"Well, I really can't s'pose, but it may have been because they forgot their prayers. Abbots don't like friars to forget their prayers--" "If I should forget my prayers, I'd say 'em twice to make up." "Oh, Prue!" said Davy, "_do_ let Papa go on with the story!" "But I would. I'd say 'em sixty times!" "Yes," said the Chief Gardener, "friars have to do that, too, I believe; but these had to do something different. They had to wear pease in their shoes." "Had to wear pease! In their shoes!" "Yes, pease, like those we planted, and they had to walk quite a long ways, and, of course, it wouldn't be pleasant to walk with those little hard things under your feet. "Well, they started, and one of them went limping and stewing along, and making an awful fuss, because his feet hurt him so, but when he looked at the other he saw that instead of hobbling and groaning as he was, he was walking along, as lively as could be, and seemed to be enjoying the fine morning, and was actually whistling. "'Oh, dear!' said the one who was limping, 'how is it you can walk along so spry, and feel so happy, with those dreadful pease in your shoes?' "'Why,' said the other, 'before I started, I took the liberty to _boil my_ pease!'" "But, Papa," began little Prue, "I don't see--" "I do," said Davy, "it made them soft, so they didn't hurt." "What kind of pease were they?" asked Prue. "Like Davy's or mine?" [Illustration: THE PEASE RUN UP STRAIGHT LADDERS] "Well, I've never heard just what kind they were. There are a good many kinds of pease, and they seem to have come from a good many places. Besides the sweet-pease and garden-pease, there are field-pease, used dry for cattle, and in England there is what is called a sea-pea, because it was first found growing on the shore of a place called Sussex, more than three hundred and fifty years ago, in a year of famine. There were many, many of them and they were in a place where even grass had not grown before that time. The people thought they must have been cast up by some shipwrecked vessel, and they gathered them for food, and so kept from going hungry and starving to death. The garden-pea is almost the finest of vegetables, and there are many kinds--some large, some small, some very sweet, some that grow on tall vines and have to have stakes, and some that grow very short without stakes, and are called dwarfs. There are a good many kinds of sweet-pease, too, different sizes and colors, but I think all the different kinds of garden-pease and sweet-pease might have come from one kind of each, a very, very long time ago, and that takes me to another story which I will have to put off until next time. I have some books now to look over, and you and Davy, Prue, can go for a run in the fresh air." III EVEN CLOVER BELONGS TO THE PULSE FAMILY