"How queer it is that when you're interested in something you keep seeing and hearing things connected with it!" exclaimed Ethel Blue about a week after her birthday, when Della Watkins came out from town to bring her her belated birthday gift.

The present proved to be a slender hillock covered with a silky green growth exquisite in texture and color.

"What is it? What is it?" cried Ethel Blue. "We mentioned plants and gardens on my birthday and that very evening Margaret brought me this grapefruit jungle and now you've brought me this. Do tell me exactly what it is."

"A cone, child. That's all. A Norway spruce cone. When it is dry its scales are open. I filled them with grass seed and put the cone in a small tumbler so that the lower end might be damp all the time. The dampness makes the scales close and starts the seed to sprouting. This has been growing a few days and the cone is almost hidden."

"It's one of the prettiest plants—would you call it a plant or a greenhouse?—I ever saw. Does it have to be a Norway spruce cone?"

"O, no. Only they have very regular scales that hold the seed well. I brought you out two more of them and some grass seed and canary seed so you could try it for yourself."

"You're a perfect duck," and Ethel gave her friend a hug. "Now let me show you what one of the girls at school gave Ethel Brown."

She indicated a strange-looking brown object hanging before the window.

"What in the world is it? It looks—yes, it looks like a sweet potato."

"That's what it is—a sweet potato with one end cut off and a cage of tape to hold it. You see it's sprouting already, and they say that the vines hang down from it and it looks like a little green hanging basket."

"What's the object of cutting off the end?"

"Anna—that's Ethel Brown's friend—said that she scooped hers out just a little bit and put a few drops of water inside so that the sun shouldn't dry it too much."

"I should think it would grow better in a dark place. Don't you know how Irish potatoes send out those white shoots when they're in the cellar?"

"She said she started hers in the cellar and then brought them into the light."

"Just like bulbs."

"Exactly. Aunt Louise is having great luck with her bulbs now. She had them in the cellar and now she is bringing them out a pot at a time, so she has something new coming forward every few days."

"Dorothy doesn't care much for bulbs, but I think it's pretty good fun. You can make them blossom just about when you please by keeping them in the dark or bringing them into the light. I'm going to ask Aunt Louise to give me some of hers when they're finished flowering. She says you can plant them out of doors and next year they'll bloom in the garden."

"Mother has some this winter, too. I'll ask her for them after she's through forcing them."

"I like them in the garden, too—tulips and hyacinths and daffodils and narcissus and, jonquils. They come so early and give you a feeling that spring really has arrived."

"You look as if spring had really arrived in the house here. If there wasn't a little bit of that snow man left in front I shouldn't know it had snowed last week. How in the world did you get all these shrubs to blossom now? They don't seem to realize that it's only January."

"That's another thing that's happened since my birthday. Margaret told us about bringing branches of the spring shrubs into the house and making them come out in water, so we've been trying it. She sent over those yellow bells, the Forsythia, and Roger brought in the pussy willows from the brook on the way to Mr. Emerson's."

"This thorny red affair is the Japan quince, but I don't recognize these others."

"That's because you're a city girl! You'll laugh when I tell you what they are."

"They don't look like flowering shrubs to me."

"They aren't. They're flowering trees; fruit trees!"

"O-o! That really is a peach blossom, then!"

"The deep pink is peach, and the delicate pink is apple and the white is plum."

"They're perfectly dear. Tell me how you coaxed them out. Surely you didn't just keep them in water in this room?"

"We put them in the sunniest window we had, not too near the glass, because it wouldn't do for them to run any chance of getting chilled. They stayed there as long as the sun did, and then we moved them to another warm spot and we were very careful about them at night."

"How often do you change the water?"

"Every two or three days; and once in a while we spray them to keep the upper part fresh—and there you are. It's fun to watch them come out. Don't want to take some switches back to town with you?"

Della did.

"They make me think of a scheme that my Aunt Rose is putting into operation. She went round the world year before last," she said, "and she saw in Japan lots of plants growing in earthenware vases hanging against the wall or in a long bamboo cut so that small water bottles might be slipped in. She has some of the very prettiest wall decorations now—a queer looking greeny-brown pottery vase has two or three sprigs of English ivy. Another with orange tints has nasturtiums and another tradescantia."

"Are they growing in water?"

"The ivy and the tradescantia are, but the nasturtiums and a perfectly darling morning glory have earth. She's growing bulbs in them, too, only she doesn't use plain water or earth, just bulb fibre."

"What's that?"

"Why, bulbs are such fat creatures that they don't need the outside food they would get from earth; all they want is plenty of water. This fibre stuff holds enough water to keep them damp all the time, and it isn't messy in the house like dirt."

"What are you girls talking about?" asked Dorothy, who came in with Ethel Brown at this moment.

Both of them were interested in the addition that Della had made to their knowledge of flowers and gardening.

"Every day I feel myself drawn into more and more gardening," exclaimed Dorothy. "I've set up a notebook already."

"In January!" laughed Della.

"January seems to be the time to do your thinking and planning; that's what the people who know tell me."

"It seems to be the time for some action," retorted Della, waving her hand at the blossoming branches about the room.

"Aren't they wonderful? I always knew you could bring them out quickly in the house after the buds were started out of doors, but these fellows didn't seem to be started at all—and look at them!"

"Mother says they've done so well because we've been careful to keep them evenly warm," said Ethel Brown. "Dorothy's got the finest piece of news to tell you. If she doesn't tell you pretty soon I shall come out with it myself!"

"O, let her tell her own secret!" remonstrated Blue. "What is it?"

You know that sloping piece of ground about a quarter of a mile beyond the Clarks' on the road to Mr. Emerson's?"

"You don't mean the field with the brook where Roger got the pussy willows?"

"This side of it. There's a lovely view across the meadows on the other side of the road, and the land runs back to some rocks and big trees."

"Certainly I know it," assented Ethel Blue. "There's a hillock on it that's the place I've chosen for a house when I grow up and build one."

"Well, you can't have it because I've got there first!"

"What do you mean? Has Aunt Louise—?"

"She has."

"How grand! How grand! You'll be farther away from us than you are now but it's a dear duck of a spot—"

"And it's right on the way to Grandfather Emerson's," added Ethel Brown.

"Mother signed the papers this morning and she's going to begin to build as soon as the weather will allow."

"With peach trees in blossom now that ought not to be far off," laughed Della, waving her hand again at the blossoms that pleased her so much.

"How large a house is she going to build?" asked Ethel Blue.

"Not very big. Large enough for her and me and a guest or two and of course Elisabeth and Miss Merriam," referring to a Belgian baby who had been brought to the United Service Club from war-stricken Belgium, and to her caretaker, a charming young woman from the School of Mothercraft.

"Will it be made of concrete?"

"Yes, and Mother says we may all help a lot in making the plans and in deciding on the decoration and everything."

"Isn't she the darling! It will be the next best thing to building a house yourself!"

"There will be a garage behind the house."

"A garage! Is Aunt Louise going to set up a car?"

"Just a small one that she can drive herself. Back of the garage there's plenty of space for a garden and she says she'll turn that over to me. I can do anything I want with it as long as I'll be sure to have enough vegetables for the table and lots of flowers for the house."

"O, my; O, my; what fun we'll have," ejaculated Della, who knew that Dorothy could have no pleasure that she would not share equally with the rest of the Club.

"I came over now to see if you people didn't want to walk over there and see it."

"This minute?"

"This minute."

"Of course we do—if Della doesn't have to take the train back yet?"

"Not for a long time. I'd take a later one anyway; I couldn't wait until the Saturday Club meeting to see it."

"How did you know I'd suggest a walk there for the Saturday Club meeting?"

"Could you help it?" retorted Della, laughing.

They timed themselves so that they might know just how far away from them Dorothy was going to be and they found that it was just about half way to Grandfather Emerson's. As somebody from the Mortons' went there every day, and as the distance was, in reality, not long, they were reassured as to the Smiths being quite out in the country as the change had seemed to them at first.

"You won't be able to live in the house this summer, will you?" asked Ethel Blue.

"Not until late in the summer or perhaps even later than that. Mother says she isn't in a hurry because she wants the work to be done well."

"Then you won't plant the garden this year?"

"Indeed I shall. I'm going to plant the new garden and the garden where we are now."

"Roger will strike on doing all the digging."

"He'll have to have a helper on the new garden, but I'll plant his sweetpeas for him just the same. At the new place I'm going to have a large garden."

"Up here on the hill?"

The girls were climbing up the ascent that rose sharply from the road.

"The house will perch on top of this little hill. Back of it, you see, on top of the ridge, it's quite flat and the garden will be there. I was talking about it with Mr. Emerson this morning—"

"Oho, you've called Grandfather into consultation already!"

"He's going to be our nearest neighbor on that side. He said that a ridge like this was one of the best places for planting because it has several exposures to the sun and you can find a spot to suit the fancy of about every plant there is."

"Your garden will be cut off from the house by the garage. Shall you have another nearer the road?"

"Next summer there will have to be planting of trees and shrubs and vines around the house but this year I shall attend to the one up here in the field."

"Brrrr! It looks bleak enough now," shivered Ethel Blue.

"Let's go up in those woods and see what's there."

"Has Aunt Louise bought them?"

"No, but she wants to. They don't belong to the same man who owned this piece of land. They belong to the Clarks. She's going to see about it right off, because it looks so attractive and rocky and woodsy."

"You'd have the brook, too."

"I hope she'll be able to get it. Of course just this piece is awfully pretty, and this is the only place for a house, but the meadow with the brook and the rocks and the woods at the back would be too lovely for words. Why, you'd feel as if you had an estate."

The girls laughed at Dorothy's enthusiasm over the small number of acres that were included even in the combined lots of land, but they agreed with her that the additional land offered a variety that was worth working hard to obtain.

They made their way up the slope and among the jumble of rocks that looked as if giants had been tossing them about in sport. Small trees grew from between them as they lay heaped in disorder and taller growths stretched skyward from an occasional open space. The brook began in a spring that bubbled clear and cold, from under a slab of rock. Round about it all was covered with moss, still green, though frozen stiff by the snowstorm's chilly blasts. Shrivelled ferns bending over its mouth promised summer beauties.

"What a lovely spot!" cried Ethel Blue. "This is where fairies and wood nymphs live when that drift melts. Don't you know this must be a great gathering place for birds? Can't you see them now dipping their beaks into the water and cocking their heads up at the sky afterwards!" and she quoted:—

"Dip, birds, dip

Where the ferns lean over,

And their crinkled edges drip,

Haunt and hover."