There was one thing about their little farm that, from the first time she saw it, had seemed strange to Florence. Back of the house stood the stump of a forest giant. Fully three feet across it stood there, roots embedded deep, while all about it were pigmies of the tree world. There was not a tree on the farm that measured more than thirty feet tall. Why? Perhaps a fire had destroyed the primeval forest. Yet here was this great stump.
She tried to picture the tree towering above its fellows. She found herself wishing that it had not been felled by some woodsman’s axe. Why had they cut it down? That they might build its logs into the house was a natural answer, yet the house contained no such logs. Well, here was a riddle.
On top of the stump the original dwellers in the cabin had placed a massive flower-box. Somehow, they had secured wild morning-glory seeds and planted them there. These must, from year to year, have replanted themselves, for, even in June, the vines were beginning to droop over the edge of the box. By autumn the great stump would be a mass of flowers. However others might regard wild morning-glories, Florence knew she would adore them.
She was standing staring at the stump and thinking of it with renewed wonder when Mark came in from his plowing.
“There! That’s done,” he exclaimed as he dropped down upon a bench. “Now for the planting.” Then, to his cousin’s renewed astonishment, he said. “Bushels and bushels of tomatoes.”
“Mark!” exclaimed Florence. “Why do you keep on insisting that we can raise tomatoes here when Mrs. Swenson, who has lived here so long, says we can’t?”
“Because we can,” Mark grinned broadly.
“How?”
“Sit down and stop staring at that stump as if it hid some strange secret and I’ll tell you.”
Florence sat down.