IIIIIIIIIIIIIHIII1 SCHOOL GARDENS IlillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllHIIIIH 
“I didn’t say much more to ’em. But in a minute I turned and ran 
down the path from the hill, toward the village. And the thoughts that 
come swarming in my head said things first to me, and then to the whole 
village—if I could have made it hear—and I donno but to the whole 
world. And as I went, I saw in the back of my head a village such as I 
had never guessed or dreamed—a village that would let Spring come into 
it and not keep it outside on Hornet Hill. And it was the children, up 
there on the Hill, digging, that had made me see what might be, so be 
we had the sense to let it come true. But that seems the one particular 
kind of sense not many of us have—yet. 
“And now I had a place to go—and a thing to say. I couldn’t 
hardly wait till I got there. And I was headed straight for Mis’ Post¬ 
master Sykes’s, where the Friendship Village Married Ladies’ Cemetery 
Improvement Sodality’s quarterly meeting was being held. And I got 
there just as they were about to vote to buy a new iron fence to put 
around the cemetery. 
“I went right in among them, where they sat with their sewing, 
and I says: 
“‘Ladies! Listen! Up on the top of Hornet Hill I’ve just found 
Binnie Mince, and twenty more of the children, digging up violets and 
buttercups so’s they can have a garden.’ 
“They looked at me, kind of blank. I suppose they were perfectly 
used to seeing most of their children cart in things from the woods to 
plant. And plenty of these women had thrown the things out, too, rather 
than be bothered with them—I knew that. 
“ ‘And oh, ladies,’ I says, ‘Hornet Hill is so beautiful—just because 
the Lord took the pains to set out violets and buttercups there, and edge 
it off with some locusts, and run a border of willows round the brook!’ 
“Yes, they all knew that. Everyone of us went up there to walk 
Sunday afternoon, because it was the only pretty place we had around. 
“ ‘My friends,’ I says, ‘the only pretty place we’ve got is a place the 
Lord planted for us. O, shouldn’t you think we could get to work and 
make our yards and our towns look as nice as the Lord has made Hornet 
Hill look?” 
“They all kind of rustled, questioning. 
“ ‘Oh, well, our own little yards, maybe,’ Mis’ Postmaster Sykes 
says. ‘But we can’t do much to the town, Calliope. We ain’t the means.’ 
“ ‘Means!’ I says, It don’t take means. It just takes a little pitching 
in to work. O, ‘I says,’ while I come along the street just now, I’ve 
been seeing it all different. Suppose we got everybody to take down their 
fences, and put in hedges, and set out shrubbery and hollyhocks close to 
the houses, and have bulbs and salvia and phlox and asters—O, don’t you 
see? Have gardens instead of yards! And suppose we put vines over 
our porches and our chicken sheds and our red barns. And suppose 
we got everybody—down-town and all—to put out window boxes. Can’t 
you see what our town would look like then?’ 
“I think they could see. I know they could see—because they all 
kind of stopped sewing and sat still. But i wasn’t through yet: 
“ ‘O.’ I says, ‘that isn’t all. Suppose we filled in the dump holes 
and planted them with willows—just willows. Suppose we leveled the 
dirt piles and let the children play there. Suppose we cleared out the 
. n • 111111 ii 111111111111111111 n 111111 it 11111M it 
40 
