Day after day Marian worked upon her farm, enclosing fields and meadows with high stone walls, clearing roads and planting trees. Whatever she touched became what she wished it to be. Pasteboard match-boxes became houses and barns. Sticks became men working upon the farm and spools were wagons bearing loads of hay from place to place. At a word from her, green apples, standing upon four twigs, were instantly changed, becoming pigs, cows, sheep and horses. Kernels of yellow corn were chickens. It was a wonderful farm and for many a sunny hour Marian was happy. Even the old toad, winking and blinking beneath the shadow of the yarrow jungle, must have known it. At last there came a morning when the child went strolling through the garden. Suddenly, while singing her usual merry song, the joyous look faded from her face. She no longer saw the butterflies floating about nor cared that the bumble-bee wore his best velvet coat. There were tiny green cucumbers in that garden, just the right size for horses on the little girl's farm. There were a great many cucumbers, so many that Marian felt sure no one would ever miss a few. She picked a handful and knew that she was stealing. The sun went under a cloud. A blue jay mocked at her and a wren scolded. Though far from happy, Marian hurried away to her farm. The old toad saw her sticking twigs in the cucumbers. Then she placed them in a row. "Now be animals!" she commanded, but the spell was broken--she was no longer a farmer with magic power, but a pink-faced little girl who had done what she knew was wrong. And the cucumbers refused to be anything but cucumbers. Again the little girl went to the garden, returning with one big yellow cucumber that had gone to seed. "Now I guess I'll have a cucumber animal," she said, in tones so cross the daisies seemed to tremble. "You bad old cucumber, you're no good anyway, nobody could eat you, nor make a pickle of you, so you may just turn yourself into a giant cow right off this minute! There you are, standing on four sticks. Now be a cow, I say." The old cucumber wouldn't be a cow. There it stood, big and yellow, spoiling the looks of the farm. "What's the matter with you, old toad?" went on the little girl. "I tell you that's a cow, and if you don't believe it you can just get off my farm quick's you can hop. You're homely anyway, and you turned yourself back into a toad when I said be an elephant." How surprised the toad was when the little girl took a stick and poked him along ahead of her. The poor old fellow had never been treated like that in his life. When he reached the garden he hid beneath the nearest cabbage plant. The little girl went on but came back in a short time with her apron full of cucumbers.