Part 7

From one booth to another the girls went, asking if anyone had seen Mrs. Gabriel. Finally they learned that she had left the building more than a half hour earlier. It seemed useless to try to seek her further.

“I am not going to worry about her,” Vevi decided. “I will let her find me. I am going home to get my tulip bulbs. Let’s plant them right away.”

“Why not wait until the next Brownie Scout meeting?” proposed Connie. “Then all the girls can help.”

Vevi opposed any delay. “No, we must plant them right away,” she insisted. “Every day counts if they are to bloom this summer.”

Leaving the auditorium, the girls started for Jane’s home to collect digging tools and fertilizer.

They were only three blocks from the Tuttle home when they spied a group of children coming toward them.

“What are they carrying?” Connie speculated.

Each child in the group of six held a double handful of plump, round objects.

“Onions,” declared Jane.

“Tulip bulbs,” corrected Vevi. By this time the children were quite close.

The youngsters would have dashed on past with their plunder, had not Jane stopped them.

“Say, where’d you get those?” she demanded.

The children halted, proudly showing the bulbs.

“We found ’em,” one of the older boys said.

“Why, those look just like the Golden Beauty culls that Hanny gave me,” Vevi commented as she gazed at the fistful of bulbs.

“I’ve got some bigger ones,” announced another child in the group. He opened his hands to show the girls several large, plump bulbs.

“They do look like onions,” declared Connie. “In Holland when times were hard, the people ate bulbs for food. Miss Mohr told me so.”

Vevi thought that the bulbs, except for a few, looked like extremely good ones.

“Where did you find them?” she asked.

One of the boys indicated the direction from which he and the others had come. “Down the street a ways,” he said. “They were lying in a culvert.”

“Thrown away?” Vevi asked in amazement.

“Sure. Someone dumped a lot of ’em there.”

“Are there any more?” Jane asked eagerly.

“Scads of ’em.”

“Let’s get some,” Jane proposed to her friends. “Come on, before they’re all gone.”

Forgetting their plan to plant Vevi’s tulips, the three girls raced down the street.

A block away, at the street corner, they saw the open culvert. Just as the boys had said, there lay hundreds of tulips, dumped on the street.

“Well, did you ever!” exclaimed Jane, amazed by the sight. “Who would throw away valuable tulips?”

“And so many of them!” gasped Connie. “Tulip bulbs are expensive. Why, there must be twenty or thirty dollars worth here at least!”

“Let’s pick them all up,” proposed Jane excitedly. “The ones we don’t want for our own gardens, we can sell!”

A few of the bulbs had broken open or had been crushed. Many were in perfect condition. The girls filled their skirts, not stopping until they had gathered every bulb.

“We can take them to my house,” Jane said. “My, but we have a lot of ’em. Enough for a wonderful garden.”

Vevi noticed a piece of canvas lying in the gutter.

Putting down her skirtful of bulbs for a moment, she picked it up.

“Why, this is a bag,” she said in astonishment. “It must have held some of the tulips.”

“Someone dumped them here,” Jane agreed. “I can’t understand why, either. They look like perfectly good bulbs to me.”

Vevi examined the canvas bag carefully. She noticed that it bore numbers and was stamped “Holland.”

“That means these are imported bulbs,” she declared. “This empty bag looks just like the one I have at home. The number is different though.”

“You don’t think Hanny or her uncle dumped these tulips here?” Connie asked.

“I’m sure they didn’t,” Vevi replied. “Maybe it was Mrs. Gabriel.”

“Why should she do such a thing?” demanded Jane.

“It seems silly,” Vevi agreed soberly. “All the same, this bag looks like some she had in her car. She told me her big Holland order had just been delivered.”

“It couldn’t have been Mrs. Gabriel,” Jane argued. “If she had just bought the bulbs, she certainly wouldn’t throw them away.”

“Maybe they weren’t good enough for her garden,” Vevi speculated. “She’s real fussy, I guess.”

The girls stuffed as many bulbs as they could into the empty bag. The remainder they carried in their hands to Jane’s home.

“What will we do with so many tulips?” Connie asked. “Shall we use them for the Brownie Scout garden at the library?”

“Oh, no,” Vevi said in quick protest. “I want to plant my Golden Beauties there.”

“But those bulbs are only culls,” Jane argued. “Most of these are nice big fat ones.”

“Maybe size doesn’t count,” Vevi replied. “They couldn’t have been much good, or they wouldn’t have been thrown away.”

“That’s so,” agreed Connie, siding with her friend. “Maybe the bulbs are dead and won’t grow. Besides, Hanny might not like it if we don’t use her bulbs.”

“Okay,” Jane consented. “I’ll get the digging tools. We can leave these bulbs in our garage until we decide where to plant them.”

An empty shelf along one side of the garage provided a place for the bulbs. The girls lined them up in neat rows.

“They do look just like onions!” Jane laughed. “I hope Mother doesn’t use them for a stew.”

“All of the bulbs are the same size, large and plump,” Connie noticed. “That is, all but about twenty or so. Vevi, you don’t suppose--”

She was intending to ask Vevi if by any chance she might have mixed up one of the bags with Hanny’s culls. Before she could do so, however, Jane interrupted:

“If we’re going to plant tulips, let’s get at it!” she urged. “It’s nearly lunch time now.”

Jane asked permission of her mother to go to Vevi’s house. Carrying the digging tools, the girls reached the McGuire home exactly at noon.

Mrs. McGuire was preparing lunch as the three Brownies stomped into the kitchen.

“Oh, here you are, Vevi,” her mother said. “I’ve telephoned everywhere, trying to find you.”

“For lunch?” the little girl asked. “I’m terribly hungry. And so are Connie and Jane. Please, may they stay?”

“Of course,” agreed Mrs. McGuire. “But it wasn’t because of lunch that I called you. While you were gone we had a visitor.”

“Not the minister?” asked Vevi.

“No, dear, it was a woman named Mrs. Gabriel.”

Hearing the name again, Vevi had a queer feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t imagine what she had done wrong. It must have been something very dreadful, though, or the woman wouldn’t keep trying to find her.

“What did she want, Mother?” Vevi asked in a faint voice.

“She said you had taken something from her car. A bag of valuable tulip bulbs.”

_Chapter 16_

MRS. GABRIEL’S ACCUSATION

Vevi became very indignant when she heard the purpose of Mrs. Gabriel’s call.

“Why, how could she accuse me of such a thing?” she asked, deeply hurt. “I never took anything in my life.”

“I told Mrs. Gabriel that,” declared Mrs. McGuire. “She was quite demanding and rude. You did ride in her car, Vevi?”

“Yes, Mother. She offered me a lift from Windmill Farm. I think she asked me a million questions. Then she made me get out and walk part of the way.”

“You didn’t take anything from her car?”

“Of course not. Only the bag of tulip bulbs Hanny gave me.”

“Could you have mixed the bags?”

“I don’t think I did,” Vevi said. “I will show you the bulbs.”

For safe keeping, the little girl had stored the bag in the basement. Quickly she brought it upstairs.

Mrs. McGuire untied the strings and peered into the bag.

“Tulip bulbs all look alike to me,” she said. “If you are sure these are yours, Vevi--”

“Oh, I am, Mother!”

“Then forget Mrs. Gabriel,” advised Mrs. McGuire. “To tell you the truth, her accusation annoyed me. I offered to pay her for any bulbs she thought she had lost, but that did not satisfy her. Nor would she give me her address so that I could call her after talking to you, Vevi. I am afraid she is a trouble maker.”

No more was said about the bulbs. Jane and Connie stayed for lunch. After the dishes had been done, Mrs. McGuire went next door to talk with Connie’s mother.

“If we are going to plant tulips we will have to do it right away,” Jane announced. “It is nearly time for me to go home now.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t plant the Golden Beauties now,” Connie suggested doubtfully. “Mrs. Gabriel might make trouble if she thinks they are her tulips.”

“They’re mine,” Vevi said. “Hanny gave them to me. Anyway, Mrs. Gabriel didn’t think so much of her precious old tulips or she wouldn’t have dumped them along the roadside.”

“Do you really think she did?” Connie asked.

“That empty bag looked exactly like one I saw in her car.”

“But your bag--the one Hanny gave you--has the same kind of markings,” Connie pointed out. “Vevi, maybe you did make a mistake and pick up the wrong one.”

“No such thing,” Vevi insisted emphatically. “Anyway, even if I did, Mrs. Gabriel got another bag of tulips better than her own. Everyone knows the Golden Beauties are the very best.”

“That’s so,” agreed Jane. “Even if there was a mix-up, she came out with good tulips. I don’t see why she’s making such a fuss.”

“Let’s plant the Brownie flower bed,” urged Connie who had wearied of the discussion. “Come on.”

Carrying the bag of bulbs and Jane’s garden tools, the girls set off for the library.

“We ought to tell Miss Mohr what we are doing,” Connie suggested. “Maybe she will tell us how to do it right.”

“Oh, anyone can plant tulip bulbs,” Vevi said carelessly. “Hanny told me how.”

Nevertheless, the three girls went into the building to find Miss Mohr. Another librarian told them that she had left twenty minutes earlier with Peter Van Der Lann.

“We don’t need anyone to tell us how to plant,” Vevi insisted. “It’s easy.”

“I guess it will be all right,” Connie agreed with a troubled frown. “Only the Brownies may not like it. They may want other flowers in the bed.”

“Tulips are the very best,” Vevi declared. “And Golden Beauties are the nicest bulbs.”

“The only thing--you aren’t sure you’re planting Golden Beauties,” Jane teased. “For all you know, they may be Mrs. Gabriel’s tulips!”

“No such thing,” Vevi insisted, opening the bag. “These are my culls.”

“What’s a cull?” Jane asked for she was unfamiliar with the word.

“That means a bulb that isn’t as good as the regular stock,” Vevi explained. “It will bloom though. Hanny said so.”

The little girl poured some of the bulbs out on the grass. All were well-shaped, fat specimens.

“Those look like good bulbs to me,” declared Jane. “Connie, don’t they seem exactly like the ones we found on the road?”

“They look the same to me.”

Vevi said nothing. She began to dig a neat hole in the well-pulverized ground.

“Tulip bulbs have to be put in deep,” directed Connie. “I know that, because I heard Mr. Van Der Lann telling Miss Gordon.”

“I am digging the hole deep,” Vevi replied. “At least six inches. That ought to be deep enough.”

She pressed the first bulb down into the spot she had prepared for it.

“Hey, I thought you said you knew how to plant bulbs!” Jane hooted. “You’re putting it in upside down!”

“The sprout end has to be up and the roots underneath,” added Connie. “Anyone knows that, Vevi.”

“Oh, I wasn’t ready to plant the bulb,” Vevi said, hastily turning it over. “I was only trying it in the hole to see if I had dug it the right size.”

“Let me dig,” Jane demanded, after the first bulb had been planted and covered with soil. “It takes you too long, Vevi.”

“I’ll hand you the bulbs,” Vevi offered, willing enough to turn the harder job over to her friend.

Jane dug a series of small holes all around the circular bed. She worked fast and spaced them evenly.

“Now hand me the bulbs one at a time,” she instructed.

Vevi dumped them all out of the bag. From the very bottom of the canvas sack out tumbled a handful of small gray, greasy appearing pellets.

“What are those?” Connie demanded curiously.

Picking up one of the hard, round pieces, she rubbed it between her fingers.

“It must be fertilizer,” Vevi declared. “Put one in with each tulip bulb.”

Jane followed instructions, carefully pressing a pellet at the base of each bulb. There were not enough of them to finish the task. The last of the bulbs had to be planted without the “fertilizer.”

“There! That’s done,” Jane said in relief when the last bulb had been firmly covered with earth. “I’m tired too! My legs feel as if they will drop off.”

“Your neck is all red,” Connie informed her. “I think you are sunburned.”

Jane gingerly rubbed her neck which smarted and felt uncomfortable.

“I hurt all over,” she complained. “Tulips are too much work.”

“I don’t think they are,” declared Vevi, who had dug only one hole. “Anyway, it is worth while. The Brownies will have one of the nicest flower beds in Rosedale.”

“I just hope the other Brownies ’preciate all the work we’ve done,” Jane muttered. “It’s late and I’m going home.”

She began to gather up the tools. Her Brownie uniform was smudged with dirt and so were her sox.

Vevi and Connie walked along with Jane, helping her carry the tools. Vevi had picked up the empty canvas bag too, not wanting to leave it on the library lawn.

Before the girls had walked three blocks, Jane noticed someone coming toward them.

“See who is heading our way!” she directed the attention of her companions.

A woman was coming down the street. As she saw the three girls, she began to walk faster.

“It’s Mrs. Gabriel,” Vevi recognized her. “She looks cross too.”

Mrs. Gabriel’s high heels were clicking like knitting needles by the time she came face to face with the trio.

“Well!” she exclaimed, glaring at Vevi. “At last I’ve found you!”

“I haven’t been anywhere,” Vevi answered innocently.

“I want my bag of tulip bulbs,” Mrs. Gabriel announced.

“_Your_ bag,” said Vevi. “Do you mean my sack of culls that Hanny gave me?”

“Don’t try to pretend. When you rode in my car, you were carrying a bag of bulbs. Either by accident, or on purpose, you left yours behind and took one of mine. I want it back--now.”

“I took a bag of tulip bulbs. But I thought it was mine--”

“You’re carrying the empty sack now,” Mrs. Gabriel fairly screamed. “Give it to me.”

She snatched the bag from Vevi’s hand, excitedly examining the numerals.

“This is the sack!” she cried. “Now where are the contents?”

“I didn’t mean to mix up the bags,” Vevi apologized. “I thought--”

“Never mind what you thought,” Mrs. Gabriel broke in angrily. “Just tell me what you did with the tulip bulbs.”

“I don’t see why you’re so excited about it,” Jane said before Vevi could answer. “You threw all your other bulbs away.”

“In a culvert,” added Connie accusingly.

“Why, you insolent, stupid children!” Mrs. Gabriel cried. “Such arrogance! I want my tulip bulbs. Do you understand?”

The Brownies never had seen anyone more angry. Mrs. Gabriel seized Vevi by the arm, squeezing it so hard that the muscle hurt.

“What have you done with my bulbs?” she demanded.

“Let me go and I’ll tell you,” Vevi answered, trying to pull away. “I never will when you act so cross.”

Mrs. Gabriel dropped her arm. She even forced a stiff sort of smile.

“There, child, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” she said in a wheedling tone. “Just tell me what you did with the contents of the bag.”

“We planted the bulbs in the Brownie Scout bed at the library,” Vevi answered. “I didn’t mean to take your bulbs. But you got mine. So wasn’t it a fair exchange?”

“A fair exchange?” Mrs. Gabriel cried, her voice shrill. “You planted the tulips! That bag was worth a small fortune to me. Oh, I could shake you!”

Vevi backed away, rather afraid of the irate woman.

“What did you do with the pellets that were in the bag?” she demanded.

“You mean those little pieces of fertilizer?” Vevi stammered. “We planted them with the bulbs!”

“Oh!” gasped Mrs. Gabriel. She started to scold Vevi and then abandoned the tirade. With a gesture of both anger and despair, she brushed past the girls and went rapidly away.

_Chapter 17_

A LIBRARY WINDOW

Vevi, Connie and Jane watched Mrs. Gabriel until she was out of sight far down the street.

“Such a fuss about a few stupid tulip bulbs,” Vevi said. “What’s the matter with her anyhow?”

“She’s an old fussbudget,” Jane returned. “Why did that one bag of bulbs mean so much to her?”

“She spoke especially of the pellets that were with the bulbs,” Connie said reflectively. “Whoever heard of setting such store by fertilizer?”

“Anyway, the bulbs are planted now,” Vevi said with a nervous giggle. “Do you suppose she’ll try to make me pay for ’em?”

“She might,” Connie returned. “Mrs. Gabriel said the bulbs were worth a small fortune.”

“That’s silly,” Vevi declared. “Even the best tulip bulbs shouldn’t cost more than a dollar or two a dozen.”

“Some do, I think,” Connie said. “We must have planted at least four dozen.”

“That would amount to eight or ten dollars at least,” Jane computed. “Vevi, if she decides to make trouble, you’re really in for it.”

“Pooh! I’m not worried.”

However, Vevi was only trying to put up a good front. Actually she was deeply concerned. She knew Mrs. Gabriel might accuse her of taking the tulip bulbs on purpose.

The exchange had been accidental, but one that the woman couldn’t seem to understand. Vevi had less than five dollars in her savings bank at home. How could she ever pay the sum Mrs. Gabriel might ask? It made her fairly ill to think of it.

At the next corner, the girls parted to go to their separate homes. As Vevi started away alone, Connie reminded her that all the Brownie Scouts had been invited to take part in a puppet show that evening in the public library.

“Don’t forget, Vevi.”

“I’ll be there,” Vevi promised. With a nervous giggle, she added: “That is, unless Mrs. Gabriel puts me in jail!”

Miss Mohr and Miss Gordon had planned the puppet show as a special treat for the girls. The Brownies themselves had made scenery and painted the clever figures which were to be used in a dramatization of “The Brownie Story” by Juliana H. Ewing.

Using patterns provided by Miss Mohr, the girls had traced them on stiff cardboard. These they had cut out, pasted and painted. Each character had a narrow, stiff strip of cardboard at the back which could be used as a handle to make the figures move in a life-like manner on the little stage.

Besides tiny elves, the girls had created a Tailor, his aging mother, Mary and her little brother, and an Old Owl.

Vevi was assigned to speak the words of the Old Owl and to handle that particular puppet.

Her part had not been hard to learn. Mostly the owl only had to say “Who-oo,” and “Hoot! Hoot!”

“Don’t be late,” Connie warned as she and Jane bade their friend goodbye. “After the puppet show we’re to have an investiture ceremony. Hanny’s to be made a real Brownie.”

“I’ll be on time,” Vevi promised again. “Hoot! Hoot!”

By seven o’clock that night all the troop members were at the library. Vevi as usual was the last to arrive. She seemed so fidgety and nervous that Connie asked her if Mrs. Gabriel had made any more trouble.

“What makes you think she will?” Vevi asked quickly.

“I saw her walking around the library when I came in a few minutes ago,” Connie revealed. “She was looking at the Brownie flower bed too.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep talking about Mrs. Gabriel and her silly tulip bulbs,” Vevi said, squirming uncomfortably. “I’m not worrying about her.”

“Then what is wrong with you?”

“I’m thinking about my part in the play, that’s all. I’m afraid I may forget my lines.”

“Your lines!” Connie laughed. “All you have to do is hold your owl up in a tree and make bird noises. And you’re afraid you’ll forget!”

The girls were using a large library table for a stage. In the first scene, the Tailor and his elderly wife sat by their fireside discussing Mary and Tommy, who never liked to help with work in the home.

Connie took the part of the Old Tailor, while Rosemary spoke the lines of the aged grandmother. Sunny acted the character of Mary, and Hanny that of the little boy, Tommy.

The play progressed. In the second scene, Tommy and Mary, eager to find Brownies who would do all the housework for their family, set off to the woods to seek advice of the wise old Owl.

Vevi, thoroughly enjoying her role of owl, hooted and whoo’d and advised the children that they could find the “Brownies” only by going to the north side of the pond when the moon was shining.

“Say these words,” she directed in her most owlish voice: “‘Twist me, and turn me and show me the Elf; I looked into the water, and saw--’

“Then,” she further instructed, “at the moment you gaze into the water, think of a word that will rhyme with Elf, and complete the verse.”

In the next scene of the playlet, Sunny and Hanny as Tommy and Mary, were shown at the pond. Gazing down into a circular mirror which represented the water, they saw their own reflections. Sunny recited:

“‘Twist me, and turn me and show me the Elf; I looked into the water, and saw--’”

“Myself,” Hanny completed the rhyme.

According to the story, the children then knew that they were the real Brownies. The next and final scene showed them doing cheerfully the work of the family. The playlet ended with Connie as the old grandmother, declaring that children were a blessing, not a burden.

Everyone said the show had been a great success.

“I didn’t forget my lines either,” Vevi laughed in relief. “Not a single hoot!”

The time now had come for Hanny formally to be invested as a Brownie Scout. She was sent from the room while the other girls gathered in a circle about the big library table.

At the proper moment, Miss Gordon told Hanny she might return.

In the story room, the lights had been switched off. For a minute Hanny was bewildered as she came in.

Then Vevi took her hand and led her to the big table. The circular mirror, which represented a pool of water, had been placed in the very center.

“Who comes to the fairy wood?” asked Miss Gordon. “I do,” answered the little girl. “Hanny.”

“What do you seek?”

“To be a Brownie Scout,” replied Hanny earnestly.

“Why, Hanny?” asked Miss Gordon. “Why do you wish to become a Brownie?”

Hanny drew a deep breath. For a second, she couldn’t think of anything to say. Then the words came with a rush.

“I want to be a Brownie because I love America!” she cried, her eyes shining. “I want to live here always. I like Rosedale too and all the girls.”

“That is reason enough for becoming a Brownie,” declared Miss Gordon warmly. “Now gaze into the pool.”

Hanny looked down into the mirror. Miss Gordon turned her around twice, and placed a Brownie cap on her head.

“‘Twist me, and turn me, and show me the Elf;’” recited the other Brownies in unison.

“‘I looked into the pool and saw--’”

“MYSELF,” cried Hanny.

The ceremony was completed by having the little girl repeat the Brownie Promise. She gave it word perfect.

Miss Gordon then pinned a Brownie Scout pin on the right-hand side of her collar. She saluted Hanny and shook her hand, using the special grasp known only to troop members.

“Am I a real Brownie now?” Hanny asked happily.

“As real as they come,” declared Miss Mohr, giving her an affectionate hug.

“The best part of all is that I am going to stay in Rosedale,” Hanny told the other girls. “Now that my uncle has won the blue ribbon, he will make a great deal of money. Already he has had many fine offers for the Golden Beauty tulip bulbs.”

All the girls were delighted that Hanny would be able to remain in Rosedale, and told her so.

By this time it was five minutes after eight o’clock.

“Time for the meeting to end,” said Miss Gordon noticing the clock. “School tomorrow as usual, you know. Little Brownies should be in bed early.”

The girls began to put on their jackets and coats. Vevi had left hers in another room. She went for it but did not immediately return.

Impatiently, the other Brownies waited.

“That Vevi!” Jane exclaimed. “She always keeps us waiting!”

“What do you suppose she’s doing now?” Sunny speculated.