Iss U E D ºr
7~ THE MICHIGAN TRUST CO .
GRAND RAPIDS. MICH. Mea. 2–0 0 &



PRESENTED
witH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEAsON
BY
THE MICHIGAN TRUST CO.
22 oz. 24. 4° , a 0 tº
The Children's Garden
By ELEAN or WITHEY WILLARD.
With Illustrations from Photographs by
FEDORA E. D. B.Row N.

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THE MICH IGAN TRUST COMPANY.,
Grand Rapids, Michigan.
1904
Copyrighted 1904
By The Michigan Trust Company.
Introductory.
* FRIEND of ours once said that his
Summer garden was always at the
highest point of its glory in Febru-
ary, when the flower catalogues
came, and his imagination saw with cheerful Opti-
mism the gorgeous bloom of June. In this hope-
ful spirit we put forth, in the middle of December,
this little tale of “A Children's Garden,” not for
any flower lore that it contains, but for the sake
of suggesting, in the midst of cold, snow and bliz-
zard, the pleasant meditations that faith in a
blossoming future may induce. And if, inci-
dentally, it shall stimulate in any children of these
modern days, an interest in some of the simple
and natural ways of finding pleasure, we shall feel
that our summer pastoral has not been amiss,
even in midwinter.
THE MICHIGAN TRUST Co.
December 25, 1904.


“Accept, I beseech your Majesty, this speaking
Garden, that may inform you in all particulars of
your store, as well as wants, when you cannot
See any of them fresh upon the ground.”
The Garden of Pleasant Flowers.
John Parkinson, 1620
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 the least bit
like other gardens we knew about.
One thing that made it nice was that there
WaS DO 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 anyone who really


loved flowers loved children, and she never minded
our coming into the garden, although of course we
understood that we were to be well-mannered, and
not destroy things; and we loved the old lady so
well that we never picked the flowers 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, but just grew
a good deal as it pleased. The hollyhocks 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.



10.
We liked the dandelions that grew in the front
yard, and the old lady owned up that she did too,
although some people complained that they spoiled
the lawns. Our old lady did not have any lawn,
but she had things that we thought much nicer.
There was a brook down at the back of the gar-
den, where we waded and paddled by the hour.
Along the banks there grew forget-me-nots and
wild honeysuckle, and violets and lady-slippers,
and ever so many other flowers.


There were four-leaf
clovers, too, down in the
orchard, and on a warm
summer day there was
nothing we girls liked bet-
ter than sitting under the
apple trees hunting them.
And in the autumn we
were sometimes allowed to
build a little bonfire in the
meadow beyond and roast
some of the apples.
Mother used to say that
the garden was her greatest
help in bringing us up ; it
kept us out of mischief
and improved our disposi-
tions. Barbara couldn’t
understand how a garden
could have any effect on
dispositions, but I knew.
It was because of the gar-
den that we loved our
neighbor as ourselves—it

15.
was so easy to love the old lady—and Mother al-
ways said that selfishness was “the worst sin in the
calendar,” because it lead to all the other sins—
though what the calendar had to do with it even
I did not know. But when we were in the gar-
den, we hated being selfish, for we knew the old



lady would despise us if there was any greediness,
or snatching, or not sharing what we had, and we
couldn't bear to have the old lady despise us.
She gave us a little square of ground for our
very own, and there we hoed, and weeded, and
potted and planted just as we liked. Each of us
had our own little plot, in which we grew our
favorite flowers. Arthur's was largely set out with
hollyhocks and sunflowers, for he said they were
“the giants of the garden,” and Arthur had a
particular fancy for giants. Barbara and I had
pansies, and nasturtiums, and bouncing-Bets and


stock-gillies and poppies. We especially liked the
poppies, because there were so many beautiful
shades of red and pink, which were our favorite
colors. But Arthur would have none of them, for
he said they smelt
like laudanum when
you had the tooth-
ache. We said even
that was better than
having no smell at
all, like his holly-
hocks and sun-
flowers, but Arthur
insisted that it
would be very much
out of character for
giants to wear per-
fume, and we had
to admit that he
was right.
The twins' plot
did not come on
very well, princi-

18
º

pally because they kept pulling things up to see
if they were growing.
You see, the twins were only five, and they
liked digging in the dirt better than waiting for
plants to grow. They were always happy when
they could “pot things,” and they potted a great
many that were
never intended
to be treated
th a t w a y.
When, one day,
they potted one
of my new red
h a i r - ribbons,
with the ends
sticking up for a
“geranimum”,
I decided that
their gardening
needed an over-
Seeſ.
We played a
great m a ny

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_

games in the garden, in
which the flowers had a
part, but one day we got
into trouble playing the
“Garden of Eden.” We
had all been wading in the
brook, with our bathing
suits on, for Mother al-
ways wished us to wear
them when we went wad–
ing because we got our
clothes drabbled if we did
In Ot. All of a sudden,
Arthur, who was very in-
genious at inventing games,
cried out, “O, girls, let's
play Garden of Eden'
You, Mary, can be Adam,
and Barbara can be Eve,
and here's the apple tree,
and the twins can be
angels, and I–’’
Just then Mother came

2.
º

23
out and looked over the fence, and saw Arthur
strutting round under the apple tree in his wet
bathing suit.
“Children, what ARE you doing?” she called.
“O”, shouted back Arthur, without a thought
of how it would sound, “We’re playing Garden of
Eden. Mary and Barbara are Adam and Eve, and
I'm God, walking in the Garden in the cool of
the day!”

Of course Mother was terribly shocked, and
Arthur was called home at once, and there was a
very serious conversation in-doors. I knew that
Arthur did not mean to be irreverent, he was only
carrying out the game, but I suppose he got
spanked just the same.
The old lady taught us a good deal about the
flowers—about planting and watering, and what
kind of soil they
need ed. She
spent a great deal
of time among
her flowers, for
she said she did
love “grubbing;”
and she had the
“lucky fingers ”
for which every-
thing grew. It
never seemed to
matter where she
dropped her seeds,
they always came

25

25
up, and though she always cautioned us to plant
only fresh seeds, she could scatter from any old
packet, and they never failed to grow.

27
She taught us in transplanting to be very care-
ful, in warm weather, to do it only in the even-
ing, so as to give the plants “the round of the
clock” for cool rest before the sun grew hot upon


2-
them ; and in cold weather we were to do our
moving in the morning, so as to save them for the
same length of time from possible frost. But for
herself the time of day never seemed to count—if
she put her cuttings in at noon-day her “lucky
fingers” gave the charm that saved them from the
heat, or if she set them out on a cold autumn
evening, there was never frost that night.
º

We all missed our garden when the long win-
ter months came, even though we had some of
our flowers growing in window-boxes. But the
old lady kept our interest warm even when the
deep snow was on the ground. We spent long
hours looking over the seed catalogues she sent us,
picking out our favorites and planning the garden
we would make in the spring. And once when
we were busy over our books, Mother said,
“Children, did you know that a very long time
ago, before seed catalogues ever were made, a man
in England wrote a book all about a garden, and
presented it to his Queen, that she might read
about her flowers in the winter-time, when she
could not see them ‘fresh upon the ground'. But
I don’t suppose his book had any pictures in it, for
it was written in I 62o.”
And of course we wanted to know more about
the book and who the man was that wrote it, and
she told us that his name was John Parkinson, and
that he was the King's Herbarist. The old book
was in Father's library, and was called “The Gar-
den of Pleasant Flowers.” Mother got it down

and read to us the queer old dedication to the
Queen, and then she asked us who were King
and Queen in 1620, and although Arthur
and I had both been studying English history,
º

neither of us could tell. But Mother Sent uS to
find out, and we always remembered afterwards
that King Charles the First reigned in 1620, and
that Henrietta was his Queen. Then, after look-
ing over the old book, all at once we were inspired
to make a “flower book.” We cut from the
catalogue our most dearly loved flowers, and
hunted out others from old magazines. Mother
gave us a nice scrap-book to put them in,_
“Only” she said, with a sly look at Arthur, “I
hope you won’t name your book The Garden of
Eden.”
Just then Barbara had a thought—
“Let’s put ourselves into the book l’’
At first we did not understand how a numbel
of children not very small could be got between
the leaves of a book not very large, but when
Barbara explained her idea, we all thought it was
a good one, and we set at work hunting for pic-
tures of children among flowers or in gardens. It
was surprising how many we found. We put
them in the book along with the other pictures,
and named the children for ourselves, or for
34
º

those who had played with us in our real garden.
Only we could not find any picture that would do
for the twins, and the twins wanted very much to
be put in the book, and we all felt badly about
º


&
leaving them out. So mother asked the gentle-
man who lived on the other side of us, and who
W2S 2. photographer, to take a real picture of the
twins, and he said if we could wait till spring, he
would take them in our own garden, which of
Course, would be much nicer for our book than a
winter scene. So we waited, and when the spring
came, and the leaves were out, and the twins were
Once more “potting things,” he took the picture.
Then our book was finished, and Mother said,
“You had better call it “The Children's Garden',
for it has in it most of the flowers that children
love.’’

The Michigan Trust Co.
Capital, - - t- $2OO,OOO.OO
Additional liability of stockholders, 200,000. OO
Surplus and undivided profits, 140,000. OO
Deposited with state treasurer, 1 OO,OOO. O.O
DIRECTORS:
WILLARD BARNHART, HARVEY J. HOLLISTER,
JAMES M. BARNETT, HENRY IDEMA,
CHAS. J. CAN FIELD, S. B. J.ENKS,
DARWIN D CODY, WM. JUDSON,
W. W. CUMMER, J. BOYD PANTI,IND,
E. GOLDEN FILER, EDWARD LOWE.
F. A. GORHAM, WM. G. ROBINSON,
CHAS. H. HACKLEY, SAMUEL SEARS,
THOMAS HEFFE RAN, DUDLEY E WATERs,
W M ALDEN SMITH, LEWIS H. WITHEY.
T. STEwART WHITE,
OFFICEFS:
LEWIS H. WITHEY, President.
WILLARD BARNHART, Vice President.
HENRY IDEMA, 2nd Vice President.
F. A. GORHAM, 3rd Vice President.
GEORGE HEFFERAN, Secretary.
CLAUDE HAMILTON, Ass’t Secretary.
ACTS AS–
EXECUTOR of wills,
ADMINISTRATOR of estates,
GUARDIAN of incompetent persons and minors,
TRUSTEE for corporations and individuals as well as under mortgages
and bond issues,
RECEIVER and ASSIGNEE for corporations, firms or individuals,
TRANSFER AGENT for corporations,
AND in other capacities,
LOANS MONEY on real estate security,
TAKES ENTIRE CHARGE of PROPERTY-collects rent, pays taxes,
attends to repairs, etc.—
AUDITS BOOKS of firms and corporations,
Buys and Sells HIGH2GRADE BONDS and other securities,
Has THOROUGHLY MODERN FIRE and BURGLAR
PR90F SAFE DEPOSIT WAULTS.
SIEND FOR copy of our parmphlet containing a digest of the
laws of Michigan relating to the DESCENT AND DISTRI-
BUTION OF PROPERTY.
ALSO blank form of WILL.

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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 O7500 5408