“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.”

[Illustration:  Gardening Tools]

“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.”