A Little Garden Calendar for Boys and Girls

"You must not hoe your beans when the dew is on them, Davy," he said one morning. "The vines are tender and it causes them to rust or blight, but you may hoe most of the other things, and you may hoe around most of your vegetables as often as you want to. Loosening up the soil about young plants makes them grow. It gives the roots a chance to spread, and lets sun and air into the soil. You must be a little more careful with flowers, Prue, for they are usually more tender, and it is better to dig with an old knife or a small, weeding rake. You must thin out your plants, too. Keep pulling from between, as they grow larger, so that they stand farther and farther apart. Where plants grow too thickly they are small, and the flowers and vegetables poor. People sometimes try to raise more on a small piece of ground by having more plants on it, but it does not pay, for the plants do not produce as much as if there were only half as many on the same soil. Give everything plenty of room and air, and they will grow and thrive like children who have a good playground and plenty of wholesome food."

"Papa," said Prue, "you were talking the other day of the different kinds of one thing: what makes them? – the different kinds of roses, I mean, and pansies, and – "

"And peaches and apples," interrupted Davy, "I want to know that, too."

The Chief Gardener did not answer just at first. Then he said, "I am afraid that is a pretty big subject for little people. There are a good many ways of producing species of flowers, and some of them are not easy to understand. But I can tell you, perhaps, about the fruits now, and we will try to understand about some of the flowers another time.

"To begin with, the upper part and the lower parts of our fruit-trees are different. The root and a little of the lower stalk is from a seed, and upon this has been grafted or spliced with soft bands and wax, a bud from some choice kind of peach or apple or plum, or whatever the tree is to be, and this new bud grows and forms the tree. Sometimes a bud of the choice kind is merely inserted beneath the bark of another tree and grows and forms a new limb. By and by, when it bears fruit, the fruit will be of the kind that was on the choice tree, but the seed, though it looks just the same, may be altogether different. If a seed like that is planted, it may make a tree like the root part of the one from which it came, or it may make a tree like the upper part, or it may make something different from either one. No one can tell what that seed will bring. So fruit growers plant a great many such seeds each year, and once in a great while some new peach, or apple, or plum, or cherry, finer than anything ever grown before, comes from one of those seeds. Then every little limb of that tree is saved and grafted or spliced to a lot of sturdy little roots that have come from other seeds, and this new kind of fruit goes out all over the world and is grafted, and re-grafted, until there are trees everywhere of the new kind."

"And wouldn't I get those same fine peaches we had last year if I planted the seeds?" asked Davy.

"You might, Davy, but there are a hundred chances to one that you would get a very poor, small peach, which you would not care to eat."

Davy looked disappointed.

"Well," he said, "I might as well pull it up, then."

"Why, did you plant one, Davy?" asked the Chief Gardener.

"Yes, last summer. I didn't know then, and after I ate my peach I planted the seed over there in the corner, and now it's just coming up, and I was going to keep it for a surprise for you."

"That's too bad, Davy, but let it grow, anyway. Perhaps it will make some new and wonderful kind. Even if it doesn't, we can have the limbs grafted when it is larger."

"Oh, and can you have more than one kind on a tree?"

"Why, yes, I have seen as many as three or four kinds of apples on one tree."

"And peaches, and apples, and plums, and pears, all on one tree, too?" said Prue. "Why that would be a regular fairy tree!"

"We could hardly have that," laughed the Chief Gardener, "though I have heard of peaches, and nectarines, and plums being all on one tree, though I have never seen it. I don't think such things do very well."

They went over to look at Davy's little peach-tree, which was fresh and green and tender, and seemed to be growing nicely.

"It should have fruit on it in three years," said the Chief Gardener.

Davy and Prue did not look very happy at this. It seemed such a long time to wait.

"It will pass before you know it," the Chief Gardener smiled.

"I shall be as old as Nellie Taber," said little Prue, who had been counting on her fingers, "but Nellie will be older, too," she added with a sigh. "So I'm afraid I can't catch up with her."

The Chief Gardener led them over to another part of the garden, where there was a bunch of green leaves, like the leaves of a violet, but when they got down to look, they found that the flowers, instead of being all blue, were speckled and spotted with white.

"Oh, Papa, where did you get those funny violets?" asked Prue. "What makes them all speckly?"

"I think," said the Chief Gardener, "that this is one of Nature's mixtures. I found it in the Crescent Lake woods last spring, and brought it home. There may be others like it, but I have never seen them. So you see, Nature makes new kinds herself, sometimes. You know, don't you, that the pansies you love so much, Prue, are one kind of violet, cultivated until they are large and fine?"

"Why, no, are they violets? Are my pansies violets?"

"Yes, they are what is called the heartsease violets. They were a very small flower at first, and not so brightly colored. They will become small again if you let them run wild a year or two."

Prue was looking at the variegated violet in her hand.

"I should think there's a story about this," she said, nodding her busy, imaginative little head.

"Suppose you tell it to us, Prue," said the Chief Gardener.

"Well, I think it's this way," said Prue. "Once upon a time there was a little girl named Bessie. And she lived way off – way over by Crescent Lake – with an old witch-woman who was poor. And Bessie had to carry milk to sell, every day, because they had a cow, and Bessie couldn't drink the milk, because they had to sell it.

"And one day when Bessie was going with the milk through the woods, she stopped to pick some flowers, because she liked flowers, all kinds, and specially violets. And when she stooped over to pick the violets, a little of her milk spilled out of her pail, and it went on the violets, right on the blue flowers. And when Bessie saw them all spattered with the milk she says, 'Oh, how funny you look! I wish you'd stay that way all the time.' And there was a fairy heard her say that, and she liked Bessie because she was so good, so she made the violets stay just that way with the white spots on them, and Bessie went home, and one day when the old witch-woman died the fairy brought a prince on a white horse, and Bessie went away with him to be a princess, in a palace covered with gold and silver, and lived happy ever after."

The Chief Gardener looked down at the little girl beside him.

"Why, what an exciting story! Did you make it all just now?"

"Yes, just now. It just came of itself," said little Prue.

"And didn't Bessie want her violets?" asked Davy.

"She took some of them along with her in a basket, and planted them around her new palace."

"And the rest she left for us," said the Chief Gardener. "I know now what to call them. We shall call them Bessie's Violets."

JUNE

I

THEN THEY WENT DOWN INTO THE STRAWBERRY PATCH

JUNE, the month of roses, and strawberries. The beautiful month when spring is just turning to summer, and summer is giving us her first rare gifts.

In Davy's garden the corn was up, and had grown more in two weeks than the corn planted in the house had grown in four. It was the long sunny days that did this, and the showers that seemed to come almost too often, but perhaps the gardens didn't think so, for they grew, and the weeds grew, too, and kept Prue and Davy busy pulling and hoeing and cultivating.

Davy's radishes were big enough to eat just a month from the day they were planted – think of it! – when those planted in the house had taken ever and ever so long. Prue's pansies and sweet-pease, and her other three "sweets" were all up, too, and so green and flourishing.

But perhaps the thing that made them both happiest, at this season, was the Chief Gardener's strawberry-patch. Either that or big Prue's roses – they were not sure which.

"When I grow up, I am going to have acres and acres of strawberries," said Davy.

"And miles and miles of roses," said Prue.

"And herds and herds of little Jersey cows that only give the richest cream," said the Chief Gardener.

"And we'll put wreaths of roses about the cows' necks," said big Prue, "and drive them home at evening, and milk the rich creamy milk and put it on the fresh strawberry shortcake, just out of the oven – "

"And eat and eat forever," interrupted Davy.

"And be happy ever after," finished little Prue.

After that nobody said anything for quite a long time – thinking how fine all that would be, when it came.

Then they went down into the strawberry-patch where the big red berries were ripening on the broad, green leaves. And little Prue and her mamma went into the house and came out with two bowls – one quite large bowl – white, with blue vines and flowers on it, and one quite small bowl – white, with blue kittens on it, chasing one another around and around on the outside.

And the Chief Gardener and big Prue picked the ripe red berries and put them in the big bowl. And Davy and little Prue picked the ripe red berries and put them into the little bowl. And sometimes the Chief Gardener would eat a berry – a real, real ripe one – just to see if they were good, he said.

And sometimes big Prue would eat a berry – a real, real little one – just to see if little berries would do for a shortcake, she said.

And sometimes little Prue would eat a berry, and sometimes Davy would eat a berry – big, big berries – just because they looked so good, and tasted so good, that a little boy and a little girl could not help eating them, even if it took some of the berries out of the shortcake they were going to have for tea.

But they didn't eat all of the berries they picked. Oh, no. They put some of the berries into the little white bowl with the blue kittens chasing one another around and around on the outside. And the Chief Gardener and big Prue put most of their berries into the big bowl with the blue flowers and vines on it. And by and by both of the bowls were full – full clear to the top and heaping – so that no more berries, not even the very little ones, would lay on.

And then big Prue took the big bowl, and little Prue the little bowl, and they went up the little garden step into the house, carrying the bowls very carefully, so as not to spill any of the red berries that were heaped up so high that no more, not even very little ones, would lay on. And the Chief Gardener and Davy followed along behind, talking of the fine June evening, and saying how long the days were now and how far to the north the sun was setting. Then they looked around at the garden, and wondered if they would have green corn by the middle of July, and when they looked under the bean vines they found that some pods were quite large, and the Chief Gardener said that by Sunday they could have beans, and pease, with lettuce and several other green things – a regular garden dinner.

And then little Prue came out and called them to come – right off. And they saw that she was dressed in a fresh white dress, and that her hair was tied with a bright blue ribbon, and her face was as rosy as a strawberry.

"We have got the deliciousest shortcake that ever was!" she called, as they came closer, "and I helped, and rolled the dough and picked over some of the berries!"

"You didn't put all the berries in," said the Chief Gardener.

"Oh, I did – I did, Papa – all but two."

"And I will have those," said the Chief Gardener, and he lifted the little girl in his arms and gave her a big, big kiss, on each rosy cheek.

"I think June is the best month that ever was!" said Davy a little later, as he finished his second large piece.

"It always seems the queen month to me," said big Prue, "perhaps because it is the month of the rose – the queen of the flowers."

"Is the rose really the queen of the flowers?" asked little Prue.

"I have always heard so."

"How did she get to be queen? Did she just happen to be queen, or did the other flowers choose her?"

Little Prue's mamma looked thoughtfully out the garden window, where a great climbing rambler was a mass of red blossoms.

"Do you think any other flower could be queen over that?" she asked.

"Why, no, but – but don't folks have to choose queens, or something?"

"They do presidents," said Davy.

"I think you'll have to tell us about it," laughed the Chief Gardener. "It's your turn for a story, anyway."

So then big Prue took them all out on the wide veranda, where they could watch the sunset, that came very late now, and there she told them

II

HOW THE ROSE BECAME QUEEN

"Once upon a time there was a very great garden that lay between two ranges of blue, blue hills. And the sky above was blue, as blue as the hills, so that you could hardly tell where the sky ended and the hills began, and underneath was the great, beautiful garden which covered all the lands between.

"And in this rare garden there were all the choicest flowers and fruit that the world knew, and when the flowers were all in bloom, under that blue, blue sky – in all the wonderful colors of gold and crimson, and royal purple, and with all the banks of white daisies, and all the sweet orchards of apple-bloom, there was nothing like it in the whole world, and the sweet perfume went out so far that sailors on the ships coming in from sea, a hundred miles away, could smell the sweet odors, and would say, 'The wind blows from the garden of the Princess Beautiful.' For I must tell you that the garden was owned by a great Princess, and she was called Beautiful by all who knew of her, and every traveler to that distant country made his way to her white marble palace to seek permission to look upon the most wonderful garden in all the world.

"And many who came there were of high rank, like herself, and some of them tried to win her love, for the Princess was like her name and as beautiful as the rarest flower in all that marvelous garden. But to princes and even kings she would not listen, for her heart and pride were only in her flowers, and she wished to remain with them forever and be happy in their beauty. She was only sad when she saw that some of those who came went away with heavy hearts because she would not leave her palace for theirs.

"Now once there came to the palace of the Princess Beautiful a great queen. She had traveled far to see the splendid garden, and when she came, the Princess led her with all her court among the flowers. And all that sunlit day, under the blue, blue sky, the great queen and her court lingered in the garden – up and down the paths of white shells, where hyacinths and lilies and daffodils and azaleas grew on every side – and rested in the shade of the blossoming orchard trees. And when it was evening, and they had gone, and the flowers were left alone, they whispered and murmured together, for never before had they seen a queen and her court.

"And by and by as the days passed, the flowers decided that they, too, must have a queen – some rare flower, fine and stately, whom they would honor, even as they had seen their beautiful Princess honor her royal guest. And night after night they talked of these things, but never could decide which of their number should be chosen for the high place.

"And then one day a great sadness came upon the fair garden between the hills. A young traveler from an unknown country had come to the white palace, and one sunny afternoon the Princess Beautiful had led him among the beds of primroses and lilies and daffodils. And when the sun was going down and she turned and looked into his face, and saw how fair he was, and how the sun made his hair like gold, how it shimmered on his beautiful garments of velvet and fine lace, she felt for the first time a great love arise within her heart. Then, all at once, she forgot her garden, her palace and her pride – forgot everything in all the world except the fair youth who stood there with her in the sunset – and she told him her great new love.

"And as she spoke, softly and tenderly, the words she had never spoken to any one before, the breeze died, and the sun slipped down behind the far-off hills. And then, as the light faded, it seemed to the Princess Beautiful that the fair youth before her was fading, too. His face grew dim and misty – his hair became a blur of gold – his rare garments melted back into the beds of bloom. And behold, instead of the fair youth there stood before her in the twilight only a wonderful golden lily with a crimson heart.

"Then the Princess Beautiful knew that because she had cared only for her garden, and had sent from her those who had offered a great love like her own, that this wonderful lily had come to her as a youth with a face of radiant beauty, and with hair of gold, to awaken a human love in her heart. And each day she mourned there by the splendid lily, and called upon it to return to her as the fair youth she had loved; and at last when its flowers faded and the stem drooped, the white palace of the Princess Beautiful was empty, for the Princess lay dead beside the withered lily in the rare garden between the hills.

"And there they made her grave, and above it they built a trellis where a white climbing rose might grow. But when the rose bloomed, instead of being white, it was a wonderful crimson, such as no one had ever seen before. And when the other flowers saw those beautiful crimson blossoms, they no longer mourned, for they said, 'This is our Princess Beautiful who has returned to be our queen.'

"And so it was the red rose became the queen of flowers, and a symbol of great human love. The poet Burns sings,

'My love is like a red, red rose

That's newly blown in June,'

and it was always in June that the great crimson rose bloomed on the grave in the garden of the Princess Beautiful."

"And did the lily ever bloom again?" asked little Prue.

"I'm sure it must have done so. We always speak of roses and lilies as belonging together, and there is a great golden lily called the Superbus, which I think might have been the beautiful youth that came to the white palace."

"Does the story mean that we shouldn't care too much for our gardens?" asked Davy. "More than for folks, I mean?"

"Do you know, Davy," said the Chief Gardener, "I was just wondering about that, too."

III

THE SUN IS THE GREATEST OF ALL CHEMISTS

It was about a week later, that one afternoon little Prue and Davy and the Chief Gardener were helping big Prue with her roses, and admiring all the different kinds. Little Prue had been thinking a good deal about roses since the story of the Princess Beautiful, and wondering just which of the climbing red ones had grown about her grave. Then she began to wonder about all the kinds, and how they came. She spoke about this now, as her mamma pointed out one which she said was a new rose – just offered for sale that year.

"Where did it come from?" asked the little girl, "where do new roses come from?"

"From seed," answered the Chief Gardener, "like the new peaches and apples I told you of. Roses belong to the same family, you know, and they are grafted much in the same way. Then the seeds are planted, and from these, fine new kinds are likely to come. Rose-growers are always trying hard to make new kinds by mixing the pollen. The pollen, you remember, is the yellow powder on the little tips of the stamens. These tips, as I believe I told you, are called anthers, and the slender part of the stamen is the filament. It is the pollen falling from the anthers upon the single green stem or pistil in the center of the flower that produces the seed. The pistil is divided in parts, too. The little top piece is called the stigma, and the slender green stem is called the style. The pollen falls on the stigma and is drawn down through the style to give life to the seed-pod below."

The Chief Gardener picked the bloom of a single bramble rose and pulled it apart to show the children all these things.

"Now," he went on, "gardeners often take a rose of one kind and color and shake it gently over a rose of another kind and color, so that the pollen will fall from the anthers of one upon the stigma of the other. In this way the seeds are mixed and it may happen that wonderful new roses come from those seeds. Sometimes, instead of shaking the rose, the gardener carefully takes up the pollen on a tiny soft brush and lays it gently on the stigma of the other rose, all of which has to be done as soon as the bloom is open. Of course, such roses are kept to themselves, and labeled, and the seeds are carefully labeled also."

Davy and Prue were both interested.

"Oh, can I make some new kinds of roses," asked little Prue, greatly excited. "Can I, Mamma?"

"You may try, but I am afraid you will not be very successful where all the roses are out here in the open air. Still, it will do no harm to see what will happen, and you might get something very wonderful."

"I am already trying for a new kind of peach," said Davy.

"And if you get a good one we will call it the 'Early David,'" laughed the Chief Gardener.

"And what will you call my rose?"

"Why, 'the Princess Prue,' of course."

"Do seeds from the same bush make the different roses?" asked Davy.

"Yes, and from the same pod."

"But are the seeds just alike?"

"They are so far as anybody can see, but when they come to grow and bloom, one may be a white rose, another pink, and another red. Some may be dwarfs in size, and others giants. All may have the same sun, the same water, the same air, and the same soil. It is only the tiny little difference which we cannot see that makes the great difference in the plant, by and by."

Davy was thinking very hard. Soon he said:

"And where do sweet and sour and all the pepper and mustard and horseradish tastes come from? The air and the water don't taste. I never tasted much dirt, but I don't believe any of it would bite like a red pepper."

The Chief Gardener laughed.

"No, Davy, I don't believe it would," he said. "And I think the sun is the only one who could answer your question. It is a chemistry which no one of this world has been able to explain. Chemistry is a magic which you will understand by and by, and you will know then that the sun is the greatest of all chemists. Suppose we go down into your gardens and see what he is doing there."

They all went down the little steps that led to the Chief Gardener's enclosure, where Prue and Davy had their gardens, side by side with his. There just as they entered was a great mass of morning-glory vines that every morning were covered with a splendor of purple, and pink, and white, and blue, and just beyond these was a mass of dianthus pinks of every hue and shade. Bachelor-buttons, petunias, and verbenas were all there, too, besides Prue's sweet-pease by the fence, and her alyssum and mignonette. Then came Davy's things, all fresh and growing, and beyond these the Chief Gardener had ever so many things, from beets to beans, from parsley to parsnips, from carrots to corn. In one small corner by the strawberry-bed there grew a little bed of pepper plants, and near-by a row of tomatoes. The Chief Gardener stopped in the midst of all these things.

"Here is the sun's chemistry," he said. "We put some tiny bits of life in the ground. The same earth holds them, the same rain wets them, the same air is above them. Then the sun shines, and with that earth and water and air and that tiny seed, it makes something different of its own. Of one it makes a flower, of another a fruit, and of another a vegetable. Of the flowers it makes many kinds and colors – of the fruits and vegetables it makes many shapes and flavors. The sweet red strawberry and the fiery red pepper grow side by side. It makes food of the roots of the beet, and the parsnip, and carrot, and of the seed of the bean, and of the corn. It fills the mustard, and the horseradish, and the pepper, with a flavor so that we may season our meats and soups, and it gives to thyme, and marjoram, and fennel, a sweet savor that is like an odor of by-gone days. Into the flowers it pours the color and perfume that make them delicious and beautiful, and into the fruit and vegetables the starch and phosphates that make them pleasant to the taste and nourishing to our bodies. Where do all these things come from? We do not see the colors, or smell the perfumes, or taste the sweet and the sour and the bitter in the air and water, and we could not see, or smell, or taste, them in the earth. Yet they must be there, and only the sun knows just how and where to find them, and how to make the best use of them for the world's good, and comfort, and happiness. Without the sun the earth would be bare and cold, and there would be no life – at least, not such life as we know. Every breath we draw, every bite we eat, every step we take, every article of clothing we wear, comes to us through the sun."