"Dip, birds, dip
Where the ferns lean over,
And their crinkled edges drip,
Haunt and hover."
"Here's the best place yet!" called Dorothy, who had pushed on and was now out of sight.
"Where are you?"
"Here. See if you can find me," came a muffled answer.
"Where do you suppose she went to?" asked Ethel Brown, as they all three straightened themselves, yet saw no sign of Dorothy.
"I hope she hasn't fallen down a precipice and been killed!" said Ethel Blue, whose imagination sometimes ran away with her.
"More likely she has twisted her ankle," practical Ethel Brown.
"She wouldn't sound as gay as that if anything had happened to her," Della reminded them.
The cries that kept reaching them were unquestionably cheerful but where they came from was a problem that they did not seem able to solve. It was only when Dorothy poked out her head from behind a rock almost in front of them that they saw the entrance of what looked like a real cave.
"It's the best imitation of a cave I ever did see!" the explorer exclaimed. "These rocks have tumbled into just the right position to make the very best house! Come in."
Her guests were eager to accept her invitation. There was space enough for all of them and two or three more might easily be accommodated within, while a bit of smooth grass outside the entrance almost added another room, "if you aren't particular about a roof," as Ethel Brown said.
"Do you suppose Roger has never found this!" wondered Dorothy. "See, there's room enough for a fireplace with a chimney. You could cook here. You could sleep here. You could live here!"
The others laughed at her enthusiasm, but they themselves were just as enthusiastic. The possibilities of spending whole days here in the shade and cool of the trees and rocks and of imagining that they were in the highlands of Scotland left them almost gasping.
"Don't you remember when Fitz-James first sees Ellen in the 'Lady of the Lake'?" asked Ethel Blue.
"He was separated from his men and found himself in a rocky glen overlooking a lake. The rocks were bigger than these but we can pretend they were just the same," and she recited a few lines from a poem whose story they all knew and loved.
"But not a setting beam could glow
Within the dark ravines below,
Where twined the path in shadow hid,
Round many a rocky pyramid."
"I remember; he looked at the view a long time and then he blew his horn again to see if he could make any of his men hear him, and Ellen came gliding around a point of land in a skiff. She thought it was her father calling her."
"And the stranger went home to their lodge and fell in love with her—O, it's awfully romantic. I must read it again," and Dorothy gazed at the rocks around her as if she were really in Scotland.
"Has anybody a knife?" asked Della's clear voice, bringing them all sharply back to America and Rosemont. "My aunt—the one who has the hanging flowerpots I was telling you about—isn't a bit well and I thought I'd make her a little fernery that she could look at as she lies in bed."
"But the ferns are all dried up."
"'Greenery' is a better name. Here's a scrap of partridge berry with a red berry still clinging to it, and here's a bit of moss as green as it was in summer, and here—yes, it's alive, it really is!" and she held up in triumph a tiny fern that had been so sheltered under the edge of a boulder that it had kept fresh and happy.
There was nothing more to reward their search, for they all hunted with Della, but she was not discouraged.
"I only want a handful of growing things," she explained. "I put these in a finger bowl, and sprinkle a few seeds of grass or canary seed on the moss and dash some water on it from the tips of my fingers. Another finger bowl upside down makes the cover. The sick person can see what is going on inside right through the glass without having to raise her head."
"How often do you water it?"
"Only once or twice a week, because the moisture collects on the upper glass of the little greenhouse and falls down again on the plants and keeps them, wet."
"We'll keep our eyes open every time we come here," promised Dorothy. "There's no reason why you couldn't add a little root of this or that any time you want to."
"I know Aunty will be delighted with it," cried Della, much pleased. "She likes all plants, but especially things that are a little bit different. That's why she spends so much time selecting her wall vases—so that they shall be unlike other people's."
"Fitz-James's woods," as they already called the bit of forest that Dorothy hoped to have possession of, extended back from the road and spread until it joined Grandfather Emerson's woods on one side and what was called by the Rosemonters "the West Woods" on the other. The girls walked home by a path that took them into Rosemont not far from the station where Della was to take the train.
"Until you notice what there really is in the woods in winter you think there isn't anything worth looking at," said Ethel Blue, walking along with her eyes in the tree crowns.
"The shapes of the different trees are as distinct now as they are in summer," declared Ethel Brown. "You'd know that one was an oak, and the one next to it a beech, wouldn't you?"
"I don't know whether I would or not," confessed Dorothy honestly, "but I can almost always tell a tree by its bark."
"I can tell a chestnut by its bark nowadays," asserted Ethel Blue, "because it hasn't any!"
"What on earth do you mean?" inquired city-bred Della.
"Something or other has killed all the chestnuts in this part of the world in the last two or three years. Don't you see all these dead trees standing with bare trunks?"
"Poor old things! Is it going to last?"
"It spread up the Hudson and east and west in New York and Massachusetts, and south into Pennsylvania."
"Roger was telling Grandfather a few days ago that a farmer was telling him that he thought the trouble—the pest or the blight or whatever it was—had been stopped."
"I remember now seeing a lot of dead trees somewhere when one of Father's parishioners took us motoring in the autumn. I didn't know the chestnut crop was threatened."
"Chestnuts weren't any more expensive this year. They must have imported them from far-off states."
There were still pools of water in the wood path, left by the melting snow, and the grass that they touched seemed a trifle greener than that beside the narrow road. Once in a while a bit of vivid green betrayed a plant that had found shelter under an overhanging stone. The leaves were for the most part dry enough again to rustle under their feet. Evergreens stood out sharply dark against the leafless trees.
"What are the trees that still have a few leaves left clinging to them?" asked Della.
"Oaks. Do you know why the leaves stay on?"
"Is it a story?"
"Yes, a pleasant story. Once the Great Evil Spirit threatened to destroy the whole world. The trees heard the threat and the oak tree begged him not to do anything so wicked. He insisted but at last he agreed not to do it until the last leaf had fallen in the autumn. All the trees meant to hold On to their leaves so as to ward off the awful disaster, but one after the other they let them go—all except the oak. The oak never yet has let fall every one of its leaves and so the Evil Spirit never has had a chance to put his threat into execution."
"That's a lesson in success, isn't it? Stick to whatever it is you want to do and you're sure to succeed."
"Watch me make my garden succeed," cried Dorothy. "If 'sticking' will make it a success I'm a stick!"
CHAPTER IV
When Saturday came and the United Service Club tramped over Dorothy's new domain, including the domain that she hoped to have but was not yet sure of, every member agreed that the prospect was one that gave satisfaction to the Club as well as the possibility of pleasure and comfort to Mrs. Smith and Dorothy. The knoll they hailed as the exact spot where a house should go; the ridge behind it as precisely suited to the needs of a garden.
As to the region of the meadow and the brook and the rocks and the trees they all hoped most earnestly that Mrs. Smith would be able to buy it, for they foresaw that it would provide much amusement for all of them during the coming summer and many to follow.
Strangely enough Roger had never found the cave, and he looked on it with yearning.
"Why in the world didn't I know of that three or four years ago!" he exclaimed. "I should have lived out here all summer!"
"That's what we'd like to do," replied the Ethels earnestly. "We'll let you come whenever you want to."
Roger gave a sniff, but the girls knew from his longing gaze that he was quite as eager as they to fit it up for a day camp even if he was nearly eighteen and going to college next autumn.
When the exploring tour was over they gathered in their usual meeting place—Dorothy's attic—and discussed the gardens which had taken so firm a hold on the girls' imaginations.
"There'll be a small garden in our back yard as usual," said Roger in a tone that admitted of no dispute.
"And a small one in Dorothy's present back yard and a LARGE one on Miss Smith's farm," added Tom, who had confirmed with his own eyes the glowing tales that Della had brought home to him.
"I suppose we may all have a chance at all of these institutions?" demanded James.
"Your mother may have something to say about your attentions to your own garden," suggested Helen pointedly.
"I won't slight it, but I've really got to have a finger in this pie if all of you are going to work at it!"
"Well, you shall. Calm yourself," and Roger patted him with a soothing hand. "You may do all the digging I promised the girls I'd do."
A howl of laughter at James's expense made the attic ring.
James appeared quite undisturbed.
"I'm ready to do my share," he insisted placidly. "Why don't we make plans of the gardens now?"
"Methodical old James always has a good idea," commended Tom. "Is there any brown paper around these precincts, Dorothy?"
"Must it be brown?"
"Any color, but big sheets."
"I see. There is plenty," and she spread it on the table where James had done so much pasting when they were making boxes in which to pack their presents for the war orphans.
"Now, then, Roger, the first thing for us to do is to see—"
"With our mind's eye, Horatio?"
"—how these gardens are going to look. Take your pencil in hand and draw us a sketch of your backyard as it is now, old man."
"That's easy," commented Roger. "Here are the kitchen steps; and here is the drying green, and back of that is the vegetable garden and around it flower beds and more over here next the fence."
"It's rather messy looking as it is," commented Ethel Brown. "We never have changed it from the way the previous tenant laid it out."
"The drying green isn't half large enough for the washing for our big family," added Helen appraisingly. "Mary is always lamenting that she can hang out only a few lines-ful at a time."
"Why don't you give her this space behind the green and limit your flower beds to the fence line?" asked Tom, looking over Roger's shoulder as he drew in the present arrangement with some attention to the comparative sizes.
"That would mean cutting out some of the present beds."
"It would, but you'll have a share in Dorothy's new garden in case Mrs. Morton needs more flowers for the house; and the arrangement I suggest makes the yard look much more shipshape."
"If we sod down these beds here what will Roger do for his sweetpeas? They ought to have the sun on both sides; the fence line wouldn't be the best place for them."
"Sweetpeas ought to be planted on chicken wire supported by stakes and running from east to west," said Margaret wisely, "but under the circumstances, I don't see why you couldn't fence in the vegetable garden with sweetpeas. That would give you two east and west lines of them and two north and south."
"And there would be space for all the blossoms that Roger would want to pick on a summer's day," laughed Della.
"I've always wanted to have a garden of all pink flowers," announced Dorothy. "My room in the new house is going to be pink and I'd like to keep pink powers in it all the time."
"I've always wanted to do that, too. Let's try one here," urged Ethel Brown, nodding earnestly at Ethel Blue.
"I don't see why we couldn't have a pink bed and a blue bed and a yellow bed," returned Ethel Blue whose inner eye saw the plants already well grown and blossoming.
"A wild flower bed is what I'd like," contributed Helen.
"We mustn't forget to leave a space for Dicky," suggested Roger.
"I want the garden I had latht year," insisted a decisive voice that preceded the tramp of determined feet over the attic stairs.
"Where was it, son? I've forgotten."
"In a corner of your vegetable garden. Don't you remember my raditheth were ripe before yourth were? Mother gave me a prithe for the firtht vegetableth out of the garden."
"So she did. You beat me to it. Well, you may have the same corner again."
"We ought to have some tall plants, hollyhocks or something like that, to cover the back fence," said Ethel Brown.
"What do you say if we divide the border along the fence into four parts and have a wild garden and pink and yellow and blue beds? Then we can transplant any plants we have now that ought to go in some other color bed, and we can have the tall plants at the back of the right colors to match the bed in front of them?"
"There can be pink hollyhocks at the back of the pink bed and we already have pinks and bleeding heart and a pink peony. We've got a good start at a pink bed already," beamed Ethel Brown.
"We can put golden glow or that tall yellow snapdragon at the back of the yellow bed and tall larkspurs behind the blue flowers."
"The Miss Clarks have a pretty border of dwarf ageratum—that bunchy, fuzzy blue flower. Let's have that for the border of our blue bed."
"I remember it; it's as pretty as pretty. They have a dwarf marigold that we could use for the yellow border."
"Or dwarf yellow nasturtiums."
"Or yellow pansies."
"We had a yellow stock last summer that was pretty and blossomed forever; nothing seemed to stop it but the 'chill blasts of winter.'"
"Even the short stocks are too tall for a really flat border that would match the others. We must have some 'ten week stocks' in the yellow border, though."
"Whatever we plant for the summer yellow border we must have the yellow spring bulbs right behind it—jonquils and daffodils and yellow tulips and crocuses."
"They're all together now. All we'll have to do will be to select the spot for our yellow bed."
"That's settled then. Mark it on this plan."
Roger held it out to Ethel Brown, who found the right place and indicated the probable length of the yellow bed upon it.
"We'll have the wild garden on one side of the yellow bed and the blue on the other and the pink next the blue," decreed Ethel Blue.
"We haven't decided on the pink border," Dorothy reminded them.
"There's a dwarf pink candytuft that couldn't be beaten for the purpose," said James decisively. "Mother and I planted some last year to see what it was like and it proved to be exactly what you want here."
"I know what I'd like to have for the wild border—either wild ginger or hepatica," announced Helen after some thought.
"I don't know either of them," confessed Tom.
"You will after you've tramped the Rosemont woods with the U.S.C. all this spring," promised Ethel Brown. "They have leaves that aren't unlike in shape—"
"The ginger is heart-shaped," interposed Ethel Blue, "and the hepatica is supposed to be liver-shaped."
"You have to know some physiology to recognize them," said James gravely. "There's where a doctor's son has the advantage," and he patted his chest.
"Their leaves seem much too juicy to be evergreen, but the hepatica does stay green all winter."
"The ginger would make the better edging," Helen decided, "because the leaves lie closer to the ground."
"What are the blossoms?"
"The ginger has such a wee flower hiding under the leaves that it doesn't count, but the hepatica has a beautiful little blue or purple flower at the top of a hairy scape."
"A hairy what?" laughed Roger.
"A scape is a stem that grows up right from the or root-stock and carries only a flower—not any leaves," defined Helen.
"That's a new one on me. I always thought a stem was a stem, whatever it carried," said Roger.
"And a scape was a 'grace' or a 'goat' according to its activities," concluded Tom.
"The hepatica would make a border that you wouldn't have to renew all the time," contributed Dorothy, who had been thinking so deeply that she had not heard a word of this interchange, and looked up, wondering why every one was laughing.
"Dorothy keeps her eye on the ball," complimented James. "Have we decided on the background flowers for the wild bed?"
"Joe-Pye-Weed is tall enough," offered James. "It's way up over my head."
"It wouldn't cover the fence much; the blossom is handsome but the foliage is scanty."
"There's a feathery meadow-rue that is tall. The leaves are delicate."
"I know it; it has a fine white blossom and it grows in damp places. That will be just right. Aren't you going to have trouble with these wild plants that like different kinds of ground?"
"Perhaps we are," Helen admitted. "Our garden is 'middling' dry, but we can keep the wet lovers moist by watering them more generously than the rest."
"How about the watering systems of all these gardens, anyway? You have town water here and at Dorothy's, but how about the new place?"
"The town water runs out as far as Mr. Emerson's, luckily for us, and Mother says she'll have the connection made as soon as the frost is out of the ground so the builders may have all they want for their work and I can have all I need for the garden there."
"If you get that next field with the brook and you want to plant anything there you'll have to dig some ditches for drainage."
"I think I'll keep up on the ridge that's drained by nature."
"That's settled, then. We can't do much planning about the new garden until we go out in a body and make our decisions on the spot," said Margaret. "We'll have to put in vegetables and flowers where they'd rather grow."
"That's what we're trying to do here, only it's on a small scale," Roger reminded her. "Our whole garden is about a twentieth of the new one."
"I shouldn't wonder if we had to have some expert help with that," guessed James, who had gardened enough at Glen Point not to be ashamed to confess ignorance now and then.
"Mr. Emerson has promised to talk it all over with me," said Dorothy.
"Let's see what there is at Dorothy's present abode, then," said Roger gayly, and he took another sheet of brown paper and began to place on it the position of the house and the existing borders. "Do I understand, madam, that you're going to have a pink border here?"
"I am," replied his cousin firmly, "both here and at the new place."
"Life will take on a rosy hue for these young people if they can make it," commented Della. "Pink flowers, a pink room—is there anything else pink?"
"The name. Mother and I have decided on 'Sweetbrier Lodge.' Don't you think it's pretty?"
"Dandy," approved Roger concisely, as he continued to draw. "Do you want to change any of the beds that were here last summer?" he asked.
"Mother said she liked their positions very well. This long, narrow one in front of the house is to be the pink one. I've got pink tulip bulbs in the ground now and there are some pink flowering shrubs—weigelia and flowering almond—already there against the lattice of the veranda. I'm going to work out a list of plants that will keep a pink bed blossoming all summer and we can use it in three places," and she nodded dreamily to her cousins.
"We'll do that, but I think it would be fun if each one of us tried out a new plant of some kind. Then we can find out which are most suitable for our needs next year. We can report on them to the Club when they come into bloom. It will save a lot of trouble if we tell what we've found out about what some plant likes in the way of soil and position and water and whether it is best to cut it back or to let it bloom all it wants to, and so on."
"That's a good idea. I hope Secretary Ethel Blue is taking notes of all these suggestions," remarked Helen, who was the president of the Club.
Ethel Blue said she was, and Roger complimented her faithfulness in terms of extravagant absurdity.
"Your present lot of land has the best looking fencing in Rosemont, to my way of thinking," approved Tom.
"What is it? I hardly remember myself," said Dorothy thoughtfully.
"Why, across the front there's a privet hedge, clipped low enough for your pink garden to be seen over it; and separating you from the Clarks' is a row of tall, thick hydrangea bushes that are beauties as long as there are any leaves on them; and at the back there is osage orange to shut out that old dump; and on the other side is a row of small blue spruces."
"That's quite a showing of hedges all in one yard." exclaimed Ethel Blue admiringly. "And I never noticed them at all!"
"At the new place Mother wants to try a barberry hedge. It doesn't grow regularly, but each bush is handsome in itself because the branches droop gracefully, and the leaves are a good green and the clusters of red berries are striking."
"The leaves turn red in the autumn and the whole effect is stunning," contributed Della. "I saw one once in New England. They aren't usual about here, and I should think it would be a beauty."
"You can let it grow as tall as you like," said James. "Your house is going to be above it on the knoll and look right over it, so you don't need a low hedge or even a clipped one."
"At the side and anywhere else where she thinks there ought to be a real fence she's going to put honey locust."
They all laughed.
"That spiny affair will be discouraging to visitors!" Helen exclaimed. "Why don't you try hedges of gooseberries and currants and raspberries and blackberries around your garden?"
"That would be killing two birds with one stone, wouldn't it!"
"You'll have a real problem in landscape gardening over there," said Margaret.
"The architect of the house will help on that. That is, he and Mother will decide exactly where the house is to be placed and how the driveway is to run."
"There ought to be some shrubs climbing up the knoll," advised Ethel Brown. "They'll look well below the house and they'll keep the bank from washing. I noticed this afternoon that the rains had been rather hard on it."
"There are a lot of lovely shrubs you can put in just as soon as you're sure the workmen won't tramp them all down," cried Ethel Blue eagerly. "That's one thing I do know about because I went with Aunt Marion last year when she ordered some new bushes for our front yard."
"Recite your lesson, kid," commanded Roger briefly.
"There is the weigelia that Dorothy has in front of this house; and forsythia—we forced its yellow blossoms last week, you know; and the flowering almond—that has whitey-pinky-buttony blossoms."
They laughed at Ethel's description, but they listened attentively while she described the spiky white blossoms of deutzia and the winding white bands of the spiraea—bridal wreath.
"I can see that bank with those white shrubs all in blossom, leaning toward the road and beckoning you in," Ethel ended enthusiastically.
"I seem to see them myself," remarked Tom, "and Dorothy can be sure that they won't beckon in vain."
"You'll all be as welcome as daylight," cried Dorothy.
"I hate to say anything that sounds like putting a damper on this outburst of imagination that Ethel Blue has just treated us to, but I'd like to inquire of Miss Smith whether she has any gardening tools," said Roger, bringing them all to the ground with a bump.
"Miss Smith hasn't one," returned Dorothy, laughing. "You forget that we only moved in here last September and there hasn't been need for any that we couldn't borrow of you."
"You're perfectly welcome to them," answered Roger, "but if we're all going to do the gardening act there'll be a scarcity if we don't add to the number."
"What do we need?"
"A rake and a hoe and a claw and a trowel and a spade and a heavy line with some pegs to do marking with."
"We've found that it's a comfort to your back to have another claw mounted on the end of a handle as long as a hoe," contributed Margaret.
"Two claws," Dorothy amended her list, isn't many."
"And a lot of dibbles."
"Dibbles!"
"Short flat sticks whittled to a point. You use them when you're changing little plants from the to the hot bed or the hot bed to the garden."
"Mother and I ought to have one set of tools here and one set at Sweetbrier Lodge," decided Dorothy.
"We keep ours in the shed. I'm going to whitewash the corner where they belong and make it look as fine as a fiddle before the time comes to use them."
"We have a shed here where we can keep them but at Sweetbrier there isn't anything," and Dorothy's mouth dropped anxiously.
"We can build you a tool house," Tom was offering when James interrupted him.
"If we can get a piano box there's your toolhouse all made," he suggested. "Cover it with tar paper so the rain won't come in, and hang the front on hinges with a hasp and staple and padlock, and what better would you want?"
"Nothing," answered Ethel Brown, seriously. Ethel Blue noted it down in her book and Roger promised to visit the local piano man and see what he could find.
"We haven't finished deciding how we shall plant Dorothy's yard behind this house," Margaret reminded them.
"We shan't attempt a vegetable garden here," Dorothy said. "We'll start one at the other place so that the soil will be in good condition next year. We'll have a man to do the heavy work of the two places, he can bring over every morning whatever vegetables are ready for the day's use."
"You want more flowers in this yard, then?"
"You'll laugh at what I want!"
"Don't you forget what you promithed me," piped up Dicky.
"That's what I was going to tell them now. I've promised Dicky to plant a lot of sunflowers for his hens. He says Roger never has had space to plant enough for him."
"True enough. Give him a big bed of them so he can have all the seeds he wants."
"I'd like to have a wide strip across the back of the whole place, right in front of the osage orange hedge. They'll cover the lower part that's rather scraggly—then everywhere else I want nasturtiums, climbing and dwarf and every color under the sun."
"That's a good choice for your yard because it's awfully stony and nasturtiums don't mind a little thing like that."
"Then I want gourds over the trellis at the back door."
"Gourds!"
"I saw them so much in the South that I want to try them. There's one shape that makes a splendid dipper when it's dried and you cut a hole in it; and there's another kind just the size of a hen's egg that I want for nest eggs for Dickey's hens; and there's the loofa full of fibre that you can use for a bath sponge; and there's a pear-shaped one striped green and yellow that Mother likes for a darning ball; and there's a sweet smelling one that is as fragrant as possible in your handkerchief case. There are some as big as buckets and some like base ball bats, but I don't care for those."
"What a collection," applauded Ethel Brown.
"Beside that my idea of Japanese morning glories and a hop vine for our kitchen regions has no value at all," smiled Helen.
"I'm going to have hops wherever the vines can find a place to climb at Sweetbrier," Dorothy determined. "I love a hop vine, and it grows on forever."
"James and I seem to be in the same condition. If we don't start home we'll go on talking forever," Margaret complained humorously.
"There's to be hot chocolate for us down stairs at half past four," said Dorothy, jumping up and looking at a clock that was ticking industriously on a shelf. "Let's go down and get it, and we'll ask Mother to sing the funny old song of 'The Four Seasons' for us."
"Why is it funny?" asked Ethel Blue.
"It's a very old English song with queer spelling."
"Something like mine?" demanded Della.
Ethel Blue kissed her.
"Never mind; Shakspere spelled his name in several different ways," she said encouragingly, "Anyway, we can't tell how this is spelled when Aunt Louise sings it."
As they sat about the fire in the twilight drinking their chocolate and eating sandwiches made of nuts ground fine, mixed with mayonnaise and put on a crisp lettuce leaf between slices of whole wheat bread, Mrs. Smith sang the old English song to them.
"Springe is ycomen in,
Dappled lark singe;
Snow melteth,
Runnell pelteth,
Smelleth winde of newe buddinge.
"Summer is ycomen in,
Loude singe cucku;
Groweth seede,
Bloweth meade,
And springeth the weede newe.
"Autumne is ycomen in,
Ceres filleth horne;
Reaper swinketh,
Farmer drinketh,
Creaketh waine with newe corn.
"Winter is ycomen in,
With stormy sadde cheere;
In the paddocke,
Whistle ruddock,
Brighte sparke in the dead yeare."
"That's a good stanza to end with," said Ethel Blue, as she bade her aunt "Good-bye." "We've been talking about gardens and plants and flowers all the afternoon, and it would have seemed queer to put on a heavy coat to go home in if you hadn't said 'Winter is ycomen in.'"
CHAPTER V
In spite of their having made such an early start in talking about gardens the members of the United Service Club did not weary of the idea or cease to plan for what they were going to do. The only drawback that they found in gardening as a Club activity was that the gardens were for themselves and their families and they did not see exactly how there was any "service" in them.
"I'll trust you youngsters to do some good work for somebody in connection with them," asserted Grandfather Emerson one day when Roger had been talking over with him his pet plan for remodelling the old Emerson farmhouse into a place suitable for the summer shelter of poor women and children from the city who needed country air and relief from hunger and anxiety.
"We aren't rushing anything now," Roger had explained, "because we boys are all going to graduate this June and we have our examinations to think about. They must come first with us. But later on we'll be ready for work of some sort and we haven't anything on the carpet except our gardens."
"There are many good works to be done with the help of a garden," replied Mr. Emerson. "Ask your grandmother to tell you how she has sent flowers into New York for the poor for many, many summers. There are people right here in Rosemont who haven't enough ground to raise any vegetables and they are glad to have fresh corn and Brussels sprouts sent to them. If you really do undertake this farmhouse scheme there'll have to be a large vegetable garden planted near the house to supply it, and you can add a few flower beds. The old place will look better flower-dressed than empty, and perhaps some of the women and children will like to work in the garden."
Roger went home comforted, for he was very loyal to the Club and its work and he did not want to become so involved with other matters that he could not give himself to the purpose for which the Club was organized—helping others.
As he passed the Miss Clarks he stopped to give their furnace its nightly shaking, for he was the accredited furnace man for them and his Aunt Louise as well as for his mother. He added the money that he earned to the treasury of the Club so that there might always be enough there to do a kind act whenever there should be a chance.
As he labored with the shaker and the noise of his struggles was sent upward through the registers a voice called to him down the cellar stairs.
"Ro-ger; Roger!"
"Yes, ma'am," replied Roger, wishing the old ladies would let him alone until he had finished his work.
"Come up here, please, when you've done."
"Very well," he agreed, and went on with his racket.
When he went upstairs he found that the cause of his summons was the arrival of a young man who was apparently about the age of Edward Watkins, the doctor brother of Tom and Della.
"My nephew is a law student," said Miss Clark as she introduced the two young people, "and I want him to know all of our neighbors."
"My name is Stanley Clark," said the newcomer, shaking hands cordially. "I'm going to be here for a long time so I hope I'll see you often."
Roger liked him at once and thought his manner particularly pleasant in view of the fact that he was several years older. Roger was so accustomed to the companionship of Edward Watkins, who frequently joined the Club in their festivities and who often came to Rosemont to call on Miss Merriam, that the difference did not seem to him a cause of embarrassment. He was unusually easy for a boy of his age because he had always been accustomed to take his sailor father's place at home in the entertainment of his mother's guests.
Young Clark, on his side, found his new acquaintance a boy worth talking to, and they got on well. He was studying at a law school in the city, it seemed, and commuted every day.
"It's a long ride," he agreed when Roger suggested it, "but when I get home I have the good country air to breathe and I'd rather have that than town amusements just now when I'm working hard."
Roger spoke of Edward Watkins and Stanley was interested in the possibility of meeting him. Evidently his aunts had told him all about the Belgian baby and Miss Merriam, for he said Elisabeth would be the nearest approach to a soldier from a Belgian battlefield that he had seen.
Roger left with the feeling that his new acquaintance would be a desirable addition to the neighborhood group and he was so pleased that he stopped in at his Aunt Louise's not only to shake the furnace but to tell her about Stanley Clark.
During the next month they all came to know him well and they liked his cheerfulness and his interest in what they were doing and planning. On Saturdays he helped Roger build a hot bed in the sunniest spot against the side of the kitchen ell. They found that the frost had not stiffened the ground after they managed to dig down a foot, so that the excavation was not as hard as they had expected. They dug a hole the size of two window sashes and four feet deep, lining the sides with some old bricks that they found in the cellar. At first they filled the entire bed with fresh stable manure and straw. After it had stayed under the glass two days it was quite hot and they beat it down a foot and put on six inches of soil made one-half of compost and one-half of leaf mould that they found in a sheltered corner of the West Woods.
"Grandfather didn't believe we could manage to get good soil at this season even if we did succeed in digging the hole, but when I make up my mind to do a thing I like to succeed," said Roger triumphantly when they had fitted the sashes on to planks that sloped at the sides so that rain would run off the glass, and called the girls out to admire their result.
"What are we going to put in here first?" asked Ethel Brown, who liked to get at the practical side of matters at once.
"I'd like to have some violets," said Ethel Blue. "Could I have a corner for them? I've had some plants promised me from the Glen Point greenhouse man. Margaret is going to bring them over as soon as I'm ready for them."
"I want to see if I can beat Dicky with early vegetables," declared Roger. "I'm going to start early parsley and cabbage and lettuce, cauliflower and egg plants, radishes and peas and corn in shallow boxes—flats Grandfather says they're called—in my room and the kitchen where it's warm and sunny, and when they've sprouted three leaves I'll set them out here and plant some more in the flats."
"Won't transplanting them twice set them back?"
"If you take up enough earth around them they ought not to know that they've taken a journey."
"I've done a lot of transplanting of wild plants from the woods," said Stanley, "and I found that if I was careful to do that they didn't even wilt."
"Why can't we start some of the flower seeds here and have early blossoms?"
"You can. I don't see why we can't keep it going all the time and have a constant supply of flowers and vegetables earlier than we should if we trusted to Mother Nature to do the work unaided."
"Then in the autumn we can stow away here some of the plants we want to save, geraniums and begonias, and plants that are pretty indoors, and take them into the house when the indoor ones become shabby."
"Evidently right in the heart of summer is the only time this article won't be in use," decided Stanley, laughing at their eagerness. "Have you got anything to cover it with when the spring sunshine grows too hot?"
"There is an old hemp rug and some straw matting in the attic—won't they do?"
"Perfectly. Lay them over the glass so that the delicate little plants won't get burned. You can raise the sashes, too."
"If we don't forget to close them before the sun sets and the night chill comes on, I suppose," smiled Ethel Blue. "Mr. Emerson says that seeds under glass do better if they're covered with newspaper until they start."
It was about the middle of March when Mrs. Smith went in to call on her neighbors, the Miss Clarks, one evening. They were at home and after a talk on the ever-absorbing theme of the war Mrs. Smith said,
"I really came in here on business. I hope you've decided to sell me the meadow lot next to my knoll. If you've made up your minds hadn't I better tell my lawyer to make out the papers at once?"
"Sister and I made up our minds some time ago, dear Mrs. Smith, and we wrote to Brother William about it before he came to stay with us, and he was willing, and Stanley, here, who is the only other heir of the estate that we know about, has no objection."
"That gives me the greatest pleasure. I'll tell my lawyer, then, to have the title looked up right away and make out the deed—though I feel as if I should apologize for looking up the title of land that has been in your family as long as Mr. Emerson's has been in his."
"You needn't feel at all apologetic," broke in Stanley. "It's never safe to buy property without having a clear title, and we aren't sure that we are in a position to give you a clear title."
"That's why we haven't spoken to you about it before," said the elder Miss Clark; "we were waiting to try to make it all straight before we said anything about it one way or the other."
"Not give me a clear title!" cried Mrs. Smith. "Do you mean that I won't be able to buy it? Why, I don't know what Dorothy will do if we can't get that bit with the brook; she has set her heart on it."
"We want you to have it not only for Dorothy's sake but for our own. It isn't a good building lot—it's too damp—and we're lucky to have an offer for it."
"Can you tell me just what the trouble is? It seems as if it ought to be straight since all of you heirs agree to the sale."
"The difficulty is," said Stanley, "that we aren't sure that we are all the heirs. We thought we were, but Uncle William made some inquiries on his way here, and he learned enough to disquiet him."
"Our father, John Clark, had a sister Judith," explained the younger Miss Clark. "They lived here on the Clark estate which had belonged to the family for many generations. Then Judith married a man named Leonard—Peter Leonard—and went to Nebraska at a time when Nebraska was harder to reach than California is now. That was long before the Civil War and during those frontier days Aunt Judith and Uncle Peter evidently were tossed about to the limit of their endurance. Her letters came less and less often and they always told of some new grief—the death of a child or the loss of some piece of property. Finally the letters ceased altogether. I don't understand why her family didn't hold her more closely, but they lost sight of her entirely."
"Probably it was more her fault than theirs," replied Mrs. Smith softly, recalling that there had been a time when her own pride had forbade her letting her people know that she was in dire distress.
"It doesn't make much difference to-day whose fault it was," declared Stanley Clark cheerfully; "the part of the story that interests us is that the family thought that all Great-aunt Judith's children were dead. Here is where Uncle William got his surprise. When he was coming on from Arkansas he stopped over for a day at the town where Aunt Judith had posted her last letter to Grandfather, about sixty years ago. There he learned from the records that she was dead and all her children were dead—except one."
"Except one!" repeated Mrs. Smith. "Born after she ceased writing home?"
"Exactly. Now this daughter—Emily was her name—left the town after her parents died and there is no way of finding out where she went. One or two of the old people remember that the Leonard girl left, but nothing more."
"She may be living now."
"Certainly she may; and she may have married and had a dozen children. You see, until we can find out something about this Emily we can't give a clear title to the land."
Mrs. Smith nodded her understanding.
"It's lucky we've never been willing to sell any of the old estate," said Mr. William Clark, who had entered and been listening to the story. "If we had we should, quite ignorantly, have given a defective title."
"Isn't it possible, after making as long and thorough a search as you can, to take the case into court and have the judge declare the title you give to be valid, under the circumstances?"
"That is done; but you can see that such a decision would be granted only after long research on our part. It would delay your purchase considerably."
"However, it seems to me the thing to do," decided Mrs. Smith, and she and Stanley at once entered upon a discussion of the ways and means by which the hunt for Emily Leonard and her heirs was to be accomplished. It included the employment of detectives for the spring months, and then, if they had not met with success, a journey by Stanley during the weeks of his summer vacation.
Dorothy and Ethel were bitterly disappointed at the result of Mrs. Smith's attempt to purchase the coveted bit of land.
"I suppose it wouldn't have any value for any one else on earth," cried Dorothy, "but I want it."
"I don't think I ever saw a spot that suited me so well for a summer play place," agreed Ethel Blue, and Helen and Roger and all the rest of the Club members were of the same opinion.
"The Clarks will be putting the price up if they should find out that we wanted it so much," warned Roger.
"I don't believe they would," smiled Mrs. Smith. "They said they thought themselves lucky to have a customer for it, because it isn't good for building ground."
"We'll hope that Stanley will unearth the history of his great-aunt," said Roger seriously.
"And find that she died a spinster," smiled his Aunt Louise. "The fewer heirs there are to deal the simpler it will be."