IN BUSINESS
It was quite clear to the Clarks that the "botanist" had not given up
his hope of buying the field, in spite of the owners' insistence that
not only was its title defective but that the option had been promised
to Mrs. Smith. He roamed up and down the road almost every day, going
into the field, as the girls could see from their elevation in
Fitz-James's woods, and stopping at the Clarks' on his return if he saw
any of the family on the veranda, to inquire what news had come from
their nephew.
"I generally admire persistency," remarked Mr. Clark one day to Mrs.
Smith and Dorothy, and the Ethels, "but in this case it irritates me.
When you tell a man that you can't sell to him and that you wouldn't if
you could it seems as if he might take the hint and go away."
"I don't like him," and Mrs. Smith gave a shrug of distaste. "He doesn't
look you squarely in the face."
"I hate that trick he has of brushing his hair out of his eyes. It makes
me nervous," confessed the younger Miss Clark.
"I can't see why a botanist doesn't occasionally look at a plant,"
observed Dorothy. "We've watched him day after day and we've almost
never seen him do a thing except push his stick into the ground and
examine it afterwards."
"Do you remember that girl who was with him at the Flower Festival?"
inquired Ethel Brown. "I saw her with him again this afternoon at the
field. When he pushed his cane down something seemed to stick to it when
it came up and he wiped it off with his hand and gave it to her."
"Could you see what it was like?"
"It looked like dirt to me."
"What did she do with it?"
"She took it and began to turn it around in her hand, rubbing it with
her fingers the way Dorothy does when she's making her clay things."
Mr. Clark brought down his foot with a thump upon the porch.
"I'll bet you five million dollars I know what he's up to!" he
exclaimed.
"What?" "What?" "What?" rang out from every person on the porch.
"I'll go right over there this minute and find out for myself."
"Find out what?"
"Do tell us."
"What do you think it is?"
Mr. Clark paused on the steps as he was about to set off.
"Clay," he answered briefly. "There are capital clays in different parts
of New Jersey. Don't you remember there are potteries that make
beautiful things at Trenton? I shouldn't wonder a bit if that field has
pretty good clay and this man wants to buy it and start a pottery
there."
"Next to my house!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith disgustedly.
"Don't be afraid; if we're ever able to sell the field you're the person
who will get it," promised the old gentleman's sisters in chorus. "We
don't want a pottery on the street any more than you do," they added,
and expressed a wish that their brother might be able to convince the
persistent would-be purchaser of the utter hopelessness of his wishes.
"What do you hear from Stanley?" Mrs. Smith asked.
"He's still quite at sea in Pittsburg--if one may use such an expression
about a place as far from the ocean as that!" laughed Miss Clark. "He
thinks he'll go fast if ever he gets a start, but he hasn't found any
trace of the people yet. He's going to search the records not only in
Allegheny County but in Washington and Westmoreland and Fayette Counties
and the others around Pittsburg, if it's necessary. He surely is
persistent."
"Isn't it lucky he is? And don't you hope he'll find some clue before
his holidays end? That detective didn't seem to make any progress at
all!"
Mr. Clark came back more than ever convinced that he had guessed the
cause of the "botanist's" perseverance.
"Unless my eyes and fingers deceive me greatly this is clay and pretty
smooth clay," he reported to the waiting group, and Dorothy, who knew
something about clay because she had been taught to model, said she
thought so, too.
"We know his reason for wanting the land, then," declared Mr. Clark;
"now if we could learn why he can't seem to take it in that he's not
going to get it, no matter what happens, we might be able to make him
take his afternoon walks in some other direction."
"Who is he? And where is he staying?" inquired Mrs. Smith.
"He calls himself Hapgood and he's staying at the Motor Inn."
"Is the little girl his daughter?"
"I'll ask him if he ever comes here again," and Mr. Clark looked as if
he almost wished he would appear, so that he might gratify his
curiosity.
The Motor Inn was a house of no great size on the main road to Jersey
City. A young woman, named Foster, lived in it with her mother and
brother. The latter, George, was a high school friend of Helen and
Roger. Miss Foster taught dancing in the winter and, being an
enterprising young woman, had persuaded her mother to open the old house
for a tea room for the motorists who sped by in great numbers on every
fair day, and who had no opportunity to get a cup of tea and a sandwich
any nearer than Glen Point in one direction and Athens Creek in the
other.
"Here are we sitting down and doing nothing to attract the money out of
their pockets and they are hunting for a place to spend it!" she had
exclaimed.
The house was arranged like the Emerson farmhouse, with a wide hall
dividing it, two rooms on each side. Miss Foster began by putting out a
rustic sign which her brother made for her.
MOTOR INN
TEA and SANDWICHES
LUNCHEON DINNER
it read. The entrance was attractive with well-kept grass and pretty
flowers. Miss Foster took a survey of it from the road and thought she
would like to go inside herself if she happened to be passing.
They decided to keep the room just in front of the kitchen for the
family, but the room across the hall they fitted with small tables of
which they had enough around the house. The back room they reserved for
a rest room for the ladies, and provided it with a couch and a dressing
table always kept fully, equipped with brushes, pins and hairpins.
"If we build up a real business we can set tables here in the hall,"
Miss Foster suggested.
"Why not on the veranda at the side?" her mother asked.
"That's better still. We might put a few out there to indicate that
people can have their tea there if they want to, and then let them take
their choice in fair weather."
The Inn had been a success from the very first day when a car stopped
and delivered a load of people who ate their simple but well-cooked
luncheon hungrily and liked it so well that they ordered dinner for the
following Sunday and promised to send other parties.
"What I like best about your food, if you'll allow me to say so," the
host of the machine-load said to Miss Foster, "is that your sandwiches
are delicate and at the same time there are more than two bites to them.
They are full-grown sandwiches, man's size."
"My brother calls them 'lady sandwiches' though," laughed Miss Foster.
"He says any sandwich with the crust cut off is unworthy a man's
attention."
"Tell him for me that he's mistaken. No crust on mine, but a whole slice
of bread to make up for the loss," and he paid his bill enthusiastically
and packed away into his thermos box a goodly pile of the
much-to-be-enjoyed sandwiches.
People for every meal of the day began to appear at the Motor Inn, for
it was surprising how many parties made a before-breakfast start to
avoid the heat of the day on a long trip, and turned up at the Inn about
eight or nine o'clock demanding coffee and an omelette. Then one or two
Rosemont people came to ask if friends of theirs might be accommodated
with rooms and board for a week or two, and in this way the old house by
the road grew rapidly to be more like the inn its sign called it than
the tea room it was intended to be. Servants were added, another veranda
was built on, and it looked as if Miss Foster would not teach dancing
when winter came again but would have to devote herself to the
management of the village hotel which the town had always needed.
It was while the members of the U.S.C. were eating ices and cakes there
late one afternoon when they had walked to the station with the
departing Watkinses that the Ethels had one of the ideas that so often
struck them at almost the same moment. It came as they watched a motor
party go off, supplying themselves with a box of small cakes for the
children after trying to buy from Miss Foster the jar of wild iris that
stood in state on the table in the hall. It was not fresh enough to
travel they had decided when their hostess had offered to give it to
them and they all had examined the purple heads that showed themselves
to be past their prime when they were brought out into the light from
the semi-darkness of the hall.
"Couldn't we--?" murmured Ethel Blue with uplifted eye-brows, glancing
at Ethel Brown.
"Let's ask her if we may?" replied Ethel Brown, and without any more
discussion than this they laid before Miss Foster the plan that had
popped into their minds ready made. Ethel Brown was the spokeswoman.
"Would you mind if we had a flower counter here in your hall?" she
asked. "We need to make some money for our women at Rose House."
"A flower counter? Upon my word, children, you take my breath away!"
responded Miss Foster.
"We'd try not to give you any trouble," said Ethel Blue. "One of us
would stay here every day to look after it and we'd pay rent for the use
of the space."
"Upon my word!" exclaimed Miss Foster again. "You must let me think a
minute."
She was a rapid thinker and her decision was quickly made.
"We'll try it for a week," she said. "Perhaps we'll find that there
isn't enough demand for the flowers to make it worth while, though
people often want to buy any flowers they see here, as those people you
saw did."
"If you'll tell us just what space we can have we'll try not to bother
you," promised Ethel Blue again, and Miss Foster smiled at her
eagerness.
"We want it to be a regular business, so will you please tell us how
much rent we ought to pay?" asked Ethel Brown.
Miss Foster smiled again, but she was trying to carry on a regular
business herself and she knew how she would feel if people did not take
her seriously.
"We'll call it five per cent of what you sell," she said. "I don't think
I could make it less," and she smiled again.
"That's five cents on every dollar's worth," calculated Ethel Brown
seriously. "That isn't enough unless you expect us to sell a great many
dollars' worth."
"We'll call it that for this trial week, anyway," decided Miss Foster.
"If the test goes well we can make another arrangement. If you have a
pretty table it will be an attraction to my hall and perhaps I shall
want to pay you for coming," she added good naturedly.
She pointed out to them the exact spot on which they might place their
flowers and agreed to let them arrange the flowers daily for her rooms
and tables and to pay them for it.
"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 assisted in the
arrangement of the first assortment of flowers and plants, saw to it
that there was a space 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 butterfly blossoms, while Ethel Brown
attended to the man who had begun the conversation. He wanted "A bunch
of bachelor's buttons for a young lady with blue eyes." An older man who
came to see what the younger ones were doing bought buttonholes 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 Dicky 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 balls; 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 glasses 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.