“Here’s my enemy, I meet it on every hand,” said Gill, twisting up a tuft of foxtail grass.
Sally admired the hairy brush at the top of the stem. “It does look like a fox’s tail,” she said.
CHAPTER II. DAISIES AND THISTLES.
I’M going into the meadow now for a while,” said Gill. “Would you like to go with me? I have a good deal to do there to get up the useless roots.”
The little girl was ready to go wherever Gill went. He told her so many pleasant things about the natural object’s around them, that it was better than school, she thought. It was playing and learning at the same time.
The beautiful ox-eye daisies dotted the grass. Sally was delighted; but Gill had no mercy on them. He grasped the tall stems, and the large white blossoms fell prostrate to the ground. “You see,” said Gill, “if I don’t uproot these pretty things, they’ll take all the strength out of the soil, and choke out the good, sweet grass; and then what’ll Brindle and Flash do for feed, and where will you and Ben and the rest of us get milk and butter?”
Ben came along with his hammer nicely mended. He was very proud of the new handle which he had made.
Gill said it was well done, almost as well as if he had made it himself, and quite wonderful for a boy nine years old.