At the Little Brown House

  CHAPTER XI

  GARDENS AND GOPHERS

  "Have you got any more corn or potatoes to drop, or onion sets to cover,or radishes and beans and turnips to plant, or wheat or barley toscatter, or--or anything else to do?" Peace panted breathlessly one warmSaturday afternoon late in May.

  "No," smiled Gail, looking tenderly down into the flushed, perspiringface. "You girls have worked faithfully all day, and now you can restawhile. Mike is coming next week to finish the planting."

  "Can--may we fix our own gardens, then? Mr. Kennedy gave me a whole lotof seed the gove'nment sent him to plant, but he can't, 'cause he'sgoing to Alaska."

  "Government seed! What kinds?"

  "Cucumbers and beets, and parsley and carrots and--"

  "But, child, we have all of those in our big garden now. I thought youwanted your little plot of ground for flowers?"

  "I do. One of these packages is sweet peas."

  "Oh, dearie, I guess you have made a mistake. Mr. Kennedy wouldn't haveany use for sweet pea seed."

  "Hope said that was the name on the package."

  "Well, then I suppose they are, though I never heard tell of theKennedys raising flowers before. Sweet peas ought to be planted along afence. We will have Mike dig a little trench just inside the front yardfence, and plant the peas there."

  Peace's face fell, but she offered no objections to the plan, and Gailstraightway forgot all about it. Not so with the enthusiastic, youthfulplanter, however; and, while the older sister was bustling about the hotkitchen, the curly, brown head was bobbing energetically back and forthin the front yard, where she and Cherry were digging a trench as fast asthey could turn the sod with an old broken spade and a discardedfire-shovel; while Allee followed in their wake, dropping the seed intothe freshly-turned earth and carefully covering them again.

  "Mercy, but this yard is big!" sighed weary Peace, as she began diggingalong the third and last side. "Have you got enough left to stick inhere, Allee?"

  "This is all," answered the blue-eyed toiler, displaying a handful offlat, black seed in her apron.

  "Those don't look like peas," cried Cherry, pausing to examine thequeer-looking things. "All I ever saw were round."

  "Garden peas _are_ round," answered Peace, with a knowing air, "butthese are sweet peas, and they are flat."

  "Did you ever see any before?" demanded Cherry suspiciously, nettled byher sister's manner.

  "No--o, but doesn't the sack they were in say 'sweet peas?'"

  It certainly did, there was no disputing that fact, so Cherry discreetlyremained silent, and began her vigorous shoveling once more.

  When the supper hour was announced the shallow, uneven trench wascompleted, the seeds all covered, and three dirty gardeners perched in arow on the fence, planning out the list of customers who would buy thesweet blossoms when the vines had matured.

  "There's the horn for supper," said Cherry.

  "And I know Mrs. Lacy will be glad to get them sometimes, 'cause shehasn't any flowers at all," continued Peace, ignoring the interruption."That makes ten people."

  "Well, hurry up! I am hungry, and we'll have to wash before Gail willgive us anything to eat," cried the tallest girl impatiently. "I'll raceyou to the pump."

  "You are late," Hope greeted them, when, after a noisy splashing andhasty wiping of faces, they entered the room. "Doesn't Allee's face lookfunny with that black streak around it where she didn't hit the dirt?What have you been doing to get so warm?"

  "Planting sweet peas," answered Allee.

  "Oh, Peace! After I said we would have Mike dig a trench by the fence!"

  "You didn't say we _couldn't_ plant them, Gail. We dug it so's to saveMike the trouble. Anyway, the seeds ought to be in the ground by thistime if they are ever going to blossom this year, and Mike is so slow.We thought it was best not to wait. When do you s'pose they will comeup?"

  "Oh, in about two or three weeks, maybe," Gail answered. "You better rubyour arms well with liniment before you go to bed tonight, or you willbe so lame tomorrow you can't move."

  The incident was closed, and the sweet peas forgotten until one dayabout three weeks later Hope called excitedly from the front yard,"Gail, Gail, come here! What ever are these plants coming up all alongthe fence? They are not sweet peas."

  Gail came, examined the fat sprouts and looked at Hope in comicaldismay. "They are pumpkins or cucumbers or melons, and the whole frontfence is lined with them!"

  "Poor Peace!" said Hope, when their laugh had ended. "She will beheartbroken. She made her fortune a dozen times over on the blossomsthose vines are to bear."

  "Yes," sighed Gail. "She has the happy faculty of trying to do one thingand getting some unexpected, unheard-of result. Poor little blunderbus!But what shall we do with these plants? There are enough to stock aranch. We can't leave them here, and I don't think they will beartransplanting."

  "And so they ain't sweet peas at all!" exclaimed a disappointed voicebehind them, and there stood Peace herself, contemplating her treasureswith solemn eyes.

  "No, dear, they are pumpkins, I guess. What kind of seed did you plant?"

  "I planted sweet pea seed," came the mournful reply. "Leastways the sacksaid so. Hope read it herself."

  "Yes, the sack was labelled plainly, but I never thought to examine theseed. What did they look like?"

  "They were black and flat."

  "Melons," said Gail. "Well, I would rather have melons than pumpkins,for we already have planted a lot of them. Still, it will spoil these totransplant them, so they might just as well have been pumpkins. It is ashame to have to throw them all away, though."

  Peace said nothing, but in bitterness of heart helped pull up all thegreen sprouts and throw them over the fence. Then she sat down besidethe heap to mourn over her fallen aircastles.

  "Seems 's if I can't do anything like other folks," she sighed dismally."I plant sweet peas and get melons. I wonder if melons wouldn't sellbetter than peas. Gail says these won't grow, but I am going to try themanyway."

  She filled her apron with the hapless plants and carried them away toher small garden plot behind the shed, where she patiently set out everyone, regardless of the flower seeds already hid beneath the soil. And,strange to say, they grew,--at least many of them did, choking out thepoppies and marigolds and balsams which finally climbed through thethree inches of ground the zealous gardener had hid them under, andformed a thick tangle of promising vines.

  Then the gophers began their destructive work, tunnelling the littlefarm into a perfect labyrinth of underground passages, much to thedismay of the little household, so dependent upon the success of theircrops. Traps were set, the holes were flooded, cats by the score werelet loose in the fields, but still the little pests continued to dig, asif laughing at the futile attempts made to get rid of them. At lengthGail sighed, "I am afraid we will have to resort to poisoned grain. Ihate to, because I am so afraid the children will get into it, orsomething dreadful happen on account of it."

  "I don't see how either the youngsters or even the hens could get at itif it was put down the holes," said Faith. "Say nothing about it but fixup a mess and Hope and I will drop it some day when the children areaway and the hens in their yard."

  So Gail mixed up a huge bucket full of poisoned grain, and while theyounger trio were gathering flowers in the woods one afternoon, theother sisters sallied forth with their deadly bait, bent onexterminating their small foes.

  All might have gone well had not the smaller girls suddenly decided toplay hare and hound, and it fell to Peace's lot to be the hare. With anapron full of gay dandelion blossoms for the trail, the active littlebody set out on a wide detour of the woods, across the bridge, upthrough the Hartman pasture land, reaching the barbed wire fence ontheir own little farm just in time to see Hope dropping a last handfulof grain into a gopher hole before returning to the house with her emptypail.

  "Now what has she been doing?" thought Peace, peering out from a thicketof hazel bushes. "Oh, I kno
w! I bet she is trying to poison the gophers,like Mr. Hartman did. I wonder if they will come up after the corn rightaway. I am going to watch. I'd like to see how it kills them."

  She carefully wriggled her way under the lower wire, and sat down infront of the nearest gopher mound, forgetting all about her dandelions,sisters, and play, in the prospect of witnessing the death of one of theenemy. But either Mr. Gopher was not at home, or else he suspected thepresence of an unwelcome caller, for he did not come up in sight foreven a nibble of the tempting corn; and at last, weary of her fruitlessvigil, Peace cried aloud, "He prob'ly can get all he wants withoutletting me see him. I'm going to dig it all out on top, so he will_have_ to come out in sight."

  She quickly scratched the poisoned bait out of the runway, scattered itliberally about, and settled back in her former position, with her eyesglued on the mouth of the tunnel; but still Mr. Gopher did not come.

  "You tiresome old thing!" she exclaimed impatiently, after what seemedhours of waiting. "I shan't watch for you another minute. I'll findanother hole and see if they will do any better there." So from mound tomound she scurried, digging the grain up into view, and then watchingfor the appearance of the tenant--with no result.

  "Well, of all provoking people!" cried an indignant voice behind her,and there were Cherry and Allee crawling under the fence. "How long haveyou been sitting there like a bump on a log? You didn't drop enoughdandelions, and we had an awful time following you. What on earth areyou doing here? Let's go up to the pump for a drink. I am nearly burnedup." Without giving the weary Peace a chance to answer her questions,she raced away through the pasture toward the house, dragging Allee withher; and the third girl, after one last, hopeless glance at the gopherhole, followed more slowly.

  Some time later Hope came tearing across the field, with hair flying,and her eyes filled with alarm, calling shrilly, "Gail, Faith, the henshave broken out of the yard and are eating the poisoned grain! There aremore than a dozen down there now!"

  "Oh, dear," cried Peace, with guilty conscience, "I scratched the cornout of the holes so's I could watch the gophers die. And I let the hensout, too, 'cause they looked so hot shut up in that mite of a yard afterthey have been running loose for so long."

  With despairing eyes, Gail looked down at the dying fowls, and notdaring to trust herself to speak, she hurried away to the house to sobout her grief alone.

  Faith paused long enough to count the hapless hens, clutched thewretched culprit and shook her vigorously, then silently followed herolder sister, leaving the heartbroken child alone with the victims ofher curiosity.

  "Did you ever see my equal?" she said aloud, addressing herself. "Youare the worst child that ever lived! You wash the labels off the spiceboxes so Faith gets ginger instead of mustard in her salad dressing; youtry to milk cows and break their legs instead; you spoil cakes and stealeggs and bother Gail and Faith till they are nearly crazy; and nowyou've taken to killing hens just to see how gophers die. PeaceGreenfield, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Yes, I am, but there's nouse in wasting those perfectly good hens--twenty of them--we had onlyforty in all. It's a wonder the rest of them didn't get a dose, too.Hope has got them locked up at last. There comes Cherry; I'll make herhelp. Oh, Cherry, here's a job for you!"

  "What is it? And why are the girls crying? They wouldn't tell me."

  "I've killed a lot of hens for them, playing hare and hound. That's thevery last time I will ever be hare, Charity Greenfield! Help me undressthese chickens. We'll have some for supper, and the rest we'll peddle tothe town folks."

  "Oh, Peace, I can't pull feathers! It makes me shiver every time a bunchcomes out in my hands."

  "You will have to. You don't expect me to pick them all, do you? I guessthe girls never thought of selling the hens, and I can't ask them tohelp now. We will get the ax and chop off their heads and then hang themin the crab-apple tree while we strip them. You really must help,Cherry. Gail says they pick better while they are warm."

  She hunted up the ax, and one by one hacked off poor biddies' heads; butwhen it came to the picking process, they found it was slow work forsmall, inexperienced fingers, and gave up in despair when the third nudebody lay in the grass at their feet.

  "It is almost night, Peace, and we've picked three. What shall we do?'Twill take us hours to finish that whole bunch."

  "We'll sell them for as much as we can get, and see if the butcher won'ttake the rest with the feathers on. We can keep two or three forourselves. Where is Allee's cart?"

  All that remained of the poison victims were loaded into the smallwagon, and their strange pilgrimage through the village streets began.The picked fowls were readily disposed of, and one neighbor bought thelargest of the feathered birds, but no one else wanted to bother withthem, and it was only after much persuasion that the butcher consentedto take six, at the fancy price of twenty-five cents each.

  "Well, that is better than nothing, though he wouldn't sell me one forthat little last Christmas," sighed Peace, much disappointed at theresult of their peddling. "Three dollars and fifty cents will buy quitea few chickens, and chickens make hens if you give them time. What doyou s'pose Gail will say when we give her the money?"

  They were not long in finding out. The two red-eyed girls were busy inthe kitchen when the children returned with the unsold hens in thewagon; and with fear and trembling, Peace laid the coins on the table,saying humbly, "Mrs. Munson took one, and Mrs. Bainbridge, and Mrs.Edwards and Mrs. Lacy, and the butcher bought six. That's all the henswe could sell. We left three here for supper and--"

  "Peace Greenfield!" shrieked the horrified sisters in unison. "Did yousell those poisoned hens? You march straight upstairs to bed--andCherry, too!" Then Gail flew one way and Faith the other, to collect thebirds before the buyers had a chance to dish up the delicacy to adoredfamilies.

  When they had seen the last fowl safely disposed of, and were home oncemore, Gail said despairingly, "I don't know what in the world to do withthat child!"

  "She needs a good, sound thrashing," answered Faith sharply. "She getsinto more mischief in a day than a monkey would in a month."

  "She doesn't mean to," pleaded Gail. "Mother never believed in whipping.If it were mischief for mischief's sake, I could punish her, but herintentions are good--"

  "Good intentions don't amount to much in her case. A good trouncingmight make her think a little more."

  "I _can't_ whip her, Faith, but I'll go up and lecture her good. Ibelieve that will be more effective than harshness."

  So the perplexed mother-sister mounted the stairs to the chamber above,from which sounded a low murmur of voices, and she paused in the hallwayto assemble her thoughts, when Peace's words, evidently in supplication,floated out through the open door: "And, O Lord, don't blame Gail forgetting mad. It's the first time I can remember. She is usu'ly verygood. S'posing she was a stepmother, like lame Jennie Munn's, wouldn'twe have a time living with her, though? And I am truly sorry about thehens. Hope says we can't get many eggs now, 'cause half of the flock isgone, and if we keep all our customers we will have to do without eggshere at home. I don't mind that at all myself, 'cause I've eaten eggsand eggs till it makes me sick to hunt them now; but what will Faith dofor her cakes? That's what is worrying me. It was so we could buy morelive hens that Cherry and me sold the dead ones. We didn't know theywould make people sick, and p'r'aps kill them, too. I am sorry the moneyhad to go back and that the hens are just wasted now, but I 'xpectthey'll make an elegant funeral tomorrow. So forgive Gail and keep herfrom getting mad any more, and forgive me and keep me from being bad anymore, and make us 'happy children in a happy home.' Amen."

  Softly, silently, Gail stole down the stairs again, with her lectureunsaid.