“We need the herbs ourselves, Miss Ethel,” came back a protest from Mary.

“I don’t want to refuse to fill any order I get, Mary,” Ethel Brown insisted.  “Next year we’ll plant a huge bed, enough for a dozen kitchens.”

This unexpected order resulted in the making of another poster giving the information that fresh kitchen herbs might be had on order and would be delivered by parcel post to any address.

Several of their customers demanded ferns for their houses indoors or for their porches or wild gardens.  This order was not welcome for it meant that some one had to go to the woods to get them as none had been planted in the gardens as yet.  Still, in accordance with their decision never to refuse to fill an order unless it was absolutely impossible, the girls went themselves or sent one of the boys on a search for what they needed.

One steady customer was an invalid who lived in Athens Creek and who could drive only a few miles once or twice a week.  She happened in to the Inn one day and ever after she made the house her goal.  Her especial delight was meadow flowers, and she placed a standing order to have an armful of meadow blossoms ready for her every Thursday.  This necessitated a visit to the meadows opposite Grandfather Emerson’s house every Wednesday afternoon so that the flowers should have recovered from their first shock by the next morning.

“This takes me back to the days when I used to follow the flowers through the whole summer,” the invalid cried delightedly.  “Ah, Joe-Pye-Weed has arrived,” she exclaimed joyfully over the handsome blossom.

When the Ethels and Dorothy received their first order for the decoration of a house for an afternoon reception they were somewhat overcome.

“Can we do it?” they asked each other.

They concluded they could.  One went to the house two days beforehand to examine the rooms and to see what vases and bowls they should have at their disposal.  Then they looked over the gardens very carefully to see what blossoms would be cut on the appointed day, and then they made a plan with pencil and paper.

Mr. Emerson lent his car on the morning of the appointed day and Roger went with them to unload the flowers and plants.  They had kept the flowers of different colors together, a matter easy to do when cutting from their beds of special hues, and this arrangement made easy the work of decorating different rooms in different colors.  The porch was made cool with ferns and hanging vines; the hall, which seemed dark to eyes blinded by the glare outside, was brightened with yellow posies; the dining room had delicate blue lobelia mingled with gypsophila springing from low, almost unseen dishes all over the table where the tea and coffee were poured, and hanging in festoons from the smaller table on which stood the bowl of grape juice lemonade, made very sour and very sweet and enlivened with charged water.  The girls profited by this combination, for the various amounts used in it were being “tried out” during the morning and with every new trial refreshing glasses were handed about for criticism by the workers.