I

LITTLE PLANTS WON'T STAND MUCH HANDLING

YET the little garden seemed to grow slowly. The sun in February was getting farther to the north, and came earlier and stayed later than it had in January, and was brighter, too. But for all that, to Davy and Prue, each new leaf came quite slowly—just a tiny point or bud at first, then a little green heart or oval or crinkly oblong with a wee stem of its own. It was very hard to see each morning, just what had grown since the morning before.

Of course they did grow—little by little, and inch by inch—just as children grow, and a good deal faster, for when they measured their bean and morning-glory vines, they found one morning that they had grown at least a half an inch since the day before, and that would be a good deal for a little boy or girl to grow in one day.

But Davy perhaps remembered the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" and how Jack's bean had grown to the sky in a very short time; and, of course, remembering a story like that is apt to make anybody impatient with a bean that grows only half an inch a day.

"I think it would be a good plan," he said one morning, "to tie a rubber band to the top of each of my bean vines, and then fasten the other end higher up the window to help pull the vines along."

And little Prue said:

"I pulled my morning-glories along yesterday a little, with my fingers. I know they grew a tiny speck then, but they don't look quite so nice this morning."

The Chief Gardener came over to see what was going on.

"I don't think we'd better try any new plans," he said. "I'm afraid if we pull our plants to make them grow, we will have to pull them up altogether, pretty soon, and plant new ones. Tender little plants won't stand much handling."

The Chief Gardener was not cross, but his voice was quite solemn. Little Prue looked frightened and her lip quivered the least bit.

"Oh, will my morning-glories die now?" she asked; "and I pulled the pansies just a tiny speck, too. Will they die?"

"Not this time, I think; but I wouldn't do it again. Just give them a little water now and then, and dig in the pots a little, and turn them around sometimes so that each side of the plant gets the light, and nature will do the rest. Of course you can't turn the bean and morning-glory pots after they get to climbing the strings, but they will twine round and round and so turn themselves. Your garden looks very well for the time of year. Perhaps if you did not watch it so much it would grow faster. They say that a watched pot never boils, so perhaps a watched plant does not grow well. I am sure they do not like to be stretched up to a measuring-stick every morning at eight o'clock. Suppose now we put up the strings for the morning-glories and beans to climb on, and some nice branchy twigs for the pease, then water them well and leave them for a few days and see what happens."

So then the Chief Gardener and the two little gardeners went down in the basement, where they found some tiny screw-hooks and some string, and where they cut some nice sprangly little limbs from the Christmas tree that still stood in one corner, and was getting very dry. Then they all came up again and put up strings for the scarlet runners and morning-glories, by tying one end of each string to a stout little stick which the Chief Gardener pushed carefully into the soil between the plants, and then carried the string to the small screw-hooks, which were put about half-way up, and at the top of the window-casings. The branchy twigs were stuck carefully into the pots where the pease grew, and stood up straight and fine—like little ladders, Prue said—for the pease to climb.

"It's just like a circus," said Davy. "The beans and morning-glories will be climbing ropes, and the pease will be running up straight ladders."

"And while we are waiting for the performance to begin," added the Chief Gardener, "suppose you let me tell you something about the performers—where they came from, and some stories that are told of them."

II

HEY FOR THE MERRY LITTLE SWEET-PEA

The Chief Gardener went into the next room, which was the library, and drew a cozy little settee up before the bright hickory fire. It was just wide enough for three, and when he sat down, Davy and Little Prue promptly hopped up, one on each side. In a low rocker near the window Big Prue was doing something with silks and needles and a very bright pair of scissors. The Chief Gardener stirred the fire and looked into it. Then he said:

"Speaking of pease, I wonder if you ever heard this little song about

"Was there really ever a poor man and a little sick girl who had pease sent to them?" asked little Prue, as the Chief Gardener finished.

"Oh, I am sure there must have been! A great many of them."

"But the ones you sung about. Those really same ones—did they ever really live, or did you make it up about them?"

"I don't think my pease would be quite enough for a poor man who didn't have a cent of money," said Davy, after thinking about it.

"But my sweet-pease will be enough, only I want to know if there is really such a little girl, so I can send them. Is there, Papa?"

"Well, I am sure we can find such a little girl, if we try. And I know she'd be glad for some sweet-pease. And now here's a little story that I really didn't make up, but read a long time ago.

"Once upon a time there were two friars—"

"What are friars?" asked Prue. "Do they fry things?"

"Well, not exactly, though one of these did do some stewing, and the other, too, perhaps, though in a different way. A friar is a kind of priest, and these two had done something which the abbot, who is the head priest, did not like, so he punished them."

"What did they do?" asked Prue, who liked to know just what people could be punished for.

"I don't remember now. It's so long—"

"What do you s'pose it was?"

"Well, I really can't s'pose, but it may have been because they forgot their prayers. Abbots don't like friars to forget their prayers—"

"If I should forget my prayers, I'd say 'em twice to make up."

"Oh, Prue!" said Davy, "do let Papa go on with the story!"

"But I would. I'd say 'em sixty times!"

"Yes," said the Chief Gardener, "friars have to do that, too, I believe; but these had to do something different. They had to wear pease in their shoes."

"Had to wear pease! In their shoes!"

"Yes, pease, like those we planted, and they had to walk quite a long ways, and, of course, it wouldn't be pleasant to walk with those little hard things under your feet.

"Well, they started, and one of them went limping and stewing along, and making an awful fuss, because his feet hurt him so, but when he looked at the other he saw that instead of hobbling and groaning as he was, he was walking along, as lively as could be, and seemed to be enjoying the fine morning, and was actually whistling.

"'Oh, dear!' said the one who was limping, 'how is it you can walk along so spry, and feel so happy, with those dreadful pease in your shoes?'

"'Why,' said the other, 'before I started, I took the liberty to boil my pease!'"

"But, Papa," began little Prue, "I don't see—"

"I do," said Davy, "it made them soft, so they didn't hurt."

"What kind of pease were they?" asked Prue. "Like Davy's or mine?"

"Well, I've never heard just what kind they were. There are a good many kinds of pease, and they seem to have come from a good many places. Besides the sweet-pease and garden-pease, there are field-pease, used dry for cattle, and in England there is what is called a sea-pea, because it was first found growing on the shore of a place called Sussex, more than three hundred and fifty years ago, in a year of famine. There were many, many of them and they were in a place where even grass had not grown before that time. The people thought they must have been cast up by some shipwrecked vessel, and they gathered them for food, and so kept from going hungry and starving to death. The garden-pea is almost the finest of vegetables, and there are many kinds—some large, some small, some very sweet, some that grow on tall vines and have to have stakes, and some that grow very short without stakes, and are called dwarfs. There are a good many kinds of sweet-pease, too, different sizes and colors, but I think all the different kinds of garden-pease and sweet-pease might have come from one kind of each, a very, very long time ago, and that takes me to another story which I will have to put off until next time. I have some books now to look over, and you and Davy, Prue, can go for a run in the fresh air."

III

EVEN CLOVER BELONGS TO THE PULSE FAMILY

It was on the same evening that Prue and Davy asked for the other story. And of course the Chief Gardener had to tell it, for he had promised, and little Prue, especially, didn't like to put off anything that had been promised. So this is the story that the Chief Gardener told:

"The Pulse family is a very large one. I don't know just where the first old great-grandfather Pulse ever did come from, but it is thought to be some place in Asia, a great country of the far East. It may be that the first Pulse lived in the Garden of Eden, though whether as a tree or a vine or a shrub, or only as a little plant, we can't tell now."

"I think it's going to be a fairy story," said Prue, settling down to listen. "Is it, Papa? A real, true fairy story?"

"Well, perhaps it is a sort of a fairy story, and I'll try to tell it just as truly as I can. Anyway, the story goes, that a long time after the Garden of Eden was ruined and the Pulse family started west, there were two cousins, and these two cousins were vines, though whether they were always vines, or only got to be vines so they could travel faster, I do not know. Some of their relations were trees then, and are now; the locust tree out in the corner of the yard is one of them."

Davy looked up, and was about to ask a question. The Chief Gardener went on.

"The cousins I am talking about, being vines, traveled quite fast in the summer-time, but when it came winter, they lay down for a long nap, and only when spring came they roused up and traveled on. One of them was a very fine fellow, with gay flowers that had a sweet smell, and people loved him for his beauty and fragrance. The other brought only greenish-white flowers, not very showy, but some thought him far more useful than his pretty cousin, for he gave the people food as he passed along.

"So they journeyed on, down by the way of the Black Sea, which you will know about when you are a little older, and still farther west until at last the pretty Pulse cousin and the plain but useful Pulse cousin had spread their families all over Europe, and were called P's, perhaps because the first letter of their family name began with P. Then by and by it was spelled p-e-a, and they were called garden-pease and sweet-pease, and were planted everywhere, one for the lovely flowers, and the other for food. Now we have them side by side in your windows, just as they were when they first started on their travels, so very, very long ago."

"Did they really travel as you have told?" asked Davy, looking into the fire.

"Well, I have never been able to find any printed history of their travels, so it may have been something like that."

"They did, didn't they, Papa?" insisted little Prue, who always wanted to believe every word of every fairy story. "They went hand in hand, just as Davy and I do when we go walking, didn't they?"

"And Davy is the garden-pea and you the sweet-pea, is that it? Well, they did come a long way—that is true—and they do belong to a very large family. Why, even the clover belongs to the Pulse family, and the peanut, and the locust, and the laburnum, and there is one distant branch of the family that is so modest and sensitive that at the least touch its members shrink and hide, and these are called sensitive plants."

"Aren't beans of the Pulse family, too?" asked Davy.

"Why do you think so?" asked the Chief Gardener.

"Well, I remember that the flowers are something alike, and then they both have pods."

"And you are right, Davy. Both the flowers are what is called butterfly-shaped, and pods of that kind are called legumes. Whenever you see a flower of that shape, or a pod of that kind, no matter how small or how large, or whether they grow on a plant or a tree or a shrub, you will know you have found one of the Pulse family and a relative of the pea. Your scarlet runners are about second cousins, I should think, and I have something to tell about them, too, but it is too late this evening."

IV

BEANS AND MORNING-GLORIES TWINE TO THE RIGHT

"My morning-glories are climbing! My morning-glories are climbing up the strings!"

"And so are my scarlet runners! Two of them have gone twice around already, and one of them three times! But oh, Papa, something has broken one of my stalks of corn, right off close to the ground!"

It was two days after the strings had been put up, and Prue and Davy had tried very hard not to look at their garden during all that time. Then they just had to look, and found that the beans and morning-glories were really starting up the strings. But what could have happened to Davy's corn!

The Chief Gardener hurried down to see. Then with an old knife he dug down into the pot a little, and up came, what do you suppose? Why, a white, fat ugly worm—a cut-worm, the Chief Gardener called him.

"They are a great enemy to young corn," he said, "especially in cool weather. Sometimes almost whole fields have to be replanted. Blackbirds will kill them, but many times the farmer thinks the blackbird is pulling up his corn, and drives him away with a gun, when the blackbird is only trying to help the farmer."

"Do you suppose there are any more?" asked Davy anxiously.

The Chief Gardener dug carefully around the other stalk, until the white roots began to show.

"No, I think your other stalk is safe," he said, "at least from cut-worms."

Grown-up Prue came to see the gardens. Yes, the vines were really making a nice start, as well as the other things. One of Davy's pease had sent out some tiny tendrils that were reaching toward the slender twig-branches, but thoughtful Davy was looking first at his beans, then at Prue's morning-glories.

"They all go around the strings just alike," he said at last; "all the same way. Why don't some go the other way?"

"You ask such hard questions, Davy," the Chief Gardener answered. "I have never known anybody to tell why all the beans and morning-glories twine to the right, any more than why all the honeysuckles twine to the left." The Chief Gardener turned to the little woman beside him. "There must be some reason, of course; some law of harmony and attraction. I suppose it would be quite simple to us if we knew. Why, where did Davy go?"

Davy came in, just then, with his hat and coat on.

"I'm going to look at the honeysuckles," he said, "those out on the porch."

The others put on wraps, too, and went with him. It was crisp and bright out there, and dry leaves still clinging to the vines whispered and gossiped together in the wintry breeze.

"They do!" said Davy, "they every one turn the other way—every single one! How do you suppose they can tell which way to start—which is right, and which is left?"

The Chief Gardener shook his head.

"Perhaps a story might explain it," he said. "Stories have to explain a good many things until we find better ways."

So then they went inside to see if a story would really tell why the morning-glory and scarlet runner always twined to the right, and why the honeysuckle always twined to the left. And this was the Chief Gardener's story:

V

THE HONEYSUCKLE TWINES ALWAYS TO THE LEFT

"Away back in the days that came after Eden, the time I told you of, when the garden was given up to weeds and the plants went wandering out through the world, a certain morning-glory and climbing-bean were good friends, and were often found together—twining up the same little tree or trellis, and very happy. Of course they were not called morning-glory and bean then, and the honeysuckle that grew near was not called honeysuckle either, though it had just the same sweet flowers, and the humming-birds came to suckle honey from them, just as they do now, in summer-time. I don't know what the old names were. It has been so long since then, I suppose they are all forgotten.

"Now the honeysuckle was very proud of its sweet flowers, that scented all the air around and drew the beautiful humming-birds, while the morning-glory and bean had only very pale little flowers that the humming-birds did not care for at all.

"And the honeysuckle used to laugh at them, and tell them how plain and useless they were. How they lived only a little while in summer, and withered when the frost came, while it only shed its leaves, and stood strong and sturdy against the wind and cold of winter, ready to grow larger and more useful each spring. And this, of course, made the two friends feel very sorry, and wish they could be beautiful and useful, too.

THE MORNING-GLORY TWINES TO THE RIGHT