IT was the twelfth of June. Everyone else was asleep, so Janie dressed quietly and went out into the garden to hoe while it was still cool.
The dew was on the grass, and she surprised a fat little rabbit eating clover. She laughed. He looked so silly when he ran, with his white dab of a tail.
The garden was across the road and way at the back of the lot. It was pleasant there. You could see far off across the fields as far as the swamp where the tamaracks grew. Janie had never been as far as that swamp. Daddy said it was like a jungle. The trees grew so thick you could hardly walk through it, and there were snakes and even quicksand. It looked very pretty this morning in the soft light. The tamaracks were like soft green fur.
Janie hoed and weeded and worked away at her share of the garden. After a while Billy came across the road. “Hi, Bill,” she called. “Hurry over here. I have an idea.” He came on the bound, and she laughed to see him run. He’s like that little rabbit I saw a while ago, she thought. He’s good natured and he has fat cheeks.
“What’s your idea, Jane?” demanded Bill.
“I’ve been out here toiling in the corn like old black Joe while you were asleep, and now I’m all tuckered out. Sit down here under this tree, and I’ll tell you all about it. You see that old trash heap there in the next lot? Well, when Mrs. Saunders went back to Chicago last fall, she cleaned house, and she threw away a lot of really good junk. She had a cleaning woman helping her, and they tossed out stuff by the bushel basket. Mom wouldn’t let me take any of it then, because she said we had enough junk of our own to clean up, but I’d just like to poke around and see if there’s anything there we could use.”
“What could we do with it?” asked Billy.
“Don’t you remember the time we found the wheels and made a wagon?”
“Yes, but there were only three wheels, so it turned out to be an airplane.”
“Yes, and do you remember the time we found the clock, and how Davey monkeyed with it for weeks, and then one night when we were all asleep it started to strike, and scared us half to death?”