SOME LAST THINGS 



child's tools into her hands a moment longer than 

 is required to show the correct hold and sweep 

 in working. That many are heart and soul in 

 their work is evident. Two boys astonished 

 parents and teachers by appearing regularly 

 at the garden, a mile or more from their homes 

 and laboring steadily and faithfully over their 

 plots when they had never before been known 

 willingly to do any kind of work. One of them 

 persisted in spite of a bad attack of ivy poison- 

 ing. Two small colored boys appeared in the 

 office of the industrial school which they were 

 attending and begged to be promoted from their 

 4x8 foot plots to the farm squad. They had 

 discovered pleasure where manyfind only drudgery. 

 The boy who for four years got up often with the 

 sun, walked three miles to the Hartford School of 

 Horticulture, did his own work and hung around 

 all day begging for jobs, was at seventeen ready 

 to begin the slow reconstruction of a run-down 

 farm that his father bought for him near the city 

 and to which the family of six removed. One 

 small girl was so determined to have a garden 

 that she utilized old cooking utensils as hanging 

 baskets and suspended them from lines which she 

 willingly took down once a week because they in- 

 terfered with her mother's washing day. There 

 are stories innumerable — real ones — often mirth 

 provoking, often pathetic, often full of courage 

 and conquering persistence. 

 Children frequently express convictions of their 

 267 



