THE PRACTICAL FLOWER GARDEN 



Such a time of delight was mine last spring. 

 It was in May, and a party of choice spirits 

 gathered at the old farmhouse on a Friday, to 

 spend Sunday. They arrived in the midst of 

 a cold rainstorm, one of those storms which 

 so often comes in May, and which the farmer 

 calls the blossom storm. Gathering about 

 the great log fire at nightfall, we wondered 

 how the tender growing things without could 

 survive, and one of my friends, a man whose 

 name is known and whose books are read 

 wherever people care for art and literature, said 

 to me over the tea-cups "Have you not a gar- 

 den or something?" and after acknowledging 

 something of a garden, I, in turn, inquired if 

 he cared for gardening. He answered, " No; 

 there is generally an angel in the pool, and 

 there are always gravel walks, and I hate to 

 walk upon gravel walks, and besides, I have 

 a garden in my imagination where there are 

 only white flowers surrounded with green 

 setting." When I went to bed that night I 

 leaned out of the window to see what was the 



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