The Garden Magazine 



IT IS after the hour when the luncheon 

 trays have been carried away. The 

 ward is settling down to the tedium of 

 the long dragging afternoon. Here, 

 pith bored restlessness, a young head, with 

 its deep brown campaigner's tan curiously 

 lulled because of the pallor of pain that 

 jnderlies it, moves restlessly on the pillow 

 in weary boredom at the monotony of the 

 days in the hospital. His neighbor lies still, too 

 weak to fret, but his eyes, when he slowly lifts 

 them, honest boy's eyes that they are, are listless 

 and dull, and very lonesome. 



Then suddenly there is a faint stir outside, the 

 murmur of women's voices tuned to sympathy 

 and gentleness, and a whiff of perfume — Roses, 

 Carnations, Lemon Verbena, dewysweet, fresh 

 with outdoors, drifts down past the long row of 

 white beds. The restless head turns eagerly 

 toward the door, his neighbor's dull eyes brighten 

 with expectancy. A thrill of eagerness runs 

 through the whole ward and the word goes round: 



"The Flower Ladies have come!" 



It is true. And there isn't a man in the ward 

 who doesn't brighten up when the Flower Ladies, 

 as they are called — and presently I will tell you 

 who they are — open the door of the ward and 

 come in with their great baskets heaped with 

 flowers. There are many wards in the hospital, 

 but the Flower Ladies do not seem to hurry. 

 They have time to stop and talk, to ask kindly 

 questions, to call the boys by name whom they 

 have seen before, even to make a little absurd 

 joke, such as boys love, now and then, and win a 

 reward of appreciative chuckles. And as they 

 talk, and pass from bed to bed, their hands are 

 very busy with the flowers. 



EACH bedside table has its vase which holds 

 half a dozen flowers, and these are filled 

 by the Flower Ladies, with a flattering recogni- 

 tion of tastes. "You're the boy who likes pink 

 Roses," or "Oh, I saved this little spray of 

 Larkspur just for you — you liked it so much the 

 last time we were here." 



Here and there, where a boy is too ill to notice 

 the flowers by his bedside, a fragrant blossom is 

 dropped on his pillow, where he can enjoy the 

 perfume. And to make a beauty spot for those 

 who are getting better, a big bouquet is placed on 

 the table at the end of the ward. All this, mind 

 you, without bothering the nurses for fresh water 

 for the vases, or asking them to leave their duties 

 to help arrange the flowers. The service of the 

 Flower Ladies is designed to be a real service to 

 all those with whom it must come in contact. 



And when all the vases are arranged and all 

 the soldier boys — or sailor boys perhaps — have 

 had a word of greeting and cheer, the Flower 

 Ladies go into the next ward followed by a chorus 

 of "Come again soon" and "Goodbye, thank 

 you a million" and all sorts of awkward boyish 

 grateful phrases. 



When Flowers Mean More 

 Than Medicines 



The Service of Flowers Among the Soldiers in 

 Our Hospitals 



By SOPHIE KERR 



\J&. 



AND now to go back to the real beginning of 

 the story. When our wounded and sick 

 soldiers and sailors began to be brought back to 

 America to the base hospitals in this country, 

 that wonderful organization, the National League 

 for Woman's Service, began to have the comfort 

 and welfare of these boys very much on its mind. 

 It is not the custom of the members of the League 

 merely to recognize a condition — they act, and 

 act promptly. In this case they acted on a plan 

 made by one of their members, Mrs. J. Clark 

 Curtin. It was Mrs. Curtin who became chair- 

 man of a committee charged with the responsi- 

 bility of collecting and distributing the flowers 

 among the hospitals, and since a large number of 

 the base hospitals are in New York and its 

 vicinity, the work was started there. 



Like Jack's beanstalk, it has grown and 

 grown and grown, all over the country, through 

 the seven hundred branches of the League. And 

 where there are no base hospitals to be given 

 this peculiarly appealing touch of cheer, League 

 workers who are near military training camps 

 have made it part of their service to send and dis- 

 tribute flowers to the sick boys at the camp hos- 

 pitals. (But that is another story.) 



Those of you who have ever been in a hos- 

 pital for any length of time know well the dreari- 

 ness and monotony of the days, even with atten-' 

 tive friends calling, and daily gifts of flowers and 

 fruit and all the list of invalid's delicacies that 

 are showered on you. Picture then to yourself 

 these soldiers and sailors, sick or wounded, 

 brought back from overseas, and landed into a 

 base hospital some hundreds or maybe thousands 

 of miles from home and friends. Our fighting 



129 



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forces come from every state in the Union 

 — and the wounded lad from Nevada lies in 

 a bed beside another from Texas, with per- 

 haps a drawling-voiced Florida boy on the 

 other side. They are very far away from 

 family and friends; they are weak and 

 J n maybe a little cross — who blames them if 

 they are? — and they are desperately lone- 

 some and homesick. They need, oh how 

 much they need, a personal kindness, a kindness 

 that is intended just for them, and something 

 quite apart from the excellent ministrations of 

 their nurses. And for them — remember — here 

 come the Flower Ladies! 



So you can imagine how really wonderful Mrs. 

 Curtin's idea was for these boys. Yet, like all 

 wonderful ideas, it had to have its practical side. 

 Here was the great question that soon arose — 

 Where can we get sufficient flowers to make our 

 supply really worth while? People with large 

 estates and fine gardens would give, but this 

 could not be reckoned with as a constant unfailing 

 supply. A constant unfailing supply, brought 

 in daily, was what the hospital service absolutely 

 required, if it was to be a real success. So now 

 comes the other side of the story, the practical 

 side, which is quite as wonderful and as beautiful 

 as the idea itself. 



' I V HERE is no one quite so warm-hearted as a 

 *- cool-headed business man — that is almost 

 an axiom — and the colder the head, the warmer 

 the heart. Naturally, when Mrs. Curtin needed 

 a fairy godmother to produce the flowers for her 

 sick boys in the hospitals, she went to an organiza- 

 tion of cool-headed successful business men, the 

 Society of American Florists, and there — why 

 oj course she found her Fairy Godmother — I dare- 

 say I should say Fairy Godfather and put the 

 word in the plural at that — and the unfailing 

 supply of flowers was instantly forthcoming. 



Two places were set aside for collection — 

 roomy quarters over in the late West Twenties, 

 which is the stronghold of the wholesale florists 

 of New York, and there each day the flowers 

 are brought, great glowing perfumed masses of 

 flowers, not faded ones, or leftovers, or crushed 

 or overblown, but just as fresh as can be ob- 

 tained. The florists, in common with the rest 

 of us Americans, believe that there is nothing too 

 good for the boys in the service, and so they gave, 

 and are giving, freely of their best. 



You will please remember, too, that the florists, 

 this year, are laboring under some pretty stiff 

 war conditions. To begin with, their supply 

 of fuel has been cut down exactly one half by the 

 fuel administration. There is one big floral 

 firm out in the Middle West that has a coal mine 

 right on its own property, in its own back yard, as 

 it were, yet it is only allowed to use fifty per cent, 

 of what it has been necessary to have in pre-war 

 years. 



It is more than ever difficult for the florists 



