Little Miss Oddity

“‘Tain’t Nothin’ but an Old Weed!”
Little Miss Oddity By AMY E. BLANCHARD Author of “A Dear Little Girl,” “Mistress May,” etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY IDA WAUGH
PHILADELPHIA GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1902, By George W. Jacobs & Co. Published July, 1902.
THE BACK YARD
It was a queer jumbled up place, that back yard of the house where Cassy and Jerry Law lived; old barrels tumbled to pieces in one corner, empty tomato cans rolled against cast-off shoes in another; here bits of broken crockery wedged themselves in between a lot of shingles, and there a pile of iron scraps crowded against a bottomless chair; on a clothes-line flapped several pairs of overalls and a stunted little tree bore upon its branches sundry stockings of various sizes and conditions.
It was a discouraging looking place, but Cassy, intently bending over a pile of dirt near the bottomless chair, did not heed anything but the fact that two tiny green shoots were poking themselves up from the unpromising soil. She was a thin-faced, bright-eyed child, not pretty, but with an eager, wistful expression, and as her face lit up with a sudden smile she looked unusually intelligent.
“Jerry, come here,” she cried; “I’ve got a garden.”
“Sho!” returned Jerry, “I don’t believe it.”
“I have so; just you come and look at it.” Cassy tossed back the locks of brown hair that hung over her eyes and softly patted with her two small hands the dry earth around the springing blades of green. Jerry came nearer. “It’s truly growing,” Cassy went on. “I didn’t stick it in the ground myself to make believe; just see.”
Jerry bent his sandy-colored head nearer to the object of his sister’s admiration.
“’Tain’t nothin’ but a old weed,” he decided at last.