14 . 
EARLY PREPARATIONS 
the one place where she minded weeds as much as 
Betsy Trotwood disliked donkeys. Still, Timothy 
thought necessary to roll it down a number of 
times, to sprinkle fertilising powder over it, and 
then to sow it with grass seed. This he did one 
day after a night of rain, when the earth was moist 
and therefore ready to take the seed. He lamented 
that he could not have sown the seeds in late Sep- 
tember, since they might then have taken root and 
had a long sleep during the winter. He said his 
old head had then no idea that, when spring came, 
he would be working at the Six Spruces for two 
children instead of for our great-aunt. 
It seems all right for Timothy tO' call my brother 
a child and to have his own way in spite of what Jo- 
seph says ; but I do think he sometimes forgets that 
I am nearly seventeen. 
Naturally, one of the difficulties we shall have 
with the garden is that no work was done here in 
the autumn. No preparations were then made for 
spring. Moreover, at the Six Spruces there are 
hardly any flowers to reseed themselves. There 
are none of the kind that come up year after year. 
Here we found only the blush-rose bush, the yellow 
bell, the spireas, and the lilacs. Little Joseph 
realises that this spring the garden is merely to be 
started. It is likely that we shall have but few 
flowers, but we hope that with each succeeding year 
the garden will become more beautiful. 
Even if shabby and neglected, the Six Spruces is 
