"It vonders me now if Granny's home," thought Phœbe as she opened the wooden gate and entered the yard.
"Here I am," called Granny. "Back in the garden. I-to-goodness, Phœbe, did you come once! I just said yesterday to Aaron that I didn't see none of you folks for long, and here you come! You haven't seen the flowers for a while."
"Oh!" Phœbe breathed an ecstatic little word of delight. "Oh, your garden is just vonderful pretty!"
"Ain't," agreed Granny. "Aaron and me's been working pretty hard in it these weeks. There he is, out in the potato patch; see him?"
Phœbe stood on tiptoe and looked where Granny's finger pointed to the extreme end of the long vegetable garden, where the white head of Old Aaron was bending over his hoeing.
"He's hoeing the potatoes," Granny explained. "He don't see you. But he'll soon be done and come in."
"What were you doin'?" asked the child.
"Weeding the flag."
"Weedin' the flag—what do you mean?" Phœbe's eyes lighted with eagerness. "I guess you mean mendin' the flag, Granny." She looked toward the porch as if in search of Old Glory.
"I said weeding the flag," the woman insisted. "It's an idea of Aaron's and I guess I'll tell you about it, seeing your eyes are open so wide. See the poppies, that long stretch of them in the middle of the garden?"