IV
A PEPPERY FAMILY
"Nobody seems to know just where the Cross family came from. You can find them in every part of the world now, some of them growing as weeds, some as flowers, and some as very fine vegetables. But wherever they came from, in the beginning, they were certainly of very sharp, biting natures, and never could agree. Why, they were so cross that even their flowers were shaped like little crosses, and people called them cruciferous, which means cross-shaped, and used to say of them,
"'Cross by name and cross by nature,
Cross of fibre, face, and feature,'
and did not want them in their gardens, because they disturbed the other vegetables and flowers, and might make them cross, too.
"CABBAGE" WAS THE FAT FELLOW'S NAME
"Well, the Cross family became tired of this, at last, and made up their minds to be either useful or ornamental: at least, most of them did. So they got together, and after a great deal of quarrelling among themselves to begin with, for, of course, they couldn't help that when they had been unpleasant so long, they at last began to work together and decide what each wanted to be, and how it could be brought about.
"'I think,' said a fat one who was always better-natured than any of the others, 'I should like to be a nice sweet vegetable that people were very fond of and gave a good place to, in their gardens, where I should be well taken care of.'