$2 Download. The Children's Garden. 1904 – 44p

The Children's Garden.

LONG time ago, when I was a little girl,

there lived next door to us an old lady who

had a beautiful garden. At least Barbara

and I and Arthur and the twins thought it was

a beautiful garden, though it wasn't tlie least bit

like other gardens we knew about.

One thing that made it nice was that there

was no gardener to tell you that you must keep

out, and who looked cross if you even peeped

through the fence. The old lady herself was the

gardener, and she said that anvone who really

loved tiowers loved children, and she never minded

our coming into the garden, although of course we

understood that we were to he well-mannered, and

not destroy things; and we loved the old lady so

well that we never picked the Howers without

asking. Another reason why we liked the garden

was because it was not kept very trim and neat

and regular, like a gardener's garden, hut just grew

a good deal as it pleased. The hollvhocks bumped

up against the sweet peas, and the poppies grew in

the grassy borders, and the phlox was mixed in

with the asparagus, and the myrtle spread round

under the trees wherever it wanted to go ; and we

children knew that all the flowers enjoyed having

their liberty. There were clumps of marguerites

in the open spaces, and black-eyed Susans in the

orchard, and the old lady was just as fond of these

as she was of her lilies and tulips. We children

loved them a little better, because we could pick

as many as we liked, and they made such beautiful

daisy chains.q