pleased her critical
eye immensely. With the fork she made several little holes not far from
the edge, then she got out her packet of seeds and opened it.

"What _lots_!" she cried delightedly, and proceeded to place carefully one
seed in each hole. But the seeds she planted seemed not to lessen the
number in the packet in the least. "I must make another row," she
murmured, and carefully covering in the first holes, she stepped on the
bed and made some more.

When she had made a third row and filled them in she sighed a little.
Before she had finished she had had to commandeer the whole of the bed,
and was weary and confused. There seemed to be nothing but footprints all
over it, and where the seed was, or how to make the earth look nice and
smooth again so that no one should guess her secret, she was puzzled to
know. She could have cried with weariness, but she bravely kept back her
tears with the thought of the splendid thing she had done, and the delight
and surprise there would be when her secret came to light. While she was
standing looking in some dismay at the trampled bed, she remembered the
rake standing in the corner.

It was heavy, so heavy she could hardly carry it, and far too clumsy for
her to wield properly, but she worked bravely, and tried to forget her
aches; she had not a very critical eye either, and soon the bed, to her
eyes, looked quite neat and tidy. Then came the crowning moment. At the
water-tap, which stood over a butt sunk in the ground by one of the paths,
she filled her new water-can, and proceeded to give her seeds a good
watering.

This was joy indeed, pure joy. The can poured splendidly, Poppy was
delighted. She had to run many times to the tap to get water enough for
the whole bed, and by the time it was done to her satisfaction her
pinafore was well soaked, and she herself was almost too weary to stand.
Her task was perfected, but when she looked down over herself, at her
mud-clogged shoes, her dripping clothes, her begrimed hands, and realised
what she would have to go through in the way of questioning and scolding,
her spirits sank altogether. Cousin Charlotte or Anna she dared not face.
Her only resource was to try to find Esther, or the others. They would
scold too, but she knew them and their scoldings; they were not very bad,
and were soon over. With the aid of the fork she managed to lift the
latch of the garden door, and stepped out on the great wide waste; but