The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1915-01-21
In the House Of Many Flowers
BY FLORENCE WILLARD.

city, stands a low white house sur
rounded by a tangled garden of vines
and flowers. To left, to right, on
every side, stretch the shacks of pow
erty, crusted with CRIME and reeking
with foul odors; but the white house
in its circle of green seems always
fair and lovely, like some little pool
that reflects the sky in the midst of a
muddy street. Some call 1t the Set
Element" but to the children of the
poor, those for whom it is primarily
intended, it is 1.-The House Of Many
Flowers" Here, in the great sunny
rooms. they meet together, all ages.
all n~ationalities, held together by the
common bonds, ignorance and pow
erty.
1t was a warm Saturday afternoon,
and the Settlement was full of chill
dren. Little Miss sighed as she bent
over Panca and adjusted the tangled
floss with which she was striving to
embroider a bit of cardboard. The
girl looked up with a grateful smile
as she dug her needle into her work.
Little Miss turned away. The child
who had given her that name had
long since left the circle and was
dead, or gone, no one knew where,
but the name still chung to her. She
was a slight little woman of perhaps
fifty years. Her hair was gray and
waved about a face a little worn, a
little lined with care, but full of a
sweetness that mirrored the soul
within. The twenty years that Little
Miss had spent in the Settlement had
given her more things than her name.
There had been joys that almost
erased the thought of the tragedies
she had witnessed; but today-some-
how, today seemed different. After
twenty years Little Miss had paused
to think, and today she was passing
judgment on her work.
1t had begun that morning when
Little Miss, at her solitary breakfast
had picked up the paper and on the
front page had found the story of a
convict's escape. Little Miss rarely
read the more sensational parts of
the paper, avoiding them with the
nice distinction of long practice. but
today the picture of the convict had
been published, and Little Miss
caught and held by the eyes. The
young face reminded her of some
thing, someone-she scarcely know
what, and she paused to read the col
umn beside it. Patrick O'Harren"
the name was familiar. Her mind
worked back along the years, and
suddenly she remembered. So he
was a convict now, the little Patsy
O'Harren who had worked and played
in this very house ten years before.
She remembered with a pang that he
had committe some small offense and
had left her for the reform school, a
lad Of ten or twelve. She had lost
track of him, and now-now he was
an outlaw, being hunted like an ami
NAL. She searched the column for
his crime. Some jewelry, a matter of
a year. He was an "old offender" it
seemed-an old offender at twenty
two! 1t was on his way to prison
that he had made his escape, and now
it was reported that he was in the
South. Little Miss had thrown aside
the paper and risen from the table.
She felt tired and very, very discour-
aged. She toiled with them, taught
them, loved them, and they ended in
prison, or worse. She had worked
for twenty years and failed, and yet
she wondered wherein the fault lay
what she could have done to make
her influence more lasting.
Somewhere within, the clock
chimed the hour, and Little Miss hur-
ried about her accustomed tasks. Her
assistants Joined, and soon after came
the children. At their advent the
rooms seemed to blossom into life.
There was little time for thinking
now, and yet the smiles on the faces
of the children brought a sort of
pain to Little Miss, and as she bent
over them, directing their awkward
fingers, putting a stitch here, a
stitch there, the same question rose
again and again in her mind. How
long would they remember?
Little Giuseppe with the soulful
eyes and the grimy fingers, would he
20 out of her life forever and leave
behind all that he had gained? Lud-
wig, bending over his woodwork, Pc
dro, welding his brush with romantic
skill-would they, too, pass on and
forget?
She called herself from her reyerie
with a start in time to prevent her
scissors from disappearing into the
cavernous pockets of Kanakitchi La
muro. Kanakitchi received her words