THE YARD 7 



tors, and the incident is closed. The po- 

 lice have been appealed to several times ; 

 but Captain Muldoon, of our precinct, is 

 Mrs. McGonigle's cousin, and, somehow, 

 nothing seems to get itself done. The 

 McGonigle oasis in our otherwise slow 

 neighborhood is a fateful fixity. 



Our yard, though partly grown to grass 

 and clothes lines and footprints, is bordered 

 with beds ; and we have a diamond-shaped 

 space near the house for pelargoniums, or 

 " Martha Washington geraniums," other 

 geraniums, and coleus. You might not 

 believe that we had nearly sixty varieties 

 of plant in bloom there at once in warm 

 weather, and that the orchids hanging on 

 the house wall above the kitchen windows, 

 and in a shady corner, in pots, flourished 

 in spite of the forebodings of florists, and 

 even made bold, some of them, to blossom 

 in a window next winter. People think 

 because some orchids cost a thousand dol- 

 lars, and perish as soon as you get them 

 home, true vegetable aristocrats, that 

 two-dollar orchids must die as promptly 

 and with equal emphasis, especially if 



