Part 18

and did not want them in their gardens, because they disturbed the other vegetables and flowers, and might make them cross, too.

"Well, the Cross family became tired of this, at last, and made up their minds to be either useful or ornamental: at least, most of them did. So they got together, and after a great deal of quarrelling among themselves to begin with, for, of course, they couldn't help that when they had been unpleasant so long, they at last began to work together and decide what each wanted to be, and how it could be brought about.

"'I think,' said a fat one who was always better-natured than any of the others, 'I should like to be a nice sweet vegetable that people were very fond of and gave a good place to, in their gardens, where I should be well taken care of.'

"So the Clerk of Plants, who was alive then, like the Weather Clerk, you know, put down 'Cabbage,' which was the fat fellow's name, and wrote after it, 'Sweet vegetable--needs care.'

"'I,' said another, 'would like to be a sweet vegetable, too, but I want to grow mostly under the ground, so that I will need less care to keep off insects and worms.'

"So then the Clerk of Plants wrote 'Turnip,' and put after it, 'Vegetable with sweet, wholesome root; needs little care.'

"So they went on with those who wanted to be vegetables. But most of the others did not want to be quite so sweet in their nature as the turnip and the cabbage. They said they liked people with a little temper of their own, so the radish, who was a fat, red little chap, was put down as a vegetable rather sweet, but with sharp flavor, and 'Horseradish' was put down, 'Very sharp and biting, to be used only for seasoning.' The Clerk was about to turn to those who wanted to be flowers, when a little green plant, who had been named 'Nose Torment,' because he made people's noses itch and burn, spoke up and said, 'I should like to be beautiful and useful, too--a pretty green dressing that people like, and I will grow in the water, which may wash away some of my ill manners.'

"So then the Clerk of Plants dropped the name of 'Nose Torment' and wrote down, 'Water Cross, a fine table-salad--grows in clear streams.'

"'But I don't like the name "Cross,"' said the little plant.

"'Oh, well,' said the clerk, 'spell it with an "e" then--make it Cress.' So Water-cress it became, and all the others spelled their family name with an 'e,' too, and became the Cress family instead of the Cross family, just as people often change the spelling of their names to-day.

"But the Clerk of Plants wasn't through, for there were a good many who wanted to be flowers. Some of them wanted to be very sweet flowers, and some, like mustard, wanted to be flowers and useful, too. So the Clerk wrote down 'Wallflower,' and 'Stock' and Candy tuft,' and a good many others, but there was one gentle little blossom which said, 'Oh, I want to be white and pure, and have a sweet and delicate perfume that all people will love.' And this was 'Alyssum,' and when the Clerk wrote it down, he wrote it 'Sweet Alyssum,' and so it has been called ever since.

"And then, when the Clerk was all through, he said, 'There are some who have not come to the meeting. Where is your brother, Mustard? And yours, Alyssum, the one we call Pepper-grass, because he is so fiery?'

"Mustard and Alyssum shook their heads sadly.

"'Well,' said the Clerk, 'they have had their chance. They are wild and will always be,' so he wrote down. 'Wild Mustard' and Pepper-grass,' and after these names he put the word 'Weeds.'"

"But my nasturtium, Papa, what about that?"

"Why, that's so, I forgot all about your nasturtium. Well, you see, it doesn't really belong to the Cress family, but is only a name-relative. The word nasturtium comes from two Latin words, nasi tormentum, which means Nose Torment, and it was Nasturtium that little Water-cress had sometimes been called."

"But," said Prue, "my nasturtium isn't water-cress."

"No, but when it was discovered, and the people tasted the leaves and the flowers, and sometimes used them for salad, and especially when they found it had a sharp-tasting seed, they called it Cress, Indian Cress, and then they took the name that little Water-cress had dropped and called it Nasturtium. So you see it isn't really a Cress or a Nasturtium. It is only called that. It's true name is Acriviola, or Sharp Violet, because of its taste, and the flower, which is shaped something like a violet. All the true Cress family have a corolla of but four petals, shaped like a cross, and nearly all the flowers, and especially the seed-pods, have a sharp flavor. Even the Sweet Alyssum has the least touch of the old flavor, and mustard is very sharp. On the whole, the Cress family has become a most useful and ornamental family, and the Acriviola or Nasturtium, which is neither a violet nor a nasturtium, but a geranium--of the geranium family, I mean--need not be at all ashamed of its adopted names."

FOR IN THAT DISH WAS DAVY'S CORN

WHEN big Prue's birthday came, there was much excitement. Of course, there were the presents which must be hidden until the very morning, but even the presents were not of the very greatest importance this year. Oh, no, this year it was the garden. Big Prue's birthday was to be a regular garden feast.

For now the days had become warm and bright. Already the children had been to the woods for hepaticas and violets, and everywhere the trees were tinged with green. The little garden had fairly filled the window so that now you had to look between the vines to see. Even in the garden outside, the Chief Gardener had made some more beds, and the first ones--the radishes and lettuce--were so well along, that early on the morning of big Prue's birthday he brought in some tiny radishes and some tender green salad leaves, almost as good, Davy said, as the first ones from his garden.

"These are for breakfast," he said. "You and Prue will have to supply the birthday dinner."

And that is just what they did.

First of all there was a lovely bunch of sweet-pease on big Prue's plate--these, of course, being from Prue's garden. There was a little bunch of pansies for Prue, while for the Chief Gardener and Davy there were round, bright sunflowers, one each for their buttonholes.

In the center of the table there was a wonderful little glass bowl of nasturtium flowers, that were so fresh and pretty that one must be hungry just to look at them.

Then it was Davy's turn.

In a pretty salad-dish on a little side table, there was a lettuce salad that looked like a great green bloom, and lying upon another smaller dish at the side, were four of the roundest, reddest radishes imaginable, the very last of the little garden crop. But now something came in in two small covered dishes, something that steamed, and behold, when they were opened, in one were Davy's beans, ever so many, white and mottled, all cooked and hot and ready to be eaten, and in the other Davy's pease! But that was not all. Still another steaming dish came in, and when that was opened, everybody fairly shouted, "Oh, my!" for in that dish was Davy's corn! Think of it! Two whole ears of corn, one large one to be divided between little Prue and Davy.

Never was there such a birthday dinner as that. The flowers were beautiful, the beans and the pease splendid, while the corn, why the corn was just the sweetest and best corn that was ever raised. They all said so, and Davy got excited and said he was going to plant a thousand acres of corn just as soon as the Chief Gardener would let him.