"But I must have some flowers!" wailed Miss Billy, in despair. "Why, that was one reason that I wanted to come and live on Cherry Street,—because there was a big yard here, you know."
John Thomas was regarding the rocky flower bed musingly. "I'll tell you what I can do," he said at last. "There's more than a foot of this out already,—an' I'll go down to where my father has got some teams hauling dirt from a cellar they're digging, an' I'll bring you a load, if you'd like it. It's good black dirt."
"John Thomas Hennesy!" exclaimed Miss Billy, clasping her hands in ecstasy: "A load,—a whole load,—of black dirt?"
"Why sure," said John Thomas, reddening with pleasure. "They're just dumping it into an old quarry."
"A whole load of black dirt!" said Miss Billy, musingly. "I'll have pansies, and sweet-peas, and geraniums, and I'll sow grass seed on the bad places in the yard. John Thomas Hennesy, you're a prize!"
That evening, as the Lee family assembled around the tea-table, the minister said cheerily, "I had a peculiar thing to be thankful for to-day. It was the song and whistle of a light-hearted boy. It helped me with my sermon."
"I have to be thankful for a daughter who took the cake baking off my hands and helped me with the mending," said Mrs. Lee, smiling over at Beatrice.
"I am thankful for John Thomas Hennesy and black dirt!" declared Miss Billy fervently.
"And I," wound up Theodore proudly, "for getting a steady Saturday job, taking care of Brown's soda fountain, at a dollar a day!"