Читать книгу Pemrose Lorry, Radio Amateur онлайн

4 страница из 55

Whimsically she interrogated pansy and little blue johnny-jump-up, just opening its sleepy eye, daffodil, narcissus and lamp-like geranium which, open-eyed, had kept vigil all night long.

“Humph! There he is now! I never can get ahead of him.” The girl shrugged her shoulders.

“Lorie me! Miss Una,” grunted an old mountaineer who at that moment came shuffling down a garden path, spade in hand and munching a dew-piece, a hunch of bread. “Lorie me! Now, what be you up for so ear-rly! It ben’t but—five—o’clock.” He pulled a timeworn old silver watch out of a side pocket.

“Six—by—me!” Una glanced at her tiny jeweled wrist watch.

“Humph! I go by the Lord’s time, I’ll have you to know!” snorted Jacob Sods, gardener. “I—I ain’t no ‘nose o’ wax’ to be changin’ round.” He shuffled on, grunting.

Una’s tickled laughter rang out as she set to work to transplant her little Quaker Ladies from what was known as the wildflower garden to a sunny rock bed.

“A plant—a plant is a regular tomboy when you’re making a new home for it,” she was murmuring archly to herself, five minutes later, her dark eyebrows lifting over the busy trowel. “You have to make a nice little mound of earth, deep in your hole, for it to sit on and swing its legs, its roots, just like a boy or girl. And—and it likes a snug fit, too! There now, my bluets are in a nice, comfy hole.... And the little Quaker Ladies will never know what happened to them!”