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THE SECRET OF THE BROOK. 
All day have the hills been calling, 
All day has the brooklet said : 
“Leave thetoil that is making aweary, 
Leave even the book unread ■ 
And come with me through the meadows, 
Through clover and daisies white, 
Till the phantom of care that follows 
Is spirited out of sight.” 
With a faith that is half desponding, 
A heart that is sad and faint, 
I go to the brooklet, calling, 
Tet bearing a weak complaint: 
“ O brook, thou art singing forever, 
Wherever thy way may be ; 
Thou hast hidden, deep in the wildwood, 
Some secret of joy from me 1” 
The hills come down to the dingle. 
They circle me kindly round ; 
The trees bend over to whisper 
Some marvel of light or sound; 
The welcoming shadows beckon. 
And into each mossy nook, 
Through leafy lattices shyly. 
The frolicsome sunbeams look. 
List 1 Is it the brooklet’s low tinkle, 
Or daintiest warbling of birds ? 
Nay, the lady-ferns talking together, 
And my heart interprets their words. 
“ Oh ! stay in the wildwood, brooklet, 
Where sweetest of blossoms tell 
How, blithest of all the fairies, 
You gladden the darksome dell.” 
“ Nay, nay. From the pastures are calling 
The herds, and the flocks from the hills ; 
The peasant has brought from the harvest 
His burden of grain to the mills ; 
The voices of children—I hear them— 
Their faces I haste to see ; 
The tiniest blades of the grasses 
Have blessings, I know, for me.” 
O brook ! I have found your secret, 
That never my books had told ; 
That never I learned from sages 
Of all the centuries old. 
Close to my heart I fold it, 
And there like a bird it sings ; 
And its song shall be to my spirit 
What to the lark are its wings. 
Mbs. Ellery E. S. Chase. 
A LITTLE GIRL’S EXPERIENCE IN- 
FLOWERS. 
As so many of the subscribers cf this paper write 
about the different ways they have their flowers, I 
thought I would tell you how we have ours. We 
have a conservatory on the southeast corner of our 
house. We have doors opening from both the kitch¬ 
en and the dining-room. It is ten feet long and six 
feet wide. We have a great many varieties of plants 
—Roses, Fuchsias, Geraniums, Begonias, Lilies, and 
a great many other kinds. It would take a long time 
to tell you of them all; so I will describe only those 
which 1 think prettiest. Our Smilax is beautiful. 
Mamma trained it all up on a straight cord, and now 
it is about seven feet high and is full of flowers, 
which come under every leaf and look like little 
White Lilies. We have a hanging-basket, which is 
very pretty. It is made out of a piece of root of some 
tree and painted black. It has a very pretty leafed Be¬ 
gonia in it, and some Lobelia, which hangs over the 
edge and makes it very pretty. We think there is noth- 
ing.prettier for winter blooming than the Primulas. 
We have every color, I should judge. Besides, we 
have the Double White. They are so very fragrant 
that I don’t see how'any one who ever saw one could 
help liking them. We have nine different kinds of 
Begonias, all of the choicest R x varieties and flower¬ 
ing kinds. Our Calla Lilies are perfectly enormous. 
Each one of them has a flower on it. I must not for¬ 
get c ur dear little White Roman Hyacinths, which 
are nowin bloom and are so sweet. WehaveMau- 
randya. Ivy, Solanum trained to run up to the top of 
the conservatory, to give it a pretty finish. We only 
keep such flowers in the conservatory in the winter 
as bloom or show to some advantage. The rest we 
put in a spare room. I cannot tell you what makes 
our flowers so very pretty; for I am only ten years 
old and Mamma tends to them mostly. Our yard is 
very pretty for this time of the year. We have one 
little Yellow Tulip that is in bloom already in the 
yard. After a while we will have a great many* of 
them in bloom. It would surprise any one to know 
bow many Rosebushes we have, loaded with buds 
and half-blown buds. We can have flowers here 
almost all winter, on account of the weather never 
being very cold. Lulu A. Willis. 
Roserurg, Oregon. 
OUR FLOWERS. 
I must tell you about our flowers which we have 
and how much pleasure they have given us. The 
vines we have are things of beauty, surely. You 
ought to see our 1Toy a Carnosa (Wax Plant). It is 
yards and yards in length, and last fall, when we re¬ 
moved them, Ihe largest had some twenty or thirty 
bunches or clusters of flowers. We have one, two 
years old, that has several clusters on it. We are very 
successful with it. We have an English Ivy twining 
around one window, besides Kenilworth Ivy in bas¬ 
kets, and Smilax; and then we have the Wandering 
Jew in a pot on a bracket, which hangs down some 
two or three feet. We have a cool room, which is 
warmed by the sitting-room stove. The temperature is 
about 60°, and we have a number of plants that do 
well in it—such as Begonias, Geraniums, Mallow, 
Lobelia, Vinca, and the Barclayana, of which we 
have two varieties. The Thunbergia does well too. 
Last fall, it looked so well, we thought it a pity to 
have it frozen; so we took it up carefully, put it in a 
pot, gave it a trellis, and it has bloomed all the 
winter. Our Lophospbermum we took up also. Its 
leaves are such a beautiful green and the largest I 
ever saw. Some leaves measured nearly eight inche» 
in diameter. Sometimes there were fifty blossoms 
open at one time- I never knew these vines would do 
Libebty, Ohio. 
L. H. Getter. 
ARTIFICIAL IVY LEAVES. 
A FLOURISHING CALLA LILY. 
as house-plants; but they did not mind the change in 
the least. I noticed that some of your correspondents 
had no success with the Lily of the Valley. They grow 
so luxuriantly in our yard that we thought it grew 
anywhere. They have spread so much that we were 
obliged to dig them out and throw them away. It 
seemed a pity to do so, as they have such lovi ly, fra¬ 
grant, pearl-like blossoms. There are only a few of 
our neighbors that care for plants, and they have 
enough. I wish the readers of the Cabinet could see 
our violets. They are all blue and white and look like 
patches of snow. The blue blooms so profusely that 
no leaves can he seen until within a few feet of the 
bed. They multiply so fast that we can give to all 
that wishes for them, besides throwing a vast amount 
away. They are so fragrant that the perfume reaches 
you fifty yards from the bed. We have quite a num¬ 
ber of other plants, that I will not now speak of; but I 
must tell you of a “ Gardenia ” we have, that dropped 
all its leaves. I took it out of the pot, shook off all 
the dirt, repotted it in rich soil, and put it under sash. 
It is beginning to put out new leaves a«ad has a bud. 
We have four varieties of the Jasmine. One variety 
blooms yellow, hut we have had no experience with 
it yet. 
Artificial ivy leaves are made by taking green win¬ 
dow Holland and using an English ivy leaf for a pat¬ 
tern. Cut out any number of leaves, making different 
sizes. Next lay them upon paper, and with a warm 
iron, upon which you first rub some beeswax, press 
each leaf. To shape and vein the leaves, fold the 
leaf from side to side, making a crease from stem 
to tip; then likewise through to each point, from stem. 
For stems, take fine wire (not too fine to stand in 
shape), push the end through two small holes previ¬ 
ously made with a pin far enough to turn hack upon 
the underside, and twist carefully around, to secure it 
in place. The smallest leaves are placed upon the ends 
of the vine. Twine the wires with tissue paper, the 
color of leaves, and make long vines, with branches 
here and there. Ornament a flower-pot with a fancy 
cover, fill with clean sand, which place upon a shelf 
or bracket. Then plant therein your artificial ivy and 
train it as your fancy dictates, and you will have a 
vine that can look fresh and green without care and 
one that will not freeze. Mbs. T. C. H- 
“Rosa” writes The Cottage Hearth of a very vigor¬ 
ous Calla Lily: “ It has had seventeen blossoms since 
the first of February, five are open to-day, and two 
more buds are coming out now, making nineteen in 
all, with a prospect of more yet. Have had as many as 
eight open at one time. Four years ago one bulb was 
given to me, which has thrived, and now there are 
eighteen or nineteen. All have budded now. I do 
not let it die in summer; hut set it out of doors, water¬ 
ing it when I do other plants all through the summer. 
Then in the fall change it into something larger, giving 
new earth obtained from the swamp. It is now In a 
butter-firkin, with holes in the bottom for drainage, 
and a tin plate set under it. I wet it with hot dish¬ 
water or suds once a day, not having the water hotter 
than I can hear my hand in. 
