THE PRIVATE GARDEN 



used in telling of the gardens of Italian princes; 

 yet why should we not, when the one nature 

 and the one art are mother and godmother of 

 them all ? It is a laughing wonder what beauty 

 can be called into hfe about the most unpre- 

 tentious domicile, out of what ugliness such 

 beauty can be evoked and at how trivial a 

 cost in money. Three years before this "garden 

 to look out from" won its Carnegie prize it was 

 for the most part a rubbish heap. Let me 

 now tell of one other, that sprang from conditions 

 still more unlovely because cramped and shut in. 

 It was on the other side of the town from 

 those I have been telling of. The house stood 

 broadside to the street and flush with the side- 

 walk. The front of the lot was only broad 

 enough for the house and an alley hardly four 

 feet wide between the house's end and a high, 

 tight board fence. The alley led into a small, 

 square back yard one of whose bounds was the 

 back fence of the house. On a second side was 

 a low, mossy, picturesquely old wing-building 

 set at right angles to the larger house, its doors 

 and windows letting into the yard. A third 



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