New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-07-27
pOTTED CHARITY.
resources,

Miss Amanda Budd, the daughter of one
of our best-knOwn citizens, is member
of a Young ladies' society whose laudable
object is to furnish the sick poor with flowers
during the Spring and Summer months. These
ladies give to their "Flower Charity" as it is
called, all the money they can spare from
their allowances, and generous emulation
among so many young unseltsh hearts has
resulted in an amount of going without" IN
the way of articles of personal adornmcnt and
luxury that would surprise the people who
are fond of making believe they think a
woman incapable of any sacrifice where her
vanity and love of admiration are concerned.
Having procured their flowers and tied them
| in small punches, the members of the society
take them in person to the bedsdes of the sick,
whether in their own poor rooms or in the
wards of the hosptals-where they are more
welcome than any delcacies of food or drink.
On a certain day in last June, Miss Budd left
the club-room with her supply OF flowers,
which filed good-sized basket, so large III
fact that she was obliged to carry it against her
bosom with both her hands. She walked down
! the Fourth-ave. without meeting anything
moro troublesome than that mute admiration
which is SO sure to be awakened in human
hearts and to be expressed in human eyes, at
the sight of pretty young girl laden with
flowers. She turned into Fiftcenth-st. and
made her way rapidly toward the Third-ave.,
but still there were no particular omens of what
was going to happen to her. 1t was not until
she came into that disagreeable region between
the First-ave. and the Stuyvesant Parks that
the thunder began to mutter metaphorically
speaking, and the first drops of the rain to fall.
A dirty little face was perked up into her
rosy one from the level of an area railing, and
the 81 say, give us one of them are, Missus,
"please." came so personal---very. from the to-
bacco- chawing cherub that there was no resist
ing him, and he was the happy owner of a
hyacinth before he knew it. All at once, it
appeared as if this precious brat had gone to
seed like a dandehon, for, as Miss Budd her.
! self elegantly expresses it in her own happy
STYLE in a letter to THE TRIBUNE, written
| In such a hand as when field OF corn
| Bows all its ears before the roaring East.
"the children appeared to emerge from every
direction, and to be precipitated upon my
"person in unprecedented numbers from the
"most unexpected quarters"
The youngsters, who had never seen so many
flowers before, made quick work with the
treasure of Miss Amanda Budd. 1t was IN
vain that she sought the protection of neigh
boring balcony; she found that, bare as those
architectural features are usually in that dis
NAL quarter, they were suddenly alive with
creepers and climbers Even the poor grass
plat did plot and plan against her; and whereas
| five minutes before it had been as bare as the
head of the baldest occupant of the row, it
now stood thick with the jollest blades from
| Avenue A, yelling at the top of their lungs,
az say, give us one of them are, Missus,
"please" Miss Budd, as the above extract
from her letter shows, had been at one finish
ing-school, and she thought she was now to
be finished in very deed. AS long as she could,
she stood manfully by her flowers. But the
children were too much for her. Happily for
| them a policeman is rarely seen in that neigh
borhood, and they were free to rifle Miss Budd at
their leisure. 1t was an opportunity not to be
lost. Hitherto, they had never stolen any
| thing better than ash-barrels, morning papers,
and door-mats. To expect them to resist a
bright faced young lady with a basket of
flowers, was asking too much of such human
nature as is found on the East side. Accord
ingly. they never left Miss Budd so long as
she had bud or blossom left. Yet strange
as it may seem, they did not steal her basket.
They left her that, to be filled another time.
Rumpled, squeezed, her ruilles limp, and her
back hair down, Miss Budd fled back to the
flower room, and flinging herself into an arm
chair, laughed with pleased vexation till she
| cried.
The moral of this fearsome tale of real life
is, that some provision ought to be made for
the fanatic love of flowers that has been i'm
planted even in the savage breasts of street
Arabs and waits and strays. The park keeper
at Stuyvesant Park as we learn from chatty
lady who lately wrote about the Central Park
in "Scribner," complained that in one year
| the children had stolen ten thousand plants
| from the Enclosure. Probably the park keeper
exaggerated his losses. But we agree with
the lady in "Scribnern in her satisfaction that
tho children succeeded in getting so many.
At q comparatively small expense and with
out meaning it, the City became q
member of Flower Charity on a
large scale. We wish it could be
made to do so oftener In London, great
good has been done by distributing plants
in pots to the poor. and giving prizes at the
end Of the year to those whose plants were
produced IN aourishiag condition. This IL an