There are several smaller parks in Baltimore. One is called Patterson Park. One day when we walked in that park an old lady came along. She said, "I don't know what I'd do without this park. Some days I just don't feel well, and then I can come over here. I feel so much better then."

They have meetings for the old people when they have recreation. The director told us she makes them forget their troubles, and they stop thinking about all their aches and pains. They dance, they play Hokey-Pokey, they sing, and they have fun.

"Isn't it wonderful to have places like this to help the older people who don't have much to do?" That's what I said to Mommy. She agreed.

The largest park is Druid Hill Park, and the large lake and reservoir in it is called Druid Hill Park Lake. At the end of the lake is an old shot tower. Mommy told me they rolled the cannon balls out of it in the wars.

Young and old people enjoy the park. Boys and girls ride their bicycles around the lake and many adults park their cars there to look at the circling skyline and to enjoy the breeze and relax.

"No other park in Baltimore is so extensively wooded and so beautifully planned as this park," said Mommy.

"Why is it called Druid Hill Park, Mommy?" I liked to know the history of places. I liked to learn about the days of yesteryear, the days of the past.

She couldn't answer the question, so we got a little booklet (Number 3) published by the Board of Park Commissioners on public parks about Druid Hill Park.

To begin with, the search for a record fixing a definite time when the name Druid Hill first was used to designate the estate, has been unrewarded. Nor can any record be found crediting to any one of its owners through several generations, the appropriateness of thus associating its venerable oaks and their mistletoe with a priesthood which revered the oak as sacred and professed to see in the mistletoe a symbol of immortality. It is written that the Celts in early Gaul and Britain, whose priests the Druids were, worshipped the Sun, the Wind, the Thunder, the great Forces of Nature, rather than its beauty. Yet one who drives through, or luckier, has opportunity and leisure to stroll through Druid Hill Park, when the dogwoods are in blossom or when the autumn leaves are in their glory, well may be pardoned a sensitiveness to God in Nature, quite apart from Revelation, and be something of an aesthetic pantheist, worshipful but unafraid. The name fits well.

The park is in the center of Baltimore City. It is built on rolling hills, extensively wooded. On one side of a high hill, the skyline of buildings and church steeples and railroads and industry can be seen; and on the other side, old Woodberry Mills is one of the oldest mills in Maryland.

Mommy and I wandered all through the park. We came to the Bird House of the zoo. We walked in and a big black bird from Java said "Hello!" I laughed and laughed because Mommy stood there talking to it.

Page 15