Childhood in a Garden 
335 
people plant expanses of Canterbury Bells ; one at 
the beautiful garden at White Birches, Elmhurst, 
Illinois, is shown on page hi. I do not like this 
as well as the planting in our home garden when 
they are set in a mixed border, as shown opposite 
page 416. Our tastes in the flower world are largely 
influenced by what we were wonted to in childhood, 
not only in the selection of flowers, but in their 
placing in our gardens. The Canterbury Bell has 
historical interest through its being named for the 
bells borne by pilgrims to the shrine at Canterbury. 
I have been delighted to see plants of these sturdy 
garden favorites offered for sale of late years in New 
York streets in springtime, by street venders, who 
now show a tendency to throw aside Callas, Lilies, 
Tuberoses, and flowers of such ilk, and substitute 
shrubs and seedlings of hardy growth and satisfac- 
tory flowering. But it filled me with regret, to 
hear the pretty historic name — Canterbury Bells 
— changed in so short a residence in the city, by 
these Italian and German tongues to Gingerbread 
Bells — a sad debasement. Native New Englanders 
have seldom forgotten or altered an old flower name, 
and very rarely transferred it to another plant, even 
in two centuries of everyday usage. But I am glad 
to know that the flower will bloom in the flower 
pot or soap box in the dingy window of the city 
poor, or in the square foot of earth of the city 
squatter, even if it be called Gingerbread Bells. 
I think we may safely affirm that the Hollyhock 
is the most popular, and most widely known, of all 
old-fashioned flowers. It is loved for its beauty. 
