"That"s a good idea. I hope Secretary Ethel Blue is taking notes of all these suggestions," remarked Helen, who was the president of the Club.
Ethel Blue said she was, and Roger complimented her faithfulness in terms of extravagant absurdity.
"Your present lot of land has the best looking fencing in Rosemont, to my way of thinking," approved Tom.
"What is it? I hardly remember myself," said Dorothy thoughtfully.
"Why, across the front there"s a privet hedge, clipped low enough for your pink garden to be seen over it; and separating you from the Clarks"
is a row of tall, thick hydrangea bushes that are beauties as long as there are any leaves on them; and at the back there is osage orange to shut out that old dump; and on the other side is a row of small blue spruces."
"That"s quite a showing of hedges all in one yard." exclaimed Ethel Blue admiringly. "And I never noticed them at all!"
"At the new place Mother wants to try a barberry hedge. It doesn"t grow regularly, but each bush is handsome in itself because the branches droop gracefully, and the leaves are a good green and the cl.u.s.ters of red berries are striking."
"The leaves turn red in the autumn and the whole effect is stunning,"
contributed Della. "I saw one once in New England. They aren"t usual about here, and I should think it would be a beauty."
"You can let it grow as tall as you like," said James. "Your house is going to be above it on the knoll and look right over it, so you don"t need a low hedge or even a clipped one."
"At the side and anywhere else where she thinks there ought to be a real fence she"s going to put honey locust."
They all laughed.
"That spiny affair _will_ be discouraging to visitors!" Helen exclaimed.
"Why don"t you try hedges of gooseberries and currants and raspberries and blackberries around your garden?"
"That would be killing two birds with one stone, wouldn"t it!"
"You"ll have a real problem in landscape gardening over there," said Margaret.
"The architect of the house will help on that. That is, he and Mother will decide exactly where the house is to be placed and how the driveway is to run."
"There ought to be some shrubs climbing up the knoll," advised Ethel Brown. "They"ll look well below the house and they"ll keep the bank from washing. I noticed this afternoon that the rains had been rather hard on it."
"There are a lot of lovely shrubs you can put in just as soon as you"re sure the workmen won"t tramp them all down," cried Ethel Blue eagerly.
"That"s one thing I do know about because I went with Aunt Marion last year when she ordered some new bushes for our front yard."
"Recite your lesson, kid," commanded Roger briefly.
"There is the weigelia that Dorothy has in front of this house; and forsythia--we forced its yellow blossoms last week, you know; and the flowering almond--that has whitey-pinky-b.u.t.tony blossoms."
They laughed at Ethel"s description, but they listened attentively while she described the spiky white blossoms of deutzia and the winding white bands of the spiraea--bridal wreath.
"I can see that bank with those white shrubs all in blossom, leaning toward the road and beckoning you in," Ethel ended enthusiastically.
"I seem to see them myself," remarked Tom, "and Dorothy can be sure that they won"t beckon in vain."
"You"ll all be as welcome as daylight," cried Dorothy.
"I hate to say anything that sounds like putting a damper on this outburst of imagination that Ethel Blue has just treated us to, but I"d like to inquire of Miss Smith whether she has any gardening tools," said Roger, bringing them all to the ground with a b.u.mp.
"Miss Smith hasn"t one," returned Dorothy, laughing. "You forget that we only moved in here last September and there hasn"t been need for any that we couldn"t borrow of you."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Gardening Tools]
"You"re perfectly welcome to them," answered Roger, "but if we"re all going to do the gardening act there"ll be a scarcity if we don"t add to the number."
"What do we need?"
"A rake and a hoe and a claw and a trowel and a spade and a heavy line with some pegs to do marking with."
"We"ve found that it"s a comfort to your back to have another claw mounted on the end of a handle as long as a hoe," contributed Margaret.
"Two claws," Dorothy amended her list, isn"t many."
"And a lot of dibbles."
"Dibbles!"
"Short flat sticks whittled to a point. You use them when you"re changing little plants from the to the hot bed or the hot bed to the garden."
"Mother and I ought to have one set of tools here and one set at Sweetbrier Lodge," decided Dorothy.
"We keep ours in the shed. I"m going to whitewash the corner where they belong and make it look as fine as a fiddle before the time comes to use them."
"We have a shed here where we can keep them but at Sweetbrier there isn"t anything," and Dorothy"s mouth dropped anxiously.
"We can build you a tool house," Tom was offering when James interrupted him.
"If we can get a piano box there"s your toolhouse all made," he suggested. "Cover it with tar paper so the rain won"t come in, and hang the front on hinges with a hasp and staple and padlock, and what better would you want?"
"Nothing," answered Ethel Brown, seriously. Ethel Blue noted it down in her book and Roger promised to visit the local piano man and see what he could find.
"We haven"t finished deciding how we shall plant Dorothy"s yard behind this house," Margaret reminded them.
"We shan"t attempt a vegetable garden here," Dorothy said. "We"ll start one at the other place so that the soil will be in good condition next year. We"ll have a man to do the heavy work of the two places, he can bring over every morning whatever vegetables are ready for the day"s use."
"You want more flowers in this yard, then?"
"You"ll laugh at what I want!"
"Don"t you forget what you promithed me," piped up d.i.c.ky.
"That"s what I was going to tell them now. I"ve promised d.i.c.ky to plant a lot of sunflowers for his hens. He says Roger never has had s.p.a.ce to plant enough for him."
"True enough. Give him a big bed of them so he can have all the seeds he wants."
"I"d like to have a wide strip across the back of the whole place, right in front of the osage orange hedge. They"ll cover the lower part that"s rather scraggly--then everywhere else I want nasturtiums, climbing and dwarf and every color under the sun."