Need of funds, and want of interest among the members, influenced them to delay further work. It But the seed had fallen upon good ground, and although the germination and growth, like growths in the world of nature, must be slow, the faithful friends waited and watched for better prospects. During the year 1887 the seed burst its bonds and demanded recognition. received it from the Horticultural Society; money was granted, new members were added to the committee, and work was begun systematically. By special permission of the Boston School Board, teachers in the public schools were enabled to interest the pupils; and at the exhibitions in Roxbury the number of exhibitors, largely boys, was over two hundred, testifying to the influence of the teachers. Prizes for cut-flowers raised by children, and for collections of native flowers arranged in vases and correctly named, were granted. Endeavoring to educate the little ones to understand and follow printed directions, circulars were issued containing schedules of prizes and items of detail. The locality of the hall made it difficult to arrange the hours in a manner that did not interfere with the needs of the mothers, who hoped for relief from toil when the Saturday holiday came. To keep children from home seven hours, dinnerless, that their plants could be received, examined, and displayed, and prizes granted, savored of cruelty, and that plan needed modification. Halls in different sections of the city were generously granted, and the displays in the Church of the Good Shepherd and North Bennet Street Industrial School were most excellent. These plants were, in the main, very successfully grown, erect, if the plant should be erect, turning regularly, if they were vines, free from dead leaves or faded flowers, and the pots clear of mould or dirt. The competitors were happy. In behalf of those who brought untidy or half-starved plants, showing discouraging stoppage of growth, the committee devoted a half hour to a lesson in the care of plants, often, through the sobs of the disappointed child, learning of the patience with which the plant had been watched. The trained eye of the inspector perceived that the whole difficulty lay in the fact that the Easter gift had been forced to show its bloom, and was utterly worthless a week later, instead of being nursed in a pot with proper instructions. The gift of another, better started plant was awarded. During the autumn months the committee decided to offer prizes for windows of plants, which were to be ready for examination during the month of March. Of the thirteen which were offered in the city and vicinity, prizes for five given, and certificates of merit were given to the others. The prizes were a Frost's microscope, and books on the culture of plants. The evidence that plants can be raised even when the conditions are unfavorable, was given in several cases. The dryness of the average room is a difficulty not easily overcome, except by careful choice of plants. With the later years' experience, the committee decided to break the monotony which prevails among the customary plants for Easter offerings, and prizes of plants were given. The fact that the change was in the main warmly welcomed, convinced them that the love of plants was stronger than the love of the sweetmeats that the small money prize secured. With this plan in view, the next problem to be met was how and when to secure suitable plants ready for winter blooming. By the kindness of a member of the society, a lover of children, and skilled in the cultivation of plants, room in his greenhouses was placed at the disposal of the committee. He also insured such care as florists can give-air, sun, and water. Seeds and cuttings were obtained, and in the month of March, work was commenced. The list of plants included Cuphea, Saxifraga sarmentose — true London Pride, and grown extensively in pots for winter decoration in England and Ireland - Ageratum, Heliotrope, Sweet-scented Geranium, Mesembryanthemum, Sansolina, Begonia, in all the easily grown varieties. The distribution was mostly at Franklin Park, the use of which the Park commissioners granted for the fall meeting, when nearly five hundred child exhibited a geranium or fuschia. plants were distributed. In the early spring, a paper on the need and value of the horticultural education of children was read before the Society by a member of the committee, Mr. H. L. Clapp. As a teacher in the publics schools, he saw the opportunities presented to follow the example set by the German schools, and he desired some action by the Society. After discussion, a resolution was passed by the Society referring the whole subject to the Window Garden Committee. Following the spirit of the resolution, circulars were at once issued to principals of high schools and to superintendants throughout the state, asking their co-operation in interesting pupils. Prizes of money. were offered for collections of ferns, flowers, and grasses, dried, pressed, and mounted on sheets of paper, of the size adopted by botanists, each specimen to be a whole plant, or such portions as would show root, stem and blossom; and they should be correctly named. It was suggested by the committee that such collections as were offered should later be deposited in the library of the town, or some other safe place, as a nucleus for a herbarium, and the pages be open to students. Young people are inclined to be interested in anything which seems to have public value; and records of plants and grasses, with their appearance and disappearance in special localities noted, are interesting. Many of our beautiful wild flowers have been brought by accident. Tracing the origin of any one of them adds a zest to the work. In response to this circular, although it was issued late in the season, an excellent collection of ferns, twenty-five in number, and one of fifty plants in flower, were offered for examination. These were presented by lads under twelve years of age, - each specimen correctly named. casionally, the committee have awarded special prizes for plants raised from seed, in windows, such as are usually found only in the hands of experienced cultivators. Tiny children bring tiny pots, containing an equally tiny plant, which they, and they only, have cared for. In one family of six children, each To give six other plants, as easily grown as were theirs, gave the family great joy. The interest is by no means confined to the neighborhood of Boston. In Greenfield, for two years, the plans have beel adopted and with good results. In other places in Massachusetts, in New York City, and in Philadelphia, correspondents report favorable results. It is pleasant to chronicle the fact that while in 1887 but one school distributed growing plants at Whitsuntide, on Easter Sunday, of 1890, about thirteen thousand plants were distributed in the city and immediate vicinity. That many of these fail to flourish for want of care must be admitted; that many more live through the fair days of summer only to suffer and die when the cold of winter makes it impossible to watch the plant carefully must also be granted. The open window or door, which the busy mother or careless sister forgets, will cause sorrow and grief only to be cured by time and another chance. Often a sensitive child, like the sensitive plant, is the victim of a neat housewife. To such a child, holding in her hand a spray of white apple blossoms, as she returned from a visit to her teacher, was given a spray of exquisite pink ones. The differences of size and color were explained, and the little maid went away glad in her treasures, to put them in a tumbler as the giver suggested. A day or two later she was questioned about their condition. Sadly she replied, "Mother said we hadn't got no tumbler and she fired them out of the window." In several of the churches the pastor helps on this sweet education, by calling the children with their plants into a special service later in the season, on Sunday afternoon, and making effort to have some member of the committee address the children. The horticultural education of children will in the future open paths of usefulness in many directions. The ignorance which is met in the community as to the uses of plants should give place to intelligence and knowledge. To begin with, the education of children in the growth of plants will in the future tend to the elevation of life. H A MASTER FROM THE STATES. By Lewellyn Grosvenor Humphreys. E came and settled in Black Gulch in the late summer, and early in the fall he received the appointment to the district school. The school committee had got tired of local pedagogues. Cal Woodford, the last incumbent, had split Bill Jones's boy's head with a stick of firewood, in a fit of passion; and the winter before that, John Whittaker"Long John" had tied up three wretched little culprits by the wrists to the birch trees in the school yard, in which position they had hung for the best part of an hour, when taken down being found more dead than alive. These heroic methods of justice, however, had not disturbed the serenity of the citizens of Black Gulch. They had come down to them from their fathers as an unquestioned inheritance, along with their few acres of neglected farm land. Indeed, they were believed by many to be indispensable to the proper development of that race of stalwart men and wiry women, for which the little town had been noted among its fellows. But with the annual change in the school committee, there had come into it, nobody could tell exactly how, some new factors: men with startling ideas in their heads, men so far progressive as to hold that crippling for life was an extremer punishment than the offence of putting pins in the next boy's seat called for. And so it had happened, one night in the early fall, that Black Gulch was thrown into consternation by the rumor that the school committee had departed from all precedent, and elected a master "from the States." That night the inhabitants of the little village gathered in groups on the principal street, to discuss the question. At first they would not believe it. Such a thing had never been known before in the annals of Black Gulch ! engineering corps, in the employ of a certain new road, to locate a terminus and track facilities; but the company having suddenly collapsed, he was left stranded in Black Gulch, with nothing to rely on save his own energy. Since that time he had been employed, at odd times, upon the Black Gulch Meridian, the only local sheet; but the work was uncertain, and the remuneration barely sufficient to keep body and soul together. Yes, they all knew him by sight - a tall, keen-eyed, quiet New Englander, rawboned and muscular, awkward and ungainly in his ill-fitting store clothes. but with a desire to keep all his irons in the fire, and take every chance. One of the most animated groups to be seen that evening was that which assembled in the bar-room of the Black Gulch Tavern. Heavy, bearded men, all of them, with weatherbeaten skins and hoarse voices, they stood in a close circle about Cal Woodford, who, leaning against the bar with a glass of whiskey in one hand, was delivering his opinion upon the event of the day. With one consent, they recognized in him their spokesman. He was not only a foremost man among them, by virtue of his prowess and the strength of his horny arm and heavy hand, -- and more than one in that little crowd could testify of these from personal experience, but, upon this particular occasion, he was admitted to be an interested party. For Cal, too, had sent in his application with the rest for a second term — and had been rejected. Rejected and for whom? A miserable, city-bred Yankee, from the States! It was not strange that Cal's opinions should have a personal bias, he was sensitive about his reputation as an "educated man," and the more so just in proportion as that reputation was growing shaky in Black Gulch and that he should be in no wise backward about giving them utterance. "It ain't no use tryin' ter hide it, or kiver it up, boys; this yere city feller has got it, an' done us up- me an' yer, boys: fur I takes it fur granted as how ye're with me, all o' ye." There was a general growl of approval corporal punishment when applied by a from the assembled company. "Now ther question is this yere, boys, air we a goin' ter stand this yere nonsense, or ain't we: that's ther question, air we, or ain't we?" This last was evidently intended as a joke; and there was a general laugh from the company. "I ain't speakin' fur myself now though p'r'aps I'm as much interested as any, boys." Another growl from the "boys" told him their appreciation of how deeply he was concerned in it, and how thoroughly he had their sympathies. "I ain't speakin' fur myself, mind ye, boys; but I'm a voicin' ther hull town o' Black Gulch. Shall we send our boys an' gals ter this yere feller from the States, ter be brought up in ways agin ther ways o' their fathers an' mothers?" There were hoarse responses of, "No, no, Cal," from the crowd. "Shall we send 'em ter this yere new school ter be edicated above us?" A second growl of negation. "Ter be filled ter the bung with hifalutin' idees, so that nothin' in Black Gulch ain't good 'nough fur em?" At this terrible picture there was an angry storm of noes, enforced this time by curses. "Shall we, I axes ye, send 'em ter this yere gentleman ter be teached city Black Gulchite, the vote of the majority was very clearly against it in the possible event of its being resorted to by an outsider. "Easy, boys, easy!" here put in Cal's restraining voice. "We don't want no lickin', if we kin git along without it. We must remember that we air all on us law-abidin' citizens, livin' in a law-abidin' town we don't want ter go agin ther law." At this unexpected advice there were sundry remarks very derogatory to the law, and equally derogatory to themselves as law-abiding citizens, which the speaker, however, disdained to notice. "What we want ter do, is ter git this yere Blake, as he calls hisself, ter resign. We don't want ter use no force about it force ain't good, least o' all in edication." In the swing of his eloquence he had evidently forgotten the little affair of Jones's boy. To do him justice, Cal did not look at that episode in the light of what he called "force"; in his vocabulary," energetic persuasion" would cover that case. Having led his hearers to the desired point, that of declaring that they would not send their children to the new master under any conditions, Cal immediately "swopped 'round," as Little Tim explained to his wife next morning, and again astonished his audience by advising them that this was the very thing, of all others, he wished them to do. "We want ter git him ter send in his resignashin o' his own free will an' accord. It won't take him very long, boys, ter find out he ain't ther right feller ter run that 'ere schoolhouse; it won't take him many days, — yer mark what I'm sayin'." These last words were accompanied by a leer that conveyed their drift to the crowd. "He'll have ter hustle ter git the drop on my Ted," put in Hank Peters. "It's more'n I've been able ter do since I knowed him, an' I ain't no chicken at bringin' up boys, nuther." "My Phin'll give him ther nightmare," said Long John, with a grin. "Yes, boys, there ain't no fear 'bout our children bein' with us in this yere event," went on Cal. "We want ter have 'em all go-each an ev'ry one on 'em. Let ther schoolmaster have a full showin' ther fust mornin'. Send 'em all, boys; and I'll set ther ball a rollin' by sendin' my gal. Yes, boys," he added this after an impressive pause, as if to give his words their full weight and significance, "I'm agoin' ter send Samanth' ter school ter ther new schoolmaster!" At this last piece of information there was a silence, followed by a general smile and chuckling observations. Samanth' Woodford had a reputation all her own in Black Gulch. The acknowledged beauty and belle of the town, she was of a nature so wild and untamable that she was rightly called "a chip of the old block." It was an open speculation in most Black Gulch minds as to which of the two, Cal or Samanth', ran the Woodford household. It was, however, no question in Cal Woodford's mind. He knew, though he would have been loath to admit it to an outsider. The only person on earth of whom he stood in the least in awe was his tall, regal daughter. Whenever a question arose between the two, it was the father, not the daughter, who went to the wall. The personal charms of the girl had been the means of attracting many suitors to Cal's door suitors came early in Black Gulch; but each had gone away with a flea in his ear, some of them with something worse. Samanth' Woodford had come to be looked upon in Black Gulch as a girl who would "put up with no foolin'." She had a reputation, too, of saying sharp and biting things that cut deep. Such was Samanth' Woodford, Cal's only child, and the sole surviving member of his family, since her poor, browbeaten When therefore Cal Woodford announced his intention of sending Samanth' to the new schoolmaster, the excitement of the little community was something considerable. But would she go? that was the question. The young woman's views were well-known to be bitterly opposed to "book larnin'." Even when Cal had himself held sway at the little red schoolhouse at the Forks, Samanth' had been conspicuously absent. Yet Woodford had not reckoned without his host. That very evening, upon the first rumor of the unwelcome appointment, Cal had broached the subject to his daughter, and to his surprise he had found her, for once in her life, in accord with his views. She, too, had seen and observed the "new master." She had marked his quiet ways, so unlike the boisterous manner of the men about him. She had seen that he held himself aloof from them; and this discovery of "city pride," as she called it, had stung her perhaps deeper, being a woman, than it had the men. Were not these people that he held himself above, her people? Was she not one of them? Were not the same things that he shunned in them, her characteristics? Moreover, was it not her own father who had been set aside for this stranger? No, there was no question this time between Cal and his daughter. She would go to this new master; she would put aside her prejudice, and attend the hated school, simply for the purpose of humbling this proud man before her associates - humbling him, and, if possible, deposing him. Before nine o'clock that night, it was known throughout the length and breadth of Black Gulch that Samanth' Woodford had consented to go to school to the new |