“But I’m limas, Mary Jane. I’m Seven. Away over here. I’ve sowed ’em and to-morrer I’ll hoe ’em, I guess.”
“And I guess I wouldn’t till they sprout,” laughed she hopping along, at perilous speed, to inspect number seven.
“Don’t go so fast, Mary Jane! I can’t keep up with you. See. I’m right up front—number Three. I’m tomatuses, I am. Like ’em?” demanded Ned Smith, a seven-year-old farmer.
“I’m potatoes. They’re the best for your money,” observed Jimmy O’Brien. “We’ll roast some in the ashes, bime-by. Does the baby like ’tatoes?”
“Don’t he? You just ought to see him eat them—when we have them,” she added, cautiously.
“Oh! you’ll have ’em, plenty. When I dig my crop. Why, I s’pose there’ll be enough in my ‘farm’ to keep your folks and mine all winter; and I might have some to sell on the street,” observed Jimmy, casting a speculative glance upon the diminutive plot of ground over which he was now master.
“Might you; ain’t that splendid!” commented Mary Jane, delightedly. “Why, if you could give us all our potatoes, mother could easy wash for the rent and the bread and things. My sake! I ’most forgot the baby. Where’s he at? Can you see him?”
“He’s right in the middle of the sand-heap and the teacher has give him a little shovel. Say, what you bring him for? this ain’t no day-nursery, this ain’t. It’s a playground farm and one-year-olds don’t belong.”
“Maybe they don’t, but the baby belongs. That is if I do,” said the sister stoutly; “maybe you’ll say next I don’t.”
“No, I shan’t say that. Why, what could we do without you? And say, Mary Jane.”