"Do they raise corn in any other country except America?" asked Davy.
"Oh, yes, there is a great deal raised in other countries now, and I believe they claim to have found some grains of it in a very old tomb in Greece, and a picture of it in a very old book in China, so, perhaps, it was from some place in the far East that the great bird of the Indians came with the seed."
"And does it belong to a family, too?" asked little Prue.
"It is claimed by the grass family, and, of course, it is something like big grass. Wheat and oats and, indeed, all the grains, belong to that wonderful family, too. Then there is broom-corn, useful for making brooms, while sugar-cane, which is also a grass, gives us our best sugar and molasses, but corn not only gives us the ears for food, but the leaves are used for cattle, and the husks for making cushions and mattresses, and for packing fruits. Syrup also is made from the young stalks, and the dry stalks are used for thatching, stable-bedding and fuel. In fact, every part of the corn is valuable, and I think we might call it the king, or, perhaps, being an Indian, the chief of the tribe of Grasses."
"I know the best of all the things that comes from it," said little Prue.
"What?" asked Davy.
"Pop-corn balls," said Prue.
III CROSS BY NAME AND CROSS BY NATURE
And then the sweet-pease bloomed, beautiful pink and white and purple blooms that were so sweet you could smell them as soon as you came into the room. Davy's garden-pease had bloomed even sooner, and had little pods on them by April. Before many days the tiny pease inside began to swell, and you could see every one quite plainly when you turned the pod flat side to the light. As for the beans and morning-glories, they had bloomed and bloomed, and already had seed-pods hanging all the way up the vines that now reached to the top of the casings and looped down and joined in a long festoon which hung between.
And how proud the children were of their two beautiful windows. And how happy they were when passers-by stopped to look in, and perhaps wondered about the gardens, and maybe thought that the rosy-cheeked boy and girl looking out between the blossoms and leaves and vines were the brightest and best flowers that bloomed there.
And Davy's corn sent out another ear, a little one, and both ears grew and the pollen from above sifted down, and Davy knew that inside the green husks the sweet kernels were forming.
"When can we eat it?" he asked almost every day. "Don't you think it's about big enough now?"
"When the silk turns brown," said the Chief Gardener. "That is about the best rule. I think you'll have pease and beans, too, pretty soon, so you can have quite a feast."
"Just in time for my birthday," said big Prue, who had been an April baby a long time ago.
"It's ever so long till my birthday," said little Prue, rather sadly. "I don't think we'll have anything left by August."
"Oh, but I'll have a fine garden outside by then," said the Chief Gardener, "and you will, too. I'll have radishes and lettuce now before you know it;" for in spite of the cold snow and freeze, the Chief Gardener's first planting had sprouted fairly well, and was rapidly filling his first two little beds.
"Papa, you haven't told us a word about my nasturtiums yet, and they're so lovely. Not a single story or anything, nor about their family relations, or where they came from not a thing."
"Well, that's so," said the Chief Gardener, "perhaps because I wanted to make a family affair of it. You see, Davy's radish is a sort of a name-cousin
of your nasturtium, and I've been thinking that when I told about one I'd tell of the other, too, and that I'd call the story
IV A PEPPERY FAMILY
"Well, the Cross family became tired of this, at last, and made up their minds to be either useful or ornamental: at least, most of them did. So they got together, and after a great deal of quarrelling among themselves to begin with, for, of course, they couldn't help that when they had been unpleasant so long, they at last began to work together and decide what each wanted to be, and how it could be brought about.
"'I think,' said a fat one who was always better-natured than any of the others, 'I should like to be a nice sweet vegetable that people were very fond of and gave a good place to, in their gardens, where I should be well taken care of.'
"So the Clerk of Plants, who was alive then, like the Weather Clerk, you know, put down 'Cabbage,' which was the fat fellow's name, and wrote after it, 'Sweet vegetable needs care.'
"'I,' said another, 'would like to be a sweet vegetable, too, but I want to grow mostly under the ground, so that I will need less care to keep off insects and worms.'
"So then the Clerk of Plants wrote 'Turnip,' and put after it, 'Vegetable with sweet, wholesome root; needs little care.'
"So they went on with those who wanted to be vegetables. But most of the others did not want to be quite so sweet in their nature as the turnip and the cabbage. They said they liked people with a little temper of their own, so the radish, who was a fat, red little chap, was put down as a vegetable rather sweet, but with sharp flavor, and 'Horseradish' was put down, 'Very sharp and biting, to be used only for seasoning.' The Clerk was about to turn to those who wanted to be flowers, when a little green plant, who had been named 'Nose Torment,' because he made people's noses itch and burn, spoke up and said, 'I should like to be beautiful and useful, too a pretty green dressing that people like, and I will grow in the water, which may wash away some of my ill manners.'