"Thank heaven, the farmer shot the Hare last autumn," she said; "and Trusty, fortunately, is also dead, the old scamp. So I am at peace, as far as _they_ are concerned. But how dare the Breeze promise to drop the seeds of the weeds in the farmer's cornfield?" "Don't be in such a passion, you green Rye," said the Breeze, who had been lying behind the hedge and hearing everything. "I ask no one's permission, but do as I like; and now I'm going to make you bow to me." Then she passed over the young Rye, and the thin blades swayed backwards and forwards. "You see," she said, "the farmer attends to his Rye, because that is _his_ business. But the rain and the sun and I--we attend to all of you without respect of persons. To our eyes the poor weed is just as pretty as the rich corn." The farmer now came out to look at his Rye, and when he saw the weeds in the cornfield he scratched his head with vexation and began to growl. "It's that scurvy wind that's done this," he said to Jack and Will, as they stood by his side with their hands in the pockets of their new trousers. But the Breeze flew towards them and knocked all their caps off their heads, and rolled them far away to the road. The farmer and the two boys ran after them, but the Wind ran faster than they did. It finished up by rolling the caps into the village pond, and the farmer and the boys had to stand a long time fishing for them before they got them out. SOME VOICES FROM THE KITCHEN GARDEN By Mrs. Alfred Gatty ONE--two--three--four--five; five neatly-raked kitchen-garden beds, four of them side by side, with a pathway between; the fifth a narrow slip, heading the others, and close to the gravel walk, as it was for succession-crops of mustard and cress, which are often wanted in a hurry for breakfast or tea. Most people have stood by such beds in their own kitchen-gardens on soft spring mornings and evenings, and looked for the coming up of the seeds which either they or the gardener had sown. Radishes in one, for instance, and of all three sorts--white-turnip, red-turnip, and long-tailed. Carrots in another; and this bed had been dug very deep indeed--subsoil digging, as it were; two spades' depth, that the roots might strike freely down. Onions in another. Beets in the fourth; both the golden and red varieties; while the narrow slip was half mustard and half cress. Such was the plan here, at least, and here, for a time, all the seeds lay sleeping, as it seemed. For, as the long smooth-raked beds stretched out dark and bare under the stars, they betrayed no symptoms of anything going on within. Nevertheless, there was no sleeping in the case. The little seed-grains were fulfilling the law of their being, each after its kind; the grains, all but their inner germs, decaying; the germs swelling and growing, till they rose out of their cradles, and made their way, through their earthen cover lid, to the light of day.