Childhood in a Garden 329 



have grown up knowing not when " the summer 

 comes with bee and flower." 



A garden childhood gives more sources of delight 

 to the senses in after life than come from beautiful 

 color and fine fragrance. Have you pleasure in the 

 contact of a flower ? Do you like its touch as well 

 as its perfume ? Do you love to feel a Lilac spray 

 brush your cheek in the cool of the evening? Do 

 you like to bury your face in a bunch of Roses ? 

 How frail and papery is the Larkspur! And how 

 silky is the Poppy ! A Locust bloom is a fringe of 

 sweetness ; and how very doubtful is the touch of the 

 Lily an unpleasant thick sleekness. The Clove 

 Carnation is the best of all. It feels just as it 

 smells. These and scores more give me pleasure 

 through their touch, the result of constant handling 

 of flowers when I was a child. 



There were harmful flowers in the old garden 

 among them the Monk's-hood; we never touched 

 it, except warily. Doubtless we were warned, but 

 we knew it by instinct and did not need to be told. 

 I always used to see in modest homes great tubs 

 each with a flourishing Oleander tree. I have set 

 out scores of little slips of Oleander, just as I planted 

 Orange seeds. I seldom see Oleanders now ; I 

 wonder whether the plant has been banished on 

 account of its poisonous properties. I heard of but 

 one fatal case of Oleander poisoning and that was 

 doubtful. A little child, the sister of one of my 

 playmates, died suddenly in great distress. Several 

 months after her death the mother was told that the 

 leaves of the Oleander were poisonous, when she 



