Front Dooryards 
5 1 
down the mossy path of the front yard, and through 
the open front gate was borne the master, the mis- 
tress, and then their children, and children’s chil- 
dren. All are gone from our sight, many from our 
memory, and often too from our ken, while the 
Lilacs and Peonies and Flowers de Luce still blos- 
som and flourish with perennial youth, and still 
claim us as friends. 
At the side of the house or by the kitchen door 
would be seen many thrifty blooms: poles of Scar- 
let Runners, beds of Portulacas and Petunias, rows 
of Pinks, bunches of Marigolds, level expanses of 
Sweet Williams, banks of cheerful Nasturtiums, tan- 
gles of Morning-glories and long rows of stately 
Llollyhocks, which were much admired, but were 
seldom seen in the front yard, which was too shaded 
for them. Weeds grew here at the kitchen door in 
a rank profusion which was hard to conquer; but 
here the winter’s Fuchsias or Geraniums stood in 
flower pots in the sunlight, and the tubs of Olean- 
ders and Agapanthus Lilies. 
The flowers of the front yard seemed to bear 
a more formal, a “ company ” aspect ; convention- 
ality rigidly bound them. Bachelor’s Buttons might 
grow there by accident, but Marigolds never were 
tolerated, — they were pot herbs. Sunflowers were 
not even permitted in the flower beds at the side 
of the house unless these stretched down to the 
vegetable beds. Outside the front yard would be 
a rioting and cheerful growth of pink Bouncing Bet, 
or of purple Flonesty, and tall straggling plants of 
a certain small flowered, ragged Campanula, and a 
