242 
THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
of Lady Washington geraniums; any number copy 
the butterfly fashions. One gay little gypsy flaunts a 
jacket of scarlet and a petticoat of yellow, while be¬ 
side it nods a sombre-petaled flower, brown as an oak- 
leaf in November. Queer copper-hued blossoms call to 
mind the foil from button-cards, which children call 
“gold-money.” Spotless white beauties hover over their 
plants like great snowy moths, and one set of pansies 
actually get the sunset glow on Pelham Hills among 
their delicate shades of violet. This sounds fanciful, 
but it is hardly a hint of the glorious sight that made us 
fairly hold our breath and then let it go in a long sigh of 
satisfaction. 
“ It is magic ! ” I exclaim to the owner. 
“ No,” he replies, with a quiet smile, “ it is cultivation.” 
And I acquiesce meekly. 
“ Yes, that works all the miracles nowadays!” 
You who are flower lovers probably know all about 
the guardian of these wonder children and how he cher¬ 
ishes them until they have lived their fragrant life and 
left its ashes, their seeds, for part payment on his rent- 
roll. Then you will not open your eyes as I did mine— 
not as wide as the pansies, for they are three inches in 
diameter sometimes—when I tell you that beside the 
15,000 pansy plants there are 50,000 asters, 30,000 phlox 
and 20,000 pinks, besides smaller quantities of plants 
less suited to this climate. 
“You must do a great business,” I venture respect¬ 
fully, watching the long, deft, brown fingers moving 
among the nurslings with the mixture of familiarity and 
gentleness which nature gives the touch of her scientific 
sons. 
“ I employ from six to fifteen men all of the time. 
Pansy seeds, you know, must be gathered every week. 
Ten years ago I had two hundred orders in a year for 
seeds. Now my orders are from one to five hundred a 
day.” 
“ You import ? ” 
“From Germany, France and England. They used to 
think we could not raise flower-seeds in America. We 
have proved that we can raise some varieties better here.” 
“ Who are ‘ we,’ please ? ” 
“ Some in Rochester besides Vick, two or three on 
Long Island, a few in Pennsylvania and a few West. 
But seed-growing is comparatively new in this country. 
My name is L. W. Goodell. I raise more than any one 
but Vick, and he has no pansies. I took it up for the love 
of it.” 
As he looks fondly at the dazzling array, I remember 
what used to be said of such work: “Flowers will do 
well only for those who love them.” Somewhat of the 
feeling of the artist watching the picture grow beneath 
his own careful, competent hands; somewhat of the feel¬ 
ing of the musician and the poet, finding rich harmonies 
and contrasts cunningly blended, undoubtedly lurks in his 
heart, finding a happy vent in helping the grand meta¬ 
morphosis of earth, air and water into pansy velvet. 
“Have you always lived here?” I ask. 
“Yes,” with another frank smile, “and my father, 
grandfather and great-grandfather lived here. I have the 
old deed, dated 1760, under King George.” 
“ An unusual American,” I muse, driving away, “ re¬ 
maining where his ancestors first struck root more than a 
hundred years ago, making an artistic and a pecuniary sue 
cess of his quiet life, content to have the finest collection 
of pansies in the country, where only stray travelers may 
exclaim over them, and no glib-tongued reporter recount 
their splendors. But a reporter might as well attempt to 
describe the jewels of the Taj Mahal. The catalogue 
which Mr. Goodell handed me tells that all the ladies of 
the Olympian court, to say nothing of the classic heroines 
from Antigone to Cassiopeia, have been invoked to fur¬ 
nish names for his stately blossoms. What an aesthetic 
assistant to classes in literature such a pansy bed would 
be! The city which cherishes her public gardens with 
one hand and her fine public schools with the other 
should have something of the sort .—Alice Ward Bailey , 
in Boston Journal. 
AN OUT-DOOR FLORIST. 
M RS. CROSBY was busy getting the children ready 
for school. She took a strong thread and needle, 
and sewed up a rip in Annie’s boot, stitched a seam in 
Lena’s glove and went round and round the coarse straw 
hat of her only boy, Bobby. Then the lunch basket was 
packed, and the three children, after a loving kiss, started 
off for their half-mile walk to the nearest school in the 
suburb of the city. Their home was within a mile of 
the metropolis, and the old-fashioned cottage where they 
lived had belonged to Mr. Crosby’s mother long before 
it was built around as now so as to seem part of the 
city, though it escaped the taxes. But as Mrs. Crosby 
sat down to dress the baby, her mind wandered to many 
things connected with her household cares, and to nothing 
so much as the scanty limit of her purse to her expenditures. 
Oh, if she only had some way of buying many of the little 
things they needed, without going to Mr. Crosby! She 
seldom called him “John,” and never when these mental 
recriminations were going on in her mind. He was a 
good husband and a bountiful provider; her wishes were 
always gratified, as far as he could purchase anything, but 
then he often bought things she did not want and left 
her in need of other things she did want. “ How selfish 
men were,” she thought; “they always want to hold the 
purse-strings and to spend the money. I’m sure I work 
as hard as any bookkeeper and yet I have no pay, and 
never a dollar to call my own. 1 would rather do with¬ 
out anything I need than ask John Crosby for money. 
By this time the little one was in the cradle and its 
mother picked up a stocking she was knitting for Lena, 
and at the same time took up the daily paper and laid it 
on her knee—“Hush, my baby, slumber sweetly,” she 
sang in a gentle, loving drone, “ slumber, slumber, sweet.” 
Ah ! who but a mother could do fourfold work, and all so 
