"Give flowers to the poor, the sick at home and the sick in hospitals, the church, the people you love, the people you think you don't love, and the people who seem lonely and forlorn.
"Once upon a time there was made a wondrous garden. It was called the earth. The flowers, the trees, the plants which afterwards became through man's skill our staple products—all these were free, absolutely free.
"If this is a true story, how can we be so small as always to make money from this garden? Let us pay our debt to it freely and gladly.
"This is our last talk. Some of you already have started your early vegetables and flowers. Instead of one coldframe we have four in our family and one belongs to a girl.
"It is going to be a better year of gardening than before. Leston is with us now. Another season there will be others. The school grounds look well, and if you have noticed the entire village looks a little better than ever before.
"We will shake hands all around. In a few weeks we shall have hands quite dirty with good old garden soil. You may take your stools and benches off with you, or leave them all here."
"We shall leave them," said Eloise; "for I am coming back often to sit on my little cricket right on your hearth."
"I am a little large for a cricket," went on Albert; "but I'd not quit this hearthstone, so my stool stays."
"And mine, too," each one added.
Off they trooped again, some down the country road, some up the road, others across the fields, and George, as usual, on his old horse. They shouted until out of sight.