A Little Garden Calendar for Boys and Girls

"So they do, Davy; and they really look something the same in the garden. The leaves are nearly the same shape, only that the morning-glory's is more heart-shaped, and then beans have three leaves to the stem instead of one. Sometimes I have taken a morning-glory for a bean, just at first."

"What else have we?" asked Prue. "What are the little flowers, and the big one in the center?"

If the Chief Gardener felt hurt because his pictures did not show just what all the flowers were, without telling, he did not say so. He said:

"Well, in the center of your window, Prue, the big flower is made for a sunflower. Not the big kind, but the small western sunflower, such as we had along the back fence last summer. I think we can raise those in the house."

"I just love those," nodded Prue.

"Then those two slender plants are sweet-pease on your side, and garden-pease on Davy's. I put two in each window, because I know that you love sweet-pease, while Davy is very fond of the vegetable kind."

"I'd like a whole bushel of sweet-pease!" said Prue.

"And I wish I had a bushel of eating pease!" said Davy, "and I know that's sweet corn in the middle of my window. I just love it!"

"Yes," said the Chief Gardener, "and a little pot of radishes on one side, and a pot of lettuce salad on the other. Do you think you like that, Davy?"

"Can't I have strawberries, instead of the salad?" asked Davy.

"Strawberries don't bear from seed the first season, and I can't remember any fruit that does, unless you call tomatoes fruit, and I don't think a tomato vine would be quite pleasant in the house. It doesn't always have a sweet odor."

"Oh, well, I can eat lettuce," said Davy. "I can eat anything that's good."

"What are in my other little pots?" asked Prue for the third or fourth time.

"Well, one is meant for a pot of pansies – "

"Oh, pansies! pansies! Can't I have two pots of pansies?"

"You can have three or four plants in one pot – perhaps that will do. Then you can put nasturtiums in the other little pot. They are easy to grow, and very beautiful."

"Yes," said Prue, "I never saw anything so lovely as your nasturtiums by the house, last year."

The Chief Gardener looked at the sketch and tapped it with his pencil.

"Of course," he said, "your garden may not look just as I have it here. I don't draw very well, but I can make things about the right sizes to fit the windows, and that isn't so hard to do with a pencil as it is with the plants themselves. Plants, like children, don't always grow just as their friends want them to, and they are not always well behaved. You see – "

"But won't my bean vines and corn grow up like that?" asked Davy.

"And won't my morning-glories have flowers on them?" asked Prue.

"I hope they will, and we will try to coax them. But you see things may happen. Sometimes it comes a very cold night when the fires get low, and then plants are likely to chill, or perhaps freeze and die. We can only try to be very careful."

"How long will it take them to grow?" asked Davy.

"That is not easy to say. When everything is just right, some seeds start very soon. I have known radishes to pop up within three days, when the weather was warm and damp. Corn will sprout in about a week, in warm weather. Sweet-pease take a good deal longer, though we can hurry them a little by soaking them in warm water before we plant them. But we will talk about all that later. First, let's see about the pots and earth, and the seeds."

III

MANY SEEDS ARE GIVEN WINGS

The Chief Gardener took Davy and Prue down in the basement, where in one corner he kept his flower-pots and garden-tools.

"I'm going to use the hoe," said Davy, reaching for the long handle.

"I'll have the rake for my garden," said Prue.

The Chief Gardener smiled.

"I don't think we'll need either for this gardening. A small weeder or an old kitchen-knife will be about the largest tool you can use."

Then he picked out some pots, set them side by side on a table, and measured them to see how long a row they made. Then he changed them and measured again.

"There," he said, "those will just fit one window. Now, another set for the other window and we are ready for the soil."

"Where will you get dirt? Everything is frozen hard," said Davy.

The Chief Gardener took up a spading-fork from among the tools.

"We'll get our hats and coats, first," he said, "then we'll see what we can find."

Outside it was really very cold, but the children, with their thick wraps, did not mind. They raced in the snow across the empty little garden, and followed the Chief Gardener to a small mound in one corner. Here he pushed away the snow, and with the fork lifted up a layer of frozen-looking weeds; then another layer, not quite so frozen and not quite so weedy; then still another layer that did not seem at all frozen, but was just a mass of damp leaves and bits of grass. And under this layer it must have been quite warm, for steam began to rise white in the cold air.

"Oh, see!" said Prue. "What makes the smoke?"

"That's steam," said Davy, wisely; "but what makes it warm?"

"Fever," said the Chief Gardener, "just as you had, Davy, that night you ate too much layer-cake. You said you were burning up, but it was only nature trying to burn up the extra food. That is what nature is doing here – trying to burn up and turn to earth the pile of weeds and grass I threw here last summer for compost. Next spring the fire will be out, and leave only a heap of rich soil for the garden."

Beneath the last layer there was warm, dark earth. The Chief Gardener filled the basket he had brought, and they hurried back to the basement to fill the pots.

"Not too full – we must leave room at the top for digging and watering, without spilling dirt and water on the floor. Then the plants will help fill up by and by, too, and I think we would better put in a little of this compost at the bottom. When the roots run down they will be glad to find some fresh, rich food. Don't pack the earth too tightly, Davy; just jar the pot a little to settle it, and it should be fine and quite dry. Perhaps we'd better dry it a little," the Chief Gardener added, as he saw by the children's hands that some of the earth was rather damp and sticky.

So he brought out a flat box, emptied all the pots into it, and set the box on top of the furnace.

"While it's drying, we'll go upstairs and pick out the seeds," he said.

"Oh, see my beans! How pretty they are!" cried Davy, as the Chief Gardener pointed out the purple-mottled seeds of the scarlet runners.

Prue looked a little envious. She was fond of pretty things.

"But my pease are better-looking than those crinkly things of yours," she said; "mine are most like little beads; and see my nasturtium seed! They look good to eat, like little peanuts."

It was Davy's turn now to be envious. Anything that looked like peanuts must be very good to eat.

"People often pickle nasturtium pods," said the Chief Gardener. "They are fine and peppery. So Prue will really have something to eat in her garden, while Davy will have beautiful flowers on his scarlet runners."

"See my morning-glory seed, like quarters of a little black apple, and how tiny my pansy seeds are!" cried Prue, holding out the papers.