"He does, Granny, I am sure."
"For, when we were nearly out last winter, there was that splendid surprise-party. I never can get over it, Hal. And your bewtiful quilt, that I don't believe another boy in the world could have done. O Hal! you're such a comfort!"
And Granny wiped her poor old eyes.
The first pea-vines were pulled up; and then Hal began to prepare for his spring bed. It was vacation; and Charlie and Kit went into the experiment with a great deal of zeal. First Hal dug two trenches about twelve feet long, and four feet apart. He laid in these the stones the children brought in a wagon that he had manufactured for Dot a long while before. He piled them up like a wall, sifted sand between them, and then banked up the outside, making one edge considerably higher than the other. Around it all, at the top, he put a row of planking about twelve inches high, and fixed grooves for the sashes to slide across. Then he lowered the ground inside, and enriched it with manure, making quite a little garden-spot.
Charlie wanted to have something planted right away; and she did put in surreptitiously some peas, morning-glories, and a few squash-seed.
"I don't know but we might make another," said Hal, surveying it with a good deal of pride.
"Oh, do!" exclaimed Charlie. "It's such fun!"
Kit didn't mind, if Hal would only tell him a story now and then. Mozart's childhood that he had read in a stray copy of an old magazine, fragments of Mendelssohn, and all the floating incidents he could recall of Ole Bull. When these were exhausted, Hal used to draw a little upon his imagination. They had a wonderful hero named Hugo, who was stolen by gypsies when he was a little boy, and wandered around in the German forest for years, meeting with various adventures, and always playing on a violin to solace himself when he was cold, or tired, or hungry, or beaten.
And, though Hal often declared that he couldn't think of any thing more, Kit pleaded so wistfully with his luminous blue eyes and soft voice, that Hugo would be started upon his travels again.