"What set you to making a garden in the first place, Phil?" asked Miss Isabel, who was busy cutting some fine flowers.
"'Twas something you said one day last spring, Miss," answered Phil. "Don't you remember the text we had, 'Cast thy bread upon the waters'? You said that bread meant seed, and that any little good thing we could find to do was seed. Granny loves flowers dearly, and I thought, what should hinder my raising some for her? And then I found the papers in the street with a few seeds in most all of them besides the pansies, and Mr. Regan gave me a few more, besides the sweet peas I bought, and he told me what to do to them."
"You ought to be a gardener," said Miss Mary.
"My father was one, and it's myself would like to learn the business, if I had a chance," answered Phil. "Mr. Regan said maybe he'd find a place for me some day."
"So you know Mr. Regan," said Miss Isabel, giving Phil the flowers she had been cutting.
"Yes, ma'am; he's always been a good friend of ours."
And Phil bade the ladies good night and walked home as happy as a king. The nail was out of his shoe, and he could work at his pansy bed and enjoy its beauty without any more trouble.
"That is worth a great deal," said Miss Mary when Phil had gone.
"Yes, it is one of the greatest encouragements I have ever had," answered Miss Isabel, "and yet we might have called him the most hopeless case in the class. I heard Williams the gardener telling papa that he needed more help, and would like a boy if he could get a good one. I must tell him of Phil."
A proud and happy boy was Phil when, at the close of the summer term of school, he found himself installed as Mr. Williams's helper in the garden and green-house, and really learning the business of a gardener, besides earning a dollar and a half every week.