d
this with peeled poplar poles.

A corner of the wheat-field before the house had already been used
for a garden, and had been a great source of delight and also of
profit to the family. The boys had complained a little at first about
having to pull mustard and shepherd's purse and french-weed, with
which the farm was infested, but Pearl presented weed-pulling in a
new light. She organized two foraging parties, who made raids upon
the fields and brought back the spoils of war. Patsey was Roderick
Dhu, who had a henchman bold, called Daniel the Redhanded. Bugsey
was Alan-bane, and Tommy was to have been his henchman, Thomas
Trueman, but Tommy had strong ideas about equal rights and would
be Alan-bane's twin brother, Tommy-bane, or nothing. They were
all dark-visaged, eagle-eyed Highlanders, who made raids upon the
Lowlands to avenge ancient wrongs.

Pearl had learned about the weeds at school, and soon had her whole
family, including Aunt Kate, organized into a weed-fighting brigade.
Even the golden dandelion was ruthlessly cut down, and Mary, who was
strong on experiments, found out that its roots were good to eat.
After that any dandelion that showed its yellow face was simply
inviting destruction.

In school Pearl was having a very happy time, and she and her teacher
were mutually helpful to each other. Pearl's compositions were Mr.
Donald's delight. There was one that he carried with him and often
found inspiration in to meet the burdens of his own monotonous life.
The subject was "True Greatness," and was suggested by a lesson of
that name in the reader. Needless to say, Pearl's manner of treating
the subject was different from the reading lesson.

"A person can never get true greatness," she wrote, "by trying for
it. You get it when you're not looking for it. It's nice to have good
clothes--it makes it a lot easier to act decent--but it is a sign of
true greatness to act when you haven't got them just as good as if
you had. One time when Ma was a little girl they had a bird at their
house, called Bill, that broke his leg. They thought they would have
to kill him, but next morning they found him propped up sort of
sideways on his good leg, singing! That was true greatness. One time
there was a woman that had done a big washing and hung it on the
line. The line broke and let it all down in the mud, but she didn't
say a word, only did it over again; and this time she spread it on
the grass, where it couldn't fa