I sowed the end of February, and in March little tiny green heads were peeping up in most of the boxes. The violas still remained hidden. If Griggs had sown I should have said he had done it very irregularly, for the green heads came in thick patches and then again very sparingly; but I knew, of course, it must have been the seeds' own fault, since I had done it myself!
I was standing with his Reverence at the study window watching a squirrel swing himself from bough to bough, and I think we were both envying him, when my eye caught some specks of colour on the grass plot in front, that grass plot which ought to have a sun-dial in the centre and a stately bed of flowering shrubs as a background instead of laurels! What was it growing in the grass? White, yellow, purple, a touch here and there, all across, straight across, in one horrid straight line! Could it be?
"Look, Mary, there he goes! See him spring up that tree?"
"Look," I said in a tragic voice, "look at them! Do you think—can it be—are they my crocuses?"
"Where? Oh, there! Yes, I thought they looked like a rather straggly regiment this morning, marching single file. Was that your idea?"
"My idea! a straight line! Oh, how can you! That old fiend of a Griggs!" And then I rushed out to see the full extent of the horror.
It was too true. In spite of my careful scattering the old ruffian had drawn my crocus bulbs into line. I can see how he did it, striding across the grass, clutching bulbs to right and left, sticking them in under his nose, and probably sweeping up those outside his reach with the dead leaves. What a show! Many had not come up, and many had no flower, so the regiment was ragged. I could have cried.