s would begin to
come through again on such "green" soil, and that it would make
terribly hard weeding. He was not going to have any such thing for his
two "little girls," as he called them. So he fixed that little garden
very fine! This is what he did.

After he had thrown out all the turf, he shoveled clean earth on to the
garden,-- as much as three solid inches of it; not a bit of grass was
in that. Then it was ready for raking and fertilizing, and for the
lines. The little footpaths were marked out by Father Brown's feet;
Margery and her mother laughed well when they saw it, for it looked
like some kind of dance. Mr. Brown had seen gardeners do it when he
was a little boy, and he did it very nicely: he walked along the sides
of the square, with one foot turned a little out, and the other
straight, taking such tiny steps that his feet touched each other all
the time. This tramped out a path just wide enough for a person to walk.

The wider path was marked with lines and raked.

Margery thought, of course, all the flowers would be put in as the
vegetables were; but she found that it was not so. For some, her father
poked little holes with his finger; for some, he made very shallow
ditches; and some very small seeds were just scattered lightly over the
top of the ground.

Margery and her mother had taken so much pains in thinking out how the
flowers would look prettiest, that maybe you will like to hear just how
they designed that garden. At the back were the sweet peas, which
would grow tall, like a screen; on the two sides, for a kind of hedge,
were yellow sunflowers; and along the front edge were the gay
nasturtiums. Margery planned that, so that she could look into the
garden from the front, but have it shut away from the vegetable patch
by the tall flowers on the sides. The two front corners had coreopsis
in them. Coreopsis is a tall, pretty, daisy-like flower, very dainty
and bright. And then, in little square patches all round the garden,
were planted white sweet alyssum, blue bachelor's buttons, yellow
marigolds, tall larkspur, many-colored asters and zinnias. All these
lovely flowers used to grow in our grandmothers' gardens, and if you
don't know what they look like, I hope you can find out next summer.

Between the flowers and the middle path went the seeds for that
wonderful salad garden; all the things Mrs. Brown had named to Margery
were there. Margery had never seen anything so cunning a