13 My HANDKERCHIEF GARDEN. 



will, there m^y be both time and a way. All of these 

 families depended in part for their support on the labor 

 of Lheir women and children. Any twelve-year-old 

 boy or girl could have put something from the garden 

 on the family table and been all the better for it. As 

 wages go it may be a question whether any young 

 woman staying at home and minding the garden for 

 three months would not earn more money than she 

 could get in a mill or store. Her house would be her 

 market, her family her customers, and she would reap 

 all the profits. 



There are the young folks. Let no young man or 

 young woman fancy their education complete with- 

 out some knowledge of the growth of plants. Garden- 

 ing is an accomplishment worth far more than the 

 ability to struggle through a sonata on the piano — 

 more worthy of a lady too. Labor with the hands, in 

 partnership with nature, on the sweet and honest 

 earth, is worthy any gentleman. If there be any 

 among you having a boy or girl, halting between their 

 school books and a wish to climb the Golden Stair, let 

 him consider whether it be better to have hands 

 browned in the glorious sunshine, a face freckled by 

 the blessed winds, clear eyes keen for out-of-door 

 sights and pleasures, a little dirt, beads of salt perspir- 

 ation, perhaps with a touch of the backache, a jolly 

 appetite and a grand power of sleep, or white hands 

 folded under a coffin lid. 



It is the sum of these things that moves me to here 

 set forth how any man, woman or child having a bit 

 of ground may use it for their best health and the 

 greater gl;)ry of their dinner table and pocketbook. 





