cessary, until I discovered
that out of the eight girls in our immediate circle, only half were
native Americans. My vis-a-vis, Therese, was a Neapolitan; Mamie, a
Genoese; Amelia was born in Bohemia; the girl with the yellow hair was
North German; and Nellie declared she was from County Killarney and
mighty glad of it.

"Well, I'm an American," said Bessie, tossing her head in mock scorn, as
she cleared away a quantity of the flowers that had been meanwhile
accumulating on the wire lines.

Therese laughed. "But only by the skin of your teeth--an eleventh-hour
arrival." Then she turned to me and whispered that Bessie was born only
two weeks after her mother came to this country.

"Better late than never," laughed Bessie, casting a backward and
withering glance at the aliens as she moved away with her trayful of
scarlet blossoms to the branchers' table, where another relay of workers
twisted green leaves among the scarlet and tied them in wreaths and
bunches.

By eleven o'clock I had made two dozen poppies, which Amelia told me was
"just grand for a beginner." I began to feel confident that I should
hold the job, and my fingers flew. Into the glue-pot at my right hand I
dipped my little finger, picking up at the same moment with my other
hand a bit of paper-covered wire. On the end of the wire was a bunch of
short yellow threads, which were touched lightly with my glue-smeared
finger, the wire being held between the thumb and forefinger. With the
free left hand, I caught up a fluttering corolla, touching its
perforated center with glue; then I "slipped up" the wire about an inch,
took up another corolla in the same way, and then drew the two to the
"pipped" or heart end of the wire, where they now became a big red
flower with a golden eye. A bit of dark-green rubber tubing drawn over
the wire completed the process, the end was bent into a hook, and the
full-blown poppy hung on the line.

At a quarter past eleven a little girl wearing an immense flower-hat
and carrying a large market-basket came and asked us for our lunch
orders. She carried a long piece of pasteboard and wrote as the girls
dictated. One could buy anything one wanted, Bessie explained; bread and
butter, eggs, chops, steak, potatoes, canned goods, for which there was
ample provision for cooking on the gas-stoves used by the rose-makers to
heat their pincers. When the little girl was gone I learned that she was
one of the errand-runners, and that this