The Chinese Kitten

by Edna A. Brown

At first only the older people could work, because horses and machines were needed, and there was nothing the children could do. But soon they could help.

The Boy Scouts cleaned a little brook which ran through the meadow. All proper parks have a brook or a lake, and so it was fortunate that the meadow possessed one. To plant flowers and bushes was easy, but to coax a brook to come from another place and run through the Victory Park might have been hard.

The boys took out of the brook all the tin cans which thoughtless people had thrown into it. Never again would there be tin cans in the Victory brook. They pulled out sticks and branches and took away some stones, but only those which Mr. Lawrence said were to go. Some must be left so the brook could make pretty ripples and have something over which to sing.

There were also stones in the meadow for the children to pick up and carry to baskets on the edge of the field. As fast as filled, men emptied these baskets into tip-carts, which took the stones away. The older boys raked where directed, so as to make the earth the proper level.

The committees which had charge of the flowers dug the beds and did it very thoroughly. They dug down nearly two feet and put in fertilizer so the roots of the new plants would have plenty of food. They prepared the beds and then said that they must have water. The summer had been so dry that the plants could not grow unless the earth was made wet all around the roots.

Nobody had thought that there must be water. Mr. Harper went into the nearest house and telephoned to the fire station. The hose-cart came immediately and fastened a hose to the hydrant. Any amount of water could be turned anywhere it was wanted.

The committee in charge of each bed had a copy of Mr. Lawrence’s plan. This told them exactly how many plants and shrubs were to go in the bed and where they were to be set. When the ground was ready the head of each committee put a marker where each was to be planted.

The High School students planted the shrubs, and then came the turn of the smaller children. Each of them carried a bulb and marched in line to the flower-bed appointed.

Each one dug a little hole for his bulb and put it in with care to get it right side up. Bulbs never grow so well when they are planted with their heads down. Then a Boy Scout with a water-pot gave it a drink, and the child covered it with loam and patted it down hard.