"These tools will be of no use," said she, "unless you know how to work with them; but if you are a good child, and mind what the gardener tells you, you will learn to be a little gardener yourself." "That I will," said Willy; "I shall be a little gardener, just big enough for my little garden." They then returned to the house, and grandmamma took out her spinning-wheel and began to spin. This delighted Willy, who immediately told her all he had seen at the factory, and how much her wheel was like the machinery there; and then he laughed, and said, "that her foot had been compared to a steam-engine." "Not quite so powerful," replied she; "but it is strong enough to set every thing going in my little factory; and a factory it is, as well as the great ones, for it makes thread as good as they do, though not so much, I must allow." THE GARDENER. The gardener, who had promised to teach Willy gardening, said he was just then very busy about his celery, but that if he would come to him in the evening he would be at leisure; "or if," added he, "you like to come and see me at work now, you may learn something." Willy willingly agreed to do this; so he tied up his tools, and carried them over his shoulder. The gardener said, "if he meant to see him work, he must not meddle with his tools, as it would interrupt him, and he should not be able to get on with his work." Willy promised he would not use his new tools, but he could not bear to part with them. When they reached the celery bed, Willy thought the celery looked very nice and clean, and that the gardener was going to gather it, for he remembered having eaten some in salad; and he asked the gardener if he would give him "one stick of celery to put into his salad of lettuces?" but the gardener said, the celery was not fit for gathering yet; and, to Willy's great surprise, he found that the gardener was busy covering all these plants with earth, and patting it over them with his spade, just as if they were dirty rubbish, fit for nothing but to be buried in the ground. He could not help crying out, "Oh dear! how can you cover that nice celery with dirt? you will quite spoil it." "Not a bit," replied the gardener; "it will grow much finer and whiter under the ground than above it. If I let it grow up like other plants, it would be green like them, and so bitter that you could not eat it; but when it is covered up from the light it grows white and crisp, and good to eat." "Well," said Willy, "I never should have thought that all that dirty earth could have done it any good." "Your nurse will call this earth dirt if it gets upon your clothes and soils them; but I can tell you, that earth is one of the best things we have. What would become of this garden if there were not earth for the trees and plants of all sorts to grow in? Why, you would have neither flowers nor fruit, and I'm sure that would not please you!"