"Budded?" puzzled young Derry Willard. Really for a person who looked so much like the picture of the Fairy Prince in my best story-book, he seemed just a little bit slow.
"Why, of course, it's got to be budded!" I cried. "That's what it's for! That's——"
Instead of just being pink patient my sister Rosalee started in suddenly to be dimply patient too.
"It's from mother's Christmas-tree garden, you know," she went right on explaining. "Mother's got a Winter garden—a Christmas-tree garden!"
"Father's got a garden, too!" I maintained stoutly. "Father's is a Spring garden! Reds, blues, yellows, greens, whites! From France! And Holland! And California! And Asia Minor! Tulips, you know. Buster's! Oh, father's garden is a glory!" I boasted.
"And mother's garden," said my mother very softly, "is only a story."
"It's an awfully nice story," said Rosalee.
Young Derry Willard seemed to like stories.
"Tell it!" he begged.
It was Rosalee who told it. "Why, it was when Carol was born," she said. "It was on a Christmas eve, you know. That's why mother named him Carol!"