INTRODUCTION 



nificance between the two that we are beginning 

 to understand. 



To-day the land may be hard and forbidding and 

 it may not be the day for working in a garden, but 

 it is certainly the day for thinking of the garden. 

 The soil to-day is resting, awaiting to be born anew 

 resting until the resurrection of the Easter time. 

 The out-of-door activities of childhood are at rest 

 to-day too and there are only in-door games. Per- 

 haps Loring has his new electric car with signals 

 and tracks from the toy store (although I like the 

 simpler things made by boys themselves with nails 

 and sticks and hammer and strings and spools). 

 But in the spring the rich race heritage of Loring 

 and other Lorings, Hope and other Hopes for 

 growing things or playing with living things will 

 re-express itself, although perhaps even to-day 

 these children may be poring over their seed cat- 

 alogues and laying out paper plots of land for col- 

 oring and growing effects. Perhaps for supper 

 to-night at that Long Island home there is a can 

 of Hope's peaches or a jar of Eleanor's raspberry 

 jam from the ample store room. And so, after 

 all, the garden may live throughout the year and 



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