Page:The Fight at Dame Europa's School.djvu/16

 Each of the upper Boys at Dame Europa's had a little garden of his own, in a corner of the play-ground. The Boys took great interest in their gardens, and kept them very neatly. In some were grown flowers and fruits, in others mustard and cress or radishes, which the young cultivators would sell to one another and take into the Hall, to help down their bread and scrape at tea time. Every garden had in the middle of it an arbor, fitted up according to the taste and means of its owner. Louis had the prettiest arbor of all, like a grotto in fairy land, full of the most beautiful flowers and ferns, with a vine creeping over the roof, and a little fountain playing inside. John's garden was pretty enough, and more productive than any; owing its chief beauty, however, to the fact that it was an Island, separated from all the rest by a stream, between twenty and thirty feet wide. But his arbor was a mere tool-house, where he shut himself up almost all play-time, turning at his lathe, or making nets, or sharpening knives, or cutting out boats to sail on the river. Still, John was fond of a holiday now and then; and when he was tired of slaving away in his own garden, he would punt himself across the brook, and pay a visit to his neighbor Louis, who was always cheerful and hospitable, and