buying bulbs in the fall; then how the boys 

 in one of our classes dug the garden and put the bulbs carefully to 

 bed for the winter. 



Then spring came and oh ! what an awakening ! On they came, 

 — snowdrops, narcissus, tulips, jonquils, daffodils, hyacinths, 



