DECEMBER 281 



moreover, be forfeited unless the family record 

 in regard to orchards was quite clear. 



I have not said a word about window boxes, 

 which are often the only gardens possible to 

 the cliff dwellers of modern cities ; and yet 

 no one can think better of them than I. 

 Little restful oases to the tired eyes lifted 

 toward them from the pavement ; little play- 

 grounds for imagination ; little ports for gentle 

 thoughts and memories for exiles borne like 

 thistledown on the winds of fate, who would 

 not see their tribe increase until there were 

 no boxless windows in all the waste of brick 

 and mortar ! 



The best boxes are those which hold many 

 trailing and creeping plants. The worst ones, 

 the impossible ones, the unpardonable ones, 

 are those painted scarlet or green. I do not 

 know why it has not been set down in the 

 Acts of Congress that makers and vendors 

 and buyers of certain paints should not be 

 sentenced to whatever answers to the galleys 

 in modern penology. The makers of iron 

 urns and animals should be sentenced, like- 

 wise ; but to-day my business is with window 

 boxes, and the impossibility of having an 



