Dan and the girls and I were sitting in a row on Aunt Olivia’s garden fence, watching Felix weed. Felix worked well, although he did not like weeding—“fat boys never do,” Felicity informed him. Felix pretended not to hear her, but I knew he did, because his ears grew red. Felix’s face never blushed, but his ears always gave him away. As for Felicity, she did not say things like that out of malice prepense. It never occurred to her that Felix did not like to be called fat.
“I always feel so sorry for the poor weeds,” said the Story Girl dreamily. “It must be very hard to be rooted up.”
“They shouldn’t grow in the wrong place,” said Felicity mercilessly.
“When weeds go to heaven I suppose they will be flowers,” continued the Story Girl.
“You do think such queer things,” said Felicity.
“A rich man in Toronto has a floral clock in his garden,” I said. “It looks just like the face of a clock, and there are flowers in it that open at every hour, so that you can always tell the time.”
“Oh, I wish we had one here,” exclaimed Cecily.
“What would be the use of it?” asked the Story Girl a little disdainfully. “Nobody ever wants to know the time in a garden.”
I slipped away at this point, suddenly remembering that it was time to take a dose of magic seed. I had bought it from Billy Robinson three days before in school. Billy had assured me that it would make me grow fast.
I was beginning to feel secretly worried because I did not grow. I had overheard Aunt Janet say I was going to be short, like Uncle Alec. Now, I loved Uncle Alec, but I wanted to be taller than he was. So when Billy confided to me, under solemn promise of secrecy, that he had some “magic seed,” which would make boys grow, and would sell me a box of it for ten cents, I jumped at the offer. Billy was taller than any boy of his age in Carlisle, and he assured me it all came from taking magic seed.