IV
DID YOU EVER SEE THE LITTLE MAN IN THE PANSY?
March was really an exciting month in the little window gardens. With longer and brighter suns, everything grew faster, until the windows began to look full and green, and the children often went outside to look in, and were very proud, indeed, of the pretty show of vines and leaves beyond the glass.
The race of vines became very close. Davy had one bean and Prue one morning-glory which kept ahead of the others, and grew about the same each day. They grew so fast that Davy thought if he would only watch very closely he would be able to see them grow a little, but watch as he would, he never could catch the little vine turning or sending out a new leaf. It was like the short hand of the clock. It went twice around each day, but nobody could see it move.
The corn and the sunflower were having a race, too, and the sunflower was a little ahead, though Davy's corn was a good deal taller when he lifted the points of the leaves.
"I don't think that is fair," said Prue, and the Chief Gardener was called to decide.
"No," he said, "the corn must be measured from where the leaves turn over, until it sends up its tassel, or bloom. Then it may be measured to the top of that. And that may be sooner than you think, too," he added, as he looked down into the healthy-looking green stalk that was fully two feet high. "And just see those vines; why they are more than half-way up the casings already!"
It was the day before Davy's birthday, and Prue was looking anxiously at her pansies. All at once she gave a joyous cry.
"Oh, Papa, a bud! Oh, it truly is, a real sure enough bud!"