THE PRIVATE GARDEN 



give entirely differing social elements "good 

 things to say to one another's face instead of bad 

 things at one another's back." 



We believe our Northampton garden com- 

 petition tends to do this. It brings together 

 in neighborly fellowship those whom the dis- 

 crepancies of social accomplishments would for- 

 ever hold asunder and it brings them together 

 without forced equality or awkward condescen- 

 sion, civic partners in that common weal to 

 neglect which is one of the "dangers and temp- 

 tations of the home." 



Two of our committee called one day at a 

 house whose garden seemed to have fallen into 

 its ill condition after a very happy start. Its 

 mistress came to the door wearing a heart-weary 

 look. The weather had been very dry, she 

 said in a melodious French accent, and she 

 had not felt so very well, and so she had not 

 cared to struggle for a garden, much less for a 

 prize. 



"But the weather," suggested her visitors, 

 "had been quite as dry for her competitors, and 

 few of them had made so fair a beginning. To 



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