Margery's mother was almost as eager for a garden as she was, and Margery's father said he expected to live on their vegetables all the rest of his life! So it was soon agreed that the garden should be the first thing attended to.
Behind the cottage were apple trees, a plum tree, and two or three pear trees; then came a stretch of rough grass, and then a stone wall, with a gate leading into the fields. It was on the grass plot that the garden was to be. A big piece was to be used for wheat and peas and beans, and a little piece at the end was to be given to Margery.
"What shall we have in it?" asked her mother.
"Flowers," said Margery, with shining eyes,—"blue, and white, and yellow, and pink,—every kind of flower!"
"Surely, flowers," said her mother, "and shall we not have a little salad garden in the middle?"
"What is a salad garden?" Margery asked.
"It is a garden where you have all the things that make nice salad," said her mother, laughing, for Margery was fond of salads; "you have lettuce, and endive, and mustard and cress, and parsley, and radishes, and beetroot, and young onions."
"Oh! how good it sounds!" said Margery. "I should love a salad garden."
That very evening, Margery's father took pencil and paper, and drew out a plan for her garden; first, they talked it all over, then he drew what they decided on; it looked like the diagram on the next page.
"The outside strip is for flowers," said Margery's father, "and next is a footpath, all the way round the beds; that is to let you get at the flowers to weed and to pick; there is a wider path through the middle, and the rest is for rows of salad vegetables."