He had left it out on purpose, because he disliked it. "You see," he said finally, looking about him artlessly, "there's no more room." "Go away," said Mrs. Grumble. From his seat under a tree, to which he had retired, Mr. Jeminy watched Mrs. Grumble mark the rows, hoe the straight, shallow furrows, drop in the seeds, and cover them with earth again. As he watched, half in indignation, he thought: "Thus, in other times, Ceres sowed the earth with seed, and, like Mrs. Grumble, planted my garden with squash. I would have asked her rather to sow melons here." Just then Mrs. Grumble came to the edge of the vegetable garden. "Seed potatoes are over three dollars a bushel," she said: "it's hardly worth while putting them in." "Then let's not put any in," Mr. Jeminy said promptly, "for they are difficult to weed, and when they are grown you must begin to quarrel with insects, for whose sake alone, I almost think, they grow at all." "The bugs fall off," said Mrs. Grumble, "with a good shaking." "Fie," said Mr. Jeminy, "how slovenly. It is better to kill them with lime. But it is best of all not to tempt them; then there is no need to kill them." And as Mrs. Grumble made no reply, he added: "That is something God has not learned yet." "Please," said Mrs. Grumble, "speak of God with more respect." After supper Mr. Jeminy sat in his study reading the story of Saint Francis, the Poor Brother of Assisi. One day, soon after the saint had left behind him the gay affairs of town, to embrace poverty, for Jesus' sake, and while he was still living in a hut of green branches near the little chapel of Saint Damian, he beheld his father coming to upbraid him for what he considered his son's obstinate folly. At once Saint Francis, who was possessed of a quick wit, began to gather together a number of old stones, which he tried to place one on top of the other. But as fast as he put them up, the stones, broken and uneven, fell down again. "Aha," cried old Bernadone, when he came up to his son, "I see how you are wasting your time. What are you doing? I am sick of you." "I am building the world again," said Francis mildly; "it is all the more difficult because, for building material, I can find nothing but these old stones." Mr. Jeminy gave his pupils their final examination in a meadow below the schoolhouse. There, seated among the dandelions, with voices as shrill as the crickets, they answered his questions, and watched the clouds, like great pillows, sail on the wind from west to east. Under the shiny sky, among the warm, sweet fields, Mr. Jeminy looked no more important than a robin, and not much wiser. Had the children been older, they would have tried all the more to please him, but because they were young, they laughed, teased each other, blew on blades of grass, and made dandelion chains. Mr. Jeminy examined the Fifth Reader. "Bound the United States," he said.