This was the compromise made by the generation
just from the free life of the farm-house, who, consciously or
unconsciously, clung to the green of grass and trees, and the blue of the
sky. So long as habit or love of caring for the things lasted all went
well. The father found his recreation in planting the garden before
breakfast, as in his boyhood. The mother cared for flower and
vegetable-garden, as she recalled her mother's life; she picked her own
beans and corn, even if she did not cook the dinner.
But the _children_ had to hurry off to school, and it was a pity to call
them early: they had lessons to learn in the afternoon. To them the garden
was work, not play as it should have been; so they failed to gain that
contact with mother earth which gives inspiration as well as health; they
failed to acquire a love of nature, became infected with the germ of
gregariousness, preferred the glare of lights, the rush of hurrying
crowds, and lost the relish for fresh air and quiet. This second
generation came to the city boarding-house and flat as soon as they were
free, leaving their parents' houses to go the same way as the
grandfather's farmhouse, into the hands of the foreigner not yet
Americanized to high standards of cleanliness and orderliness.
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