made you think
of railway stations and soldiers' homes--"

"Well, I did use to feel that way,--anchors and crosses and rock-work
on big shaved lawns,--and, besides, nasturtiums always seemed to be the
sort of flowers that people picked with short stems, and tied up in a
wad, and stuck in a blue-glass goblet, and set on a table with a red
cover on it. I did have horrible associations with nasturtiums."

"Then why in thunder do you plant them?"

"I only thought--if there was a drought this summer--you know they don't
mind drought; Millie Sutphen told me that. And she had a way of cutting
them with long stems, so they trailed, and they were really lovely. And
then--there the package _was_--I thought it wouldn't do any harm to take
it."

"Oh, you don't have to apologize," said Jonathan. "I didn't understand
your plan, that was all. I'll go and see Henry about the trench."

I sat on the sunny porch and the March wind swept by the house on each
side of me. I gloated over my seed packets. Would they come up? Of
course other people's seeds came up, but would mine? It was very
exciting. I pinched open a corner of the Lady Grisel Hamiltons and
poured some of the pretty, smooth, fawn-colored balls into my hand. Then
I opened the cosmos--what funny long thin ones! How long should I have
to wait till they began to come up? I read the directions--"Plant when
all danger from frost is past." Oh, dear! that meant May--another whole
month! Well, I would get in my sweet peas and risk my pansies and
alyssum, anyhow. And I jumped off the porch and went back to the phlox
to plan out my campaign.

* * * * *

By early May we were settled on the farm once more. My pansies and
alyssum were up--at least I believed they were up, but I spent many
minutes of each day kneeling by them and studying the physiognomy of
their cotyledons. I led Jonathan out to them one Sunday morning, and he
regarded them with indulgence if not with enthusiasm. As he stooped to
throw out a bunch of pebbles in one of the new beds I stopped him. "Oh,
don't! Those are my Mizpah stones."

"Your what!"

"Why, just some little stones to mark a place. Some of the nasturtiums
are there. I didn't know whether they were going to do anything--they
looked so like chips--and then, being sent free that way--but they are.

"How do you know? They aren't up."

"No, but they will be soon. I--why, I just thought I'd see what they
were doing."