Nan went in for herbs , and had a fine display of useful plants , which she tended with steadily increasing interest and care . Very busy was she in September cutting , drying , and tying up her sweet harvest , and writing down in a little book how the different herbs are to be used . She had tried several experiments , and made several mistakes ; so she wished to be particular lest she should give little Huz another fit by administering wormwood instead of catnip . Dick , Dolly , and Rob each grubbed away on his small farm , and made more stir about it than all the rest put together . Parsnips and carrots were the crops of the two D. 's ; and they longed for it to be late enough to pull up the precious vegetables . Dick did privately examine his carrots , and plant them again , feeling that Silas was right in saying it was too soon for them yet . Rob 's crop was four small squashes and one immense pumpkin . It really was a `` bouncer , '' as every one said ; and I assure you that two small persons could sit on it side by side . It seemed to have absorbed all the goodness of the little garden , and all the sunshine that shone down on it , and lay there a great round , golden ball , full of rich suggestions of pumpkin-pies for weeks to come . Robby was so proud of his mammoth vegetable that he took every one to see it , and , when frosts began to nip , covered it up each night with an old bedquilt , tucking it round as if the pumpkin was a well-beloved baby . The day it was gathered he would let no one touch it but himself , and nearly broke his back tugging it to the barn in his little wheelbarrow , with Dick and Dolly harnessed in front to give a heave up the path . His mother promised him that the Thanksgiving-pies should be made from it , and hinted vaguely that she had a plan in her head which would cover the prize pumpkin and its owner with glory . Poor Billy had planted cucumbers , but unfortunately hoed them up and left the pig-weed . This mistake grieved him very much for tem minutes , then he forgot all about it , and sowed a handful of bright buttons which he had collected , evidently thinking in his feeble mind that they were money , and would come up and multiply , so that he might make many quarters , as Tommy did . No one disturbed him , and he did what he liked with his plot , which soon looked as if a series of small earthquakes had stirred it up . When the general harvest-day came , he would have had nothing but stones and weeds to show , if kind old Asia had not hung half-a-dozen oranges on the dead tree he stuck up in the middle . Billy was delighted with his crop ; and no one spoiled his pleasure in the little miracle which pity wrought for him , by making withered branches bear strange fruit . Stuffy had various trials with his melons ; for , being impatient to taste them , he had a solitary revel before they were ripe , and made himself so ill , that for a day or two it seemed doubtful if he would ever eat any more . But he pulled through it , and served up his first cantaloupe without tasting a mouthful himself . They were excellent melons , for he had a warm slope for them , and they ripened fast .
The last and best were lingering on the vines , and XXXXX had announced that he should sell them to a neighbor .
Dolly Huz Silas Stuffy bouncer cucumbers day harvest-day right squashes