Now drive one of the stakes into the ground at the exact centre. Grasp in your hand the other stake and swing a circle with it. The stake will scratch a well-defined line so that you have the outline of the circle, the boundary of the bed. Jay spaded down to about six inches all along the outlines of bed. After that the bed itself was spaded. Philip insisted on outlining it with brick which had been given him. Some children use whitewashed stones, some use shells. Either plan gives a spotty effect. The idea fails of being artistic. A neat cutting of the turf and a slight heaping up of a round bed toward the centre gives after all a far more pleasing effect. Try to keep as near to Nature's own plan as you can. Shells belong on the seashore or in a collection; keep stones for road making, wall building, cement work and curbs; bricks are for foundations and buildings. Rarely use things for what they were not intended. It is better usually to border a bed with low-growing flowers. Ageratum, candytuft and dwarf nasturtiums are good for the purpose. Along a walk to an old outhouse they planted asters on one side and four o'clocks on the other. Asters, as all boys and girls know, are better if started inside early. Then they may be transplanted to the outside. In his way one gets a bit ahead of the season. But Philip was obliged to plant seed for both. So he planted it in a drill as one plants lettuce. Later the little seedlings were thinned out to stand six inches apart. This thinning was done when the plants were four inches high. Four o'clocks need lots of room as they grow bushy. Plants in narrow strips are quite likely to drop over their limits. To keep these in bounds Philip later built a fence. For this he used stakes driven into the ground at intervals of every four feet. To these he nailed strips of railing. Sometimes cords are used instead of railings. An old fence was all about the yard and an old unused outbuilding in the rear. These were both unsightly in appearance, so they had to be hidden. Vines were used for this purpose. About six inches from the fence a furrow was made four inches deep. Climbing nasturtium seeds were dropped into this furrow at distances of every four inches. The seeds had been soaked over night. This was because the ground was very dry and the weather was now quite settled and warm. If the ground is wet and the weather cold, never soak seed. It just adds to the general soggy condition to do this. [Illustration: Photograph by Mary H. Northend. Philip's Backyard Made Beautiful by Annuals and Quick-growing Vines.] Morning-glory seeds were planted along the end of the fence by the outbuilding and all around it. After these climbing things began to grow the pretty effect of the vines was amazing.