Part 49 (1/2)

I looked, and I ad, that I certainly could not beat it But, I suddenly realized, I could steal it!

I have been stealing it ever since, and having an enorain

Of course, stealing is a relative ter else connected with hborhood of a city is not even what the old South County oyster fisherman once described as ”jest pilferin' 'round,” out here on the edges of the wilderness I go out with the trailer hitched to the back of my Ford, half a mile in any direction, and I pass roadsides where, if there are any farmer owners of the fields on the other side of the fence, these owners are only too glad to have a few of theplants or bushes thinned out But far more often there is not even a fence, or if there is, it has heavy woods or a swao after plants every day for six months and nobody would ever detect where I took thele speciroup, and always to take where thinning is useful, and where the land or the roadside is wild and neglected, and no hu can possibly be injured Most often, indeed, I si, or into,to attempt any botanical or cultural description of what I a That will have to wait, anyhow, till I know a little eneral way, some of the effects which are perfectly possible, I believe, here in a Massachusetts garden, without i any stock from a nursery

Take the arden, up here in the mountains where the frosts come early and we cannot have aneenerally been a melancholy spectacle after the middle of September Yet it is just at this time that our roadsides and woodland borders are the ely And nothing, I have discovered, is land aster, the showiest of the fa woods are at least seven varieties of asters, and there are e in color froh shades of blue, to white, and vary in height froarden soil, to one foot Moreover, by a little care, they can be soborder (such a border I have), as to pass in under heavy shade and out again into full sun, fro at their best With what other flower can you do that? And what other flower, at whatever price per dozen, will give you such abundance of beauty without a fear of frosts? I recently dug up a load of asters in bud, on a rainy day, and already they are in full blooarden places, without somy farm is an abandoned rass bordering it, grow thousands of Solidago rigida, the big, flat-topped goldenrod This is the only station for it in Berkshi+re County As the ledges frooldenrod would have come too, had it not been for the sheep, what could be lorious yelloer a part of s in my peculiar soil and landscape it does It transplants easily, and under cultivation reaches a large size and holds its blooet it by going through the bars with a shovel and a wheelbarrow

But a garden of goldenrod and asters would be soust, and somewhat monotonous thereafter I have no intention, of course, of barring out froarden the stock perennials, and, indeed, I have already salvaged frorown froloves, larkspur, hollyhocks, sillia roses, platycodons and the like But let ht in frohborhood, and see if they do not promise, when naturally planted where the borders wind under trees, or grouped to the grass in front of asters, ferns, goldenrod and the shrubs I shall mention later, a kind of beauty and interest not to be secured by the usual garden methods

There are painted trilliums, yellow and pink lady's slippers, Orchis spectabilis, hepaticas, bloodroot, violets, jack-in-the-pulpit, masses of baneberries, sololove, five-flowered and closed gentians, meadow lilies (Canadensis) and wood lilies (Philadelphicuo out and dig up the bulbs by the score, taking only one or two fro frootten to ing plant

Let e and shrubbery screen which hway, and which is the crux of the garden The hedge is already started with he I reens are easier to handle, and rowth

But I aet with absolutely native e and the border, where at first I drea up with the kind of grohich lines our roads, and which is no less beautiful and(the only safe time to move them) masses of mountain laurel and azalea Frowood, with its white bloo, and elderberry From my ooods have already coh rowth There will be, also, a shadbush or two and certainly so pine and small, slender canoe birch Here and there will be a clu raspberry I shall not scorn spireas, and I ht; but the great mass of my screen will be exactly what nature would plant there if she were left alone--minus the choke cherries You always have to exercise a little supervision over nature!

A feature of arden is to be rock work and a little, thin strea away froues of marvellous Alpine plants, and I dreamed of irises by my brook I shall have soot to end one of these days But meanwhile, why be too down-hearted? On the cliffs above , as a pincushi+on holds a breastpin, little early saxifrage plants Frole forth There are clumps of purple cliffbrase and other tiny, exquisite ferns On a gravel bank beside the State road are thousands of viper's bugloss plants; on a ledge nearby is an entire nursery of Sedurow like a weed in hly esteeolf club will certainly let ay pinks which are a pest in one of the high, gravelly bunkers And these are only a fraction of the native material available for my rock work and bank Many of the

As for the little brook, any pond edge or brookside nearby has arrowheads, forget-rasses, monkey flowers, jeeed and the like There are cowslips, too, and blue vervain, and white violets If I want a clu tall, Joe-pye-weed is not to be disdained No, I do not anticipate any trouble about o it was going to look It will not look like an illustration in soazine It will look like--like a brook! I a it look like a brook, a little, lazy, trickling Yankee brook If I ever let it look like anything else, I believe I shall deserve to havedry up

Probably I shall have moments of, for me, comparative affluence in the years to coues, and order japanese irises, Darwin tulips, hybrid lilacs, and so on But by that tiot such a start, and le, that they will assimilate the aliens and teach thearden At any rate, till the war is over, I am 100 per cent Berkshi+re County!

WANTED: A HOME assISTANT

(_Pictorial Review_)

One illustration made by a staff artist, with the caption, ”The New Home assistant is Trained for Her Work”

WANTED: A HOME assISTANT

BUSINESS HOURS AND WAGES ARE HELPING WOMEN TO SOLVE THE SERVANT PROBLEM

BY LOUISE F NELLIS

WANTED: A HOME assISTANT--Eight hours a day; six days a week Sleep and eat at home Pay, twelve dollars a week

Whenever this notice appears in the Help Wanted column of a city newspaper, fifty to one hundred answers are received in the first twenty-four hours!

”Why,” we hear some one say, ”that seems impossible! When I advertised for aprovided, not a soul answered Why are so many responses received to the other advertisement?”

Let us look more closely at the first notice

Wanted: A Ho about a general houseworker or maid or servant, just Home assistant! We can alht be called by such a title She conified, and interested in our home and its problems She may have been in an office but has never really liked office work and has always longed for hos and home duties

I rerapher She had gladly assumed her new duties as Home assistant, and had wept on the first Christmas Day with the family because it was the only Christmas she had spent in years in a home atmosphere Or perhaps the applicant for the new kind of work in the home may have been employed in a depart on her feet too wearing She welcoe of occupation in her new position Or she may be married with a little home of her own, but with the desire to add to the family income We call these Home assistants, Miss Smith or Mrs

Jones, and they preserve their own individuality and self-respect