ONE year Mrs. Dumpling was ill all the summer, and there was nobody much to tend the kitchen garden, except Dimple.
Dimple was extremely sturdy, but being shorter than the spade, he could not use the spade at all; and he was so very much shorter than a hoe, that the hoe kicked, and generally hit Dimple on the nose; and before summer was out he was so much shorter than the weeds, that when he went to pull them, the weeds felt quite at liberty to turn about and pull him; they’d hang back and pull, and pull, until they got Dimple all excited and puffing, and then they’d suddenly let go his little hands, and down would go Dimple on the ground, over on his back, pulled right off his little roots,—his little feet, I mean,—while the weeds would just swing, and nod, and shake with laughter, and then they would grow—oh, how they would grow! A little rough pulling at one, if you don’t get pulled clear off your feet and out of your place, is so very good for anybody.
Dimple finally gave up the weeds, and tended the vegetables only. He cultivated them with a stick, scratching along the roots, and making the soil black and loose. One day he sat under a shady row of tall mustard-weeds, and scratched along a line of some feathery green stuff his mamma had sowed. He sat poking the dirt, and thinking what a pretty green plants turned as the dirt was stirred, when suddenly, poking away a big stone, he saw something white, and round, and wrinkled, just like a head,—an old man’s bald head!
“Why,” said Dimple, “who’s here?”
He dug a little, and he came to some sleepy old eyes, all shut, and wrinkled, and peevish.
“Why-ee!” said Dimple. “It is somebody!”
He dug and dug, and he came to a nose,—an awful big nose.
“Why-ee!” said Dimple. “It’s a Roman nose. I fink it is a grandpa.”
He dug a little mite more, and there were some moustaches growing right out of the big nose. He pulled and pulled with his two forefingers, and loosened them up, and all at once they flopped out of the dirt; and they were two long waxed moustaches.