unawares," said Felicia, with
enthusiastic misapplication.

It was the finding of the ancient sickle near the well that gave Ken the
bright idea of cutting down the tall, dry grass for bedding.

"Not that it's much of a weapon," he said. "Far less like a sickle than
a dissipated saw, to quote. But the edge is rusted so thin that I
believe it'll do the trick."

Kirk gathered the grass up into soft scratchy heaps as Ken mowed it,
keeping at a respectful distance behind the swinging sickle. Ken began
to whistle, then stopped to hear the marsh frogs, which were still
chorusing their mad joy in the flight of winter.

"I made up a pome about those thar toads," Ken said, "last night after
you'd gone to sleep again."

Kirk leaped dangerously near the sickle.

"You haven't made me a pome for ages!" he cried. "Stop sickling and do
it--quick!"

"It's a grand one," Ken said; "listen to this!

"Down in the marshes the sounds begin
Of a far-away fairy violin,
Faint and reedy and cobweb thin.

"Cricket and marsh-frog and brown tree-toad,
Sit in the sedgy grass by the road,
Each at the door of his own abode;

"Each with a fairy fiddle or flute
Fashioned out of a briar root;
The fairies join their notes, to boot.

"Sitting all in a magic ring,
They lift their voices and sing and sing,
Because it is April, 'Spring! Spring!'"

"That _is_ a nice one!" Kirk agreed. "It sounds real. I don't know how
you can do it."

A faint clapping was heard from the direction of the house, and turning,
Ken saw his sister dropping him a curtsey at the door. "That," she said,
"is a poem, not a pome--a perfectly good one."

"Go 'way!" shouted Ken. "You're a wicked interloper. And you don't even
know why Kirk and I write pomes about toads, so you don't!"

"I never could see," Ken remarked that night, "why people are so keen
about beds of roses. If you ask me, I should think they'd be uncommon
prickly and uncomfortable. Give me a bed of herbs--where love is, don't
you know?"

"It wasn't a bed of herbs," Felicia contended; "it was a dinner of
them. This isn't herbs, anyway. And think of the delectable smell of
the bed of roses!"

"But every rose would have its thorn," Ken objected. "No, no, 'herbs' is
preferable."

This argument was being held during the try-out of the grass beds in the
living-room.

"See-saw, Margery Daw,
She packed up her bed and lay upon straw,"

sang Felicia.

But the grass _was_ an improvement. Grass below