“But when winter comed, leddy, yer flow’r an’ th’ leaves wus all dead like, an’ comed off. An’ me mamma said ’twus th’ cold. An’ when I put ’er by th’ airshaft she said ’twus too dark. An’ so yer flow’r jes’ died like, an’ mamma wus so cut up washin’ days, for me bruver wus teethin’ an’ there warn’t no flow’r. “But mamma said yer flow’r ’ud come up in th’ summer. So I jes’ kep’ waterin’, an’ when th’ fine days comed I put ’er in our winder again. An’ it growed a bit, leddy, an’ mamma an’ me wus so glad! But ’twus allus growin’ a bit an’ then dyin’ like, ’cause, mamma said, we didn’t git no sun in our rooms. An’ I used to cry in th’ nights ’bout that flow’r, leddy! “An’ when summer comed an’ folks wus sleepin’ ’pon their fire-’scapes, I put yer flow’r outside an’ watered ’er ev’ry day. But when me little bruver wus sick, an’ th’ doctor said he mus’ go to th’ country somewheres, yer flow’r jes’ died an’ dried up like a stick, leddy. Me little bruver died, too, an’ th’ doctor said he’d ’a’ lived if he’d gone into th’ country. “I’m sorry, leddy, fur yer flow’r. P’raps ’twus ’cause it never went to no country place. I tried me best, leddy, but—” * * * * * No, don’t reproach yourself, madam. You didn’t know. How could you know, living in another world? It was really good of you to think of the tenement children, and to give them your flowers. Poor little children of the tenements! It was good of you to think of them. Their homes are squalid, and flowers do make the home brighter. And their little lives do need the refining and spiritualizing influence of flowers. _But neither the babies nor the blossoms can flourish there. They pine and droop and die together. True, some of them live—babies and blossoms—but how?_ You are a woman and you love children and flowers. Tell me, did not the pale, sickly children and the pale, sickly plants impress you as even more saddening than the dead plants—the constant reminders of dead children? Their slow, prolonged dying is more terrible than death to me. And I love them both, children and flowers. I honor your tears. They proclaim you to be possessed of a human heart. But you are a misfit in your sphere. Your place is in our world. You mean well, but your guild is only a toy. The problem is not to be solved so easily. If you would help solve it, you must give something more than plants. You must give yourself. And this is the work which calls for your service and sacrifice:— To bring blossoms and babies together where both can thrive. To restore the child-sense of kinship with Nature, that to every child may come the joy of understanding Nature’s eternal harmonies. To bring the freedom and beauty and companionship of beast and bird, flower and tree, mountain and ocean, stream and star, into the life of every child. [Illustration: A LITTLE FISHERMAN “Fresh Air Fund” child from a crowded tenement district. ]