A Little Garden Calendar for Boys and Girls. Paine Albert Bigelow

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      Hey, for the sweet-pea! Hi, for the eat-pea!

      Hey, he, hi, ho, hum!'"

      "Was there really ever a poor man and a little sick girl who had pease sent to them?" asked little Prue, as the Chief Gardener finished.

      "Oh, I am sure there must have been! A great many of them."

      "But the ones you sung about. Those really same ones – did they ever really live, or did you make it up about them?"

      "I don't think my pease would be quite enough for a poor man who didn't have a cent of money," said Davy, after thinking about it.

      "But my sweet-pease will be enough, only I want to know if there is really such a little girl, so I can send them. Is there, Papa?"

      "Well, I am sure we can find such a little girl, if we try. And I know she'd be glad for some sweet-pease. And now here's a little story that I really didn't make up, but read a long time ago.

      "Once upon a time there were two friars – "

      "What are friars?" asked Prue. "Do they fry things?"

      "Well, not exactly, though one of these did do some stewing, and the other, too, perhaps, though in a different way. A friar is a kind of priest, and these two had done something which the abbot, who is the head priest, did not like, so he punished them."

      "What did they do?" asked Prue, who liked to know just what people could be punished for.

      "I don't remember now. It's so long – "

      "What do you s'pose it was?"

      "Well, I really can't s'pose, but it may have been because they forgot their prayers. Abbots don't like friars to forget their prayers – "

      "If I should forget my prayers, I'd say 'em twice to make up."

      "Oh, Prue!" said Davy, "do let Papa go on with the story!"

      "But I would. I'd say 'em sixty times!"

      "Yes," said the Chief Gardener, "friars have to do that, too, I believe; but these had to do something different. They had to wear pease in their shoes."

      "Had to wear pease! In their shoes!"

      "Yes, pease, like those we planted, and they had to walk quite a long ways, and, of course, it wouldn't be pleasant to walk with those little hard things under your feet.

      "Well, they started, and one of them went limping and stewing along, and making an awful fuss, because his feet hurt him so, but when he looked at the other he saw that instead of hobbling and groaning as he was, he was walking along, as lively as could be, and seemed to be enjoying the fine morning, and was actually whistling.

      "'Oh, dear!' said the one who was limping, 'how is it you can walk along so spry, and feel so happy, with those dreadful pease in your shoes?'

      "'Why,' said the other, 'before I started, I took the liberty to boil my pease!'"

      "But, Papa," began little Prue, "I don't see – "

      "I do," said Davy, "it made them soft, so they didn't hurt."

      "What kind of pease were they?" asked Prue. "Like Davy's or mine?"

      "Well, I've never heard just what kind they were. There are a good many kinds of pease, and they seem to have come from a good many places. Besides the sweet-pease and garden-pease, there are field-pease, used dry for cattle, and in England there is what is called a sea-pea, because it was first found growing on the shore of a place called Sussex, more than three hundred and fifty years ago, in a year of famine. There were many, many of them and they were in a place where even grass had not grown before that time. The people thought they must have been cast up by some shipwrecked vessel, and they gathered them for food, and so kept from going hungry and starving to death. The garden-pea is almost the finest of vegetables, and there are many kinds – some large, some small, some very sweet, some that grow on tall vines and have to have stakes, and some that grow very short without stakes, and are called dwarfs. There are a good many kinds of sweet-pease, too, different sizes and colors, but I think all the different kinds of garden-pease and sweet-pease might have come from one kind of each, a very, very long time ago, and that takes me to another story which I will have to put off until next time. I have some books now to look over, and you and Davy, Prue, can go for a run in the fresh air."

      III

      EVEN CLOVER BELONGS TO THE PULSE FAMILY

      It was on the same evening that Prue and Davy asked for the other story. And of course the Chief Gardener had to tell it, for he had promised, and little Prue, especially, didn't like to put off anything that had been promised. So this is the story that the Chief Gardener told:

      "The Pulse family is a very large one. I don't know just where the first old great-grandfather Pulse ever did come from, but it is thought to be some place in Asia, a great country of the far East. It may be that the first Pulse lived in the Garden of Eden, though whether as a tree or a vine or a shrub, or only as a little plant, we can't tell now."

      "I think it's going to be a fairy story," said Prue, settling down to listen. "Is it, Papa? A real, true fairy story?"

      "Well, perhaps it is a sort of a fairy story, and I'll try to tell it just as truly as I can. Anyway, the story goes, that a long time after the Garden of Eden was ruined and the Pulse family started west, there were two cousins, and these two cousins were vines, though whether they were always vines, or only got to be vines so they could travel faster, I do not know. Some of their relations were trees then, and are now; the locust tree out in the corner of the yard is one of them."

      Davy looked up, and was about to ask a question. The Chief Gardener went on.

      "The cousins I am talking about, being vines, traveled quite fast in the summer-time, but when it came winter, they lay down for a long nap, and only when spring came they roused up and traveled on. One of them was a very fine fellow, with gay flowers that had a sweet smell, and people loved him for his beauty and fragrance. The other brought only greenish-white flowers, not very showy, but some thought him far more useful than his pretty cousin, for he gave the people food as he passed along.

      "So they journeyed on, down by the way of the Black Sea, which you will know about when you are a little older, and still farther west until at last the pretty Pulse cousin and the plain but useful Pulse cousin had spread their families all over Europe, and were called P's, perhaps because the first letter of their family name began with P. Then by and by it was spelled p-e-a, and they were called garden-pease and sweet-pease, and were planted everywhere, one for the lovely flowers, and the other for food. Now we have them side by side in your windows, just as they were when they first started on their travels, so very, very long ago."

      "Did they really travel as you have told?" asked Davy, looking into the fire.

      "Well, I have never been able to find any printed history of their travels, so it may have been something like that."

      "They did, didn't they, Papa?" insisted little Prue, who always wanted to believe every word of every fairy story. "They went hand in hand, just as Davy and I do when we go walking, didn't they?"

      "And Davy is the garden-pea and you the sweet-pea, is that it? Well, they did come a long way – that is true – and they do belong to a very large family. Why, even the clover belongs to the Pulse family, and the peanut, and СКАЧАТЬ