They all laughed, for Ethel Blue"s struggles with mathematics were calculated to arouse sympathy even in a hardened breast.
"It"s all true," agreed Helen, who had been listening quietly to what the younger girls were saying, "and I believe we ought to show people more than we do that we like them. I don"t see why we"re so scared to let a person know that we think she"s done something well, or to sympathize with her when she"s having a hard time."
"O," exclaimed Dorothy shrinkingly, "it"s so embarra.s.sing to tell a person you"re sorry."
"You don"t have to tell her in words," insisted Helen. "You can make her realize that you understand what she is going through and that you"d like to help her."
"How can you do it without talking?" asked Ethel Brown, the practical.
"When I was younger," answered Helen thoughtfully, "I used to be rather afraid of a person who was in trouble. I thought she might think I was intruding if I spoke of it. But Mother told me one day that a person who was suffering didn"t want to be treated as if she were in disgrace and not to be spoken to, and I"ve always tried to remember it. Now, when I know about it or guess it I make a point of being just as nice as I know how to her. Sometimes we don"t talk about the trouble at all; sometimes it comes out naturally after a while. But even if the subject isn"t mentioned she knows that there is at least one person who is interested in her and her affairs."
"I begin to see why you"re so popular at school," remarked Margaret, who had known for a long time other reasons for Helen"s popularity.
Helen threw a leaf at her friend and asked the Ethels to make some lemonade. They had brought the juice in a bottle and chilled water in a thermos bottle, so that the preparation was not hard. There were cold cheese straws to eat with it. The Ethels had made them in their small kitchen at home by rubbing two tablespoonfuls of b.u.t.ter into four tablespoonfuls of flour, adding two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, seasoning with a pinch of cayenne, another of salt and another of mace, rolling out to a thickness of a quarter of an inch, cutting into strips about four inches long and half an inch wide and baking in a hot oven.
""Which I wish to remark and my language is plain,"" Helen quoted, "that in spite of d.i.c.ky"s picking all the blossoms we have so many flowers now that we ought to do--give them away.
"Ethel Blue and I have been taking some regularly every week to the old ladies at the Home," returned Ethel Brown.
"I was wondering if there were enough to send some to the hospital at Glen Point," suggested Margaret. "The Glen Point people are pretty good about sending flowers, but the hospital is an old story with them and sometimes they don"t remember when they might."
"I should think we might send some there and some to the Orphanage,"
said Dorothy, from whose large garden the greater part of the supply would have to come. "Have the orphans any gardens to work in?"
"They have beds like your school garden here in Rosemont, but they have to give the vegetables to the house and I suppose it isn"t much fun to raise vegetables and then have them taken away from you."
"They eat them themselves."
"But they don"t know w.i.l.l.y"s tomato from Johnny"s. If w.i.l.l.y and Johnny were allowed to sell their crops they"d be willing to pay out of the profit for the seed they use and they"d take a lot of interest in it.
The housekeeper would buy all they"d raise, and they"d feel that their gardens were self-supporting. Now they feel that the seed is given to them out of charity, and that it"s a stingy sort of charity after all because they are forced to pay for the seed by giving up their vegetables whether they want to or not."
"Do they enjoy working the gardens?"
"I should say not! James and I said the other day that they were the most forlorn looking gardeners we ever laid our eyes on."
"Don"t they grow any flowers at all?"
"Just a few in a border around the edge of their vegetable gardens and some in front of the main building where they"ll be seen from the street."
The girls looked at each other and wrinkled their noses.
"Let"s send some there every week and have the children understand that young people raised them and thought it was fun to do it."
"And can"t you ask to have the flowers put in the dining-room and the room where the children are in the evening and not in the reception room where only guests will see them?"
"I will," promised Margaret. "James and I have a scheme to try to have the children work their gardens on the same plan that the children do here," she went on. "We"re going to get Father to put it before the Board of Management, if we can."
"I do hope he will. The kiddies here are so wild over their gardens that it"s proof to any one that it"s a good plan."
"Oo-hoo," came Roger"s call across the field.
"Oo-hoo. Come up," went back the answer.
"What are you girls talking about?" inquired the young man, arranging himself comfortably with his back against a rock and accepting a paper tumbler of lemonade and some cheese straws.
Helen explained their plan for disposing of the extra flowers from their gardens.
"It"s Service Club work; we ought to have started it earlier," she ended.
"The Ethels did begin it some time ago; I caught them at it," he accused, shaking his finger at his sister and cousin.
"I told the girls we had been taking flowers to the Old Ladies" Home,"
confessed Ethel Brown.
"O, you have! I didn"t know that! I did find out that you were supplying the Atwoods down by the bridge with sweetpeas."
"There have been such oodles," protested Ethel Blue.
"Of course. It was the right thing to do."
"How did you know about it, anyway? Weren"t you taking flowers there yourself?"
"No, ma"am."
"What were you doing?"
"I know; I saw him digging there one day."
"O, keep still, Dorothy," Roger remonstrated.
"You might as well tell us about it."
"It isn"t anything. I did look in one day to ask if they"d like some sweetpeas, but I found the Ethels were ahead of me. The old lady has a fine s...o...b..ll bush and a beauty syringa in front of the house. When I spoke about them she said she had always wanted to have a bed of white flowers around the two bushes, so I offered to make one for her. That"s all."
"Good for Roger!" cried Margaret. "Tell us what you put into it. We"ve had pink and blue and yellow beds this year; we can add white next year."
"Just common things," replied Roger. "It was rather late so I planted seeds that would hurry up; sweet alyssum for a border, of course, and white verbenas and balsam, and petunias, and candytuft and, phlox and stocks and portulaca and poppies. Do you remember, I asked you, Dorothy, if you minded my taking up that aster that showed a white bud? That went to Mrs. Atwood. The seeds are all coming up pretty well now and the old lady is as pleased as Punch."
"I should think she might be! Can the old gentleman cultivate them or is his rheumatism too bad?"
"I put in an hour there every once in a while," Roger admitted reluctantly.
"It"s nothing to be ashamed of!" laughed Helen encouragingly. "What I want to know is how we are to send our flowers in to New York to the Flower and Fruit Guild. Della said she"d look it up and let us know."
"She did. I saw Tom yesterday and he gave me these slips and asked me to tell you girls about them and I forgot it."
Roger bobbed his head by way of asking forgiveness, which was granted by a similar gesture.