CHAPTER III

DOROTHY TELLS HER SECRET

“How queer it is that when you’re interested in something you keep seeing and hearing things connected with it!” exclaimed Ethel Blue about a week after her birthday, when Della Watkins came out from town to bring her her belated birthday gift.

The present proved to be a slender hillock covered with a silky green growth exquisite in texture and color.

“What is it?  What is it?” cried Ethel Blue.  “We mentioned plants and gardens on my birthday and that very evening Margaret brought me this grapefruit jungle and now you’ve brought me this.  Do tell me exactly what it is.”

“A cone, child.  That’s all.  A Norway spruce cone.  When it is dry its scales are open.  I filled them with grass seed and put the cone in a small tumbler so that the lower end might be damp all the time.  The dampness makes the scales close and starts the seed to sprouting.  This has been growing a few days and the cone is almost hidden.”

“It’s one of the prettiest plants—­would you call it a plant or a greenhouse?—­I ever saw.  Does it have to be a Norway spruce cone?”

“O, no.  Only they have very regular scales that hold the seed well.  I brought you out two more of them and some grass seed and canary seed so you could try it for yourself.”

“You’re a perfect duck,” and Ethel gave her friend a hug.  “Now let me show you what one of the girls at school gave Ethel Brown.”

She indicated a strange-looking brown object hanging before the window.

“What in the world is it?  It looks—­yes, it looks like a sweet potato.”

“That’s what it is—­a sweet potato with one end cut off and a cage of tape to hold it.  You see it’s sprouting already, and they say that the vines hang down from it and it looks like a little green hanging basket.”

“What’s the object of cutting off the end?”

“Anna—­that’s Ethel Brown’s friend—­said that she scooped hers out just a little bit and put a few drops of water inside so that the sun shouldn’t dry it too much.”

“I should think it would grow better in a dark place.  Don’t you know how Irish potatoes send out those white shoots when they’re in the cellar?”

“She said she started hers in the cellar and then brought them into the light.”

“Just like bulbs.”

“Exactly.  Aunt Louise is having great luck with her bulbs now.  She had them in the cellar and now she is bringing them out a pot at a time, so she has something new coming forward every few days.”

“Dorothy doesn’t care much for bulbs, but I think it’s pretty good fun.  You can make them blossom just about when you please by keeping them in the dark or bringing them into the light.  I’m going to ask Aunt Louise to give me some of hers when they’re finished flowering.  She says you can plant them out of doors and next year they’ll bloom in the garden.”