[1] I have always been inclined to avoid, in my work among children,
the "how to make" and "how to do" kind of story; it is too likely to
trespass on the ground belonging by right to its more artistic and less
intentional kinsfolk. Nevertheless, there is a legitimate place for
the instruction-story. Within its own limits, and especially in a
school use, it has a real purpose to serve, and a real desire to meet.
Children have a genuine taste for such morsels of practical
information, if the bites aren't made too big and too solid. And to
the teacher of the first grades, from whom so much is demanded in the
way of practical instruction, I know that these stories are a boon.
They must be chosen with care, and used with discretion, but they need
never be ignored.
I venture to give some little stories of this type, which I hope may be
of use in the schools where country life and country work is an unknown
experience to the children.
There was once a little girl named Margery, who had always lived in the
city. The flat where her mother and father lived was at the top of a
big apartment-house, and you couldn't see a great deal from the
windows, except clothes-lines on other people's roofs. Margery did not
know much about trees and flowers, but she loved them dearly; whenever
it was a pleasant Sunday she used to go with her mother and father to
the park and look at the lovely flower-beds. They seemed always to be
finished, though, and Margery was always wishing she could see them
grow.
One spring, when Margery was nine, her father's work changed so that he
could move into the country, and he took a little house a short
distance outside the town where his new position was. Margery was
delighted. And the very first thing she said, when her father told her
about it, was, "Oh, may I have a garden? MAY I have a garden?"
Margery's mother was almost as eager for a garden as she was, and
Margery's father said he expected to live on their vegetables all the
rest of his life! So it was soon agreed that the garden should be the
first thing attended to.
Behind the little house were apple trees, a plum tree, and two or three
pear trees; then came a stretch of rough grass, and then a stone wall,
with a gate leading into the pasture. It was in the grassy land that
the garden was to be. A big piece was to be used for corn and peas and
beans, and a little piece at the end was to be saved for Margery.
"What shall we have in it?" asked her mother.
"Flowers," said Margery, with shining eyes,--"blue, and white, and
yellow, and pink,--every kind of flower!"
"Surely, flowers," said her mother, "and shall we not have a little
salad garden in the midst, as they do in England?"
"What is a salad garden?" Margery asked.
"It is a garden where you have all the things that make nice salad,"
said her mother, laughing, for Margery was fond of salads; "you have
lettuce, and endive, and romaine, and parsley, and radishes, and
cucumbers, and perhaps little beets and young onions."
"Oh! how good it sounds!" said Margery. "I vote for the salad garden."
That very evening, Margery's father took pencil and paper, and drew out
a plan for her garden; first, they talked it all over, then he drew
what they decided on; it looked like the diagram on the next page.
"The outside strip is for flowers," said Margery's father, "and the
next marks mean a footpath, all the way round the beds; that is so you
can get at the flowers to weed and to pick; there is a wider path
through the middle, and the rest is all for rows of salad vegetables."
"Papa, it is glorious!" said Margery.
Papa laughed. "I hope you will still think it glorious when the
weeding time comes," he said, "for you know, you and mother have
promised to take care of this garden, while I take care of the big one."
"I wouldn't NOT take care of it for anything!" said Margery. "I want
to feel that it is my very own."