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I know of a scented garden,
Th*e garden that men call “youth”
Where the rose of innocence blossoms
And the snow white lily of truth!
But when my soul retraces
The path to that garden gay;
Lo, 10, in the vanished places
My feet forget the way!
I know of a spot where linger,
Untouched of strain or strife,
Or death’s effacing finger
The morning thoughts of life!
CHA T
A hard shower of rain drove us from
the open buggy into a nearby farm
house. We sat on the piazza and
watched the falling rain as I always
enjoy doing, but I missed the pleasure
of seeing the plants and flowers drink
in the crystal drops, for there were
no flowers. The yard was bare about
the door step, and farther out there
were tall weeds. The lady of the
house apologized for letting weeds
take the yard, saying that she and her
daughters were too busy to give the
yard any attention. “You have a nice
level yard for flowers,” she was told.
“Lor sakes! We don’t have time to
bother with flowers. There’s too much
work to do in the house,” she an
swered.
The daughter, a pale girl, who had
a snuff toothbrush in her mouth, was
making a square for a patch-work
quilt. The pieces were very small
and had to be painstakingly fitted in
to each other.
“Yes, it’s powerful tedious work,”
she said; “but I pieced a quilt out of
smaller scraps than tnese. Would
you like to see my quilts? I’ve got a
sight of them.”
We went inside and from a large
goods box the girl lifted out quilt
after quilt, to the number of thirteen.
All had been “pieced up,” and the one
which was shown with most pride
consisted of hundreds of tiny pieces,
some not much larger than one’s fin
ger nail.
“It took me a long time to make it,’’
she said, “and I nearly put out my
eyes.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Oh, a body likes to have lots of
quilts. I didn’t want the neighbor
girls to get ahead of me; and it’s a
savin’. It uses up all the little scraps
and all the odd times when you are
not helping in the house or the kitch
en; and, sometimes, we can sell a
quilt, but they don’t bring what they
are worth, after they are lined and
quilted.”
“A body has got to do something in
odd times if they are industrious, and
there’s not a lazy bone in my girls,”
said the mother; “though they don’t
enjoy good health —neither one of
them. They are obliged to take medi
cine ever little while.’’
“Perhaps they would have better
health if they spent some of the spare
moments they employ in piecing these
quilts in gardening or flower culture
instead, I am sure beautifying the
THE LOST GARDEN
By ARTHUR GOODENOUGH.
THE HOUSEHOLD
A Department of Expression For Those Who Feel and Think
And there are found the faces
That smiled, but would not stay;
But ever the vanished places
Shadow and hide the way.
The odors there are tender,
The tempests never swell,
And clothed in shining splendor
The sinless spirits dwell.
And a changeless glory graces,
The dead dreams there that stay;
But, lo! in the vanished places
My feet forget the way!
yard with flowers and plants would
be as interesting as sewing little bits
of calico together.”
“But there’s the savin’! There
aint no money in flowers.'
“There is if the salable kind are cul
tivated. But if the flowers only
bloomed to adorn your home and be a
refreshment to the eyes of your house
hold and a delight to the passer-by,
they would be worth cultivating.”
“That’s what buddy says,” respond
ed one of the girls. He is always
talking about what a pretty place the
Somers folks have and how smart
Eula Somers is to have such nice
flowers, and to raise raspberries and
seedless dewberries to sell.”
“And she never made but two quilts
in her life,” interposed the mother.
"And then she is strong and healthy
and able to work in the yard and gar
den.”
“Perhaps she owes some of her
health and strength to working out in
the fresh air. And, no doubt, she has
strong eyes and a fresh color.”
“Yes, she has,’’ admitted the girl.
“And she does make a lot more selling
berries and tomatoes than we ever
made selling quilts. But, what is a
girl to do with her spare minutes on
rainy days and winter time?”
“Oh, she can sew and knit, of course
—and she can read and gather so
much pleasure and profit from the
magazines. One cheap dollar maga
zine and a good weekly paper will give
her enough reading for a month, pro
vided she reads carefully and thinks
a little about what she reads. From
a fifty cents a year farm and garden
paper she can learn valuable practical
ways to earn money out-of-doors, and
she can also learn better indoor-ways
of using up the spare moments than
in piecing up quilts—that contain
many hundreds of tiny pieces. She
can see how women are exchanging
ideas through the papers and fhus
teaching each other new methods of
making home pretty and comfortable.
I am not making any war upon quilts.
I like them, and like to see a girl
have a nice pile of them —ready for
the day she and her prospective Jack
or Fred go to housekeeping. But,
when it comes to ruining eyesight and
taking up hours of time sewing to
gether infinitesimal bits of calico, I
say lay down the needle and take up
the hoe. Calico and percale are so
cheap, and two widths sewed together
and quilted make, with nice clean cot
ton between, just as comfortable and
pretty a quilt as one constructed of
a thousand thumb-nail bits sewed to
gether with weary fingers and aching
eyes.
The Golden Age for July 20, 1911.
Tomato Clubs.
Muda Hetner’s letter today is full of
practical advice and suggestions to
girls who are discontented with the
monotony of home life. Clubs do
much to enliven social life. Co-opera
tion is the keynote of modern prog
ress. Nearly every kind of club is
helpful. The Boy Scouts and the
wonderfully popular Boys’ Corn Clubs
are inspiring our youth to greater in
dustry and to higher ideals of man
hood. You have read about the Toma
to Clubs, have you not? They orig
inated in North Carolina, where sev
eral girls having successfully com
peted with boys in growing corn, a
young school girl was incited to cre
ate Tomato Clubs for girls. The idea
was an inspiration and became pop
ular at once. The State lent its aid
and offered prizes. Each girl of a
club has a tenth of an acre well fer
tilized and marked off into four feet
squares; in the corner of each square
a tomato plant is set. The girl does
the planting and cultivating. The
government furnishes nothing but
seed and instructions how to plant
and cultivate. The prizes are in
money, books or frete scholarships. The
girl who won first prize in the Aiken
Club put up 512 three-pound cans of
tomatoes, besides a quantity of toma
to preserves, jellies and catsup. She
sold her cans for $1.25 a dozen, thus
making between fifty and sixty dol
lars, not taking out the cost of the
cans and the labor. The founder of
the Tomato Clubs, Miss Marie Cromy,
was brimful of enterprise. Having
organized the club she took a summer
course at a New York domestic sci
ence school and learned how to han
dle the growing crop and how to
make tomato preserves, pickles, chow
chow and catsup. She had a canning
outfit shipped to her club, and on
her return there was “something do
ing.” On the first canning day there
were 125 cans turned out, and even
faster work was done on the succeed
ing days. Each can bore a label, with
the big red tomato and the words
South Carolina upon it. The cans
were taken at once by the stores. Can
ning outfits can be furnished as low
as ten dollars, and in some instances
the apparatus is carried from one club
to another. Aiken county farmers
have organized a company with a cap
ital of $5,000 to encourage tomato ex
hibits at the annual county fairs by
means of prizes, which are distributed
in this way: Each girl’s work is
graded under five heads: First, quan
tity of tomatoes produced; second,
duality of the product; third, variety.
Each of these counts twenty per cent.
Then there is a twenty per cent, prof
it on the investment to be considered,
and the history or report of the plant
ing and cultivating which counts as
another twenty per cent., making up
the 100 per cent. The prizes go to
those girls who stand highest.
The object of the clubs is fourfold.
To reduce the cost of living, to pro
duce better living, to make the farm
more interesting and helpful and to
promote social intercourse and recre
ation, the clubs bring the people to
gether and create a fellow interest in
each other’s work. Canning parties
are the order of the day. The girls
get together 'and industriously can to
matoes, then wind up their work with
a party or picnic attended by the boys
of the Corn clubs and many of the el
ders. WateYmelons are cut and the
occasion Is one of social jollity.
TOlttb ®ur Gorrespon&entg
THE STORY OF MY GRANDMOTH
ER—ELIZABETH POSTELLE.
Friends have requested me to write
the story of my dear grandmothers
life. I wish I could do this fully, tell
ing a number of incidents of her life
of self-sacrifice, peril, nardship and
adventure, but space can not be al
lowed me I know, and I will tell her
story in outline.
It is not easy or comfortable to me
to write these warm days. I long to
answer the many kind letters I have
received. They have been my chief
source of pleasure tnis summer. I
dearly love to receive these white
winged messengers of Kindness and
remembrance and I shall try to an
swer them, if possible, but I may not
have strength sufficient.
I have been five times to service in
my little church this summer. Once
I heard three Holiness sermons and
two sermons by a Baptist minister. I
enjoyed the sermons and the singing
very much. Besides these Church go
ings, I have gone nowhere this sum
mer.
But, about grandmother’s life. She
has talked to me about old times so
often, when we two sat alone by the
pinewood fire, on long winter eve
nings, that it seems to me I was with
her through her varied experiences.
She was born seventy-four years ago,
in North Carolina. There were eight
children in the family. Three boys
and one girl were married; three boys
and a baby sister of two years and
herself were at home.
They were poor but comfortable
and content, until one sad day, when
grandmother was seven years old, her
mother died. Grandmother remem
bers it well. She remembers how
loving and lovely her dear mother
was, and how sweet her dead face
looked in its coffin.
Changes came to the home. The
baby sister was taken to the home of
tme married sister, and the little girl
of seven (grandmother) and her three
brothers —one of them younger than
herself —kept the house, as their fath
er went away to work all the week,
returning Saturday night and leaving
again Sunday afternoon. Think of
those young children left alone on the
the farm, the little girl to mother
the boys and care for the one who was
younger than herself. They cooked,
cleaned up, looked after the chickens
and fed and milked seven cows. As
soon as dusk came on they shut and
bolted the doors and went to bed.
The boys were soon asleep, but the
little girl—Elizabeth Postelle—lay
awake, listening to the Katy-dids and
thinking of the tender mother who
was sleeping on the lonely hillside,
not far away. Often she would cry
herself to sleep.
Time went on and one day the
father came home accompanied by a
young woman. “I have brought you
a new mother,” he said, and Eliza
beth tried to smile and make the new
comer welcome, but her thoughts
went to the lonely country grave
yard, and she felt no one could take
the place of her dead mother.
The stepmother lived only about
five years. She died when Elizabeth
was thirteen yers old, leaving three
liftle children to add to the burdens
of the young girl. She was house
keeper and mother to them until (be'
