"Everyone seems afraid of Tupping," said Daisy. "Horrid fellow. I hope he gets a punishment one day for being so hateful. But I bet he won't."
"Come and see my little garden, Luke," said Bets, pulling the big boy up the path. "It's got some lovely snapdragons out."
Luke went with her. It was a funny little garden, done by Bets herself. It had one old rose tree in it, a tiny gooseberry bush, some virginian stock, a few red snapdragons, and some Shirley poppies.
"Fine!" said Luke. "Did you have any gooseberries off that little bush?"
"Not one," said Bets sadly. "And Luke, I planted two strawberries last year — nice red ripe ones — and they didn't even grow up in strawberry plants. I was dreadfully disappointed. I did so want to pick strawberries of my own this year."
Luke laughed his loud, clear laugh. "Ho, ho, ho, ho! Strawberries don't grow from strawberries, Bets! They grow from runners — you know, long stems sent out from the plants. The runners send up little new plants here and there. I'll tell you what I'll do — I'll give you a few of our runners from next door. I'm cleaning up the beds now, and there'll be a lot of runners thrown away on the rubbish-heap. You can have some of those."
"Will it matter?" asked Bets doubtfully. "Would they really be rubbish?"
"Yes — all burnt up on the rubbish-heap!" said Luke. "It's Tupping's day off tomorrow. You come on over the wall and I'll show you how the runners grow, and give you some."
So the next day Pip helped Bets over the wall and Luke helped her down the other side. He took her to the strawberry-bed and showed her the new plants growing from the runners sent out from the old plants.
"It's very clever of the strawberries to grow new plants like that, isn't it?" said Bets. She saw a pile of pulled-up runners in Luke's barrow nearby. "Oh," she said, "are these the ones you're going to throw away? How many can I have?"