Our Boys | Page 3

most interesting part of the garden, is that
devoted to wax dolls. There are other beds for the commoner dolls--for
the rag dolls, and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but of course
wax dolls would look much handsomer growing. Wax dolls have to be
planted quite early in the season; for they need a good start before the
sun is very high. The seeds are the loveliest bits of microscopic dolls
imaginable. The Monks sow them pretty close together, and they begin
to come up by the middle of May. There is first just a little glimmer of
gold, or flaxen, or black, or brown, as the case may be, above the soil.

Then the snowy foreheads appear, and the blue eyes, and the black eyes,
and, later on, all those enchanting little heads are out of the ground, and
are nodding and winking and smiling to each other the whole extent of
the field; with their pinky cheeks and sparkling eyes and curly hair
there is nothing so pretty as these little wax doll heads peeping out of
the earth. Gradually, more and more of them come to light, and finally
by Christmas they are all ready to gather. There they stand, swaying to
and fro, and dancing lightly on their slender feet which are connected
with the ground, each by a tiny green stem; their dresses of pink, or
blue, or white--for their dresses grow with them--flutter in the air. Just
about the prettiest sight in the world is the bed of wax dolls in the
garden of the Christmas Monks at Christmas time. Of course ever since
this convent and garden were established (and that was so long ago that
the wisest man can find no books about it) their glories have attracted a
vast deal of admiration and curiosity from the young people in the
surrounding country; but as the garden is enclosed on all sides by an
immensely thick and high hedge, which no boy could climb, or peep
over, they could only judge of the garden by the fruits which were
parceled out to them on Christmas-day.
You can judge, then, of the sensation among the young folks, and older
ones, for that matter, when one evening there appeared hung upon a
conspicuous place in the garden-hedge, a broad strip of white cloth
trimmed with evergreen and printed with the following notice in
evergreen letters:
"WANTED--By the Christmas Monks, two good boys to assist in
garden work. Applicants will be examined by Fathers Anselmus and
Ambrose, in the convent refectory, on April 10th."
This notice was hung out about five o'clock in the evening, some time
in the early part of February. By noon the street was so full of boys
staring at it with their mouths wide open, so as to see better, that the
king was obliged to send his bodyguard before him to clear the way
with brooms, when he wanted to pass on his way from his chamber of
state to his palace.
There was not a boy in the country but looked upon this position as the

height of human felicity. To work all the year in that wonderful garden,
and see those wonderful things growing! and without doubt any body
who worked there could have all the toys he wanted, just as a boy who
works in a candy-shop always has all the candy he wants!
But the great difficulty, of course, was about the degree of goodness
requisite to pass the examination. The boys in this country were no
worse than the boys in other countries, but there were not many of them
that would not have done a little differently if he had only known
beforehand of the advertisement of the Christmas Monks. However,
they made the most of the time remaining, and were so good all over
the kingdom that a very millennium seemed dawning. The school
teachers used their ferrules for fire wood, and the king ordered all the
birch trees cut down and exported, as he thought there would be no
more call for them in his own realm.
[Illustration: The boys read the notice.]
When the time for the examination drew near, there were two boys
whom every one thought would obtain the situation, although some of
the other boys had lingering hopes for themselves; if only the Monks
would examine them on the last six weeks, they thought they might
pass. Still all the older people had decided in their minds that the
Monks would choose these two boys. One was the Prince, the king's
oldest son; and the other was a poor boy named Peter. The Prince was
no better than the other boys; indeed, to tell the truth, he was not so
good; in fact, was the biggest rogue