THE GARDENER.
The gardener, who had promised to teach Willy gardening, said he was just then very busy about his celery, but that if he would come to him in the evening he would be at leisure; "or if," added he, "you like to come and see me at work now, you may learn something." Willy willingly agreed to do this; so he tied up his tools, and carried them over his shoulder. The gardener said, "if he meant to see him work, he must not meddle with his tools, as it would interrupt him, and he should not be able to get on with his work." Willy promised he would not use his new tools, but he could not bear to part with them.
When they reached the celery bed, Willy thought the celery looked very nice and clean, and that the gardener was going to gather it, for he remembered having eaten some in salad; and he asked the gardener if he would give him "one stick of celery to put into his salad of lettuces?" but the gardener said, the celery was not fit for gathering yet; and, to Willy's great surprise, he found that the gardener was busy covering all these plants with earth, and patting it over them with his spade, just as if they were dirty rubbish, fit for nothing but to be buried in the ground. He could not help crying out, "Oh dear! how can you cover that nice celery with dirt? you will quite spoil it."
"Not a bit," replied the gardener; "it will grow much finer and whiter under the ground than above it. If I let it grow up like other plants, it would be green like them, and so bitter that you could not eat it; but when it is covered up from the light it grows white and crisp, and good to eat."
"Well," said Willy, "I never should have thought that all that dirty earth could have done it any good."
"Your nurse will call this earth dirt if it gets upon your clothes and soils them; but I can tell you, that earth is one of the best things we have. What would become of this garden if there were not earth for the trees and plants of all sorts to grow in? Why, you would have neither flowers nor fruit, and I'm sure that would not please you!"
"No indeed," said Willy, "but you do not cover all the other plants with earth, as you do the celery?"
"No, because we do not want them to grow white; they do much better with green leaves and coloured blossoms and fruit; so we only cover their roots with earth: that is what all plants want. Ah! you little know all the good that happens under this dirty ground, which you despise so much. Have you never sown any seeds?"
"Oh yes, very often."
"Well, then, you know, seeds are little brown things, much of the colour of dirt, and perhaps you may think no better of them than you do of earth; but do you know what they grow into when they are sown?"
"Yes; they turn into flowers, and leaves, and all sorts of pretty things. But I cannot think how all this happens in that dark dirty place underground. I wish I could make a hole down deep enough in the earth to see how the seed is changing into the pretty plant."
"But if you did," replied the gardener, "you could not see what passed there, it is so dark. We none of us know how it is done; but we know who it is that does it. It is the good God, who does so many wonderful things; and we must never forget to thank him for it. However, I know a little more about it than you do, for I have done nothing but work in the garden these fifty years and more. I have sown so many seeds, and watered so many flowers, and gathered so much fruit, that it would be strange if I did not know something about it."
"But you cannot see in the dark any better than I can," said Willy: "so how can you know what happens to the seed underground?"
"It is not by looking at the seed underground, but by taking it up when it is beginning to grow, that I see how it grows. Come along with me," said he, taking Willy by the hand, and carrying his hoe with the other; and he led him to another part of the garden, where there was a bed of fresh earth raked over, quite smooth and neat.
"Are you going to sow some seeds in this bed?" asked Willy, "for there is nothing growing in it?"
"I sowed the seeds some days ago, and by this time I am sure they are all growing; that is, beginning to change into plants; but they have not had time to grow up above ground yet:" then he took his hoe, and turned up a little bit of the earth, and there he found three or four seeds of kidney beans beginning to sprout out and grow. He took up one, and showing it to Willy, said, "Look here, what has happened to this seed!"
"I don't know," replied Willy, "but I think it must have been broken in falling, when it was sown, for you see it is split quite open, and spoiled; so this poor seed will never grow."
"It is not spoiled at all," said the gardener; "for it must be split open to be changed into a plant. The skin of the seed cracks, and through the crack the little stem or stalk of the plant grows up."
"But there is nothing growing out of this split seed."
"No, there has not been time for the stem to grow long enough to get through the crack. But let us go to the other end of the row, where the seeds were sown a day or two earlier." They did so, and upon turning up the earth they found several seeds in which a little stem was growing out of the split seed. This delighted Willy, who also picked up a seed which seemed to have two stems, but the gardener told him one of them was the root of the plant, and would grow down into the ground instead of upright into the air. Then looking carefully along the bed, they saw several tiny stems, scarcely bigger than threads, peeping above ground.
"I should like to know all about these seeds and flowers," said Willy, "it is so very curious."
"I cannot teach you more than I have learnt myself by working in my garden; but there are many people who know more about it from reading in books, and I dare say when you grow up your papa will teach you more about it."
The good old gardener then took Willy back to the house; and every evening Willy went with him to learn how to work in his little garden. The following week the peas were large enough to gather, and Willy shelled them himself; and, I believe, he watched them whilst they were boiling on the fire; and if he had been strong enough I do think he would have carried them himself and placed them on the dinner table; however, he had the satisfaction of seeing them, and hearing them praised by his parents, and he thought he had never tasted any thing so good in all his life.