SUMMER 83 



houses to keep. The chief blessing of 

 poverty is that other folks don't ask you 

 to help them to live. 



Truly, the opulence of gold may comfort 

 one, but it cannot be a substitute for the 

 wealth of color in our yard. No, it is not 

 a vain statement. Reason it out for your- 

 self: limitless gold, in bareness and dullness 

 and squalor; or next to none of it, and 

 brightness and gaiety and liberty and ac- 

 tion ? 



This is when we reap that which we 

 have sown in the spring. We have coddled 

 it through the frosts, and now we glean it 

 for dinner and the neighbors, and some 

 sprays and blossoms for the always eager 

 children of the tenements. Reginald Mc- 

 Gonigle comes over the fence and helps 

 himself, though he does n't care much 

 about flowers. Few good things come 

 without work, it is only the bad things 

 that do that, and my wife often puts in 

 a morning when I am at the shop, and we 

 labor together for an hour after I come 

 home in the evening. Insects take most 

 of our time, but there are dead leaves to 



