Ella?'

'I know nothing about him,' answered she, quite snappishly. 'The Japs
are very ungrateful and have gone away without a word, and there is not
a sign of them, either in the house or in the garden.'

'We told them to go away quietly,' said Willie; 'perhaps they will
telegraph from Port Arthur. Do tell me about the battle.'

'Nonsense!' replied she, pettishly. 'You saw the battle as well as I
did. Be quick and come into the garden, and you'll see that the soldiers
are no longer under the bushes.'

It was quite true. The earth bore signs of having been moved, and
neither soldiers nor ship were to be seen.

'Then it is quite true,' murmured Willie, awe-struck, 'and the army has
gone to the Japanese. But I really can't remember about the battle.
Ella, how do you think the Russian soldiers came here?'

'That's why I'm so cross,' confessed Ella. 'Of course, there must have
been another genius at school, who likes the Russians, and who wanted
them to win. So he, too, buried a box of soldiers, and when they became
alive, they met ours. Anyhow, ours won. Isn't it funny that there's no
sign of the battle?'

'Shall we try again with your doll?' asked Willie.

'No,' replied Ella, decidedly. 'If some one else has had the same idea I
don't care to have anything more to do with it.'

Some days later, while the children were at breakfast, their father read
of a great Japanese victory. The two young ones looked up proudly, then
triumphantly told their strange story to their father. He listened with
a quiet smile, and gently remarked, 'Did you give any of your soldiers
to Tim Jones, or a ship like the one you buried?'

'No, never,' they replied, surprised at the question.

'Well,' continued he, 'I saw him playing with some very like them,
to-day; and I have been told he was seen on the garden wall the very
night Ella dreamt of the battle.'

Poor Willie! Poor Ella! They were quite astonished to hear such an
explanation of the mystery, and rather sad. But their father, talking to
them kindly and wisely, comforted them, and explained that nothing made
by the hands of man can grow in the earth, but only things produced by
Providence in the earth itself, from living seeds fallen from living
plants. He led them into the garden and showed them the plants and the
roots, and explained how from the living seeds spring up the living
plants. He showed them, too, the dead trunks and dry branches, and
explained how from them nothin