"Come, Amy, you can help me. You said you wanted a finger in our horticultural pies, and no doubt had in your mind nothing less plebeian than flower seeds and roses. Will your nose become _retrousse_ if I ask you to aid me in planting parsnips, oyster-plant, carrots, and--think of it!--onions?" "The idea of my helping you, when the best I can do is to amuse you with my ignorance! But I'll put on no airs. I do not look forward to an exclusive diet of roses, and am quite curious to know what part I can have in earning my daily vegetables." "A useful and typical part--that of keeping straight men and things in general. Wait a little;" and taking up a coiled garden line, he attached one end of it to a stout stake pressed firmly into the ground. He then walked rapidly over the levelled soil to the further side of the plot, drew the line "taut," as the sailors say, and tied it to another stake. He next returned toward Amy, making a shallow drill by drawing a sharp-pointed hoe along under the line. From a basket near, containing labelled packages of seeds, he made a selection, and poured into a bowl something that looked like gunpowder grains, and sowed it rapidly in the little furrow. "Now, Amy," he cried, from the further side of the plot, "do you see that measuring-stick at your feet? Place one end of it against the stake to which the line is fastened, and move the stake with the line forward to the other end of the measuring-stick, just as I am doing here. That's it. You now see how many steps you save me, and how much faster I can get on." "Are those black-looking grains you are sowing seed?" "Indeed they are, as a few weeks may prove to you by more senses than one. These are the seeds of a vegetable inseparable in its associations from classic Italy and renowned in sacred story. You may not share in the longings of the ancient Hebrews, but with its aid I could easily bring tears of deep feeling to your eyes." "The vegetable is more pungent than your wit, Webb," she laughed; but she stood near the path at the end of the line, which she moved forward from time to time as requested, meanwhile enjoying an April day that lacked few elements of perfection.