Rollo accepted the conditions, and asked his father to stake out the two pieces of ground for him, as soon as he could; and his father did so that day. The piece for the working-garden was much the largest. There was a row of currant-bushes near it, and his father said he might consider all those opposite his piece of ground as included in it, and belonging to him.

So Rollo asked Jonas what he had better do first, and Jonas told him that the first thing was to dig his ground all over, pretty deep; and, as it was difficult to begin it, Jonas said he would begin it for him. So Jonas began, and dug along one side, and instructed Rollo how to throw up the spadefuls of earth out of the way, so that the next spadeful would come up easier.

Jonas, in this way, made a kind of [pg 108]a trench all along the side of Rollo's ground; and he told Rollo to be careful to throw every spadeful well forward, so as to keep the trench open and free, and then it would be easy for him to dig.

Jonas then left him, and told him that there was work enough for him for three or four days, to dig up his ground well.

Rollo went to work, very patiently, for the first day, and persevered an hour in digging up his ground. Then he left his work for that day; and the next morning, when the regular hour which he had allotted to work arrived, he found he had not much inclination to return to it. He accordingly asked his father whether it would not be a good plan to plant what he had already dug, before he dug any more.

“What is Jonas's advice?” said his father.

“Why, he told me I had better dig it all up first; but I thought that, if I planted part first, those things would be growing while I am digging up the rest of the ground.”

“But you must do, you know, as Jonas advises; that is the condition. Next [pg 109]year, perhaps, you will be old enough to act according to your own judgment; but this year you must follow guidance.”

Rollo recollected the condition, and he had nothing to say against it; but he looked dissatisfied.

“Don't you think that is reasonable, Rollo?” said his father.

“Why; I don't know,” said Rollo.

“This very case shows that it is reasonable. Here you want to plant a part before you have got the ground prepared. The real reason is because you are tired of digging; not because you are really of opinion that that would be a better plan. You have not the means of judging whether it is, or is not, now, time to begin to put in seeds.”

Rollo could not help seeing that that was his real motive; and he promised his father that he would go on, though it was tiresome. It was not the hard labor of the digging that fatigued him, for, by following Jonas's directions, he found it easy work; but it was the sameness of it. He longed for something new.

He persevered, however, and it was a valuable lesson to him; for when he had [pg 110]got it all done, he was so satisfied with thinking that it was fairly completed, and in thinking that now it was all ready together, and that he could form a plan for the whole at once, that he determined that forever after, when he had any unpleasant piece of work to do, he would go on patiently through it, even if it was tiresome.

With Jonas's help, Rollo planned his garden beautifully. He put double rows of peas and beans all around, so that when they should grow up, they would enclose his garden like a fence or hedge, and make it look snug and pleasant within. Then, he had a row of corn, for he thought he should like some green corn himself to roast. Then, he had one bed of beets and some hills of muskmelons, and in one corner he planted some flower seeds, so that he could have some flowers to put into his mother's glasses, for the mantel-piece.

Rollo took great interest in laying out and planting his ground, and in watching the garden when the seeds first came up; for all this was easy and pleasant work. In the intervals, he used to play on his[pg 111] pleasure-ground, planting and digging, and setting out, just as he pleased.

Sometimes he, and James, and Lucy, would go out in the woods with his little wheelbarrow, and dig up roots of flowers and little trees there, and bring them in, and set them out here and there. But he did not proceed regularly with this ground. He did not dig it all up first, and then form a regular plan for the whole; and the consequence was, that it soon became very irregular. He would want to make a path one day where he had set out a little tree, perhaps, a few days before; and it often happened that, when he was making a little trench to sow one kind of seeds, out came a whole parcel of others that he had put in before, and forgotten.

Then, when the seeds came up in his playing-garden, they came up here and there, irregularly; but, in his working-garden, all looked orderly and beautiful.

One evening, just before sundown, Rollo brought out his father and mother to look at his two gardens. The difference between them was very great; and Rollo, as he ran along before his father, said that [pg 112]he thought the working plan of making a garden was a great deal better than the playing plan.

“That depends upon what your object is.”

“How so?” said Rollo.

“Why, which do you think you have had the most amusement from, thus far?”

“Why, I have had most amusement, I suppose, in the little garden in the corner.”

“Yes,” said his father, “undoubtedly. But the other appears altogether the best now, and will produce altogether more in the end. So, if your object is useful results, you must manage systematically, regularly, and patiently; but if you only want amusement as you go along, you had better do every day just as you happen to feel inclined.”

“Well, father, which do you think is best for a boy?”

“For quite small boys, a garden for play is best. They have not patience or industry enough for any other.”

“Do you think I have patience or industry enough?”

“You have done very well, so far; but the trying time is to come.”

[pg 113]“Why, father?”

“Because the novelty of the beginning is over, and now you will have a good deal of hoeing and weeding to do for a month to come. I am not sure but that you will forfeit your land yet.”

“But you are to give me three days' notice, you know.”

“That is true; but we shall see.”