GARDENING FOR LITTLE GIRLS 
carry them away. They took home all they wanted, 
and made up the rest into thousands of little 
bunches which the city Plant, Flower and Fruit 
Guild gladly called for and distributed to the New 
York City hospitals, jails and missions. Freshly 
cut, they would last a week, until the children’s 
next visit to their gardens. With hollyhocks, dah- 
lias, cannas and cosmos at the back of the border, 
and in front stocks, poppies, sweet alyssum, Japan- 
ese pinks, nicotiana, and the loveliest blue corn- 
flowers imaginable, they offered a choice variety. 
How the children loved the work! One poor 
little lame boy took some of his morning glory seed 
back to the slums and planted—where? In a box 
on the window ledge of a dark court that never saw 
a ray of sunshine. (The woman in the tenement 
below objected to having it on the fire escape in 
front and he had no other place.) And there it 
actually bloomed, dwarfed like its little owner, fra- 
gile beyond words, with a delicate flower no bigger 
than a dime, but answering the call of love. 
The gardens thrived in spite of the only once-a- 
week care. <A pipe line, with a faucet, ran to the 
center of the lot, and plenty of watering cans were 
provided for the weekly use, but during any extra 
hot weather a friendly neighbor would turn on her 
hose in between times to save the crops. And a 
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