CHAPTER VII 



PLANTING SWEET PEAS 

 [April] 



IT must be admitted that at this time the garden 

 did not look very beautiful, except to the robins, 

 who thought the earth had been freshly turned for 

 their especial benefit. It was only an oblong inclo- 

 sure, two sides bounded by the wire netting and two 

 by the board fence. A. narrow border-bed two feet 

 wide ran around the inside of the little plot. Mary, 

 however, surveyed her small kingdom with the 

 imaginative pride of the true gardener. 



"Now we are ready to plant, Mr. Trommel," she 

 said, with a sigh of satisfaction; "the bed is all 

 raked. I combed it and combed it, and the tangles 

 are all out." 



The old gardener scrutinized the smooth earth 

 critically. "There are little brown threads of roots 

 45 



