Part 6

"And things," put in Davy, "nice things, to eat; pease and berries and radishes."

"Oh, Davy, you always want things to eat!" said the little girl. "We've just had our New Year's dinner!"

"But I'd be hungry again before the things grew, wouldn't I? And you like strawberries, too, and short-cake."

The Chief Gardener laid down his paper.

"What's all this about strawberry short-cake and morning-glories?" he asked.

"We want it to be warm," said Prue, "so we can have a garden, with pinks and pansies--"

"And pease--" began Davy.

"And a short-cake tree," put in the Chief Gardener, "with nice short-cakes covered with whipped cream, hanging on all the branches. That would suit you, wouldn't it, Davy boy?"

The very thought of a tree like that made Davy silent with joy; but Prue still rocked the knee and talked.

"When will it be warm? When can we have a garden?" she kept asking.

"It is warm, now, in this room," said the Chief Gardener, "and you may begin your garden right away, if you like."

The children looked at him, not knowing just what he meant.

"In the window," he went on. "There are two, side by side. They are a part of the garden, you know, for we always see the garden through them, in summer. You remember, we said last year they were like frames for it. Now, suppose we really put a little piece of garden in the windows."

Prue was already dancing.

"Oh, yes! And I'll have pansies, and roses, and hollyhocks, and pinks, and morning-glories, and--"

"And I'll have peaches, and apples, and strawberries, and pease--"

"And a field of corn and wheat," laughed the Chief Gardener, "and a grove of cocoanut trees! What magic windows we must have to hold all the things you have named. They will be like the pack of Santa Claus--never too full to hold more."

"But can't we have all the things we like?" asked Davy, anxiously.

"Not quite all, I'm afraid. The hollyhocks and roses that Prue wants do not bloom the first year from seed. It would hardly pay to plant them in a window-garden, and as for peach and apple trees, I am afraid you would get very tired waiting for them to bear. It takes at least five years for apple-trees to give us fruit, often much longer. Peach-trees bear about the third year. I think we would better try a few things that bloom and bear a little more quickly."

YOUR GARDEN MAY NOT LOOK AS I HAVE IT HERE

THE Chief Gardener took his pencil and a piece of paper, and drew a little plan. He was not much of an artist, and sometimes when he drew things he had to write their names below, so that Prue and Davy could tell which was the rabbit and which was the donkey, and so they wouldn't think the kitten was a lion. But a window was not so hard, and then he could put names under the plants, too. On the next page is the picture that the Chief Gardener drew.

While he was making the picture, the children had been asking questions.

"Which is my side? Oh, what's that in the center--that tall plant? What are those vines? What will we have in those littlest pots? Oh, I know what those are! Those are morning-glories! Oh, goody!"

The last was from Prue, when she saw the artist putting the flowers along the vines that he had made climbing up the sides of her window.

"Yes," said the Chief Gardener, "those are morning-glories. You can have two vines in each pot, if you wish, and in that way get four colors--blue, white, purple, and pink. On Davy's side I have made climbing beans--scarlet and white runners--because they are very pretty, and also very good to eat. Davy's is a vegetable, and yours a flower, garden. Then, if Davy wants some flowers, and you get hungry, you can give him flowers for vegetables."

"Oh, that will be playing 'market,' won't it? I just love to play 'store' and 'going to market.'"

"My beans look a good deal like Prue's morning-glories, all but the flowers," said Davy.

"So they do, Davy; and they really look something the same in the garden. The leaves are nearly the same shape, only that the morning-glory's is more heart-shaped, and then beans have three leaves to the stem instead of one. Sometimes I have taken a morning-glory for a bean, just at first."