They came around the corner of the house just then . `` Ai n't it an awful nice-smelling evening ? '' asked Davy , sniffing delightedly as he swung a hoe in his grimy hands . He had been working in his garden . That spring Marilla , by way of turning Davy 's passion for reveling in mud and clay into useful channels , had given him and Dora a small plot of ground for a garden . Both had eagerly gone to work in a characteristic fashion . Dora planted , weeded , and watered carefully , systematically , and dispassionately . As a result , her plot was already green with prim , orderly little rows of vegetables and annuals . Davy , however , worked with more zeal than discretion ; he dug and hoed and raked and watered and transplanted so energetically that his seeds had no chance for their lives . `` How is your garden coming on , Davy-boy ? '' asked Anne . `` Kind of slow , '' said Davy with a sigh . `` I do n't know why the things do n't grow better . Milty Boulter says I must have planted them in the dark of the moon and that 's the whole trouble . He says you must never sow seeds or kill pork or cut your hair or do any ` portant thing in the wrong time of the moon . Is that true , Anne ? I want to know . '' `` Maybe if you did n't pull your plants up by the roots every other day to see how they 're getting on ` at the other end , ' they 'd do better , '' said Marilla sarcastically . `` I only pulled six of them up , '' protested Davy . `` I wanted to see if there was grubs at the roots .
Milty Boulter said XXXXX it was n't the moon 's fault it must be grubs .
around as at by for if in of to with