IJ2 
Old Time Gardens 
Garden,” the Satin-flower can be seen in full variety 
of tint, and fills an important place. it is care- 
fully cultivated by seed and division, all inferior 
plants being promptly destroyed, while the superior 
blossoms are cherished. 
The flower was much used in charms and spells, 
as was everything connected with the moon. Dray- 
ton’s Clarinax sings of Lunaria : — 
“ Enchanting lunarie here lies 
In sorceries excelling.” 
As a child this Lunaria was a favorite flower, for 
it afforded to us juvenile money. Indeed, it was 
generally known among us as Money-flower or 
Money-seed, or sometimes as Money-in-both-pock- 
ets. The seed valves formed our medium of ex- 
change and trade, passing as silver dollars. 
Through the streets of a New England village 
there strolled, harmless and happy, one who was 
known in village parlance as a “ softy,” one of 
“ God’s fools,” a poor addle-pated, simple-minded 
creature, witless— -but neither homeless nor friend- 
less ; for children cared for him, and feeble-minded 
though he was, he managed to earn, by rush-seating 
chairs and weaving coarse baskets, and gathering 
berries, scant pennies enough to keep him alive ; 
and he slept in a deserted barn, in a field full of 
rocks and Daisies and Blueberry bushes, — a barn 
which had been built by one but little more gifted 
with wits than himself. Poor Elmer never was able 
to understand that the money which he and the 
children saved so carefully each autumn from the 
