150 



HOME AND FLOWERS 



sure, was not all for your husband's work. 

 Your little house is small and inconven- 

 ient, and I have heard you admire the new 

 ones as ideal. What is your reason? I 

 thought your hobby was the attractiveness 

 of the home." 



"And so it is/' she replied, gently, "but 

 this is a dear little place, and I can the 

 better economize here for the home of our 

 own I hope some day to have." 



Mr. Tucker, more disappointed than he 

 would have cared to have her know, turned 

 slowly away. Later he spoke to Mr. War- 

 ing, and heard for the first time of that 

 old House of Happy Hours, with its 

 thronging associations of sweetness, and 

 of the beautiful garden which lay around 

 it, and respecting the feelings which actu- 

 ated them to remain where they were, he 

 said no more to them about going to one 

 of the new houses. 



In a few months every house in the 

 Tucker Extension was finished and occu- 

 pied, and so attractive was that part of his 

 property that the old gentleman began to 

 tighten the reins over Fleetfoot's back 

 when he passed his blocks of Tucker cot- 

 tages, for he was growing a little ashamed 

 of them. The pretty new houses had read- 

 ily attracted a good class of tenants, and 

 in not one single case had Mr. Tucker any 

 cause for dissatisfaction with the way in 

 which they were kept. The little dooryards 

 were green and as smooth as velvet; on 

 some were stretched gay tents for the 

 children, and there were chair swings and 

 joggling boards, and the entire section 

 wore an air of happy prosperity. The tiny 

 House of Happy Hours, sunshiny and 

 bright as ever, stood as a dividing line 

 between the old order of things and the 

 new. From the windows of her sitting 

 room Mrs. Waring could see not far away 

 the habitations of those people who reviled 

 their landlord sedulously, and circulated 

 all sorts of tales of his parsimony, while 

 from the bedroom windows she could look 

 across to those new houses whose occupants 

 were glad to praise the same man. The 

 diiference was so striking that she could 



not put it out of her mind, and sometimes 

 she could not help wishing that she could 

 try the experiment of making her right- 

 hand neighbors and those on the left 

 change homes for a while, just to satisfy 

 herself how greatly they had been influ- 

 enced by their surroundings. As she 

 thought of the children she felt assured 

 that Billy Conway and his small neighbors 

 vv^ould have been very different if they had 

 had such pleasant little playgrounds when 

 they were still too small to be turned loose 

 in the streets. 



She knew how these younger children 

 found their pleasure. It was in the nar- 

 row, dingy backyards among boxes and 

 barrels that they made their make-believe 

 houses. Being in the background so much 

 and out of sight of the passers-by, they 

 were left unwashed and uncombed to such 

 an extent that they looked as if they be- 

 longed to a different race from the young 

 Warings, and those other little men and 

 women, prettily clad, swinging, singing 

 and frolicking in the Extension, and mak- 

 ing quite the most attractive feature of it. 



One evening Mrs. Waring spoke of all 

 this to Mr. Tucker. He had just men- 

 tioned to them a project for the further 

 improvement of his new property. She 

 hesitated a moment before speaking, and 

 then, looking at him frankly, she said: 



"Mr. Tucker, it seems to me that you 

 are carrying the principle ^to him that 

 hath shall be given' to rather an extreme 

 extent. Your new houses are well ten- 

 anted, and as bright and cheerful as they 

 can be, but think of the cottages V' 



He laughed. "Think of them? I am 

 not allowed to do anything else. To hear 

 the complaints, one would th^nk every 

 house of them was crumbling into decay." 



"Why not institute improvement experi- 

 ments there?" Mrs. Waring asked, and 

 then she told him earnestly and candidly 

 of the conditions she had observed, and 

 how beautiful a thing it would be to set 

 in motion influences which would be form- 

 ative and elevating to the children there. 

 (To he continued.) 



