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And the night Arthur sat in my room, talking about compost, he said, “I shall get some good stuff out of Michael, I know; and Harry and I see our way to road scrapings if we can’t get sand; and we mean to take precious good care John doesn’t have all the old leaves to himself. It’s the top spit that puzzles us, and loam is the most important thing of all.”

“What is top spit?” I asked.

“It’s the earth you get when you dig up squares of grass out of a field like the paddock. The new earth that’s just underneath. I expect John got a lot when he turfed that new piece by the pond, but I don’t believe he’d spare us a flower-pot full to save his life.”

“Don’t quarrel with John, Arthur. It’s no good.”

“I won’t quarrel with him if he behaves himself,” said Arthur, “but we mean to have some top spit, somehow.”

“If you aggravate him he’ll only complain of us to Father.”

“I know,” said Arthur hotly, “and beastly mean of him, too, when he knows what Father is about this sort of thing.”

“I know it’s mean. But what’s the good of fighting when you’ll only get the worst of it?”

“Why to show that you’re in the right, and that you know you are,” said Arthur. “Good night, Mary. We’ll have a compost heap of our own this autumn, mark my words.”

Next day, in spite of my remonstrances, Arthur and Harry came to open war with John, and loudly and long did they rehearse their grievances, when we were out of Father’s hearing.

“Have we ever swept our own walks, except that once, long ago, when the German women came round with threepenny brooms?” asked Arthur, throwing out his right arm, as if he were making a speech. “And think of all the years John has been getting leaf mould for himself out of our copper beech leaves and now refuses us a barrow load of loam!”

The next morning but one Harry was late for breakfast, and then it seemed that he was not dressing; he had gone out,–very early, one of the servants said. It frightened me, and I went out to look for him.

When I came upon him in our gardens, it was he who was frightened.

“Oh, dear,” he exclaimed, “I thought you were John.”

I have often seen Harry dirty–very dirty,–but from the mud on his boots to the marks on his face where he had pushed the hair out of his eyes with earthy fingers, I never saw him quite so grubby before. And if there had been a clean place left in any part of his clothes well away from the ground, that spot must have been soiled by a huge and very dirty sack, under the weight of which his poor little shoulders were bent nearly to his knees.

“What are you doing, Honest Root-gatherer?” I asked; “are you turning yourself into a hump-backed dwarf?”

“I’m not honest, and I’m not a root-gatherer just now,” said Harry, when he had got breath after setting down his load. He spoke shyly and a little surlily like Chris when he is in mischief.

“Harry, what’s that?”

“It’s a sack I borrowed from Michael. It won’t hurt it, it’s had mangel-wurzels in already.”

“What have you got in it now? It looks dreadfully heavy.”

“It is heavy, I can tell you,” said Harry, with one more rub of his dirty fingers over his face.

“You look half dead. What is it?”

“It’s top spit;” and Harry began to discharge his load on to the walk.

“Oh, Harry, where did you get it?”

“Out of the paddock. I’ve been digging up turfs and getting this out, and putting the turfs back, and stamping them down not to show, ever since six o’clock. It was hard work; and I was so afraid of John coming. Mary, you won’t tell tales?”

“No, Harry. But I don’t think you ought to have taken it without Mother’s leave.”