XVII

THE GIRLS’ WINTER WORK.

“We want some plants at school this winter, and we each should like some plants of our own at home.”  This remark greeted The Chief one day in late September as he entered his home after a long tramp in the woods.

The slant rays of the late afternoon sun and the low fire in the fireplace were not able to give The Chief any clue as to the speakers.  “Who are ’we’?” he demanded.

“I am Dee,” was the reply, “and ‘we’ are all the girls.”

“Dear me” said the man, “I thought I had settled your case by recommending bulb culture to you.”

“Not much!” shouted the girls all together.  “We have finished our bulb work,” Katharine went on to say, “and now we are very anxious to do something with house plants.  We have a good six weeks or more to wait for our bulbs, and so we thought possibly you would be willing to help us.”

“I did think,” grumbled the man, “that after I had invited you to a series of talks this winter you would leave me in peace.”

And then they all laughed gaily together.

“Well, what is your stock you have to work with, girls?  I shall have to know that before I can help you.”

“We have—­that is, most of us have—­a lot of old straggly geraniums in our gardens.  Then Katharine’s mother has some fuchsias and begonias which she has promised us,” replied Miriam.

“Up at the hotel where Jack sold his lettuce there are a few things I have been promised,” added Elizabeth.

“Do you know what these are?” asked Ethel.

“Yes.  There are some heliotrope plants, marguerites, some lovely rose geraniums, and a few flowering maples or—­I have forgotten the long name for them.”

“Abutilon is the other name,” added The Chief.  “Well, that is a start, surely.  I’ll do some potting with you next Saturday afternoon.  That will give Elizabeth time to get her hotel plants.  I guess Dee will drive you up.  You are to take a big basket with you, and your trowels.  Carefully lift each plant from its resting-place.  Water the soil a bit before you take up the plants.  They come up easier for this, and soil is more likely to remain clinging to the roots.  If it should rain Friday you will be saved the trouble of taking a watering pot with you.  Be sure to take up with the plant some of its own soil.  Then pack all these soil-encased plants in your basket.  Do not let the sun get at them before we get at potting.  Come all of you at two in the afternoon.  Bring your plants with their own earth, your straggly geraniums, pots, and each a trowel.  Now perhaps you will be willing to trot home so I may eat my supper.”

Next Saturday at two a grand collection of girls, plants, big pots, little pots, and trowels arrived.  The Chief took girls and all out into his potting shed.  This was once an old woodhouse; now a shed with benches running along two sides of it.  Under the benches were great heaps of soil.  Pots and pans were piled in one corner and garden implements were neatly put up on the walls.