"
"How about Maggie's luck?" asked Burt.
"I am satisfied," began Webb, "that I could develop acres of four-leaved
clover. Some plants have this peculiarity. I have counted twenty-odd on
one root. If seed from such a plant were sown, and then seed selected
again from the new plants most characterized by this 'sport,' I believe
the trait would become fixed, and we could have a field of four-leaved
clover. New varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers are often thus
developed from chance 'sports' or abnormal specimens."
"Just hear Webb," said Amy. "He would turn this ancient symbol of fortune
into a marketable commodity."
"Pardon me; I was saying what might be done, not what I proposed to do. I
found this emblem of good chance by chance, and I picked it with the
'wish' attacked to the stem. Thus to the utmost I have honored the
superstition, and you have only to make your wish to carry it out fully."
"My wishes are in vain, and all the four-leaved clovers in the world
wouldn't help them. I wish I was a scientific problem, a crop that
required great skill to develop, a rare rose that all the rose-maniacs
were after, a new theory that required a great deal of consideration and
investigation, and accompanied with experiments that needed much
observation, and any number of other t-i-o-n-shuns. Then I shouldn't be
left alone evenings by the great inquiring mind of the family. Burt's
going away, and, as his father says, has got into a scrape; so what's to
become of me?"
They all arose from the table amid general laughter, of which Webb and
Burt were equally the objects, and on the faces of those not in the
secret there was much perplexed curiosity.
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