Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1897-06-13
iscuss the mighty affairs

men smoke and discuss the mighty affairs
of life.
Not a square inch of open land is vast
ed in the cities of Europe; it is too valu-
able, and why can we not each OF US adorn
our tiny bit of territory? Everyone has
a little yard. Why not plant vines along
the fence and see that grass is sown in
the fall, so that there will be a thick green
carpet for tired feet to rest upon? Feet
perhaps, that have trodden on baking not
bricks all day. Put a table out IN your
| yaTG, have a chair or two, and spend some
OF the long twilight there.
This is a trying age. Domestics are an
| uncertain quantity, and many d tired, hot
woman is forced to serve a upper that IS
far better than her temper TO her family.
Why cook that supper AT home? Why not
go, the whole family, and take supper out
at one of dozens OF restaurants, where the
extra expense will be compensated for by
the jollity of the occasion?
Why do our people not go out as do the
t,uropeans? Are our men such creatures OF
habit that they cannot stand the Irregular
ity of summer outings? or is II that our
women lack the wish to escape from home
walls and breathe fresh air?
Why are all The people in France so sus-
ceptible in art; in Germany to music? one
reason must surely be thai they live near
is a familiar face the find depicted upon
the walls of salon or academy
So determined is our sister in the Father
land to live under the skies and among
live green walls that in Leipzig, where
every house represents the home of some
VIC AANANAA 80
actually nave no yard, n no front steps
either; where the flat" plan is universal,
the people have made n garden of gardens
Just outside the city line-the Johannes
berg gardens. Here the different private
gardens are walled off, as there are thick
hedges Of roses separating stranger from
stranger. Each garden has a padlocked
gate and the seclusion is complete. In the
garden are always a summer house, a
table, chairs. generally a fountain, always
flowers in the greatest profusion, and the
whole covered with grass. Children's toys
lie around in happy confusion, and they
generally have a swing: These gardens
are during the day a safe health nursery.
As twilight comes on they become the
certer of family life.
It is intensely interesting to walk down
the wide roadways that intersect the gar
den and hear the merry laughter, the Jingle
of glass and silver, as the famllles eat their
evening meal. The most vivid way to make
you understand what this swarm of private
gardens is like is to give my impressions
Imagine an old. old cemetery, in which
all the family lots have been filled up, sud
denly turned into a garden of the living,
instead Of those at sleep-a amily reunion
There. YOU have seen these wonderful Jo-
hannesberg gardens, and why not try to
your city bound family during the summer
OF course, every new idea must be adapt
ed to the community to which ii is to be
transplanted. We have no such old estab-
lished custom as the Germans TO make
such gardens Indispensable, and practically
only few of US could arrange such a thing.
put your wits to work. How many of
you have poTches where the expenditure of
a little time and labor would be wonders?
Plant vines; balloon plant grows rapidly.
There are a dozen vine screens you can
nave with the very smallest amount of la
Dor. Then If you care to buy mating Tugs,
a hammock or two, some wicker chairs, a
lot of the straw woven mats that are half
pillow or the grass-stuffed pillows, new
this year. you can create a perfect outdoor
bower of your porch with the outlay of
but very little money.
The one care being to take the things in
when IL rains.
Sew in this bower. eat here. spend your
evenings here. 1t is virtually out of doors,
and the reaction from the conventional, the
escape to your tiny arcadia will give you
a positively girlish feeling.
1t is worth the trial. this determined eff
fort to do the best with what you have and
be outdoors. The more u~nbending your cir
cumstances the greater your triumph. /
seen the narrow, %uninviting side yard
of a city house made gay and habitable by
people who could not go far from home and
refused to stay indoors.
As l have said, this watchword of Go
out" is given especially to our city women.
fathers, husbands and sons are out