"Gee!" says I. "I thought all you had to do to a garden was just to chuck in the seeds and let 'em grow. But accordin' to your method it would be less trouble bringin' up a pair of twins."
"Ah-h-h-h!" says he. "But monsieur has not the passion for growing green things. "
"Thanks be, then," says I. "It would land me in the liniment ward if I had."
I must say, though, that Vee's 'most as bad with her flowers. Honest, when she shows me where she's planned to have this and that, and hints that I can get busy durin' my spare time with the spade, I almost wished we was back in town.
"What?" I gasps. "Want me to excavate all that? Hal-lup!"
"Pooh!" says Vee. "It will do you good."
Maybe she thought so. But I knew it wouldn't. So I chases up the hill to the Ellins place, and broke in on Mr. Robert just as he's finishin' breakfast.
"Say," says I, "you ain't got a baby-grand steam-shovel or anything like that around the place, have you?"
He says he's sorry, but he ain't. When he hears what I'm up against, though, he comes to the rescue noble by lendin' me one of his expert Dago soil-disturbers, at $1.75 per—and with Vee bossin' him she got the whole job done in half a day. After that I begun to enjoy gardenin' a bit more. I'm gettin' to be a real shark at it, too. And ambitious! You ought to hear me.
"How about havin' a couple more lanes of string-beans laid out?" I suggests. "And maybe a few hundred mounds of green corn, eh?"