"I shall do that this fall and make a real hotbed out of it. You see
this spring I just want to give my seeds a little extra start. That's
why I made the soil so rich and so deep. Now I am going to bank the
frame about with manure. Then I shall put dirt over that. You see I get
some extra heat that way. Just see the fine slope of the glass. I guess
Old Sun will get caught all right."

Jack busily banked the frame, spanking the fertilizer down hard with the
back of his spade. He sloped it up some four inches along the sides and
front.

"Now I am going to make drills for my seed. In the first partition I
shall plant lettuce and tomato; then pepper and onion go in, and the
third is for flower seed." Jack bent over the frame, and began to
scratch lengthwise of the beds with the edge of his trowel. Red-faced
from bending over, and hot from his former exertion, his trouser knees
covered with earth and manure, he stood off and looked at his work.

"I'm precious glad Elizabeth has gone, for if those aren't the worst,
crookedest old rows I ever saw."

And so they were. They were all distances apart, of different depths and
entirely untidy-looking.

Jack picked up his rake and again raked the little beds over, so that no
trace of his poor work was left. Then he found a board which stretched
across the frame widthwise, so that he could kneel upon this and work to
advantage in the bed. He next whittled out two little pointed sticks to
act as stakes, and tying to these a piece of cord just the right length