"That's so," said John Drayton. "He don't get much that's good at home. His father don't believe in anything. If I had thought of that, I would have let him alone."
"If I had thought of that!" how much mischief it would have saved all the world over. Phil was right. Horace did not come to Sunday-school again.
Phil's garden grew and flourished all summer, and was the admiration of all the neighbors, though some of them wondered that he should take so much pains just for a parcel of flowers. If they had been potatoes now, or cabbages, they would have done some good. But granny said that the boy liked flowers and did the work, so he should plant what he pleased.
The hens had scratched Phil's seeds about badly, nevertheless he had a good many flowers. There were two or three kinds of portulacas, some sweet alyssum, and various others. The sweet peas turned out famously, and so did the morning-glories. Phil used to get up every morning by sunrise to see the beautiful twisted buds pop open as soon as the sun touched them. This was his time for working in his garden.
He went to school every day, and as he worked as hard at his books as he did at his flowers, he got on finely. The owlets liked him because he was so steady and industrious and made them no trouble. The boys liked him because he was so good-natured, always ready to help in whatever was going on. In short, he passed a very happy summer.
Phil did not forget what Mr. Ryan had said about cutting his flowers, and many a nosegay of sweet peas, violets, and other flowers did he carry to Matty Mehan, and to poor Jonas Smith, who was lame and never got out of his chair. His pansies were rather late in coming into blossom, but when the flowers appeared they were quite wonderful. Purple, yellow, brown, almost black with a yellow eye, almost white with purple rays, there were many varieties. The first Sunday that they were out in perfection, Phil gathered a bunch of them for Miss Isabel. He put no other flowers in his nosegay, only the seven different kinds of pansies, and surrounded the flowers with a little frame of small sprays of evergreen ferns.
"How lovely they are!" said Miss Isabel, showing them to a friend who was visiting her and had come to Sunday-school with her. "Look, Mary! Did you ever see a greater variety or finer flowers?"
"They are indeed quite wonderful," answered Miss Mary. "I love pansies above all other flowers, but I have none this year. A friend sent me a bag of very fine imported seed, but I carelessly threw it out into the street with some empty papers. When I missed it and went out to look for it, the papers were all gone. I suppose some child picked them up."
"What a pity!" said Miss Isabel.
"Yes, it was a pity, but I dare say they grew somewhere and did somebody good," answered Miss Mary.