“I wish there were no such things as weeds in the world!”

Everybody seemed struck with this impressive sentiment, for they all left off weeding at once, and Aunt Judy came forward to the front of the alcove.

“Don’t you, Aunt Judy?” added No. 6, feeling sure her sister had heard.

“Not I, indeed,” answered Aunt Judy, with a comical smile:  “I’m too fond of cream to my tea.”

“Cream to your tea, Aunt Judy?  What can that have to do with it?”

The little ones were amazed.

“Something,” at any rate, responded Aunt Judy; “and if you like to come in here, and sit down, I will tell you how.”

Away went hoes and weeding-knives at once, and into the alcove they rushed; and never had garden-seats felt so thoroughly comfortable before.

“If one begins to wish,” suggested No. 5, stretching his legs out to their full extent, “one may as well wish oneself a grand person with a lot of gardeners to clear away the weeds as fast as they come up, and save one the trouble.”

“Much better wish them away, and save everybody the trouble,” persisted No. 6.

“No:  one wants them sometimes.”

“What an idea!  Who ever wants weeds?”

“You yourself.”

“I?  What nonsense!”

But the persevering No. 5 proceeded to explain.  No. 6 had asked him a few days before to bring her some groundsel for her canary, and he had been quite disappointed at finding none in the garden.  He had actually to “trail” into the lanes to fetch a bit.

This was a puzzling statement; so No. 6 contented herself with grumbling out:-

“Weeds are welcome to grow in the lanes.”

“Weeds are not always weeds in the lanes,” persisted No. 5, with a grin:  “they’re sometimes wild-flowers.”

“I don’t care what they are,” pouted No. 6.  “I wish I lived in a place where there were none.”

“And I wish I was a great man, with lots of gardeners to take them up, instead of me,” maintained No. 5, who was in a mood of lazy tiresomeness, and kept rocking to and fro on the garden-chair, with his hands tucked under his thighs.  “A weed—­a weed,” continued he; “what is a weed, I wonder?  Aunt Judy, what is a weed?”

Aunt Judy had surely been either dreaming or cogitating during the last few minutes, for she had taken no notice of what was said, but she roused up now, and answered:-

“A vegetable out of its place.”

“A vegetable,” repeated No. 5, “why we don’t eat them, Aunt Judy.”

“You kitchen-garden interpreter, who said we did?” replied she.  “All green herbs are vegetables, let me tell you, whether we eat them or not.”

“Oh, I see,” mused No. 5, quietly enough, but in another instant he broke out again.

“I’ll tell you what though, some of them are real vegetables, I mean kitchen-garden vegetables, to other creatures, and that’s why they’re wanted.  Groundsel’s a vegetable, it’s the canary’s vegetable.  I mean his kitchen-garden vegetable, and if he had a kitchen-garden of his own, he would grow it as we do peas.  So I was right after all, No. 6!”