`` It looks just like the face of a clock , and there are flowers in it that open at every hour , so that you can always tell the time . '' `` Oh , I wish we had one here , '' exclaimed Cecily . `` What would be the use of it ? '' asked the Story Girl a little disdainfully . `` Nobody ever wants to know the time in a garden . '' I slipped away at this point , suddenly remembering that it was time to take a dose of magic seed . I had bought it from Billy Robinson three days before in school . Billy had assured me that it would make me grow fast . I was beginning to feel secretly worried because I did not grow . I had overheard Aunt Janet say I was going to be short , like Uncle Alec . Now , I loved Uncle Alec , but I wanted to be taller than he was . So when Billy confided to me , under solemn promise of secrecy , that he had some `` magic seed , '' which would make boys grow , and would sell me a box of it for ten cents , I jumped at the offer . Billy was taller than any boy of his age in Carlisle , and he assured me it all came from taking magic seed . `` I was a regular runt before I begun , '' he said , `` and look at me now . I got it from Peg Bowen . She 's a witch , you know . I would n't go near her again for a bushel of magic seed . It was an awful experience . I have n't much left , but I guess I 've enough to do me till I 'm as tall as I want to be . You must take a pinch of the seed every three hours , walking backward , and you must never tell a soul you 're taking it , or it wo n't work .
I would n't spare any XXXXX it to any one but you . ''
as at before like near of than that to under