Mary's Meadow, and Other Tales of Fields and Flowers

equired a good deal of trouble, and I like taking trouble. Then John was willing to let me do many things h

etween you and the vegetables, herbaceous borders, with nice big clumps

steal from if I wasn't an hone

ies, and ranunculus poppies, and carnation poppies, some very large, some quite small, some round and neat, some full and ragged like Japanese chrysanthemums, but all of such beautiful shades

not possibly want them all, for each head has enough in it to sow two or three yards of a border. He said I might have what seeds I liked, if I used sciss

ey came up a certain distance from the parent plants. Harry got a lot of things for our Paradise in this way; indeed, he would not have got

morning when he left off being our Honest Root-g

ght Saxon to see us, and a new kind of mouldiness

, poor dear!) But, though he kicked Saxon, the Scotch Gardener was kind to us. He told us that the reason our gardens do not do so well a

hat good soil ought to be made of, and all the rest of the day they talked of nothing but co

ilk when the cows were milked, or sweet-pea sticks, or bran to stuff the dolls' pillows. I've known him take his hedging-bil

things. The real difference between John and Michael is, that Michael is good-natured and John is not. Catch John showing me the duck

w; and Harry and I see our way to road-scrapings if we can't get sand; and we mean to take precious good care John does

top-spit?

. The new earth that's just underneath. I expect John got a lot when he turfed that new

ith John, Arthur

aves himself," said Arthur, "but we

im he'll only compl

tly mean of him, too, when he knows wh

the good of fighting when yo

ow you are," said Arthur. "Good-night, Mary. We'll hav

me to open war with John, and loudly and long did they rehe

rooms?" asked Arthur, throwing out his right arm, as if he were making a speech. "And think of all the years John

seemed that he was not dressing he had gone out,-very early, one of

n our gardens, it was

claimed, "I thoug

earthy fingers, I never saw him quite so grubby before. And if there had been a clean place left in any part of his clothes well away from the grou

therer?" I asked; "are you turning

rry, when he had got breath after setting down his load. He spo

what's

ichael. It won't hurt it, it's

in it now? It looks

aid Harry, with one more rub of

alf dead. W

rry began to discharge

where did

g the turfs back, and stamping them down not to show, ever since six o'clock. It

nk you ought to have taken

elds are a kind of wild places anyhow, and the paddock be

id I, do

arry, but as he shook the sack out and folded it up, he a

he suddenly smiled and said, "John Parkinson will be glad when he

with a warder looking at him through a hole in the door of his cell, and finding out that he was in penal servitude for steali

of compost. They said we couldn't

mmer and autumn and winter to get along faster than they do.

chael's old sack full of road-scrapings, instead of sand (we have not any sand growing near us, and

mpatient, and he used to say-"I never saw leaves stick on to branches in such a way. I mean to get into some of these old trees and gi