mam-ma! Sa-die has got
hold of grand-ma's bas-ket, and is toss-ing all the things out of it on
the floor. She'll scream when I take it from her, but don't wor-ry, I
think I can man-age her."

[Illustration]

It was not long aft-er that when mam-ma cried out, "Why, there must be
some-thing burn-ing! Oh, where is Tom-my? He has so many tricks with
fire!"

[Illustration]

Up jumped mam-ma a-gain, and run-ing in-to the li-bra-ry, found Tom-my
in high glee at play in front of a bright coal fire in the grate, on the
top bar of which was a row of small fig-ures made from dough that cook
was work-ing in the kitch-en. Tom had seized a big piece of dough, ran
off with it to the li-bra-ry, and mould-ed it up to suit him in the
shape of a row of small boys tak-ing hold of hands. He set them on the
hot i-ron bar, and was brown-ing them ready to eat!

"This is great fun, moth-er!" said Tom. "I'll give the chil-dren some
when they are baked!"

VICTOR.

[Illustration]

"It's a nice thing to have spring come!" said Vic-tor.

"With my red wheel-barrow I can work out in the gar-den ev-er-y day with
O-bed. He says he'd rath-er have me with him than an-y two men! Why, I
can car-ry a wa-ter-ing-pot, a lot of twigs, leaves and things I've
raked off the flow-er beds, and some-times I e-ven car-ry a whole load
of stones!

"O-bed is go-ing to teach me how to make one gar-den-bed for my-self. He
says I can plant an-y-thing there that I like. I'm try-ing to think what
I do like. O-bed says that some things come up when you plant seeds and
some come up from bulbs. I like po-ta-toes and sweet peas. I guess I'll
plant them. For a bor-der, I'd like small on-ions. Seems to me some
tur-nips and hol-ly-hocks would look well in my bed. Now would-n't they?
Sweet corn grows up pret-ty and grace-ful, I heard Aunt Hat-tie say, so
I'll have some of that in my bed with a lot of for-get-me-nots. Aun-tie
likes those ver-y much.

"Oh, I must have the fa-vor-ite flow-ers of each one in our house, come
to think of it! Let's see, what is Papa's fa-vor-ite flow-er? I guess it
must be squash, for he likes mam-ma's squash pies so much.

"Now what is mam-ma's? It must be he-li-o-trope. It's a hard word, but
I've sure-ly heard her say he-li-o-trope sach-et. It must be a pret-ty
flower, for ev-er-y thing in the clothes press has that per-fume, Ka-tie
says.

"Now I don't know all these plants I've heard folks talk about. I don't
know an-y of them.