THE VICTORY PARK
In most States October twelfth is a legal holiday, because long ago on
that day, Columbus landed in America. He didn’t know it was America; he
thought it was Asia, but that was the day when he arrived.
To celebrate in honor of Columbus seemed hardly fair to children who
learned in school that other explorers than Columbus came here before
him. In fact, America was not named for him, anyway, but for another
voyager.
But the children approved of the holiday even though the cause had
become mixed during the centuries. This especial Columbus Day was to be
celebrated in Westmore as none had ever been before.
Away back in June the plan was made, and all summer long, men and women
had been arranging for it.
On the morning of October twelfth, when the sun rose, and everybody hoped
that he would rise smiling, he would look upon a big square meadow tucked
into an edge of Westmore, a pretty meadow with some large trees. Around
three sides were streets. On the fourth side lay the school grounds.
When the sun set on October twelfth, if all went as expected, the last
thing his astonished face would see, would be a park where the meadow
had been,—the Victory Park of Westmore. The people were going to make it
themselves in memory of the five Westmore boys who sailed to France at
the call of duty and didn’t come home again.
Judge Winslow owned the meadow and his son was one of the five who were
lying in Flanders with red poppies blowing in the sunshine above their
graves. The Judge said that he would give the meadow to the town on one
condition. The town must agree to take care of it always.
To arrange for this, the people of Westmore met in June. They voted to
accept the meadow, and promised that forever and forever, they would keep
it as a park.
They asked the Judge if he would like them to call it Winslow Park, but
the Judge said not. Both he and Mrs. Winslow knew that Lieutenant Ned
would not want the park to bear his name, when the four other Westmore
boys gave their lives for their country just as truly as he did. The
memorial was to be for them all. Why not call it the Victory Park?
So the town voted for this name. Mr. Lawrence, who knew how parks ought
to look, measured the meadow and drew a proper plan, showing where
flower-beds should be made and shrubbery set out. The beautiful trees
already in the meadow would stay just where they were. The centre of the
field was to be grass, kept smooth and short. Around the edges, curving
flower-beds were planned, with gravel walks where people could stroll in
the cool of the evening.
At one side of the meadow stood an oak-tree and under it a large boulder.
When the park was completely finished there would be on the boulder a
bronze tablet, saying that the people of Westmore had made the park in
memory of their five boys.
Early in the summer a copy of the plan Mr. Lawrence made was hung in
the Town Hall. Beside it was tacked a large sheet of paper, divided
into columns. At the head of each column stood the name of a plant or
a shrub, and the number of each Mr. Lawrence thought would be needed.
Anybody who could spare that plant from his garden or who wanted to buy
it for the Victory Park, wrote his name in the proper column. Long before
summer was over the columns were full of names and every plant and shrub
had been promised.
There were to be tulips and daffodils also in the park and these the
children gave. Every child in school brought five cents to buy one bulb.
The farmers promised to lend their horses and carts and tools, and all
those belonging to the town were to be ready for people to use. Mr.
Harper had charge of the day’s work. Everybody was to do what he directed.
To make the Victory Park would take all day, so the ladies said that at
noon they would serve a lunch in the Town Hall for the workers. This
would be their part.
Every person in Westmore was to have a chance to help in some way. Even
the kindergarten children were planned for.
Mrs. Merrill was one of the ladies to provide the lunch. Mr. Merrill and
Uncle Dan were to help dig the park. You will see what Lucy and Dora did.
On the evening of the eleventh, everybody went to bed prepared to get up
early. Tools were laid ready, and also old clothes suitable for gardening.
Lucy and Dora expected to wake of themselves, but they did not have a
chance. Just after six o’clock Uncle Dan opened the door of their room
and shouted to them:
“In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Awake, arise! though yet ’tis dark,
To-day we make our Victory Park.”
“Oh, Uncle Dan!” groaned Lucy, but Dora sat up and looked at Dan. Then
she laughed into her pillow for almost a minute.
Before eight a big crowd collected on the meadow which was to be a park
before the sun set. First they sang “America.” Then Mr. Harper made a
little speech and reminded them why they were making the park, out of
gratitude to the heroic boys who helped save the country from great
peril. One of the ministers prayed that their work might be blessed for
themselves, and for all the children who in years to come would play in
the Victory Park.
Then everybody watched while the mothers and fathers of the five heroes
each took a spade and turned one sod.
The minute that was done the work started. The people who were to plough
the field brought the horses, harnessed ready to begin. Behind the plows
came harrows, and behind them men and boys with garden forks, to remove
stones and shake out sods of turf.
The flower-beds had been carefully marked with stakes, and the people who
were to make them ready began to dig, one set of people to each bed. Many
of the young men were in their old khaki uniforms, and the young women
came in overalls and bloomers in which they had been farmerettes during
the war.
There was only one mix-up. The committee who were to make the gravel
paths wanted to make them at once, and this interfered with the people
who were trying to dig the flower-beds. Mr. Harper explained to the
gravel-path people that they would really have to wait.
Grace Benson had brought her donkey. Its name was Souris, which is the
French for a mouse, and it was all mouse-color except the black tips of
its ears and tail.
Grace expected Souris to help about making the park, but what could one
wee donkey do? Souris was very small, and the moment Grace led him among
the people he began to shiver and shake until his harness rattled.
Nobody knew why Souris was afraid. Perhaps he did not like the big
cart-horses several times larger than he; perhaps they spoke unkindly to
him in horse language; at any rate, Souris stood still and shook from
nose to tail. Only when Grace put her arms about his neck and spoke
comfortingly to him did he stop trembling. The minute she took her arms
away he began shivering again.
Clearly Souris was of no use, and Grace took him home. He looked so
miserable that nobody wanted him to stay and keep on feeling unhappy, but
Grace felt ashamed of him.
At first only the older people could work, because horses and machines
were needed, and there was nothing the children could do. But soon they
could help.
The Boy Scouts cleaned a little brook which ran through the meadow. All
proper parks have a brook or a lake, and so it was fortunate that the
meadow possessed one. To plant flowers and bushes was easy, but to coax a
brook to come from another place and run through the Victory Park might
have been hard.
The boys took out of the brook all the tin cans which thoughtless people
had thrown into it. Never again would there be tin cans in the Victory
brook. They pulled out sticks and branches and took away some stones, but
only those which Mr. Lawrence said were to go. Some must be left so the
brook could make pretty ripples and have something over which to sing.
There were also stones in the meadow for the children to pick up and
carry to baskets on the edge of the field. As fast as filled, men emptied
these baskets into tip-carts, which took the stones away. The older boys
raked where directed, so as to make the earth the proper level.
The committees which had charge of the flowers dug the beds and did it
very thoroughly. They dug down nearly two feet and put in fertilizer so
the roots of the new plants would have plenty of food. They prepared the
beds and then said that they must have water. The summer had been so dry
that the plants could not grow unless the earth was made wet all around
the roots.
Nobody had thought that there must be water. Mr. Harper went into the
nearest house and telephoned to the fire station. The hose-cart came
immediately and fastened a hose to the hydrant. Any amount of water
could be turned anywhere it was wanted.
The committee in charge of each bed had a copy of Mr. Lawrence’s plan.
This told them exactly how many plants and shrubs were to go in the bed
and where they were to be set. When the ground was ready the head of each
committee put a marker where each was to be planted.
The High School students planted the shrubs, and then came the turn of
the smaller children. Each of them carried a bulb and marched in line to
the flower-bed appointed.
Each one dug a little hole for his bulb and put it in with care to get it
right side up. Bulbs never grow so well when they are planted with their
heads down. Then a Boy Scout with a water-pot gave it a drink, and the
child covered it with loam and patted it down hard.
The kindergarten children planted tulips. Dora’s class planted daffodils
and Lucy’s class did the jonquils. Every child in the public schools had
a share in making the Victory Park.
Meanwhile the ladies had been getting lunch in the Town Hall. Some of the
older men who had stiff knees and couldn’t work out of doors, set up the
long tables and brought settees and dishes. Promptly at twelve the fire
whistle blew long and loud. It wasn’t for a fire at all, but the signal
that everybody was to stop working and go to lunch in the Town Hall.
The park looked like nothing at all, but it did look as though there
might be hope for it by sunset.
Some of the men, especially those who wore stiff collars and went into
Boston every day, thought they were much too dirty to go to lunch. They
said they would go home and wash.
Mr. Harper took a megaphone and spoke through it. He asked the men not to
go home. He told them to brush off the dust and loam and to wash their
hands at the hydrant. Most of them laughed and did just as Mr. Harper
said.
Very soon all the tables in the long hall were filled, and everybody was
hungry. There is nothing like digging in the dirt to make people ready
for dinner.
The good things the ladies had been cooking vanished like snow before the
sun. There was cold meat of various kinds, a great many baked potatoes,
string-beans, and beets, and squash. For dessert were doughnuts and pies
and coffee and ice-cream.
Girls of Olive’s age waited on the tables. Lucy and Dora wanted
dreadfully to help, but that was one of the things they could not do
until they were older. Five hundred people sat down together at lunch in
the Westmore Town Hall.
When they had finished eating, Mr. Harper made another suggestion. He
asked every person at the table to pick up the dishes he had used and to
carry them into the kitchen on his way out of the hall.
At this everybody laughed and the waitresses clapped their hands. For
them to clear those long tables would be a great deal of work, but to
clear them in Mr. Harper’s way would take hardly any time at all.
Everybody picked up all the dishes he could carry and left them in the
kitchen. There were still salt-shakers and bread-and-butter plates and
pickle dishes to remove, but that did not take very long. And then the
old men took away the tables and put the settees in place. The hall was
now ready for some other use, for a meeting or a lecture.
The children ate sandwiches made of the meat and bread which was left and
they also finished the doughnuts and the ice-cream. Then people began to
wash the dishes.
There were ten washers, and each had two girls to wipe for her, and it
was amazing how fast those piles of dishes vanished. As soon as they were
wiped, they were packed in baskets. Every church in town had loaned its
crockery and silver for the Victory lunch.
By four o’clock the dishes were all washed and sorted. Each church had
its own. There was one spoon which nobody claimed. And by that hour the
chaos in the park was changing into order.
The patient people who were to make the gravel walks got a chance to do
so. The centre of the meadow was now as smooth as a table. The land had
been ploughed, harrowed, raked, fertilized, and planted with lawn seed.
Then it had been rolled with a big iron roller drawn by two horses. Where
rough, uneven sod had lain was now a smooth brown level.
The flower-beds were planted and raked within an inch of their lives.
All the shrubs and clumps of perennials were in place. You could imagine
how beautiful the curved beds were going to look. The bulbs didn’t
show, being tucked underground to sleep till Spring called them. Each
flower-bed was outlined with turf, put in place and pounded down.
Everybody watched the gravel paths being made. They waited until the last
man raked himself out of the park. The sun’s rim was nearing the horizon.
There were backs that ached and hands that showed blisters, for if you
are used to sitting in an office, or writing for hours at a desk, it is
not easy to spend a whole day digging dirt. Everybody was tired, but
everybody was pleased and happy. The Victory Park was done!