154 GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 



can you say of yours ? " Another favorite is, " Let others tell 

 of storms and showers ; I '11 only count your sunny hours." 

 Here is a longer one too good to be omitted : 



On the sundial in the garden, 



The great sun keeps the time ; 

 A faint, small, moving shadow, 



And we know the worlds are in rhyme. 



But if once that shadow should falter 



By the space of a child's eyelash, 

 The seas would devour the mountains, 



And the stars together crash. 1 



Finally, nobody who understands children will fail to appre- 

 ciate how much they love to beautify their surroundings. In 

 a garden, for instance, although they may have announced 

 it as their firm intention to plant nothing but vegetables, be- 

 fore many days they will be overheard planning for at least 

 a border of flowers. An excellent way to learn how to make 

 flower gardens is by first practicing with borders. This will 

 lead toward the planting of vines for backgrounds, screens, 

 and cover-ups, and all sorts of ambitious schemes will follow. 



Certainly a garden takes a long stride when, having begun 

 its existence as a place to dig and delve in, it consciously 

 sounds a note of beauty and becomes a spot truly to live in. 

 Grown-up eyes may find much to criticize, but whenever 

 children put their hearts into a garden, expressing fearlessly 

 their ideas of beauty in terms of their own, the place cannot 

 fail to grow in interest and charm. To the children them- 

 selves, of course, their garden naturally becomes the most 

 enchanting spot in the world, for the same youthful imagi- 

 nation that can transform an old tippet into "the prettiest 

 doll in the world " finds not the least difficulty in turning a 

 scraggy bit of land into a perfect paradise. 



1 Richard Watson Gilder. 



