THE FRONT-YARDS OF LONG AGO. 
M RS. STOWE somewhere in one of her dooks, I 
think it may be “ The Minister’s Wooing,” pic¬ 
tures one of these old-fashioned front-yards. It was 
an unpretentious, wide space, shut in by a picket-fence 
paihted white. A Lombardy poplar stood on either side 
of the gate; Morning Glories and New York Beauties 
clambered over the door-porch, and on either side of the 
walk grew bunches of ribbon-grass and clumps of Sou¬ 
thern-wood. Poppies, Larkspurs and Monkshood, and, 
later on, single Marigolds and China Asters grew under 
the windows. Homely as everything was, the picture 
recalls visions of old-time ease and hospitality, and there 
is an idyllic grace and sweetness about that departed life 
of a by-gone century that is altogether lacking in our 
more prosaic age. 
The history of front-yards in the Northern Atlantic 
States, if written, would be very interesting to read. It 
would begin with the romantic times of the early settlers 
and end in a treatise upon landscape gardening. The 
first colonists familiar with the broad gardens and parks 
of England and Holland must have felt somewhat con¬ 
fused when restricted to front-yards by way of pleasure- 
grounds. There is great pathos in the fact that they had 
time or place for gardens at all. Their life was stern and 
hard, and for several years it was more necessary to raise 
maize and pumpkins and peas to keep themselves from 
starving than to lay out alleys and plant flowers and box- 
borders among the rocks and stumps. 
But when, at last, the pioneers found time to cultivate 
a few of the amenities of life, how tenderly guarded were 
the little slips and cuttings which had been sent to them 
by friends beyond the sea! What fears they must have 
had lest the first winter’s cold might cut them off in their 
infancy. And when they bloomed in the warm summer 
time, how their thoughts must have been carried to their 
old homes in the Norfolk fens, on the Kentish wolds and 
among the Cornish hills, where they had last seen them 
blossom! 
There are Rose-trees still blooming"which were brought 
over by the first settlers. I know of an old ruined cellar 
around which grow bunches of Sweetbriar, the Eglantine 
of the poets. It is like a bit of romance to see it there; to 
touch the leaves and make them give out that bewitching 
fragrance; and each June to gather the lovely single Roses, 
whose perfume is the purest attar, and whose petals are 
so deftly tipped and tinted with carmine. How it came 
there no one knows ; but I love to think that the young 
wife of the settler had brought a slip from her home in the 
old country and set it out in the clearing in the wilderness. 
It seems scarcely possible that civilized New England is 
no older than the apple-trees that still thrive on the dreary 
shores of Duxbury and Marshfield, near the graves of 
Perigrine White and the doughty old soldier Miles Stan- 
dish. 
Those early gardens and front-yards are very pathetic 
in the contrast of their extent and their power of sugges¬ 
tion and association. Near the old Peppered mansion at 
Kittery, Maine, the visitor can still see the remains of 
what was once an elegant front garden. There are the 
Box-borders and the Rose-bushes /which were set out by 
the first Lady Peppered in those long-ago days, when 
Queen Anne was reigning in England, and Addison was 
editing the Spectator. 
Across the Piscataqua from the Peppered House is an¬ 
other mansion of “ye ancient time.” It is the Wentworth 
House, the home of Governor Wentworth of colonial 
fame, and of Lady Wentworth, of Longfellow’s musical lay. 
“ Baronial and colonial in its style ; 
Gables and dormer-windows everywhere. 
And stacks of chimneys rising high in air.” 
Vast hedges of Lilacs border the house, around w’hich they 
seem to hold' sweet communion. These are the vesy 
bushes planted there under Martha Wentworth’s direction 
in 1760. Year after year they bloom and throw their fra¬ 
grance to the soft June air. Unchanged themselves, they 
have witnessed decay and death at the ancient mansion. 
Their waving boughs seem to whisper many a sad requiem 
over the fallen glory of Wentworth House. 
Who ‘of us. is there who does not remember a front- 
yard garden, which seemed to us a very paradise in child¬ 
hood ? There is one in my mind as I write, where there 
were a good many Lady’s Delights growing under the 
bushes, and coming up everywhere, even in the chinks of 
the walk, and hosts of yellow and white Daisies. It was 
a miracle to see the tall Tiger-lilies and the great Rose¬ 
bushes all in bloom. Often have I waited by the gate 
when sent on an errand, to have the mistress of the house 
pick a nosegay to send back to my mother. They were 
always prim, flat bouquets, as was the fashion of the time, 
but the beauty and scent of those flowers will nevei be 
surpassed. There would be sprigs of Lavender and Bur- 
gamot and Southern-wood, and great leaves of odorous 
Mint, huge White and Damask Roses, and sprays of Aspa¬ 
ragus, and, later on, bunches of China Asters, Snowballs 
and stately Dahlias—wonderful to the eyes of a child. 
It is to be deplored, I think, that more of those old-time 
flowers are not cultivated in our modern yards and ^gar¬ 
dens. Many of them were in no ways inferior Jo the 
horticultural pets that our sisters take pride in to-day. 
Memory reverts to and lingers fondly among those flowers 
of my grandmother’s time—Flower-de-Luce, blue, pink, 
white and purple Columbines, and the dear sweet Wild- 
roses that grew so lavishly by the wayside. 
“ Oh, the dear old-fashioned flowers! 
How sweetly they used to grow. 
And fill with their perfumed splendor 
The gardens of long ago, 
Before these foreign invaders 
Arrived to usurp their claims, 
And bother us to remember 
Their many new-fangled names.” 
F. M. Colby. 
