10 GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 



daugfifer of nine to an out-of-town garden every Saturday 

 morning foi two seasons. They have been learning together 

 how to garden. 



Appreciation of country life for children is, however, not 

 confined to the ranks of the well-to-do. Those who are tied 

 to a job through an eight- or nine-hour working day are also 

 willing to make sacrifices for the sake of this idea. The wider 

 one's experience the firmer one's belief that gardens have no 

 stronger advocates than the plain people. 



An incident is worth telling here. In the throng at a 

 recent horticultural show of children's gardens two visitors 

 attracted the writer's attention, Veronica (a small colored 

 girl, aged twelve) and her mother. Evidently they had come 

 for a purpose. They inspected the prize tables, lingering a 

 long time at each. Every now* and then Veronica would write 

 in her scrap of a notebook. An acquaintance was soon struck up. 



It appeared that the exhibit was to be used as the subject 

 of a school composition, the children having been permitted 

 to choose their own theme. But why this particular one ? 

 Thereupon hung a story. They lived in a South End tene- 

 ment ; the mother did cleaning. Her regular places were 

 mostly offices in buildings down town, but on Saturdays she 

 scrubbed for a private family ten miles out. This was because 

 she could take Veronica along, who was allowed to work in 

 the garden with the children pf the family. The mother after 

 some coaxing explained why she considered the triple sacri- 

 fice of time, strength, and money worth making, expressing in 

 the vernacular of a working woman the fervor of a Pestalozzi. 



So far we have spoken of the value of gardens to individual 

 children with little reference to the stimulus of companion- 

 ship. But in stopping here we should lose sight of a tre- 

 mendous force, the drawing of kindred natures together 

 for the better accomplishment of some distinct end. 



