Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1903-06-20
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS.
City Bred Boys and Girls Know Little
of the Beauties in Woods
and Fields.

Is there anything more peaceful than
moonlight on the water? For many hours
this evening | sat on the rocks listening
to the soft tapping or the waves and
looking out across the sound. Before
me, in the distance, lay Long Island like
a dark shadow ON the horizon, and he
hind me the quiet woods stretched far
out along the shore. All was hushed and
silent. What infinite calm there is in
Nature!
cannot understand how the majority
of the people that inhabit this earth can
bear to be shut up in large, crowded and
unhealthy cities. But they do not only
bear it; they have grown so accustomed
to it that many thousands almost forget
that there is such a thing as the open
country. They hardly know what a great
eXpanse of sky looks like. Their minds
and senses have become so dull and
warped, they get so used to the dirt, the
darkness and the smoke, that when they
do get out into the fields and woods they
feel lost. Long generations of ancestors
who have lived in cities, have made it
impossible for them TO love and enjoy the
country. They long for the artificially
lighted streets, the gay shop windows.
the concert halls ana all the other con-
triyances invented by the human mind as
substitute for the lost pleasures of Il
rural life.
This afternoon saw little children
playing with the brown, dry leaves scat
tered on the ground; with the stones on
the shore, each of which was of differ
ent shape and shade. They shrieke with
delight when they found some bright
green moss growing in the crevices Of the
rocks. They picked spring beauties until
their little hands could hold no more. nd
# EstA +A ha
birds and watched the robins looking for
worms
All morning l was out in the woods.
| climbed up and down ravines and gath
| cred large bunch of hepaticae. Lifted
ON delicate, dOwny stems above the
their modest little flowers with their
| dainty blue or rose-tinted petals have al
ways been very dear to me. They are
the heralds of spring. You can find them
| peeping out from under the brown, dry
| leaves. | waded up to my ankles III
! marshes for marigodS. The woods are
! fri of anemones. and here and there |
| found some pale, shy violets. so small
| and unohtruSive that l could hardly see
them above the ground There were hun
! dredS and hundreds of the spotted dog
| tUoth violet leaves. bar only one or two
of their pretty yellow flowers whose star
| ike heads droop like bells
| How many of our city children know
wild flowers? Every spring hosts OF
| them come and go unnoticed. while 50
many little ones whose hearts would be
| gladdened with them are unconscious OF
| their very existence. 1t has often made
/ my heart heavy when l would come back
| TO the city from an outing. The wild
! flowers In my arms attracted the attcn-
| ton Of every child that | passed on the
| street, and one by one they would FOL.
| low me. begging for lust one TO keep.
| and when they did get inst one" they
| carried it as carefully and tenderly as a
| rare treasure.
This world Of ours is so large. there is
/ 81 much room for every one Of Us. why
/ IS il that we have to herd our children in
! terements and apartment houses? The