Just so with the penny-trumpet seed, and the toy-furniture seed, the sled seed, and all the others.
Perhaps the prettiest part of the garden is the wax-doll bed. There are other beds for the rag dolls and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but, of course, wax dolls look much handsomer growing.
Wax dolls have to be planted very early in the season. The Monks sow them in rows in April and they begin to come up by the middle of May.
First there is a glimmer of gold, or brown, or black hair. Then the snowy foreheads appear, and the blue eyes and black eyes, and at last all the pretty heads are out of the ground and nodding and smiling to each other.
With their pink cheeks and bright eyes and curly hair, there is nothing so pretty as these little wax-doll heads peeping out of the ground.
Slowly the dolls grow taller and taller, and by Christmas they are all ready to gather. There they stand, swaying to and fro, their dresses of pink or blue or white fluttering in the breeze.
Just about the prettiest sight in the world is the bed of wax dolls in the garden of the Christmas Monks at Christmas time.
II—PETER AND THE PRINCE
All the children for miles around knew about this garden, of course, but they had never seen it. There is a thick hedge of Christmas trees all around it, and the gate where Santa Claus drives out is always locked with a golden key the moment he goes through.
So you can imagine what excitement there was among the boys when this notice was hung out on the hedge of Christmas trees:—