Before the War labour was not so scarce, and there was no need for us to plant the vegetables ourselves, unless we desired to do so. Now, however, one’s own personal work was a valuable asset, and we put our backs into it—at least Ursula and I did; Virginia was engaged most of the time in describing the sort of tools she would make, if she were in that line of business, to obviate the grave spinal trouble she was certain she was developing. I don’t mean to imply that Virginia isn’t a good gardener; she can be an excellent one when she likes, for she knows what gardening really stands for in the way of hard work. Whereas some of my would-be assistant gardeners seem to think the chief requisites are a comfortable hammock and a book; or, at most, a “picture” muslin frock and a pretty basket and a pair of baby scissors. Such girls remind me of many who write and inquire if I have a vacancy for a sub-editor in my office, the chief qualification stated in their letters being that they “do so love to browse among books.” Virginia isn’t like that; she puts on a business-like garb, and knows—and annexes—a good tool when she sees it. But it is her bright ideas that are the hindrance to progress. She wasted ten minutes that morning explaining to me that she was sure, if I would only have turnips planted in the mint bed, it would be another war economy, as the mint flavour might permeate the turnips, and thus save double expense with lamb. And then another ten minutes went in enlarging on the grasping nature of the makers of gardening gloves in not supplying four pairs of extra thumbs with each pair, since any intelligent gardener could wear out eight thumbs with one pair in the simplest day’s gardening. She offered to let me use the idea free of charge in my magazine, if I would undertake to keep her supplied with gardening gloves for the rest of her natural life; but she stipulated that they must be proper leather ones, not the four-and-sixpenny war variety she was then wearing, composed of unbleached calico, with merely a chamois postage-stamp stuck on the front of each finger and thumb. In the intervals of conversation she aided us with our digging, yet, in spite of the National Call to spend as much on seed potatoes as would keep the family in vegetables for a couple of years, we continually found ourselves drifting away from the ground we were trenching, for the violets were already out, also some early primroses, and little white stars were showing on the wild strawberry trails in sheltered corners under walls that faced south.