summer long, but sold some, too. The way he happened to sell it was
merely an accident. Not far from the village was a large summer hotel.
One day the proprietor had driven around to the house to see Jack's
father on business. As the men were talking Jack and Elizabeth came from
the garden with two fine heads of lettuce.

"Have you any more lettuce than what you can use yourself?" asked the
proprietor, after feeling of the heads of lettuce and admiring the good
firm centres. "Yes," replied Jack, "I have now, and shall have all
along, more than we can use. You see I keep making sowings every ten
days in the coldframe, and transplanting."

"I'll take all the extra lettuce you have at five cents a head. That is
what I pay all summer long for it. To-morrow bring me up what you can."

"Thank you, sir. Ten heads will walk up to-morrow."

"The first time I've ever heard of heads walking," laughed Jack's
father, well pleased with his lad.

But we are away ahead of the story, for we have planted and sold lettuce
before Jack has had a chance to really make his garden. The soil in the
backyard was very poor, so Jack decided to cultivate only a strip twenty
feet long and eight feet wide. He dug out all the soil to the depth of
two feet. His father lent him the use of a horse and wagon, and gave
him from the barns whatever fertilizer he needed. The digging was a
long, tedious piece of work. It was hard, too; but the boy kept at it.
Any piece of land can be used if a boy has a mind to work hard over it.

Some of the poorest of the soil was carted off, then into the top of the