"These bottles make me think of a story our French teacher told us once," Helen laughed as she stood carefully to be made into a bouquet.
"There was a real Cyrano de Bergerac who lived in the 17th century. He told a tale supposed to be about his own adventures in which he said that once he fastened about himself a number of phials filled with dew.
The heat of the sun attracted them as it does the clouds and raised him high in the air. When he found that he was not going to alight on the moon as he had thought, he broke some of the phials and descended to earth again."
"What a ridiculous story," laughed Ethel Blue, kneeling at Helen"s feet with a heap of flowers beside her on the floor.
"The rest of it is quite as foolish. When he landed on the earth again he found that the sun was still shining, although according to his calculation it ought to be midnight; and he also did not recognize the place he dropped upon in spite of the fact that he had apparently gone straight up and fallen straight down. Strange people surrounded him and he had difficulty in making himself understood. After a time he was taken before an official from whom he learned that on account of the rotation of the earth under him while he was in the air, although he had risen when but two leagues from Paris he had descended in Canada."
The younger girls laughed delightedly at this absurd tale, as they worked at their task. Bits of trailing vine fell from gla.s.s to gla.s.s so that none of the holders showed, but a delicate tinkling sounded from them like the water of a brook.
"This gown of yours is certainly successful," decided Margaret, surveying the result of the Ethels" work, "but I dare say it isn"t comfortable, so you"d better have another one that you can slip into behind the scenes after you"ve made the rounds in this."
Helen took the advice and after the procession had pa.s.sed by, she put on a pretty flowered muslin with pink ribbons.
Dorothy walked immediately behind Helen. She was dressed like a garden lily, her petals wired so that they turned out and up at the tips. She wore yellow stockings and slippers as a reminder of the anthers or pollen boxes on the ends of the stamens of the lilies.
d.i.c.ky"s costume created as much sensation as Roger"s. He was a Jack-in-the-Pulpit. A suit of green striped in two shades fitted him tightly, and over his head he carried his pulpit, a wire frame covered with the same material of which his clothes were made. The shape was exact and he looked so grave as he peered forth from his shelter that his appearance was saluted with hearty hand clapping.
Several of the young people of the town followed in the Summer division. One of them was a fleur-de-lis, wearing a skirt of green leaf blades and a bodice representing the purple petals of the blossom.
George Foster was monkshood, a cambric robe--a "domino"--serving to give the blue color note, and a very correct imitation of the flower"s helmet answering the purpose of a head-dress. Gregory Patton was Gra.s.s, and achieved one of the successful costumes of the line with a robe that rippled to the ground, green cambric its base, completely covered with gra.s.s blades.
"That boy ought to have a companion dressed like a hayc.o.c.k," laughed Mr.
Emerson as Gregory pa.s.sed him.
Margaret led the Autumn division, her dress copied from a chestnut tree and burr. Her kirtle was of the long, slender leaves overlapping each other. The bodice was in the tones of dull yellow found in the velvety inside of the opened burr and of the deep brown of the chestnut itself.
This, too, was approved by the onlookers.
Behind her walked Della, a combination of purple asters and golden rod, the rosettes of the former seeming a rich and solid material from which the heads of goldenrod hung in a delicate fringe.
A "long-haired Chrysanthemum" was among the autumn flowers, his tissue paper petals slightly wired to make them stand out, and a stalk of Joe-Pye-Weed strode along with his dull pink corymb proudly elevated above the throng.
All alone as a representative of Winter was Tom Watkins, decorated superbly as a Christmas Tree. Boughs of Norway spruce were bound upon his arms and legs and covered his body. Shining b.a.l.l.s hung from the twigs, tinsel glistened as he pa.s.sed under the lantern light, and strings of popcorn reached from his head to his feet. There was no question of his popularity among the children. Every small boy who saw him asked if he had a present for him.
The flower procession served to draw the people into the hall and the screened corner. They cheerfully yielded up a dime apiece at the entrance to each place, and when the "show" was over they were re-replaced by another relay of new arrivals, so that the program was gone through twice in the hall and twice in the open in the course of the evening.
A march of all the flowers opened the program. This was not difficult, for all the boys and girls were accustomed to such drills at school, but the effect in costumes under the electric light was very striking.
Roger, still dressed as an apple tree, recited Bryant"s "Planting of the Apple Tree." d.i.c.ky delivered a brief sermon from his pulpit. George Foster ordered the lights out and went behind a screen on which he made shadow finger animals to the delight of every child present. Mrs. Smith gave her little talk on the arrangement of flowers, ill.u.s.trating it by the examples around the room which were later carried out to the open when she repeated her "turn" in the enclosure. The cartoonist of the _Star_ gave a chalk talk on "Famous Men of the Day," reciting an amusing biography of each and sketching his portrait, framed in a rose, a daisy, mountain laurel, a larkspur or whatever occurred to the artist as he talked.
There was music, for Mr. Schuler, who formerly had taught music in the Rosemont schools and who was now with his wife at Rose House, where the United Service Club was taking care of several poor women and children, had drilled some of his former pupils in flower choruses. One of these, by children of d.i.c.ky"s age, was especially liked.
Every one was pleased and the financial result was so satisfactory that Rosemont soon began to blossom like the flower from which it was named.
"Team work certainly does pay," commented Roger enthusiastically when the Club met again to talk over the great day.
And every one of them agreed that it did.
CHAPTER XII
ENOUGH TO GIVE AWAY
At the very beginning of his holidays Stanley Clark had gone to Nebraska to replace the detective who had been vainly trying to find some trace of his father"s cousin, Emily Leonard. The young man was eager to have the matter straightened out, both because it was impossible to sell any of the family land unless it were, and because he wanted to please Mrs.
Smith and Dorothy, and because his orderly mind was disturbed at there being a legal tangle in his family.
Perhaps he put into his search more clearness of vision than the detective, or perhaps he came to it at a time when he could take advantage of what his predecessor had done;--whatever the reason, he did find a clue and it seemed a strange coincidence that it was only a few days after the Miss Clarks had received the second offer for their field that a letter came to them from their nephew, saying that he had not only discovered the town to which Emily"s daughter had gone and the name of the family into which she had been adopted, but had learned the fact that the family had later on removed to the neighborhood of Pittsburg.
"At least, this brings the search somewhat nearer home," Stanley wrote, "but it also complicates it, for "the neighborhood of Pittsburg" is very vague, and it covers a large amount of country. However, I am going to start to-night for Pittsburg to see what I can do there. I"ve grown so accustomed to playing hide-and-seek with Cousin Emily and I"m so pleased with my success so far that I"m hopeful that I may pick up the trail in western Pennsylvania."
The Clarks and the Smiths all shared Stanley"s hopefulness, for it did indeed seem wonderful that he should have found the missing evidence after so many weeks of failure by the professional detective, and, if he had traced one step, why not the next?
The success of the gardens planted by the U.S.C. had been remarkable.
The plants had grown as if they wanted to please, and when blossoming time came, they bloomed with all their might.
"Do you remember the talk you and I had about Rose House just before the Fresh Air women and children came out?" asked Ethel Blue of her cousin.
Ethel Brown nodded, and Ethel Blue explained the conversation to Dorothy.
"We thought Roger"s scheme was pretty hard for us youngsters to carry out and we felt a little uncertain about it, but we made up our minds that people are almost always successful when they _want_ like everything to do something and _make up their minds_ that they are going to put it through and _learn how_ to put it through."
"We"ve proved it again with the gardens," responded Ethel Brown. "We wanted to have pretty gardens and we made up our minds that we could if we tried and then we learned all we could about them from people and books."
"Just see what Roger knows now about fertilizers!" exclaimed Dorothy in a tone of admiration. "Fertilizers aren"t a bit interesting until you think of them as plant food and realize that plants like different kinds of food and try to find out what they are. Roger has studied it out and we"ve all had the benefit of his knowledge."
"Which reminds me that if we want any flowers at all next week we"d better put on some nitrate of soda this afternoon or this dry weather will ruin them."
"Queer how that goes right to the blossoms and doesn"t seem to make the whole plant grow."
"I did a deadly deed to one of my calceolarias," confessed Ethel Blue.
"I forgot you mustn"t use it after the buds form and I sprinkled away all over the plant just as I had been doing."
"Did you kill the buds?"
"It discouraged them. I ought to have put some crystals on the ground a little way off and let them take it in in the air."
"It doesn"t seem as though it were strong enough to do either good or harm, does it? One tablespoonful in two gallons of water!"
"Grandfather says he wouldn"t ask for plants to blossom better than ours are doing." Ethel Brown repeated the compliment with just pride.
"It"s partly because we"ve loved to work with them and loved them,"
insisted Ethel Blue. "Everything you love answers back. If you hate your work it"s just like hating people; if you don"t like a girl she doesn"t like you and you feel uncomfortable outside and inside; if you don"t like your work it doesn"t go well."
"What do you know about hating?" demanded Dorothy, giving Ethel Blue a hug.
Ethel flushed.
"I know a lot about it," she insisted. "Some days I just despise arithmetic and on those days I never can do anything right; but when I try to see some sense in it I get along better."