“For seed,” replied the Scotchman. “I shall set these out next spring, and they will sprout, and run up and bear yellow blossoms and little round black seeds. I keep the seed from spring to spring, and sow a corner bed, and transplant from that to my great square patch the most promising of the shoots.”
“You always have splendid cabbages!” said Ben.
“I try to have the best of every thing. To be sure it takes care and labor; but then it does honor to Him who condescends to work with us.”
“You mean honor to God,” said little Sally.
“Yes,” said Gill. “His part is always performed to perfection, and it seems a great dishonor done to Him when the garden fails of its beauty, because of our carelessness or neglect.”
Ben was silent for a few minutes and very thoughtful. He remembered a period of drought in the summer time, when the little patch that was especially his own had suffered, merely because he was too lazy to carry water from the well, until the heavens should drop down moisture.
Presently he said, “Gill, you worked very hard in that dry time. Is that the reason why your vegetables have not dwindled away as mine did?”
“To be sure,” said Gill. “It was but for a little while that I had to put forth my own hand; surely I could do that much for him who is never weary of helping us.”
Ben was getting a good lesson concerning the gracious Providence that helps those who work with it. “I will never again think that I have nothing to do but to receive,” said the lad. “I will work with my might whatever my hands find to do.”
“That is a good resolution, my boy!” said Gill.