THE HOUSE OF HAPPY HOURS 



225 



seeds had been sown. The back yard prizes 

 had been made exceedingly liberal^ las 

 also that to be divided between the three 

 contigiions houses which ^^I'Gsented the 

 most attractive front, and a general clean- 

 ing np had ensned. Women and children 

 alike needed nothing to teach them the 

 value of money, and the prizes were val- 

 uable enough to be an incentive. It was 

 not possible to instill right motives into 

 them all at once, and Mrs. Waring pro- 

 ceeded as cautiously and tactfully as she 

 could. 



As the year went by the change -which 

 was being wrought in the spirit of those 

 around her was as beautiful as the ex- 

 quisite blossoms and dew-gemmed leaves 

 which each morning discovered from 

 from one end of the Tucker block, clear 

 around it to the other. It was no wonder- 

 ful radical difference, just a subtle, in- 

 sinuating influence coming into the bar- 

 ren lives from their work with the green 

 things growing about them and radiating 

 softly from the soul of the woman who 

 had been brave enough to take her life 

 as it came to her, and turn hand and 

 thought unquestioningly to the duty which 

 lay nearest her. 



Mr. Tucker was delighted, and his long- 

 suffering in the way of the repairs and 

 fresh paint asked for had as much as any- 

 thing else to do with the rehabilitation 

 of the neighborhood. ^ 



There had been some dog-in-the-manger 

 kind of individuals, who had refused to 

 take part in the new movement, but they 

 had been so sat upon by their more en- 

 thusiastic neighbors that some had been 

 forced into line, while a few, finding the 

 atmosphere daily growing more un- 

 friendly, decamped quietly. 



The dooryards, too small for even such 

 a dim_inutive grass plot as the one which 

 the old German gentleman left word for 

 his wife to trim with the button-hole 

 scissors, were almost given over to the 

 roots of the vines w^hich ran up, and made 

 a lovely screen for the front porches. 



These porches w^re rather the most gen- 

 erous parts of the Tucker cottages, and 

 as the children found less room for them- 

 selves in the back yards among the flower 

 beds which had become their hearts' de- 

 light, they removed their playthings to 

 the cool shade of the green vines, and their 

 own appearance indicated that other 

 mothers as well as Mrs. Millirons had be- 

 gun operations on their children. 



Mr. Tucker had already set a tidy cart 

 to peregrinating about his property, gath- 

 ering up the rubbish lying loose, or col- 

 lected in the large wire trash baskets on 

 the corners, and the streets about the cot- 

 tages were kept as clean as were those of 

 the Extension. His pride was boundless 

 when at last the time came for awarding 

 the prizes, and he drove all along the 

 houses with the committee whom the 

 league had asked to act as judges. 



The Tucker cottages were the same ugly 

 little houses, but how transformed with 

 paint and the evidences of soap and water 

 and elbow grease ! Not one window pane 

 wore a patch of pasted brown paper, not 

 a pillow was stuffed in where a pane ought 

 to be, for it had in the very beginning been 

 agreed upon that the tenants themselves 

 should make such repairs as were made 

 needful by their own carelessness. There 

 had been spirited discussion, but the rule 

 had been carried. The fronts of some 

 of the houses had such cunningly trained 

 vines, making wide windows, square, round 

 or oval, in the midst of the overlapping 

 green leaves, while others had more fragile 

 climbers aroimd the ginger-bread posts 

 and delicately draping the ginger-bread 

 finish to the eaves. 



When it came to inspecting the back 

 yards, the children followed the committee 

 in an ever-swelling throng, and Mr. 

 Tucker did not once recall the bears who 

 had appeared so opportunely to devour 

 those young ones in the long ago who had 

 scoffed at gray hairs. 



The awarding of the prizes was con- 



(Concluded on page 248. ) 



