THE PRIVATE GARDEN 



shade of a rude trellis of grapes that sheltered 

 a side door two children of the household fell to 

 work with great parade at a small machine, set- 

 ting bristles into tooth-brushes for a neighboring 

 factory, but it was amusingly plain that their 

 labor was spasmodic and capricious. 



The mother was away on a business errand. 

 The father was present. He had done his day's 

 stint in the cutlery works very early, and with 

 five hours of sunlight yet before him had no use 

 to make of them but to sit on a bowlder on the 

 crest of the pleasant hill and smoke and whittle. 

 Had he been mentally trained he might, without 

 leaving that stone, have turned those hours into 

 real living, communing with nature and his 

 own mind; but he had, as half an eye could see, 

 no developed powers of observation, reflection 

 or imagination, and probably, for sheer want of 

 practice, could not have fixed his attention on a 

 worthy book through five of its pages. The 

 question that arose in the minds of his visitors 

 comes again here : what could have been so good 

 to keep idleness from breeding its swarm of evils 

 in his brain and hands and home as for 



135 



