218 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



June, 1908 



Monthly Comment 



tEIGHBORS' children constitute one of the 

 most delicate and intricate problems of coun- 

 try house ownership. It is a question of 

 never-ending complexity and of quite infinite 

 variety. It is a difficulty that is seldom set- 

 tled, and is quite liable to break out into an 

 acute stage immediately after an apparently 

 lasting peace has been signed, sealed and delivered. It is 

 a question of such a varied nature that it may be ap- 

 proached both from the standpoint of constant delight and 

 endless annoyance. Its phases are more unstable than the 

 weather, and it is one of those things that is with us con- 

 stantly. The mosquitoes and the flies may pass away with 

 the season, the hardest days of the coldest winters may, in 

 time, yield to the softening influence of spring, but one's 

 neighbors' children are always at hand, and even at times 

 when they may be supposed to be safely housed within 

 doors offer fresh subject for dispute. The controversies 

 they provoke pass on from one stage to another; and if, 

 by natural law, any of these precious beings advance in age, 

 they offer, in each succeeding period, new problems, or there 

 is an invariable new crop in which the. old difficulties are 

 presented anew with the latest of modern forms. 



Children, as a rule, and neighbors' children especially, 

 have very small regard for the rights of property. If they 

 have been accustomed to walk across your lawn while your 

 property was awaiting a tenant, they acquire, so they think, 

 an inalienable right to trespass at any and all times when 

 their free souls feel the need of disporting in your open 

 spaces. If your house wall has been used as a target for 

 catching ball, there, is never the smallest reason for discon- 

 tinuing this sport because you happen to have moved in ; 

 while the proximity of a window but adds a fresh zest to 

 this harmless pastime. They are persuaded, in a manner 

 that leaves no room for argument, that your small fruits 

 and berries, your cherries, pears, apples and watermelons 

 exist, grow and have their being for no other reason than to 

 administer a pleasing comfort to their inwards whenever 

 they feel the need of physical refreshment, or even at times 

 when, having no space to spare within, they arrive, at a con- 

 viction that you have too much or too many for your own 

 domestic consumption. If you possess a choice flower there 

 is every reason why that, too, should be appropriated, and 

 its structure dissected in a way that leaves nothing at all to 

 be thought of in the art of complete destruction. Some of 

 these depredations are, it is true, accomplished by children 

 of a larger growth ; but the solemn fact to you is, that ruin 

 has been wrought, and damage accomplished, without any 

 means soever of redress. All these little, circumstances add 

 greatly to the regard with which you view your neighbors' 

 children, regard that sometimes extends to the parents, to 

 the great undoing of friendships and the vast mental dis- 

 turbance of a neighborhood. 



On the other hand there is the perfectly well established 

 fact and well-known truth that one's neighbors' children 

 can do no wrong. Parents have been known to seem to 

 have no especial regard for their offspring, who vigorously 

 resent any suggestion from a much tried neighbor that their 

 children are not so well behaved as they should be. It is 

 extremely unwise to convey any suggestion of this sort to any 

 parent, whether a neighbor or otherwise. It is sure to create 

 bad feeling, and this state of mind should be avoided at all 

 costs. If the realization that this may be the case becomes 

 too keen to be retained, it is better to dig a hole in the 

 ground and whisper it to the earthworms, than to proclaim 



it aloud to any living soul. It is not even safe to unburden 

 oneself to a sympathetic neighbor who may harbor a similar 

 idea. That instantly puts you in another person's power, 

 and may lead to your own undoing in some unanticipated 

 moment. 



For, of course, all children are good, and the closest 

 thing to angels we have on earth. They are the most inter- 

 esting little objects, too, full of a youthful vivacity of a 

 thoroughly varied kind. They never mean any harm, and 

 they never do any mischief. There is nothing so charming 

 as a happy child, and who is there so heartless as to deny a 

 child a few apples or berries if their acquisition or their 

 possession makes them happy? Why hem in one's grounds, 

 especially if one has no children of one's own, and keep out 

 these charming little beings that would add so much to the 

 gaiety of your landscape if they but disport themselves upon 

 your choicest bit of lawn? Surely the most costly statue or 

 the most precious vase does not approach in interest, or even 

 in value, the charm of a young child, even though he is never 

 so happy as when he is where he ought not to be ! 



The problem of neighbors' children does not cease with 

 growing years. From quite young children they advance to 

 a stage of not so young. The process is often accomplished 

 with a great loss of personal interest, but the problem itself 

 does not diminish; it merely takes on a new aspect. Do not 

 imagine for a moment, therefore, that because a child grows 

 older you will have less bother from him. You look for- 

 ward, of course, to an epoch when he may acquire some dis- 

 cernible degree of mental penetration and realize that you 

 and yours do not exist solely for the gratification of his 

 caprices. Just so long as he remains in the happy period of 

 childhood all sorts of things are liable to happen, and when 

 he reaches young manhood, and even maturity, he may 

 carry into these older periods impressions and views of your- 

 self that are left over from the earlier epochs that he has 

 never taken the trouble to cure himself of. 



There are quite a number of things one. should not do 

 to one's neighbors' children; they are, in fact, so numerous, 

 that it were better to seem unaware of their existence rather 

 than to run the danger of taking any note of them. Never 

 dislike them. Never tell them not to do anything to your 

 property. Never tell them to stay away. Never ask them 

 to do anything for you. Never offer them pay for anything 

 they might do for you. If you ignore them altogether they 

 will haul out this circumstance at even the remotest epochs 

 of their lives and cite it as convincing evidence of your 

 innate unpleasantness. This may be true enough, but no 

 one likes even a child to detect a defect in one's character. 

 But the most dangerous of all things, when children reach 

 an askable age, is to ask a favor of them. Never ask that 

 they convey a package for you to the post office Never 

 suggest they might earn an honest quarter by mowing your 

 lawn. Never even think they might be useful. Even if the 

 child is searching for a job, and perhaps needs one, it is bet- 

 ter that he should go elsewhere than that you should put any 

 money-making opportunities in his way. 



The guides to country life contain no chapters on this 

 important and engrossing subject; yet it is a chapter of real 

 moment, and is concerned with circumstances and human 

 beings that may do much to make life in the country enjoy- 

 able and peaceful. Yet the countryside without children 

 would be a barren wilderness of stupid houses and old peo- 

 ple. Obviously one's neighbors' children have their compen- 

 sations, even if they be not always observable. 



