home after a long tramp in the woods.

The slant rays of the late afternoon sun and the low fire in the
fireplace were not able to give The Chief any clue as to the speakers.
"Who are '_we_'?" he demanded.

"I am Dee," was the reply, "and 'we' are all the girls."

"Dear me" said the man, "I thought I had settled your case by
recommending bulb culture to you."

"Not much!" shouted the girls all together. "We have finished our bulb
work," Katharine went on to say, "and now we are very anxious to do
something with house plants. We have a good six weeks or more to wait
for our bulbs, and so we thought possibly you would be willing to help
us."

"I did think," grumbled the man, "that after I had invited you to a
series of talks this winter you would leave me in peace."

And then they all laughed gaily together.

"Well, what is your stock you have to work with, girls? I shall have to
know that before I can help you."

"We have--that is, most of us have--a lot of old straggly geraniums in
our gardens. Then Katharine's mother has some fuchsias and begonias
which she has promised us," replied Miriam.

"Up at the hotel where Jack sold his lettuce there are a few things I
have been promised," added Elizabeth.

"Do you know what these are?" asked Ethel.

"Yes. There are some heliotrope plants, marguerites, some lovely rose
geraniums, and a few flowering maples or--I have forgotten the long name
for them."

"Abutilon is the other name," added The Chief. "Well, that is a start,
surely. I'll do some potting with you next Saturday afternoon. That will
give Elizabeth time to get her hotel plants. I guess Dee will drive you
up. You are to take a big basket with you, and your trowels. Carefully
lift each plant from its resting-place. Water the soil a bit before you
take up the plants. They come up easier for this, and soil is more
likely to remain clinging to the roots. If it should rain Friday you
will be saved the trouble of taking a watering pot with you. Be sure to
take up with the plant some of its own soil. Then pack all these
soil-encased plants in your basket. Do not let the sun get at them
before we get at potting. Come all of you at two in the afternoon. Bring
your plants with their own earth, your straggly geraniums, pots, and
each a trowel. Now perhaps you will be willing to trot home so I may eat
my supper."

Next Saturday at two a grand collection of girls, plants, big pots,
little pots, and trowels arrived