For everything that happens

 

You've but to look to find

 

There's bound to be a reason;

 

So keep that fact in mind.

 

 

SON,” said Fanner Brown one morning at the breakfast table, “we've got the finest looking garden any where around. I don't remember ever having a garden with so little harm done by bugs¹ and worms. All our neighbors are complaining that bugs and worms are the worst ever this year, and that their gardens are being eaten up in spite of all that they can do. I'm proud of the way in which you've taken care of ours.”

 

Farmer Brown's boy flushed with pleasure. He had worked hard in that garden ever since the seeds were planted.

 

He had fought the weeds and the bugs and worms. But so had some of his neighbors. Yet in spite of this their gardens were nearly ruined. They had worked just as hard as he had, but the worms and the bugs had been too much for them. He couldn't understand why he had succeeded when they had failed. There must be a reason. There is a reason for everything.

 

After breakfast he put on his old straw hat and started down to the garden to look it over, still puzzling over the reason why his garden was so much better than others. Just on the edge of the garden was an old board. He lifted one end of it and peeped under. Old Mr. Toad² looked up at him and blinked sleepily, but in the most friendly way. Mr. Toad's waistcoat was filled out until it looked too tight for comfort. Fanner Brown's boy smiled as he put the board down gently. He knew what made that waistcoat so tight; it was filled with bugs and worms. “There's a part of the reason,” muttered Farmer Brown's boy.

 

A little farther on he discovered Little Friend the Song Sparrow very busy among the berry-bushes. “There's another part of the reason,” chuckled³ Farmer Brown's boy. At the end of a long row he sat down to think it over. There was no doubt that he owed a great deal to Old Mr. Toad and Little Friend and a lot of the feathered folk of the Old Orchard⁴ for his fine-looking garden, but he had had their help in other years when his garden had not looked half as well, and yet when there had not been nearly as many bugs and worms as this year. Their help and his own hard work accounted for part of the reason for his fine-looking garden, but he couldn't help but feel that there must be something else he didn't know about.

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