[1] 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 aren’t made too big and too solid.  And to the teacher of the first grades, 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.

There was once a little girl named Margery, who had always lived in the city.  The flat where her mother and father lived was at the top of a big apartment-house, and you couldn’t see a great deal from the windows, except clothes-lines on other people’s roofs.  Margery did not know much about trees and flowers, but she loved them dearly; whenever it was a pleasant Sunday she used to go with her mother and father to the park and look at the lovely flower-beds.  They seemed always to be finished, though, and Margery was always wishing she could see them grow.

One spring, when Margery was nine, her father’s work changed so that he could move into the country, and he took a little house a short distance outside the town where his new position was.  Margery was delighted.  And the very first thing she said, when her father told her about it, was, “Oh, may I have a garden?  May I have a garden?”

Margery’s mother was almost as eager for a garden as she was, and Margery’s father said he expected to live on their vegetables all the rest of his life!  So it was soon agreed that the garden should be the first thing attended to.

Behind the little house were apple trees, a plum tree, and two or three pear trees; then came a stretch of rough grass, and then a stone wall, with a gate leading into the pasture.  It was in the grassy land that the garden was to be.  A big piece was to be used for corn and peas and beans, and a little piece at the end was to be saved for Margery.

“What shall we have in it?” asked her mother.

“Flowers,” said Margery, with shining eyes,—­“blue, and white, and yellow, and pink,—­every kind of flower!”

“Surely, flowers,” said her mother, “and shall we not have a little salad garden in the midst, as they do in England?”

“What is a salad garden?” Margery asked.

“It is a garden where you have all the things that make nice salad,” said her mother, laughing, for Margery was fond of salads; “you have lettuce, and endive, and romaine, and parsley, and radishes, and cucumbers, and perhaps little beets and young onions.”