The Chief Gardener came over to see what was going on. "I don't think we'd better try any new plans," he said. "I'm afraid if we pull our plants to make them grow, we will have to pull them up altogether, pretty soon, and plant new ones. Tender little plants won't stand much handling." The Chief Gardener was not cross, but his voice was quite solemn. Little Prue looked frightened and her lip quivered the least bit. "Oh, will my morning-glories die now?" she asked; "and I pulled the pansies just a tiny speck, too. Will they die?" "Not this time, I think; but I wouldn't do it again. Just give them a little water now and then, and dig in the pots a little, and turn them around sometimes so that each side of the plant gets the light, and nature will do the rest. Of course you can't turn the bean and morning-glory pots after they get to climbing the strings, but they will twine round and round and so turn themselves. Your garden looks very well for the time of year. Perhaps if you did not watch it so much it would grow faster. They say that a watched pot never boils, so perhaps a watched plant does not grow well. I am sure they do not like to be stretched up to a measuring-stick every morning at eight o'clock. Suppose now we put up the strings for the morning-glories and beans to climb on, and some nice branchy twigs for the pease, then water them well and leave them for a few days and see what happens." So then the Chief Gardener and the two little gardeners went down in the basement, where they found some tiny screw-hooks and some string, and where they cut some nice sprangly little limbs from the Christmas tree that still stood in one corner, and was getting very dry. Then they all came up again and put up strings for the scarlet runners and morning-glories, by tying one end of each string to a stout little stick which the Chief Gardener pushed carefully into the soil between the plants, and then carried the string to the small screw-hooks, which were put about half-way up, and at the top of the window-casings. The branchy twigs were stuck carefully into the pots where the pease grew, and stood up straight and fine--like little ladders, Prue said--for the pease to climb. [Illustration: THE CORN AT THE END OF TWO WEEKS] "It's just like a circus," said Davy. "The beans and morning-glories will be climbing ropes, and the pease will be running up straight ladders." "And while we are waiting for the performance to begin," added the Chief Gardener, "suppose you let me tell you something about the performers--where they came from, and some stories that are told of them." II HEY FOR THE MERRY LITTLE SWEET-PEA