And the weeks passed and still the three good fairies worked hard over
them to help them live and grow up to be real vegetables and flowers. They
worked away very quietly, these three good fairies, as all good people
work, without any noise, without any fuss.

One day Farmer Green came back from a visit to the town.

With him he brought three green watering-pots.

"You must do some more work, yourselves," he told them as he handed each
one of the shiny green cans. "You must water them when the Rain fairy is
tired, pull up the bad weeds that steal the food Mother Earth keeps for the
flowers, and you must keep the soil loose around the roots, so that the
drops can sink way down deep. The more work you do the better you will like
your flowers when they do come. And the taller and prettier they will be."

So the little green stalks grew tall and strong. Then the little buds came.

And one by one the buds opened into flowers. And the flowers had on their
petals all the colours of the rainbow in the sky.

And the children took turns filling the vase on the supper table. They were
very proud of their flowers when their father leaned over and smelled them.

"My, how sweet they smell!" he would say every time. "I don't think I
_ever_ saw such flowers."

And when their vegetables came to the table--round plump red radishes,
crisp curling lettuce leaves, juicy tomatoes, and rows of peas in the pod,