class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[21]"/> Nearly every morning she loaded it with peas and beans and carrots and onions. She then hitched the dogs and drove them to the market place in Brussels. Here she would sit at a stand and sell her fresh vegetables.

Philippe usually went with her. But sometimes he stayed at home with the gardener.

Philippe's father was a chef. Papa Paul was a very fine chef and could cook some of the best French and Belgian dishes.

He cooked in a fine restaurant in Brussels. He came home late at night, and so Philippe saw little of his father.

But he admired his father very much. He wanted to cook the way his father did some day. That was another great desire in the heart of this little boy. Philippe dreamed of some day becoming a chef like his father.

But he did not look like Papa Paul. Philippe's father was stout and round and smiling. And Philippe was rather slender, and had a serious little face with big dreamy eyes. He was like his mother.

STOUT AND ROUND AND SMILING

Mother Yvelle was thin and pale and sad-looking.

You see, she and her husband had lived through the terrible World War.

There are, however, people whose dispositions are so jolly that they forget sadness. Philippe's father was one of these people. Though Papa Paul wore a wooden leg, it did not seem to affect his sunny smile. When he was in the war he had been shot in the leg, and now he wore a leg of wood. He had been a chef only since the war.

Before the war Philippe's parents had farmed and raised vegetables together. They had been happy farmers. But their farm had been blown to bits by the enemy.

Many stormy years passed, and many terrible things happened to these poor people. But finally the sunny smile won out. Here was Papa Paul cooking in one of the best restaurants in Belgium, while Mother Yvelle was the farmer.

Mother Yvelle looked forward to the day when Philippe should be old enough to help her drive the dogs to town with the vegetables.

Philippe, too, wanted that day to come. He wanted to drive the fine dogs to town.

From the barn he made his way to a tiny shack, which was his own little kitchen. Here he spent many hours over a small stove his father had made for him. He prepared dishes that he thought were very fine.

Today he had gathered some vegetables and carried them with the other things he had in his arms.

"What are you going to cook today?" asked the gardener, Emile (ā-mēl´).

He stood in the door holding a big rake and looking amused.

"A stew—a very fine stew," answered Philippe, and he began to pour a number of things into a pot.

"What are you putting into the stew?" asked Emile.

"Onions and peas, some rice, a nice little fat snail and a root," the boy replied, as he began to stir.

"A root? What kind of a root?" inquired the gardener.

"Oh, a root that I found. A very big one. I dug it up."

Emile laughed and moved on. One could never tell what went into Philippe's stews. Sometimes Emile was made to taste them. Then he had to tell Philippe that the stews were good. But Emile always had to drink some water afterwards to wash away the taste.

But then Philippe was such a little boy. Besides, the gardener felt sorry for him, because he was lonesome.

Philippe called the gardener Emile Epinard (ā-mēl´ ā-pē-när´), which means "Emile Spinach." And, indeed, Emile did look like a ragged leaf of spinach!

Philippe had a