16 
EARLY PREPARATIONS 
has been busy making window-boxes in which to 
start seeds. These boxes are not pretty, but Miss 
Wiseman says they are ingenious. She always calls 
Joseph “Master,” instead of “Little,” which makes 
him feel very grown-up in her presence. 
To begin with, Joseph cut down some old soap 
boxes to about two and a half or three inches in 
height, and then filled them with some of the rich 
earth that lies all through our woods under the 
dead leaves. He intended to place them in the 
library window, where the sun would shine brightly 
upon them. But, even so, he was not quite satis- 
fied. At Miss Wiseman’s he saw the gardeners 
starting their seeds in glass houses, and this filled 
him with alarm lest they should sprout long before 
his own. 
One day in a dark closet he found a high pile of 
my camera plates which unhappily had been fail- 
ures. He washed them ofl: with hot water and 
soda, and soon had a number of neat pieces of clean 
glass five inches by seven in size. With strong gum 
he then pasted several of them together on strips 
of cloth until he had three lengths of glass as long 
as the boxes. He intended to cover the seeds with 
them when they were sown, and to hold them up 
with little prop-sticks whenever he wished to admit 
the air. Of course such covers were wabbly and 
difficult to handle; but Little Joseph did not mind 
this. He would now be able to have some of his 
seeds under glass. 
