JULY 16: The Garden Tools
“It’s great fun to be a rake,” said the rake, “and to make everything look nice and tidy. And in the autumn it is such fun raking up all the leaves and getting ready for the big bonfires.
“It is fun, too, to rake the freshly mown grass and to make everything smooth and nice.”
“Ah, but it is such fun to be a trowel,” said the trowel, “and to dig around the garden flowers and to make them grow. They like to be made all nice and comfy, to have the dirt loosened about them to give them a little breathing space.
“They don’t like too much! They want to be held in the earth firmly but with soft, nicely pressed earth about them. And our family attends to that.”
“Ah, but it is nice to be a hoe,” said the hoe, “for I can do such a great deal of work. Just take the work I do with string-beans alone.
“I don’t suppose there could be any string-beans if it weren’t for me. I do such a great deal with the string-beans. I keep them cheerful. I pay them some attention. I make them feel like growing up into nice vegetables. I hoe all about them.”
“But think of all the help I am when any one wants to transplant anything,” said the trowel. “I can dig up the root so that plenty of its dirt comes up with it. Plants don’t like to leave all their soil behind; they like to take a little of it along with them, just as people do when they’re going away for the summer—they like to take along with them some of their photographs and little odds and ends, some of the things near and dear to them.”
“It is the same way with the plants and I help to make that possible.”
“Well,” said the lawn-mower, “I like to make the lawn and the terraces look nice and I do make them look so neat. I’m the lawn’s barber, I am!”
All the other garden tools moved about and laughed in their funny tool way at the joke the lawn-mower had tried to crack.
“Pretty good, pretty good,” they said.
“And a garden fork like me,” said the garden fork, “can do a good deal of work too. I like to do my share.”
“We can do a good deal,” said several balls of string. “We keep things from falling down and we give them a little help and encouragement.”
“So do we,” said some little sticks up which some plants were climbing.
“We try to do our part,” said a little two-pronged fork and a shovel together.
A two-pronged fork is a fork with two prongs instead of three or four as a fork usually has, you will notice.
“But I feel as if I were a great deal of help these days,” said the hoe, “just when those string-beans need so much attention.”
“And I must thin out some of the flowers,” said the trowel. “Some of them are growing so closely together that they won’t live that way and so I am going to separate them and put them in other beds.”
“And you will need my help, too,” said the watering pot, “not to mention the water!”
“That is so,” said the trowel. “But I have a great deal of important weeding to do.”
“And I will have to rake up the weeds that you have dug up in the garden path,” said the rake, “or things won’t look tidy and neat.”
“And I must water all the flowers for there hasn’t been any rain in some time and it’s up to me to do a great deal of work,” said the watering pot.
“I really think,” said the rake, “that we are all useful. We all help the one who owns the garden. Yes, every one of us helps.
“We must all work, each do his part, for each one is needed for something or other.”
“You’re right,” said the hoe; “none of us should boast alone. We should all work together for the good of the garden and for the good of the flowers. Then we will each be doing more, for when creatures and things work together and don’t waste time boasting and arguing then a lot gets finished.”