might have the food they loved, as well as the donkey. So like
shiftless, kind-hearted, happy-go-lucky Tommy!
Demi had supplied his grandmother with lettuce all summer, and
in the autumn sent his grandfather a basket of turnips, each one
scrubbed up till it looked like a great white egg. His Grandma was
fond of salad, and one of his Grandpa’s favorite quotations was
“Lucullus, whom frugality could charm,
Ate roasted turnips at the Sabine farm.”
Therefore these vegetable offerings to the dear domestic god and
goddess were affectionate, appropriate, and classical.
Daisy had nothing but flowers in her little plot, and it bloomed all
summer long with a succession of gay or fragrant posies. She was
very fond of her garden, and delved away in it at all hours,
watching over her roses, and pansies, sweet-peas, and mignonette,
as faithfully and tenderly as she did over her dolls or her friends.
Little nosegays were sent into town on all occasions, and certain
vases about the house were her especial care. She had all sorts of
pretty fancies about her flowers, and loved to tell the children the
story of the pansy, and show them how the step-mother-leaf sat up
in her green chair in purple and gold; how the two own children in
gay yellow had each its little seat, while the step children, in dull
colors, both sat on one small stool, and the poor little father in his
red nightcap, was kept out of sight in the middle of the flower; that
a monk’s dark face looked out of the monk’s-hood larkspur; that
the flowers of the canary-vine were so like dainty birds fluttering
their yellow wings, that one almost expected to see them fly away,
and the snapdragons that went off like little pistol-shots when you
cracked them. Splendid dollies did she make out of scarlet and
white poppies, with ruffled robes tied round the waist with grass
blade sashes, and astonishing hats of coreopsis on their green
heads. Pea-pod boats, with rose-leaf sails, received these
flower-people, and floated them about a placid pool in the most
charming style; for finding that there were no elves, Daisy made
her own, and loved the fanciful little friends who played their parts
in her summer-life.
Nan went in for herbs, and had a fine display of useful plants,
which she tended with steadily increasing interest and care. Very
busy was she in September cutting, drying, and tying up her sweet
harvest, and writing down in a little book how the different herbs
are to be used. She had tried several experiments, and made
several mistakes; so she wished to be particular lest she should
give little Huz another fit by administering wormwood instead of
catnip.
Dick, Dolly, and Rob each grubbed away on his small farm, and
made more stir about it than all the rest put together. Parsnips and
carrots were the crops of the two D.’s; and they longed for it to be
late enough to pull up the precious vegetables. Dick did privately
examine his carrots, and plant them again, feeling that Silas was
right in saying it was too soon for them yet.
Rob’s crop was four small squashes and one immense pumpkin. It
really was a “bouncer,” as every one said; and I assure you that two
small persons could sit on it side by side. It seemed to have
absorbed all the goodness of the little garden, and all the sunshine
that shone down on it, and lay there a great round, golden ball, full
of rich suggestions of pumpkin-pies for weeks to come. Robby was
so proud of his mammoth vegetable that he took every one to see
it, and, when frosts began to nip, covered it up each night with an
old bedquilt, tucking it round as if the pumpkin was a well-beloved
baby. The day it was gathered he would let no one touch it but
himself, and nearly broke his back tugging it to the barn in his
little wheelbarrow, with Dick and Dolly harnessed in front to give
a heave up the path. His mother promised him that the
Thanksgiving-pies should be made from it, and hinted vaguely that