ummer evening he told Fred, on leaving the
supper-table, to go out and pull up a _Phytolacca_ that was going to
seed just over the garden-fence. Fred stopped in amazement at hearing so
strange a word; and I confess that it bewildered even me. Then followed
the very explanation which father had intended to give. He told us it
was a poke-bush.

"Oh," said Fred, with a broad laugh, "is that all?"

But the word was forthwith written down, so as to impress it on our
memories, and none of us have yet forgotten it. It was singular,
moreover, how the imitative faculty gained strength among us. We
children acquired the habit of speaking of all our garden-plants by such
outlandish names as father then taught us,--not seriously, of course,
but as a capital piece of fun. We knew no more of relations and
affinities than he, and so used these names much as parrots repeat the
chance phrases they sometimes learn; still, the faint glimmerings of
knowledge thus early shed upon our minds came back to us in after life,
and, explained and illustrated by study and observation, now serve as
positive lights to the understanding.

I thus learned a great deal by working in the garden, and at the same
time became extremely fond of it, taking the utmost delight in planting
the seeds and watching the growth of even a cabbage-head, as well as in
keeping the ground clear of interloping weeds. I even learned to combine
the useful with the beautiful, which some have declared to be the
highest phase of art. Fred did all the digging, and in dry times was
very ready to water whatever might be suffering from drought.

My mother encouraged these labors as aids to health. The time they
occupied could be spared from the needle, as the garden required
attention but a few months, and only occasionally even then, while the
needle could be employed the whole year round. Besides, the family
earnings were not all absorbed by our weekly expenses. We had no rent to
pay, and there was nothing laid out in improvements. Hence a small
portion of father's earnings was carefully laid by every week,--not
enough to make us rich, but still sufficient to prevent us, if
continued, from ever becoming poor.

While thus industriously working with the needle, we began to feel the
effect on female labor which the introduction of sewing-machines had
occasioned. The prices given by the tailors were not only becoming less
and less, but our employers were continually more exacting