Part I—Flowers
I. A Wild Garden and its Tenants
This is the story of a wild garden that was found near a public school on the edge of a big city. None of the children had the tiniest garden, and they were not allowed to pick flowers in the park, even to use in the school room for nature study. So this wild garden, where they could pick armsful of flowers, where they could pull plants up by the roots, where they could gather seed cases and cocoons, and watch insects at work, was a wonder and delight.
Even the teachers did not know it was a garden, at first. It was a vacant block of land two hundred feet square. All around it ran a new cement walk. The ground was two or three feet below the level of the street and would cost a good deal to fill in. Perhaps that was why there were no houses on it. The soil was very poor. From the walks the earth crumbled away in steep banks of gravel, sand and yellow clay. Water lay in sunken places, making frozen ponds for sliding in winter. There was a fallen tree-trunk and two or three rotting stumps of scrub oaks, around which mosses and low ferns grew. In the spring the ground was boggy, and scantily covered with ragged weeds and wire grass. Strips of blue grass turf below the walk, were dotted with the golden heads of the dandelion. In the wettest places a few clumps of blue flag lilies and pussy willows were found. Along one bank were brambles that, in June, blossomed the single pink flowers of the wild rose. And there were clover blossoms.
But that was all. When school closed in June the lot was covered with tall, coarse, ill-smelling weeds that gave no promise of flowers. But when school opened in September, the place was a jungle of purple and yellow, with swarms of winged visitors.
On the strip of green sod under the edge of the walks, the dandelions still showed bud and blossom and gauzy seed globe. But they did not take all the space. The grass was thick with the trefoil leaves and round buttons of white clover. And here and there was the glossy-leafed, pink-flowered spike of smart weed. Clambering up the bank grew a strong, rough-stemmed little vine with leaves
