to have someone blow a horn!”
“I’ll blow the horn,” Freddie finally gave in, “cause I got that big fire out now.”
So Freddie climbed up on the high coach with his sisters, and blew the horn until Nan told them they had reached New York and were going to stop for dinner.
There were so many splendid things to play with in the coach house, tables, chairs, and everything, that the Bobbseys hardly knew it before it was lunch time, the morning passed so quickly.
It cleared up in the afternoon and John asked the children if they wanted to help him do some transplanting.
“Oh! we would love to,” Nan answered, for she did love gardening.
The ground was just right for transplanting, after the rain, and the tender little lettuce plants were as easy to take up as they were to put down again.
“I say, Nan,” John told her, “you can have that little patch over there for your garden. I’ll give you a couple of dozen plants, and we will see what kind of a farmer you will make.”
“Oh, thank you, John,” Nan answered. “I’ll do just as I have seen you doing,” and she began to take the little plants in the pasteboard box from one bed to the other.
“Be careful not to shake the dirt off the roots,” said John, “and be sure to put one plant in each place. Put them as far apart here as the length of this little stick, and when you put them in the ground press the earth firmly around the roots.”
Flossie was delighted to help her sister, and the two girls made a very nice garden indeed.
“Let’s put little stones around the path,” Flossie suggested, and John said they could do this if they would be careful not to let the stones get on the garden.
“I want to be a planter too,” called Freddie, running up the path to John. “But I want to plant radishes,” he continued, “’cause they’re the reddist.”
“Well, you just wait a few minutes, sonny,” said John, “and I’ll show you how to plant radishes. I’ll be through with this lettuce in a few minutes.”
Freddie waited with some impatience, running first to Nan’s garden then back to John’s. Finally John was ready to put in a late crop of radishes.
“Now, you see, we make a long drill like this,” John explained as he took the drill and made a furrow in the soft ground.
“If it rains again that will be a river,” said Freddie, for he had often played river at home after a rain.
“Now, you see this seed is very fine,” continued John. “But I am going to let you plant it if you’re careful.”
“That ain’t redishes!” exclaimed Freddie “I want to plant redishes.”
“But this is the seed, and that’s what makes the radishes,” John explained.
“Nope, that’s black and it can’t make it red?” argued Freddie.
“Wait and see,” the gardener told him. “You just take this little paper of seeds and scatter them in the drill. See, I have mixed them with sand so they will not grow too thick.”
Freddie took the small package, and kneeling down on the board that John used, he dropped the little shower of seeds in the line.
“They’re all gone!” he told John presently; “get some more.”
“No, that’s enough. Now we will see how your crop grows. See, I just cover the seed very lightly like mamma covers Freddie when he sleeps in the summer time.”
“Do you cover them more in the winter time too, like mamma does?” Freddie asked.
“Yes, indeed I do,” said the gardener, “for seeds are just like babies, they must be kept warm to grow.”
Freddie stood watching the line he had planted the seed in.
“They ain’t growing yet,” he said at last. “Why don’t they come up, John?”
“Oh!” laughed the gardener, “they won’t come up right away. They have to wake up first. You will see them above the ground in about a week, I guess.”
This was rather a disappointment to the little fellow, who never believed in waiting for anything, but he finally consented to let the seeds grow and come back again later to pick the radishes.
“Look at our garden!” called Nan proudly, from across the path. “Doesn’t it look straight and pretty?”
“You did very well indeed,” said John, inspecting the new lettuce patch. “Now, you’ll have to keep it clear of weeds, and if a dry spell should come you must use the watering can.”
“I’ll come up and tend to it every morning,” Nan declared. “I am going to see what kind of lettuce I can raise.”
Nan had brought with her a beautiful string of pearl beads set in gold, the gift of one of her aunts. She was very proud of the pearls and loved to wear them whenever her mother would let her.
One afternoon she came to her mother in bitter tears.
“Oh, mamma!” she sobbed. “The the pearls are gone,”
“Gone! Did you lose them?” questioned Mrs. Bobbsey quickly.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I—I don’t know,” and now Nan cried harder than ever.
The news soon spread that the string of pearls were lost, and everybody set to work hunting for them.
“Where do you think you lost ’em?” asked Bert.
“I—I don’t know. I was down in the garden, and up the lane, and at the well, and out in the barn, and over to the apple orchard, and feeding the chickens, and over in the hayfield,—and lots of places.”
“Then it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” declared Aunt Sarah.
All the next day the boys and girls hunted for the string of pearls, and the older folks helped. But the string could not be found. Nan felt very bad over her loss, and her mother could do little to console her.
“I—I sup—suppose I’ll never see them again,” sobbed the girl.
“Oh, I guess they’ll turn up some time,” said Bert hopefully.
“They can’t be lost so very, very bad,” lisped Flossie. “’Cause they are somewhere on this farm, ain’t they?”
“Yes, but the farm is so very big!” sighed poor Nan.
For a few days Freddie went up to the garden every morning to look for radishes. Then he gave up and declared he knew John had made a mistake and that he didn’t plant radishes at all. Nan and Flossie were very faithful attending to their garden, and
