"I have no flowers for cutting this summer," she said, "and I"ve been bothered getting some every day. It has taken George"s time when he should have been doing other things."
"We"ll do it for the rent," offered Ethel Blue.
"No, I"ve been buying flowers outside and using my own time in arranging them. It"s only fair that I should pay you as I would have paid some one long ago if I could have found the right person. I stick to the percentage arrangement for the rent."
On the way home the girls realized with some discomfiture that without consulting Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Smith they had made an arrangement that would keep them away from home a good deal and put them in a rather exposed position.
"What do you suppose Mother and Aunt Louise will say?" asked Ethel Brown doubtfully.
"I think they"ll let us do it. They know we need the money for Rose House just awfully, and they like Miss Foster and her mother--I"ve heard Aunt Marion say they were so brave about undertaking the Inn."
Her voice quavered off into uncertainty, for she realized as she spoke that what a young woman of Miss Foster"s age did in connection with her mother was a different matter from a business venture entered into alone by girls of fourteen.
The fact that the business venture was to be carried on under the eye of Mrs. Foster and her daughter, ladies whom Mrs. Morton knew well and respected and admired, was the turning point in her decision to allow the girls to conduct the affair which had entered their minds so suddenly. She and Mrs. Smith went to the Inn and a.s.sisted in the arrangement of the first a.s.sortment of flowers and plants, saw to it that there was a s.p.a.ce on the back porch where they could be handled without the water or vases being in the way of the workers in the Inn, suggested that an additional sign reading
PLANTS and CUT FLOWERS
be hung below the sign outside and that a card
FOR THE BENEFIT OF ROSE HOUSE
be placed over the table inside, and then went away and left the girls to manage affairs themselves.
It was while Ethel Blue was drawing the poster to hang over the table that the "botanist" walked into the hall and strolled over to investigate the addition to the furnishings. He asked a question or two in a voice they did not like. They noticed that the young girl with him called him "Uncle Dan" and that he called her "Mary."
The girls had arranged their flowers according to Mrs. Smith"s and Mrs.
Emerson"s ideas, not crowding them but showing each to its best advantage and selecting for each a vase that suited its form and coloring. Their supplies were kept out of sight in order not to mar the effect. The tables of the tea rooms were decorated with pink on this opening day, both because they thought that some of the guests might see some connection between pink and the purpose of the sale, helping _Rose House_--and for the practical reason that they had more pink blossoms than any other color, thanks to their love of that gay hue.
It was noon before any people outside of the resident guests of the Inn stopped at the house. Then a party of people evidently from a distance, for they were covered with dust, ordered luncheon. While the women were arranging their hair in the dressing room the men came over to the flower table and asked countless questions.
"Here, Gerald," one called to another, "these young women have just begun this business to-day and they haven"t had a customer yet. I"m going to be the first; you can be the second."
"Nothing of the sort; I"ll be the first myself," and "Gerald" tossed half a dollar on to the table with an order for "Sweetpeas, all pink, please."
Ethel Blue, flushed with excitement over this first sale, set about filling a box with the fresh b.u.t.terfly blossoms, while Ethel Brown attended to the man who had begun the conversation. He wanted "A bunch of bachelor"s b.u.t.tons for a young lady with blue eyes." An older man who came to see what the younger ones were doing bought b.u.t.tonholes for all the men and directed that a handful of flowers of different kinds be placed beside each plate on the large table on the shady porch where they were to have their meal.
When the women appeared they were equally interested, and inquired all about Rose House. One of them directed that enough ferns for the renewal of a centerpiece should be ready for her to take away when they left and the other bought one of the hanging baskets which Roger had arranged as a sample of what they could supply if called upon.
"Roger will be tickled to pieces that his idea caught on at once," Ethel Brown murmured to Ethel Blue as they sorted and packed their orders, not very deftly, but swiftly enough for the posies to add to the enjoyment of the people at the table and for the parcels to be ready for them when the motor came to the door.
"We"ll tell all our friends about you," the guests promised as they left.
These were the only patrons until afternoon brought in several parties for tea. Almost every one of them was sufficiently drawn by the "Rose House" placard to make inquiries, and several of them bought flowers and potted plants. The same was true of the dinner arrivals.
When the girls examined their receipts for the day they found they had taken in over seven dollars, had booked several orders and already had learned a good deal about what people liked and what they could carry conveniently in their machines.
"We shan"t need to have so many cut flowers here," they decided after the day"s experience. "It"s better to leave them on the plants and then if we run short to telephone to the house and have d.i.c.ky bring over an extra supply."
"These potted plants are all right here, though. We can leave them on the back porch at night, Miss Foster says, and bring them in to the table in the morning."
"We must get Roger to fill some more hanging baskets and ox muzzles and make some ivy b.a.l.l.s; those are going to take."
The plan worked out extremely well, its only drawback being that the girls had to give more time to the table at the Inn than they liked.
They were "spelled" however, by other members of the Club, and finally, as a result of a trip when they all went away for a few days, they engaged a schoolmate of the Ethels who had helped them occasionally, to give her whole time to the work at the Inn.
Financially the scheme worked out very well. When it came time to pay the rent for the first week the Ethels decided that they were accepting charity if they only paid Miss Foster five per cent. of their gross earnings, so they doubled it.
"I am buying the cut flowers at the same price that the girls are selling them to other customers, and I am glad to pay for their arrangement for it releases me to attend to matters that need me more,"
she had explained. "Even if it should be a few cents on the wrong side of my account, I am glad to contribute something to Rose House. And the motoring season is comparatively short, too."
Every once in a while they received an idea from some one who asked for something they did not have. One housekeeper wanted fresh herbs and the Ethels telephoned directions for the picking of the herb bed that Roger had planted for their own kitchen use.
"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 gla.s.ses were handed about for criticism by the workers.
In the drawing room where the hostess stood to receive, superb pink poppies reared their heads from tall vases, pink snapdragons bobbed on the mantel piece and a bank of pink candytuft lay on the top of the piano. A lovely vine waved from a wall vase of exquisite design and vines trailed around the wide door as naturally as if they grew there instead of springing from bottles of water concealed behind tall jars of pink hollyhocks.
"It is perfectly charming, my dears, and I can"t tell you how obliged I am," said their hostess as she pressed a bill into Ethel Brown"s hand.
"I know that every woman who will be here will want you the next time she entertains, and I shall tell everybody you did it."
She was as good as her word and the attempt resulted in several other orders. The girls tried to make each house different from any that they had decorated before, and they thought that they owed the success that brought them many compliments to the fact that they planned it all out beforehand and left nothing to be done in a haphazard way.
Meanwhile Rose House benefited greatly by the welcome weekly additions from the flower sale to its slender funds.
"I"m not sure it isn"t roses ye are yerselves, yer that sweet to look at!" exclaimed Moya, the cook at Rose House, one day when the girls were there.
And they admitted themselves that if happiness made them sweet to look at it must be true.