Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/57

 heart to insist on it. All crops that grow under ground, he claims, must be planted in the dark of the moon, and those that ripen above, some time between its waxing and waning. So to-day is the day for lettuce and next week he will plant potatoes and beets and carrots and after I have tended them like babies all summer he will nod wisely when they grow big and say, 'Oh, yes, of course they can't help flourishing if you plant the right things in the dark and the light of the moon.' But it does happen to be a good day for the lettuce. I am afraid that I have left the seeds on the kitchen table."

Elizabeth volunteered to get them, and went up the path from the garden, past the big pen where the ducks and chickens were, and where a dozen brown-yellow ducklings were waddling solemnly forth on their first expedition into the outside world. She stopped to drive them back and then went on, across the lawn, to the open door of the cottage.

When she first came up the lane that day, she had noticed that the same big white horse that she had seen in the poplar-bordered cart track was now plowing in the field opposite the Reynolds' cottage. It was guided by the same red-haired boy, who went plodding up and down the rows, leaving behind them a straight, blue-black ribbon of upturned soil. She stopped to watch for a moment as they came near the fence and she thought that he looked up and saw