Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/157

 thoughts of raising flowers; but Louise, remembering the picture on the seed-packet, tidied up her patch once more. It looked a bit bruised, but she swept away the brick-dust and poured several cans of water on the earth to encourage the zinnias. Now the garden looked like a small accidental, and the workmen, wanting somewhere to pile all their lumber, thought that was the obvious place. Once more Louise's zinniabed was covered up, this time with masses of beams and boards, where the workmen sat cheerfully in the sunshine eating their lunch. Donny and Fourchette too lay about on the warm planks, with that enjoyment that all animals have in watching work going on.

So, in the general hullabaloo of tearing down and building up, Louise's garden was quite forgotten. But there was something obstinate about those zinnias. You'd have thought they were poison ivy, the way they hung on. For one day, in a chink among the litter of boards, what should stick up its head but a bright scarlet flower. Everyone was amazed. It didn't last long, though, for in shifting off the planks it got bashed.

Perhaps there was something queer about the