Margery and her mother had taken so much pains in thinking out the arrangement of the flowers, that perhaps you will like to hear just how they designed that garden.  At the back were the sweet peas, which would grow tall, like a screen; on the two sides, for a kind of hedge, were yellow sunflowers; and along the front edge were the gay nasturtiums.  Margery planned that, so that she could look into the garden from the front, but have it shut away from the vegetable patch by the tall flowers on the sides.  The two front corners had canariensis in them.  Canariensis is a pretty creeper with golden blossoms, very dainty and bright.  And then, in little square patches all round the garden, were planted London pride, blue bachelor’s buttons, yellow marigolds, tall larkspur, many-coloured asters, hollyhocks and stocks.  All these lovely flowers used to grow in our grandmothers’ gardens, and if you don’t know what they look like, I hope you can find out next summer.

Between the flowers and the middle path went the seeds for that wonderful salad garden; all the things Mrs Brown had named to Margery were there.  Margery had never seen anything more wonderful than the little round lettuce-seeds.  They were so tiny that it did not seem possible that green lettuce leaves could come from them.  But they surely would.

Mother and father and Margery were late to supper that evening.  But they were all so happy that it did not matter.  The last thing Margery thought of, as she went to sleep at night, was the dear, smooth little garden, with its funny footpath, and with the little sticks standing at the ends of the rows, labelled “lettuce,” “beets,” “helianthus,” and so on.

“I have a garden!  I have a garden!” was Margery’s last thought as she went off to dreamland.

FOOTNOTES: 

[26] I have always been inclined to avoid, in my work among children, the “how to make” and “how to do” kind of story; it is too likely to trespass on the ground belonging by right to its more artistic and less intentional kinsfolk.  Nevertheless, there is a legitimate place for the instruction-story.  Within its own limits, and especially in a school use, it has a real purpose to serve, and a real desire to meet.  Children have a genuine taste for such morsels of practical information, if the bites are not made too big and too solid.  And to the elementary teacher, from whom so much is demanded in the way of practical instruction, I know that these stories are a boon.  They must be chosen with care, and used with discretion, but they need never be ignored.

I venture to give some little stories of this type, which I hope may be of use in the schools where country life and country work is an unknown experience to the children.

THE LITTLE COTYLEDONS

This is another story about Margery’s garden.