A Little Garden Calendar for Boys and Girls

"The Pulse family is a very large one. I don't know just where the first old great-grandfather Pulse ever did come from, but it is thought to be some place in Asia, a great country of the far East. It may be that the first Pulse lived in the Garden of Eden, though whether as a tree or a vine or a shrub, or only as a little plant, we can't tell now."

"I think it's going to be a fairy story," said Prue, settling down to listen. "Is it, Papa? A real, true fairy story?"

"Well, perhaps it is a sort of a fairy story, and I'll try to tell it just as truly as I can. Anyway, the story goes, that a long time after the Garden of Eden was ruined and the Pulse family started west, there were two cousins, and these two cousins were vines, though whether they were always vines, or only got to be vines so they could travel faster, I do not know. Some of their relations were trees then, and are now; the locust tree out in the corner of the yard is one of them."

Davy looked up, and was about to ask a question. The Chief Gardener went on.

"The cousins I am talking about, being vines, traveled quite fast in the summer-time, but when it came winter, they lay down for a long nap, and only when spring came they roused up and traveled on. One of them was a very fine fellow, with gay flowers that had a sweet smell, and people loved him for his beauty and fragrance. The other brought only greenish-white flowers, not very showy, but some thought him far more useful than his pretty cousin, for he gave the people food as he passed along.

"So they journeyed on, down by the way of the Black Sea, which you will know about when you are a little older, and still farther west until at last the pretty Pulse cousin and the plain but useful Pulse cousin had spread their families all over Europe, and were called P's, perhaps because the first letter of their family name began with P. Then by and by it was spelled p-e-a, and they were called garden-pease and sweet-pease, and were planted everywhere, one for the lovely flowers, and the other for food. Now we have them side by side in your windows, just as they were when they first started on their travels, so very, very long ago."

"Did they really travel as you have told?" asked Davy, looking into the fire.

"Well, I have never been able to find any printed history of their travels, so it may have been something like that."

"They did, didn't they, Papa?" insisted little Prue, who always wanted to believe every word of every fairy story. "They went hand in hand, just as Davy and I do when we go walking, didn't they?"

"And Davy is the garden-pea and you the sweet-pea, is that it? Well, they did come a long way – that is true – and they do belong to a very large family. Why, even the clover belongs to the Pulse family, and the peanut, and the locust, and the laburnum, and there is one distant branch of the family that is so modest and sensitive that at the least touch its members shrink and hide, and these are called sensitive plants."

"Aren't beans of the Pulse family, too?" asked Davy.

"Why do you think so?" asked the Chief Gardener.

"Well, I remember that the flowers are something alike, and then they both have pods."

"And you are right, Davy. Both the flowers are what is called butterfly-shaped, and pods of that kind are called legumes. Whenever you see a flower of that shape, or a pod of that kind, no matter how small or how large, or whether they grow on a plant or a tree or a shrub, you will know you have found one of the Pulse family and a relative of the pea. Your scarlet runners are about second cousins, I should think, and I have something to tell about them, too, but it is too late this evening."

IV

BEANS AND MORNING-GLORIES TWINE TO THE RIGHT

"My morning-glories are climbing! My morning-glories are climbing up the strings!"

"And so are my scarlet runners! Two of them have gone twice around already, and one of them three times! But oh, Papa, something has broken one of my stalks of corn, right off close to the ground!"

It was two days after the strings had been put up, and Prue and Davy had tried very hard not to look at their garden during all that time. Then they just had to look, and found that the beans and morning-glories were really starting up the strings. But what could have happened to Davy's corn!

The Chief Gardener hurried down to see. Then with an old knife he dug down into the pot a little, and up came, what do you suppose? Why, a white, fat ugly worm – a cut-worm, the Chief Gardener called him.

"They are a great enemy to young corn," he said, "especially in cool weather. Sometimes almost whole fields have to be replanted. Blackbirds will kill them, but many times the farmer thinks the blackbird is pulling up his corn, and drives him away with a gun, when the blackbird is only trying to help the farmer."

"Do you suppose there are any more?" asked Davy anxiously.

The Chief Gardener dug carefully around the other stalk, until the white roots began to show.

"No, I think your other stalk is safe," he said, "at least from cut-worms."

Grown-up Prue came to see the gardens. Yes, the vines were really making a nice start, as well as the other things. One of Davy's pease had sent out some tiny tendrils that were reaching toward the slender twig-branches, but thoughtful Davy was looking first at his beans, then at Prue's morning-glories.

"They all go around the strings just alike," he said at last; "all the same way. Why don't some go the other way?"

"You ask such hard questions, Davy," the Chief Gardener answered. "I have never known anybody to tell why all the beans and morning-glories twine to the right, any more than why all the honeysuckles twine to the left." The Chief Gardener turned to the little woman beside him. "There must be some reason, of course; some law of harmony and attraction. I suppose it would be quite simple to us if we knew. Why, where did Davy go?"

Davy came in, just then, with his hat and coat on.

"I'm going to look at the honeysuckles," he said, "those out on the porch."

The others put on wraps, too, and went with him. It was crisp and bright out there, and dry leaves still clinging to the vines whispered and gossiped together in the wintry breeze.

"They do!" said Davy, "they every one turn the other way – every single one! How do you suppose they can tell which way to start – which is right, and which is left?"

The Chief Gardener shook his head.

"Perhaps a story might explain it," he said. "Stories have to explain a good many things until we find better ways."

So then they went inside to see if a story would really tell why the morning-glory and scarlet runner always twined to the right, and why the honeysuckle always twined to the left. And this was the Chief Gardener's story:

V

THE HONEYSUCKLE TWINES ALWAYS TO THE LEFT

"Away back in the days that came after Eden, the time I told you of, when the garden was given up to weeds and the plants went wandering out through the world, a certain morning-glory and climbing-bean were good friends, and were often found together – twining up the same little tree or trellis, and very happy. Of course they were not called morning-glory and bean then, and the honeysuckle that grew near was not called honeysuckle either, though it had just the same sweet flowers, and the humming-birds came to suckle honey from them, just as they do now, in summer-time. I don't know what the old names were. It has been so long since then, I suppose they are all forgotten.

"Now the honeysuckle was very proud of its sweet flowers, that scented all the air around and drew the beautiful humming-birds, while the morning-glory and bean had only very pale little flowers that the humming-birds did not care for at all.

"And the honeysuckle used to laugh at them, and tell them how plain and useless they were. How they lived only a little while in summer, and withered when the frost came, while it only shed its leaves, and stood strong and sturdy against the wind and cold of winter, ready to grow larger and more useful each spring. And this, of course, made the two friends feel very sorry, and wish they could be beautiful and useful, too.

"Now, one day in early spring, the sun, who makes the plants grow and gives the colors to the flowers, heard the honeysuckle, which was putting out green leaves on its strong vines, laughing at the bean and morning-glory, that were just peeping from the earth.

"And the sun said, 'This is too bad. It is not fair for one who has so much to make fun of those who have so little. I must give them more.'

"So, lo and behold, when the morning-glory vine began to bloom, instead of having pale little flowers, they were a beautiful white and blue and purple and rose color, and when the bean blossomed, it had a fine scarlet flower, and both were more beautiful than the honeysuckle, though the honeysuckle still had its sweet perfume, and its honey for the humming-birds."

"But what about the twining?" asked Davy. "That is what you started to tell."

"Why, yes, of course. I forgot that. Well, when the sun came to look at them he said, first to the honeysuckle, 'Because you have been so proud, you must follow me,' and to the bean and morning-glory, 'Because you have been meek, you shall turn always to meet me,' and since that day, the honeysuckle has turned always to the left, following the sun, while the bean and the morning-glory have twined always to the right, to meet it on every turn."

The Chief Gardener paused, seeing that Davy was making circles in the air with his finger – first circles to the right, then more circles to the left. Then the circles got slower and slower, showing that he was thinking very hard.

"That's right," he said at last. "If they turned to the right, they would meet the sun every time around, and if they turned to the left they would be following it."

The Chief Gardener was glad he had told his story right.

"And then, by and by," he said, "I suppose people must have given them their names – the honeysuckle's because of the humming-birds that came to suckle the flowers, and the morning-glory's because it made each morning bright with its beautiful flowers, while the bean they called the scarlet runner, and when they found that its pods held good food, they planted it both for its flowers and its usefulness, and valued it very highly, indeed. Just where all this happened I do not know. The honeysuckle and morning-glory now grow wild, both in Europe and the United States, and the scarlet runner is said to have been found wild in these countries, too, though I have never seen it except in gardens."

"Papa," asked little Prue, "haven't my morning-glories any useful relations, like my sweet-pease?"

"Why, yes, of course, let me see. The sweet potato belongs to that family. It is really about a first cousin, and useful drugs are made from the juice and root of a wild morning-glory. There are hardly any families that do not have both useful and ornamental members, and most of them, I am sorry to say, have troublesome ones, too, which we call weeds. But I must run away now, and all that will have to wait until another time."