But now things began to happen in real earnest. The pansy bloomed a big velvety, purple bloom, and then there was a yellow bud and a yellow bloom with a purple spot in the center. Little Prue was simply too happy to keep still, and danced in front of her garden almost from morning until night.
Then suddenly they found a bud on the bean vines, and then on the morning-glories, and then there were blooms pink and purple blooms on the morning-glories, and scarlet and white ones on the beans. Then Davy's corn sent out a plume at the top, a wonderful tassel, and when Davy measured to the top of it he found that it was over three feet high.
"My birthday will be a regular feast of flowers," said the Chief Gardener, and really there was good reason for saying so, for the window casings were white, scarlet, pink, and purple, and the tasseling corn and the broad green leaves of the sunflower were fair and lovely. And Prue's pansy-pot was again on the table, and when the dinner was over, the Chief Gardener drew it toward him, and picking one of the purple blooms that was nearly ready to fall, said:
"Did you ever see the little man in the pansy?"
"No, oh, no," said Prue and Davy together. "Show him to us, Papa."
So then the Chief Gardener pulled off carefully all the petals of the flower, and there, sure enough, sat a little round-bodied man, in a wonderful green chair, made of the outer part, or calyx, of the flower. His head was light green, his coat pale yellow, and he wore a rich, brown collar. Just below him was a round green sack or tube, filled with water, and when the Chief Gardener slitted it down, why there, truly, were two little legs and feet that had been in the little vessel. The children were delighted.
"Oh, tell us about him!" they said. "Who is he?"
"He was a king," said the Chief Gardener, "a poor, feeble king, who always sat on a green throne, with his feet in a tub of water. And his wife and daughters, all very splendidly dressed, used to perch themselves around him on the throne and ask for more money to spend on their fine clothes, and they were often cruel to him because he wouldn't give it to them, crowding him and almost smothering him with their velvet dresses.
"So one day the fairies heard of it, and came to see. And they took pity on the poor king, and the next time the wife and daughters were crowding him on his throne they changed the king and his throne and all the others, with their fine dresses, into a flower. And the flower was the pansy. The velvet petals are the wife and daughters. The calyx is the green throne, and this little man is the poor, sick king with his feet and legs still in the little tub of water, though he can never be worried and scolded again."
"I know that story is true," said little Prue, "for there is the very little man, himself, and oh, see, you can take his coat off, and there is a little green body inside."
Sure enough, it was as Prue had said, and the Chief Gardener explained. "That little body becomes a pod to hold the seeds by and by. The little coat helps to make the seed, too. I won't tell you all the names of these things now, for you could not remember so much. Only try to remember that the green throne is called the calyx, and each little piece of it is a sepal, while the beautiful wife and daughters are called petals, and when taken together are called a corolla, and that this is true of every complete flower."
And so March, too, slipped away. And on one day near the very end of the month, when it had been warm and bright for nearly a week, the Chief Gardener went out into his garden and turned over some of the earth which was getting dry. Davy said that it smelled all new and springy, and reminded him of kite-time. And then the Chief Gardener made two little beds of his own, and in one he sowed some lettuce, and in the other some radish seed, because these were the things most likely to grow from an early planting. Davy and Prue watched and helped, and were very anxious to have little beds of their own, but the Chief Gardener told them that they would better wait at least another month before they did any outside gardening. Their window gardens were just coming to their best time, he said, and planting outside so early was always risky.
And that night when the wind went to the northeast, and a cold rain set in, that turned to snow before morning, and made the ground all white and glassy like December, they were very glad they had not made any beds, and were sorry for the Chief Gardener's little beds of vegetables, outside beneath the cold, cold snow.
APRIL
I THE YELLOW DUST IS A FOOD FOR THE SEED
early. The sun shone out brightly on the morning of the first day, but by breakfast time the rain was pattering down, and all the rest of the day there were showers, one after another, that streamed down the garden windows and made a little river of the path outside. Davy said he had never seen it rain so much in one day, and Prue said it was too bad. The Chief Gardener said it was an April fool.