APRIL 8 1 



withstand the late springs and the hot sum- 

 mers of the village in which I chiefly knew 

 them, yet no two borders would be alike, and 

 the tastes and opportunities of the owners of 

 the beds were revealed in the most fascina- 

 ting way. The experience of a very few years 

 taught the children just where to go to see the 

 flowers which they loved, and in their eyes the 

 village ladies were important in degrees that 

 varied with their success in raising this flower 

 or that. Their charms and virtues were cata- 

 logued in the minds of the small critics in 

 proportion to the generosity with which they 

 shared their gardens with their little neigh- 

 bours. I think that my own mental collection 

 of old ladies a collection of immeasurable 

 value to me began with opposing types of 

 front yard gardeners, and I am not sure that 

 I have ever added to it the portrait of any- 

 one who had no taste in gardening. 



Looking backward the ideal garden seems 

 to me to have been in a front yard ! 



It belonged, as so many did, to a woman 

 who had never had a child, and who had 

 sought and found, in the flowers of God's 

 giving, the comfort other women find in their 



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