Belles on their Toes

for all of them," she said, "and they can't stay there. Your Mother looks as if she's lying in a bier."
    We hadn't realized it before, but that's exactly how it did look. The lilacs, lilies-of-the-valley, and daffodils were piled on both sides of the bed, as high as Mother herself. The nurse cleared a passage to the bed, and lifted off Bob and Jane.
    "You mustn't get on the bed," she warned them. "You jiggle it, and your Mother's in considerable pain."
    "Not any more, I'm not," Mother said.
    "They say at the desk," the nurse told us, "that you children can only stay five minutes more, and for you to go out the back way, the same way you came in. They don't want people in the reception rooms to know that the rules have been broken."
    "Everybody in the hospital has been so nice," Mother said.
    "And use the back door again," the nurse continued, "when you come tomorrow —after school."

15
CRAZY OVER HORSES

    We thought it would be a good idea to surprise Mother by planting a vegetable garden in the back yard. If we could grow some or our own food, it would cut expenses considerably.
    Ernestine had written the Department of Agriculture for instructions, and they came while Mother was in the hospital. Martha went downtown and bought the seeds. Even Tom, who was a city man and didn't realize how much work would be involved, was enthusiastic.
    We spaded up almost half an acre, raked it carefully, and put in the seeds. We were worn out toward the end of the job, which took the better part of two days, and Tom had to finish most of the heavy work.
    The soil was fairly good, but the Department of Agriculture bulletins were unanimous in agreeing that fertilizer should be added for best results. When Martha telephoned the seed store to price fertilizer, she was appalled by the cost. She broke the news to us out in the garden, where Tom was watering and the rest of us were surveying our work and digging up an occasional seed to see if it had begun to sprout.
    "It'd cost $10—maybe more—to do the job right,"
    Martha said gloomily. "We want to surprise Mother, but not with any bill for $10."
    Tom's hands were blistered and his back was stiff. His original enthusiasm had waned, but he was determined that his work wasn't going to be wasted.
    "You should of thought about the $10 before you half kilt me," he told Martha angrily- "Whatever it is, we want best results."
    "It's fertilizer," Martha explained. "They want $10 for the commercial kind and $12 for manure."
    "They want $12 for that ?" Tom shouted. "Are they crazy? Don't let them cheat you!"
    "That's what I told them," Martha agreed. "I told them not to think I was born yesterday."
    "I'll get you all of that stuff you want," Tom promised. "And it ain't going to cost you a cent."
    Martha said that was grand, but Ernestine wasn't sure Mother would approve.
    "We don't want you to spend your money for it," she told Tom. "Maybe we can get along just as well without it."
    "Don't worry about me, Doochess," Tom cackled. "I wasn't born yesterday, neither. But I got friends and I know where to get it wholesale."
    Later that afternoon, he nailed a wooden box onto the express wagon, got three snow shovels out of the garage, and summoned Frank and Bill. They went out the back way, so the girls wouldn't see them, and started to tour the neighborhood. Milk and ice still were delivered from horse-drawn wagons, and some of the streets near our house were used as bridle paths.
    No sparrow ever swooped down on what the trio was looking for, with more delight than did Tom.
    "Henc, henc," he snorted while he shoveled. "I got friends all right. Some of my best friends is horses."
    'Twelve dollars!" Frank said scornfully. "We ought to go into the business."
    "I never thought I'd live to see the day when they sold it for money," Tom nodded. "Pull the wagon over closer, Billy. My back is broke from that hoeing."
    The neighborhood was a fashionable one, and most of the residents knew us or Mother. Some of them waved from porches or opened windows, as Tom and the two boys paraded along the street with shovels on their shoulders and eyes optimistically peeled on the roadway.
    A few chauffeurs wandered down their driveways for a closer look, but they were fortunately aware of Tom's reputation for belligerence, and they avoided trouble. None of them said any more than hello.
    Tom seemed disappointed that he had no hecklers. "Go ahead," he taunted one chauffeur, who must have been thirty years younger and