Part 3

“You ought to learn the greeting too,” Vevi asserted. “When one Brownie Scout meets another, she doesn’t just say ‘Hi!’”

“You use the sign of friendship.” Rosemary took up the explanation. “See, it’s done this way.”

She held up her first two fingers, stiff and straight, token of the two parts of the Brownie Scout Promise.

“The promise is this,” she added: “‘I promise to do my best to love God and my country, to help other people every day, especially those at home’.”

“I know that part,” Hanny declared.

“I guess you help out plenty at home,” Connie said. “Do you know the slogan?”

Hanny shook her head.

“It’s this: ‘Do a Good Turn Daily.’”

“Miss Gordon says that means doing something for someone without being asked or paid for it.”

“Things like setting the table for your mother,” Rosemary explained. “Or maybe washing the dishes.”

“I would like to do something for the Brownies!” declared Hanny. “I know! Next week I will give you some of our tulips. We will have oceans of them in bloom by then.”

“You can do something for the Brownies right now,” said Connie. “If we have our booth in the flower show, we plan to dress in Dutch costumes. Do you know where we can buy some wooden shoes?”

“Buy sabots?” Hanny echoed. “Why don’t you make them?”

“Make our own wooden shoes?” Connie repeated in amazement.

“My uncle does,” Hanny said proudly. “He carves them from wood, with special tools. Maybe he will make shoes for the Brownies!”

“That would be too much trouble,” Connie replied quickly.

“If Uncle Peter is not too busy, I think he will do it. I will ask him. First though, before we go to the office, would you like to see our south field? The first tulips are coming into bloom.”

Eagerly, the Brownies assented. Hanny walked ahead with Connie and Vevi over the soft ground. Entering through a picket gate, they made their way between seemingly endless rows of bright green plants.

“All of our fields are now in bud,” Hanny declared. “We will have a very large flower harvest unless rain or a heavy wind should harm the plants.”

“I haven’t seen any tulips in bloom except in the greenhouses,” Connie remarked.

“Uncle Peter’s are the first in Rosedale. The ones in this field are an especially early variety.”

“Is the prize tulip here?” Vevi teased.

“I’m not saying,” laughed Hanny. “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. You will have to discover the answer for yourself.”

Already, though not fully in bloom, the field was speckled with color. Never had the girls beheld so many different types of tulips.

There were rows of tall pink ones, and short, stubby double yellows. Some were variegated with odd markings.

“Wait until the parrot tulips bloom!” Hanny declared proudly. “They have ragged, queer-shaped petals that look like the feathers of a bird!”

“Your uncle’s prize tulip isn’t a parrot?” Vevi demanded.

“No, it is not a Parrot tulip or a Cottage type,” Hanny replied. “I will tell you that much. It is an early bloomer. My uncle developed it from seed.”

“Then it must be in this field,” Vevi insisted, allowing her gaze to rove over the brilliant mass of flowers. “Is it in bloom now?”

“I can’t say,” answered Hanny, her eyes twinkling. “But it is the most beautiful tulip I have ever seen.”

Everywhere Vevi and the other Brownies saw wonderful flowers. All were so pretty that they could not decide which one was nicer than the others. Jane loved a large flame colored tulip. Sunny’s favorite was a tall rose-hued variety with dark throat.

Then unexpectedly, Vevi saw the tulip that held her eye like a magnet. Only a single flower was in bloom, surrounded by other tulips in bud. Yet the single specimen, each petal perfect, was breath taking.

The flower had a long, straight stem and in color was a pure, golden yellow. Compared to it, all other yellow tulips in the field appeared faded.

“There it is! The one I like best!” cried Vevi.

“It’s my choice too,” declared Connie.

Hanny smiled in an odd sort of way. She seemed very pleased that her friends liked the tulip.

“This isn’t the special tulip, is it?” demanded Rosemary.

Hanny just kept smiling and did not answer.

“Does this flower have a name?” Vevi asked eagerly.

“We call it the ‘Golden Beauty.’”

“‘The Golden Beauty’,” Vevi repeated triumphantly. “That proves it! Your boat has almost the same name! You can’t fool us, Hanny! We’ve discovered the tulip your uncle intends to enter in the prize contest!”

_Chapter Six_

WOODEN SHOES

Hanny would not admit that Vevi had guessed which tulip her uncle intended to enter in the blue ribbon contest.

All the Brownies clustered about the plant, exclaiming at the beauty of the single bloom.

“The petals look like spun gold!” declared Connie, peering down into the tulip’s deep cup.

“This is the tulip your uncle developed, isn’t it?” demanded Vevi. She wanted to force Hanny to tell.

However, Hanny only laughed.

Quickly, she led the Brownies on to another section of the field, devoted entirely to purple flowers.

“You may each pick a bouquet of these,” she told the girls. “They are the common type of tulips--not special like the others. Next week, you may have all the tulips you can pick.”

“Loads and loads of them?” Sunny asked eagerly.

“We’ll have more than we can sell,” Hanny explained. “Uncle Peter likes to have the blossoms picked off, so that the strength of the bulb will not be sapped.”

The little girl told the Brownies that during the next week, hundreds of visitors likely would come to the farm to see the flowers in bloom. Many would order bulbs for fall delivery, selecting the color and type they liked best.

“If Uncle Peter receives many orders, I may be able to stay in America,” Hanny declared. “I hope people like the new varieties he has developed.”

The little Dutch girl next took the Brownies to an adjoining field, ablaze with rare and splendid colors.

“Uncle Peter calls these his ‘Rembrandt’ tulips,” Hanny said.

“Wasn’t Rembrandt a famous painter?” inquired Connie.

“The tulips were named for him because of their beautiful colors,” Hanny explained. “When Darwin tulips ‘break’ into fantastic color combinations, they are called Rembrandts.”

“I like this one,” declared Rosemary.

She pointed to a tulip which was very exotic appearing with flame-red petals on a white background.

“It is very pretty,” said Vevi, “but I like the Golden Beauty much better.”

Connie asked Hanny what caused tulips to change color or to “break” as horticulturists called it.

“Uncle Peter says ‘breaking’ is really a tulip disease, caused by the combined action of two viruses,” the little Dutch girl explained. “The flowers change color, but the plant keeps growing normally.”

“My, there must be a lot to growing tulips,” sighed Sunny.

As the children trooped out of the Rembrandt field, they spied Peter Van Der Lann near the office. He was watering a display of potted plants as he chatted with Miss Mohr and the Brownie Scout leader.

Hanny immediately sought him to ask if he would have time to make wooden shoes for the girls.

The nurseryman put aside his watering can. “And why should I make wooden shoes?” he asked, smiling indulgently at his beloved niece.

“Because the Brownie Scouts need them to wear at Mrs. Langley’s flower show. You can’t turn them down, Uncle Peter, because they have invited me to be a Brownie too! May I, Uncle Peter?”

Miss Gordon and the librarian already had talked to the nurseryman about his niece joining the organization. So Peter had his answer ready.

“You may join, little Hanny,” he declared. “And I will make the shoes.”

“It must be done quickly, for the flower show is next week,” Hanny said anxiously. “When will you make the shoes, Uncle Hanny?”

“I will take the measurements now,” he said. “Run for my tape measure.”

Miss Mohr and Miss Gordon protested that the nurseryman was far too busy to take time to carve wooden shoes for the children.

“I will do it at night,” he replied. “To whittle wood provides relaxation after a hard day in the fields.”

The two young women declared that they would pay for the work. Mr. Van Der Lann would not hear of such a thing. He insisted that the children were Hanny’s friends and his, and that it was little enough he could do to show his liking.

Soon Hanny came running back with a tape measure. Peter sat the children on a bench, and one by one, measured their feet.

Carefully, he marked down the figures on a sheet of paper.

“Connie has the largest foot,” he reported. “For her shoes I must have a very long piece of white wood.”

“What will our shoes look like when they are finished?” asked Rosemary.

“I will show you,” Hanny said.

Off she darted to the house again. In a moment she returned, two pairs of wooden shoes tucked under her arms.

The shoes were too small for Connie and Jane, but the other Brownies tried them on. First Sunny tried to walk in them.

Her feet felt very stiff and awkward. After she had taken four steps one of the shoes slipped off.

“You don’t do it right,” laughed Hanny. “See, I will show you.”

She slipped into the shoes which were an exact fit. Instead of walking, she ran across the yard toward the cheese house. The door was open.

One moment the children saw Hanny and her long braids framed in the doorway. The next instant she had disappeared into the building.

But setting neatly by the door were the wooden shoes!

“How did she do that?” cried Vevi in admiration. “Why, she didn’t even slow down when she went through the doorway!”

“I never saw her slip off her shoes,” added Jane. “She did it in a flash.”

“Hanny learned that trick when she was very young,” Peter chuckled. “She did not like to take time to remove her shoes before entering the house, so she learned to take them off on the fly.”

Hanny only stayed in the cheese house a moment. Soon she came out to pick up her shoes again.

“Let me see if I can do that!” cried Vevi.

Hanny gave her the shoes, putting on her leather ones again.

“I like these American shoes much better,” she said. “Wooden shoes are clumsy.”

Vevi slipped into the sabots. She took four little choppy steps and then one of the shoes sailed off.

“I can’t run in them at all,” Vevi said, very much discouraged.

She went after the shoe which had rolled down a slope toward the canal. Hanny skipped after her to the water’s edge.

“I’ll show you something else you can do with a wooden shoe,” she told the Brownies. “Watch!”

Picking up the wooden shoe that Vevi had lost she carefully set it down in the shallow water.

“See, a boat!” she laughed.

The wooden shoe turned slowly around in the sluggish water. Then toe forward, it began to drift lazily away.

“Hey, get it quick!” cried Vevi in alarm.

“Oh, it won’t sail far,” laughed Hanny.

She was right too, because in just a minute the shoe snagged on a stick and was held fast.

“Say, that’s fun, sailing boats!” cried Vevi. “Where is the other shoe?”

“On your foot, stupe!” laughed Jane.

The joke certainly was on Vevi, for in the excitement of watching the “boat” she had forgotten that its mate still was on her left foot.

All the Brownies were eager to play “boat.”

“Is it safe?” Miss Gordon anxiously asked the nurseryman.

“Oh, they can’t any more than splash their clothing,” he replied. “The water barely is deep enough to float the boat.”

Reassured, Miss Gordon told the children to have a good time, but to be very careful. She and Miss Mohr then went off with Peter to see some of the tulips.

Connie watched the three walk away. She noticed that the nurseryman seemed especially friendly with Miss Mohr.

“I think he likes her,” she whispered to Vevi. “See, he is picking her a bouquet of tulips.”

“He likes Miss Gordon too,” Vevi replied carelessly. All her attention now had centered on the wooden shoe boats.

“Not the same way though,” insisted Connie. “He smiles at her sort of special. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they’d fall in love? Then Hanny could stay here always--”

Vevi gave her friend a sharp jab in the ribs.

“Hush!” she warned. “Do you want Hanny to hear? Anyway, you get crazy ideas, Connie Williams!”

For the next twenty minutes the Brownies had a wonderful time at the water’s edge. They peeled off their stockings and sat on the bridge, splashing their toes.

It was great fun sailing the wooden shoes in the lazy current. Now and then a “boat” would fill with water and sink. Then one of the girls would wade to its rescue.

“My shoe is a torpedo boat!” Vevi shouted. “I’m coming after your boat, Jane.”

She propelled the shoe, making it crack into the other.

The Brownies played “war” for a few minutes before discovering that the wooden shoes made good sand scoops. Sand castles occupied them after that.

Connie noticed that Miss Mohr, Miss Gordon and Peter had started back from the tulip fields.

“It must be nearly time to leave,” she said anxiously. “Vevi McGuire, just look at your dress! What will Miss Gordon say?”

“Yours is splashed too!” Vevi replied, trying to brush off the water drops from her skirt. “It has a spot of mud on the sleeve.”

“We’d better quit this game before we get any dirtier,” Rosemary declared uneasily. “Let’s clean up the wooden shoes.”

She gathered up one pair and began to wash out the sand.

Vevi looked about for the other shoes. One lay at the water’s edge. The other was nowhere to be seen.

“Connie, did you have Hanny’s shoe?” she inquired.

Connie shook her head.

“You had it last,” she reminded Vevi. “Remember? When you were playing torpedo.”

“I don’t recall taking it out of the water,” Vevi said, glancing anxiously down the canal. “Did anyone else pick it up?”

No one had seen the shoe.

“It must have drifted away,” Hanny said. “Oh, dear, it belonged to my best pair too.”

“Where does the canal lead?” Connie questioned.

“Past the Mattox farm and on to a drainage ditch. The shoe couldn’t have drifted far though, because the Mattoxes have a footwalk across the water. That would stop the shoe if it went that far.”

“Let’s go see!” proposed Vevi. She started off toward the adjoining property which was separated from the Van Der Lann place by a tall fence.

“No! No!” Hanny called after her. “We must not trespass.”

Vevi did not climb over the fence. But she crawled high up on it so she could see far down the canal.

“I don’t see the shoe anywhere,” she said, and then she corrected herself. “Oh, yes, I do!”

“Where?” cried Hanny.

“It has snagged on a pile of sticks there where the canal turns a bit!”

Hanny climbed up on the fence beside Vevi. She too saw the runaway shoe.

“I’ll run and get it,” Vevi offered. She was not afraid to cross the Mattox land.

“No, no!” Hanny said in earnest protest. “Uncle Peter has told me that I must never set foot on their property. They are so very unpleasant.”

“Then how will we get the shoe?” Vevi demanded.

Hanny thought hard for a second and then had an idea.

“The watercourse belongs to everybody,” she declared. “I will take the boat and fetch the shoe!”

_Chapter Seven_

A RUNAWAY ‘BOAT’

Vevi and Connie offered to go with Hanny to recover the missing wooden shoe. They thought it odd, however, that the Mattox couple should be so strict about anyone walking on their land.

“Is it safe to go in the boat?” questioned Connie as the children walked back to the canal.

“Oh, yes, the water isn’t deep,” Hanny replied. “I will get the oars.”

She ran to the barn, returning with them in a moment. Then she untied the boat and climbed in.

All of the Brownies were eager for a ride on the canal. Hanny though, could not take everyone.

“Vevi and Connie spoke first,” she said. “So I will take them.”

The two Brownies stepped into the boat with their armful of tulip blooms. By this time the flowers had wilted a bit. Vevi dipped the stems into the canal for a moment and then put the bouquets on the bottom of the boat.

As she bent down she noticed that a little water was seeping in through the boards.

“Say, I think this old boat is leaking!” she cried.

“It always does a little,” Hanny replied, picking up the oars.

Vevi and Connie moved their feet so that their shoes would not get wet.

“Shove us off,” Hanny urged the Brownies who had remained ashore.

Jane gave the boat a mighty push. Out it shot into the current. For a moment, before slowing down, the craft went almost as fast as if it had a motor.

“Say, this is fun!” shouted Vevi.

Jane, Rosemary and Sunny ran along the bank beside the boat. When they reached the fence that separated Mr. Van Der Lann’s property from the Mattox farm, they had to stop.

Hanny began to row. She handled the oars very well and kept the boat steady in the middle of the canal.

“Say, this old boat is leaking fast!” Vevi observed very soon. “My feet are getting wet.”

“So are mine,” declared Connie, shifting to another place in the boat.

Hanny told Vevi to look for a bailing can under the seat. The container could not be found.

“I remember, I used it for something else last week and forgot to put it back,” Hanny admitted.

Vevi and Connie began to squirm nervously. The water was not deep but it kept spreading over the bottom of the boat.

“I want out of this old tub,” Vevi suddenly announced. “It is going to sink!”

Hanny insisted that the boat was safe. “I can’t let you out because we are at the Mattox place now,” she added. “We will soon have that runaway shoe and be back home.”

Vevi and Connie forgot the leaking boat as they looked about with interest. From the Van Der Lann place tall trees and bushes had screened their view of the other nursery.

Now they saw the big greenhouse with its glass roof and a small cottage very much in need of paint. A few tulips were in bloom, but the flowers were not as large or as showy as those on Peter’s place.

“The Mattoxes lived here before my uncle started his nursery,” Hanny told her friends. “They were annoyed when he bought land next to their property. They had expected to add it to their own place.”

“Is that Mrs. Mattox?” Connie asked. She had noticed a woman in a blue straw hat working in the fields.

“Her name is Freda,” Hanny said. “If she sees us, she may speak crossly. She does not like me or Uncle Peter.”

“Say, my feet are wet!” Vevi suddenly cried.

“The water is coming into this boat faster and faster,” Connie declared uneasily. “Hanny, you must pull up on shore.”

“Mrs. Mattox won’t like it.”

“Who cares about her?” Vevi demanded. “We are getting wet, Hanny.”

The little Dutch girl guided the boat to a sandy stretch of beach along the canal. After Connie and Vevi had leaped out, she pulled the craft up on shore so it would not drift away.

“Mrs. Mattox has seen us,” Hanny said, glancing over her shoulder. “Oh! Oh! She has dropped her hoe and is coming this way.”

“Let’s get the wooden shoe as fast as we can and run!” Vevi urged.

Abandoning the boat, the children ran to the clutter of debris where the runaway shoe had caught fast.

But when Connie tried to capture it, she only succeeded in setting it free. Off it floated again down the canal.

“Hey, come back here, shoe!” she cried.

The “boat” drifted lazily along until finally it lodged against a footbridge.

“Now we can get it,” declared Vevi.

“And Mrs. Mattox will get us,” added Hanny nervously. “She is walking straight to our boat.”

The children walked quickly out on the footbridge. The narrow planking bent under their weight and dipped low into the water.

“It’s going to break!” Vevi exclaimed fearfully.

“Oh, a footbridge always wobbles,” Connie reassured her. “Here, hold my hand while I grab the old shoe.”

Vevi steadied her so she could bend down and rescue the shoe.

“Now back to the boat!” Hanny urged. “We are going to get a scolding, I can tell you.”

Mrs. Mattox did not pay very much attention to the three girls as they hurried up the canal. In fact, she seemed deeply engrossed examining something in the bottom of the boat.

“What is she doing?” Vevi asked curiously.

“Maybe she is trying to stop the leak in our boat,” Connie speculated.

Hanny however, had sharper eyes.

“She is looking at our tulips,” she told her companions. “Just see her poking about among the blossoms.”

“Why would she do that?” Vevi whispered. By this time the children had drawn quite close to the boat.

“She’s trying to see what varieties Uncle Peter is raising this year,” Hanny declared. “I think she is hoping to find out if we have a tulip that will win the blue ribbon.”

Mrs. Mattox had heard the children come up. She straightened, dropping a red tulip.

For a minute the girls thought she intended to scold them for coming onto her property. Instead, she merely stared at them.

“Our boat is leaking,” Hanny said politely. “That is why we walked on your land.”

“It isn’t the first time you have done it,” the woman answered. She kept eyeing the tulips in the boat.

“Hanny gave us some flowers,” Connie said to make conversation. She always tried to be friendly with everyone. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

“Humph! Very ordinary tulips I would say,” replied Mrs. Mattox. “Which one is your uncle entering in the flower show, Hanny?”

“I cannot say, Mrs. Mattox.”

“None of these, I’d judge.”

Hanny remained silent. Her unwillingness to talk angered the woman.

“How many times have I told you not to come onto my property?” she berated the children. “You tramp the flowers and damage our plantings.”

Hanny knew the accusations were unfair. It was true, though, that she had been told repeatedly not to trespass.

“We are leaving now,” she said.

“Take this leaky old tub with you,” Mrs. Mattox ordered crossly. “You will have to tow it back by the rope because it is becoming waterlogged. Now, begone!”

Hanny seized the rope and started to pull the boat alongshore. Mrs. Mattox followed close behind to see that she did not do any damage.

“I am sorry about the boat,” Hanny apologized again. “My uncle plans soon to build a new one.”

“Such foolishness!” the nurseryman’s wife exclaimed. “First it was a windmill! What will it be next? Always foolishness.”

“I like the windmill,” Vevi said, speaking in Peter’s defense. “His farm is very pretty. It is nicer than this one.”

Now the little girl should not have made the remark. She was sorry the moment she had said the words. Mrs. Mattox lost her temper at once.

“Oh, so Peter Van Der Lann has a better nursery than ours!” she exclaimed. “Well, let me tell you something! He won’t have it long. Everyone in Rosedale knows that he is deeply in debt. He will lose his farm, and then where will he be?”

_Chapter 8_

THE TREASURE HOUSE

Mrs. Mattox’ words distressed Hanny, who began to cry. She knew only too well that her uncle might lose his property and that she would be sent back to Holland.

“My uncle won’t lose his farm,” she denied stubbornly. “He will make a great deal of money this year. Our tulip will win the prize and we will sell our bulbs for a nice price.”

“Don’t count on it,” said Mrs. Mattox. “Your uncle will win no prize with any of the tulip varieties I have seen.”

“We have one though--” Hanny began, and then she stopped short. She realized she had been on the verge of saying too much.

“Where does your uncle grow this wonderful tulip?” Mrs. Mattox pursued the subject.

Hanny would not say. She was glad when they reached the boundary of her uncle’s land. The other Brownies were at the fence and helped to pull the water-logged boat back to its mooring place.

“Don’t you mind Mrs. Mattox,” Connie said to Hanny, slipping an arm about the little girl’s waist. “She is just an old meanie.”

“But it is true my uncle may lose this farm.”

“You will win the blue ribbon for your prize tulip.”

“I hope so,” Hanny said soberly, “but Uncle Peter says we cannot count on it. All the growers in Rosedale are trying for the prize. Many new varieties will be shown.”

“Yours will be the very best,” Connie declared confidently. “If it is the Golden Beauty I am sure it will win.”

The children hauled the leaky boat up on the grassy bank. As they overturned it, Miss Gordon hailed them from the path.