Читать книгу A Little Garden Calendar for Boys and Girls - Paine Albert Bigelow - Страница 5

But the seeds did not sprout that day, nor the next, nor for many days after they were planted.

Prue and Davy watered them a little every morning, and were quite sure the room had been warm, but it takes sunshine, too, to make seeds think of waking from their long nap, and the sun does not always shine in January. Even when it does, it is so low in the sky, and stays such a little time each day, that it does not find its way down into the soil as it does in spring and summer time.

"You said that corn sprouts in a week," said Davy to the Chief Gardener, one morning, "and it's a week to-day since we planted it, and even the radishes are not up yet."

Prue also looked into her little row of pots, and said sadly that there was not even a little teeny-weeny speck of anything coming up that she could see.

"I'm sorry," said the Chief Gardener, "but you know I really can't make the sun shine, and even if I could, perhaps they would be slow about coming, at this season. Sometimes I think seeds know the months as well as we do, for I have known seeds to sprout in June in a place where there was very little warmth or moisture and no sunshine at all. Yes, I think the seeds know."

"And won't my pansies come at all?" whimpered little Prue.

"Oh, I think so. They only need a little more coaxing. Suppose we see just what is going on. You planted a few extra radish seeds, Davy. We will do as little folks often do – dig up one and see what has happened."

So the Chief Gardener dug down with his pocket-knife and lifted a bit of the dirt, which he looked at carefully. Then he held it to the light and let the children look. Sticking to the earth there was a seed, but it was no longer the tiny brown thing which Davy had planted. It was so large that Davy at first thought it was one of his pease, and on one side of it there was an edge of green.

"It's all right, Davy boy. They'll be up in a day or two," laughed the Chief Gardener. "Now, we'll try a pansy."

"Oh, yes, try a pansy! try a pansy!" danced little Prue, who was as happy as Davy over the sprouting of the radish.

So the Chief Gardener dug down into the pansy-pot, but just at first could not find a pansy seed, they were so small. Then he did find one, and coming out of it were two tiny pale-green leaves, and a thread of white rootlet that had started downward.

Prue clapped her hands and wanted the Chief Gardener to dig in all the pots, but he told them that it would not be good gardening to do that, and that they must be patient now, and wait. So then another anxious week went by. And all at once, one morning very early, Prue and Davy came shouting up the stairs to where the Chief Gardener was shaving.

"They're up! They're up!"

"My pansies!"

"And my radishes! They've lifted up a piece of dirt over every seed, and there's one little green point in the corn-pot, too!"

The Chief Gardener had to leave his shaving to see. Sure enough! Davy's radishes and Prue's pansies were beginning to show, and one tender shoot of Davy's corn. And in less than another week Davy's lettuce and pease and beans were breaking the ground above each seed, while Prue's garden was coming too, all but the sweet-pease, which, because of their hard shell, sprouted more slowly, even though they had been soaked in warm water before planting. But in another week they began to show, too, and everything else was quite above ground.

Then the Chief Gardener dug up one each of the extra seeds, root and all, and showed them just how they had sprouted and started to grow. He showed them how the shell or husk of the seed still clung to the two first leaves of some of the morning-glory and radish plants, how when the little plant had awakened from its long nap, it had stretched, just as a little boy would stretch, getting up out of bed, and how, being hungry, it had made its breakfast on a part of the tender kernel packed about it in the seed, and then pushed its leaves up for light and air. He also showed them how the grain of corn and the pea stayed below the ground to feed the little shoots that pushed up and the sprangled roots that were starting down to hunt for richness. But they all laughed at the beans, for the beans left only the husk below and pushed the rich kernel up into the air – coming up topsy-turvy, Davy said, while Prue thought the leaves must be very greedy to take the kernel all away from the roots, instead of leaving it where both could have a share.

And now another week passed, and other tiny leaves began to show on most of the plants. These were different shaped from the first oval or heart-shaped seed-leaves – real, natural leaves, Prue said, such as they would have when they were grown. Only the corn did not change, but just unfolded and grew larger.

And so in every pot there were tender green promises of fruit and flower. The little garden was really a garden at last.