"Are radishes and lettuce the first thing you plant in the spring, then?"
"O dear, no!" said Lois. "Do you see all that corner? that's in potatoes. Do you see those slightly marked lines—here, running across from the walk to the wall?—peas are there. They'll be up soon. I think I shall put in some corn to-morrow. Yonder is a bed of radishes and lettuce just out of the ground. We'll have some radishes for tea, before you know it."
"And do you mean to say that you have been planting potatoes? you?"
"Yes," said Lois, looking at her and laughing. "I like to plant potatoes. In fact, I like to plant anything. What I do not always like so well, is the taking care of them after they are up and growing."
Mrs. Barclay sat down and watched her. Lois was now tracing delicate little drills across the breadth of her nicely-prepared bed; little drills all alike, just so deep and just so far apart. Then she went to a basket hard by for a little paper of seeds; two papers; and began deftly to scatter the seed along the drills, with delicate and careful but quick fingers. Mrs. Barclay watched her till she had filled all the rows, and began to cover the seeds in; that, too, she did quick and skilfully.
"That is not fit work for you to do, Lois."
"Why not?"
"You have something better to do."
"I do not see how I can. This is the work that is given me."
"But any common person could do that?"