A GARDEN IN WINTER.
Deacon Green took a ride early last month, my dears, and he tells me of a wonderful garden which he saw from a window as he went whirling by on a railroad.
Can you guess what was growing in a garden in December?
No, it was not in a Southern State; so your guess of oranges isn't right—though they tell me that oranges do grow in winter-time in Florida.
It was a garden of Christmas-trees, set out in even rows, and looking as spruce and gay and happy as if they knew that they were almost old enough to hold a candle in each of their thousand hands, and a bright gift or token of good-will on each of their thousand arms. I fancy that the gardener who has his mind filled with the care of a garden of Christmas-trees must be a very cheery, kind-hearted fellow indeed. Don't you?
OVENS IN THE FIELDS.
In Mecklenburg, Northern Germany, as I'm told, fuel is scarce and dear: and, as the peasants are very poor, they take an odd way to save wood. It is this:
Each village has one or two large ovens in which the baking for a number of people can be done at one time. These ovens look from a little distance as if they were small hillocks, and they are built in the open fields. Why they are placed away from the village I was not told; but I would like to know. They have very much the look of underground dairy-cellars, and are built of great stones covered with turf. One or two men can go into an oven quite comfortably.
In each oven a great fire is made, to heat the stones, and when these are hot enough the fire and ashes are swept out, and the bread is put in to bake. Then a stone door is put over the mouth until it is time to take out the loaves. There is no chimney or opening, and the heat stays in well—even for some time after the bread has been taken out; so that it is no strange thing for a belated traveler to use the shelter or warmth of one of these empty ovens on some cold and stormy night when far from his home.
So much for fire-places out-of-doors. Now for a word about