[Illustration: "THE MORNING-GLORIES HAD BLOOMED AND ALREADY HAD SEED-PODS"] "Just in time for my birthday," said big Prue, who had been an April baby a long time ago. "It's ever so long till my birthday," said little Prue, rather sadly. "I don't think we'll have anything left by August." "Oh, but I'll have a fine garden outside by then," said the Chief Gardener, "and you will, too. I'll have radishes and lettuce now before you know it;" for in spite of the cold snow and freeze, the Chief Gardener's first planting had sprouted fairly well, and was rapidly filling his first two little beds. "Papa, you haven't told us a word about my nasturtiums yet, and they're so lovely. Not a single story or anything, nor about their family relations, or where they came from--not a thing." "Well, that's so," said the Chief Gardener, "perhaps because I wanted to make a family affair of it. You see, Davy's radish is a sort of a name-cousin of your nasturtium, and I've been thinking that when I told about one I'd tell of the other, too, and that I'd call the story IV A PEPPERY FAMILY [Illustration: "CABBAGE" WAS THE FAT FELLOW'S NAME] "NOBODY seems to know just where the Cross family came from. You can find them in every part of the world now, some of them growing as weeds, some as flowers, and some as very fine vegetables. But wherever they came from, in the beginning, they were certainly of very sharp, biting natures, and never could agree. Why, they were so cross that even their flowers were shaped like little crosses, and people called them cruciferous, which means cross-shaped, and used to say of them, "'Cross by name and cross by nature, Cross of fibre, face, and feature,' and did not want them in their gardens, because they disturbed the other vegetables and flowers, and might make them cross, too. "Well, the Cross family became tired of this, at last, and made up their minds to be either useful or ornamental: at least, most of them did. So they got together, and after a great deal of quarrelling among themselves to begin with, for, of course, they couldn't help that when they had been unpleasant so long, they at last began to work together and decide what each wanted to be, and how it could be brought about. "'I think,' said a fat one who was always better-natured than any of the others, 'I should like to be a nice sweet vegetable that people were very fond of and gave a good place to, in their gardens, where I should be well taken care of.' "So the Clerk of Plants, who was alive then, like the Weather Clerk, you know, put down 'Cabbage,' which was the fat fellow's name, and wrote after it, 'Sweet vegetable--needs care.' "'I,' said another, 'would like to be a sweet vegetable, too, but I want to grow mostly under the ground, so that I will need less care to keep off insects and worms.' "So then the Clerk of Plants wrote 'Turnip,' and put after it, 'Vegetable with sweet, wholesome root; needs little care.'