Wall Spleenwort.
From ten till four the boys were engaged with Mr. Meredith, but they had a holiday on Saturday, and by rising early they could gain so many of the fairest and most beautiful hours of the day that lessons seemed but an interval between a long morning and a long afternoon. They thus made plenty of time for their numerous occupations.
Forked Spleenwort.
Mary said to Jimmy one day, "Will you make me a fern-case? Frank has so many things to do. I have been promised a lot of ferns from Devonshire. A friend of mine will send them to me by post, and I should so like to have a nice little fernery for my bedroom window."
Green Spleenwort.
Jimmy gladly promised to make one for her, and Dick, who would have liked to have had the commission himself, volunteered to help him. They first of all made a strong deal box, about two feet six inches long, and one foot six inches broad, and six inches deep. This was lined carefully with sheet lead, which was to make it perfectly water-tight. They then made a wooden framework, with a pointed roof, to fit on the top of it. This they glazed with ordinary window-glass, and painted all the wood-work black. It was now ready for the soil. First they put a layer, about two inches deep, of broken sandstone, in order to ensure perfect drainage, and mixed with this were some lumps of charcoal to keep it pure. Then they filled up the box with earth, mixed in the proportions following:—one-third part of garden mould, one-third part of sand, and one-third part of peaty earth, with an admixture of dead leaves. In the centre of the rockery they built up a framework of curiously water-worn flints, and then they carried the affair in triumph to Mary's room, where they planted the ferns she had received from her friend—glossy, whole-leaved hart's-tongues, delicate, black-stemmed maiden-hair, ladder-like polypodies and blechnums, feathery lady-ferns, light green and branching oak-ferns, and many another species, which, notwithstanding their removal from the Devonshire lanes, grew and flourished in Mary's fern-case, and soon became a sight most pleasant to the eye.