oss with Saxon for walking on my garden. (And I am sure
I quite forgave him, for I am so fond of him, and he knew no better,
poor dear!) But though he kicked Saxon, the Scotch Gardener was kind
to us. He told us that the reason our gardens do not do so well as the
big garden, and that my _Jules Margottin_ has not such big roses as
John's _Jules Margottin_ is because we have never renewed the soil.

Arthur and Harry got very much excited about this. They made the
Scotch Gardener tell them what good soil ought to be made of, and all
the rest of the day they talked of nothing but _compost_. Indeed
Arthur would come into my room and talk about compost after I had gone
to bed.

Father's farming man was always much more good-natured to us than John
ever was. He would give us anything we wanted. Warm milk when the cows
were milked, or sweet-pea sticks, or bran to stuff the dolls' pillows.
I've known him take his hedging bill, in his dinner hour, and cut fuel
for our beacon-fire, when we were playing at a French Invasion.
Nothing could be kinder.

Perhaps we do not tease him so much as we tease John. But when I say
that, Arthur says, "Now, Mary, that's just how you explain away
things. The real difference between John and Michael is, that Michael
is good-natured and John is not. Catch John showing me the duck's nest
by the pond, or letting you into the cow-house to kiss the new calf
between the eyes--if he were farm man instead of gardener!"

And the night Arthur sat in my room, talking about compost, he said,
"I shall get some good stuff out of Michael, I know; and Harry and I
see our way to road scrapings if we can't get sand; and we mean to
take precious good care John doesn't have all the old leaves to
himself. It's the top spit that puzzles us, and loam is the most
important thing of all."

"What is top spit?" I asked.

"It's the earth you get when you dig up squares of grass out of a
field like the paddock. The new earth that's just underneath. I expect
John got a lot when he turfed that new piece by the pond, but I don't
believe he'd spare us a flower-pot full to save his life."

"Don't quarrel with John, Arthur. It's no good."

"I won't quarrel with him if he behaves himself," said Arthur, "but we
mean to have some top spit, somehow."

"If you aggravate him he'll only complain of us to Father."

"I know," said Arthur hotly, "and beastly mean of him, too, when he
knows what Father is about this sort of thing.