“Poison ivy!” repeated Della, springing back.  “How do you know it is?  I thought it was woodbine—­Virginia creeper.”

“Virginia creeper has as many fingers as your hand; this ivy has only three leaflets.  See, I-V-Y,” and Ethel Blue took a small stick and tapped a leaflet for each letter.

“I must tell Grandfather this is here,” said Helen.  “He tries to keep this road clear of it even if he finds it growing on land not his own.  It’s too dangerous to be so close to the sidewalk.”

“It’s a shame it behaves so badly when it’s so handsome.”

“It’s not handsome if ‘handsome is as handsome does’ is true.  But this is stunning when the leaves turn scarlet.”

“It’s a mighty good plan to admire it from a distance,” decided Tom, who had been looking at it carefully.  “Della and I being ‘city fellers,’ we’re ignorant about it.  I’ll remember not to touch the three-leaved I-V-Y, from now on.”

The Club was intent on finishing their flower garden plans that afternoon.  They had gathered together all the seedsmen’s catalogues that had been sent them and they had also accumulated a pile of garden magazines.  They knew, however, that Mr. Emerson had some that they did not have, and they also wanted his help, so they had telephoned over to find out whether he was to be at home and whether he would help them with the laying out of their color beds.

“Nothing I should like better,” he had answered cordially so now they were on the way to put him to the test.

“We already have some of our color plants in our gardens left over from last year,” Helen explained, “and some of the others that we knew we’d want we’ve started in the hotbed, and we’ve sowed a few more in the open beds, but we want to make out a full list.”

“Just what is your idea,” asked Mr. Emerson, while Grandmother Emerson saw that the dining table around which they were sitting had on it a plentiful supply of whole wheat bread sandwiches, the filling being dates and nuts chopped together.

Helen explained their wish to have beds all of one color.

“We girls are so crazy over pink that we’re going to try a pink bed at both of Dorothy’s gardens as well as in ours,” she laughed.

“You’d like a list of plants that will keep on blooming all summer so that you can always run out and get a bunch of pink blossoms, I suppose.”

“That’s exactly what we want,” and they took their pencils to note down any suggestions that Mr. Emerson made.

“We’ve decided on pink candytuft for the border and single pink hollyhocks for the background with foxgloves right in front of them to cover up the stems at the bottom where they haven’t many leaves and a medium height phlox in front of that for the same reason.”

“You should have pink morning glories and there’s a rambler rose, a pink one, that you ought to have in the southeast corner on your back fence,” suggested Mr. Emerson.  “Stretch a strand or two of wire above the top and let the vine run along it.  It blooms in June.”