Another way to do this work is to make a box that will fit approximately into the pond, but that gives a space all around over three inches from the sides.  Then the mortar may be dropped in.  After three days knock out the box and you have the inside all right.  If you wet the sides and bottom of the box the mortar will cling to it less.

If the mortar looks rather rough after you finish, mix cement with water, take a whisk broom and with this brush the paste all over the bottom and sides of the pond.  All around the ground by the pond, mortar for about six inches.  This prevents the breaking in of the edges.

Albert and George, who worked on this job, did the mortaring the first way.  The pond was left unfilled for a week to dry thoroughly.  Then after placing two inches of sand in the bottom it was filled with water.  Philip bought two pond lily roots.  He tied stones with string on the roots of the plants to keep them down:  otherwise they would have bobbed up and floated on the surface of the water.  Some one gave him two water hyacinths.

In the middle of the yard a round bed was made.  To do this take a cord and tie a stake at either end.  The cord should be whatever length you have decided shall be the radius of the circle.  The radius of a circle, you remember, is the distance from the centre to the circumference.

Now drive one of the stakes into the ground at the exact centre.  Grasp in your hand the other stake and swing a circle with it.  The stake will scratch a well-defined line so that you have the outline of the circle, the boundary of the bed.

Jay spaded down to about six inches all along the outlines of bed.  After that the bed itself was spaded.  Philip insisted on outlining it with brick which had been given him.  Some children use whitewashed stones, some use shells.  Either plan gives a spotty effect.  The idea fails of being artistic.  A neat cutting of the turf and a slight heaping up of a round bed toward the centre gives after all a far more pleasing effect.  Try to keep as near to Nature’s own plan as you can.  Shells belong on the seashore or in a collection; keep stones for road making, wall building, cement work and curbs; bricks are for foundations and buildings.  Rarely use things for what they were not intended.  It is better usually to border a bed with low-growing flowers.  Ageratum, candytuft and dwarf nasturtiums are good for the purpose.

Along a walk to an old outhouse they planted asters on one side and four o’clocks on the other.  Asters, as all boys and girls know, are better if started inside early.  Then they may be transplanted to the outside.  In his way one gets a bit ahead of the season.

But Philip was obliged to plant seed for both.  So he planted it in a drill as one plants lettuce.  Later the little seedlings were thinned out to stand six inches apart.  This thinning was done when the plants were four inches high.  Four o’clocks need lots of room as they grow bushy.