Spearmint Jumbles

1. Wash the mint leaves.

2. Put the sugar in a saucepan. Add the water.

3. Stir sugar over the fire until dissolved.

4. Cook quite hard until the sugar begins to turn brown. Take from the fire. Add mint leaves, stirring hard.

5. Turn out on a buttered pie plate. Add 2 tablespoons butter.

6. Stir hard until candy falls apart or crumbles into small pieces.

“My, but you are smart, Mary Frances!” declared Eleanor. “I wish I could do such things—but what if some people don’t care for spearmint flavor?”

“We could make some fudge.” Mary Frances met the suggestion, “but I think everybody ought to think it good this time because it’s from our garden. I didn’t like to plan for ice-cream even because it didn’t grow there.”

“Don’t you wish it did!” cried Eleanor.

“If it did, I’d have acres of ice-cream plants!” Mary Frances laughed.

“We’ll cook everything right here in the play house,” she continued; “that little stove will do all that we want.”

“Oh, won’t it be too grand for anything!” Eleanor hugged Mary Frances in enthusiasm.

So when Tuesday came, they set to work, and carried out their plans.

“Who’s to serve the feast?” asked Billy, as he arranged the plates according to the girls’ directions.

“Oh, we’ll do that,” answered Mary Frances. “All we ask you to do, Billy, is to open the freezer and dish the ice-cream.”

“Believe me, you may count on me, ladies,” said Billy, bowing. “Count on me for a large share in the ice-cream work, although I can’t see that there will be much work, for I ordered it in the form of bricks.”

“Billy, you’re a brick!” laughed Eleanor.

By twelve o’clock Wednesday, the refreshments were ready, and the girls went to the big house to “doll up,” as Billy said.

Mary Frances glanced out of the window just as she fastened the last button of Eleanor’s dress.

“Here comes Aunt Maria!” she cried and bounded down-stairs and out on the porch to meet her. While she was hugging her, Eleanor’s father and Bob appeared on the scene, and you can imagine how happy the little girls were.

“Where can Grandma be?” Mary Frances asked, after her mother and father had welcomed everybody. “Oh, there comes the station auto-bus. It’s going to stop here!” Surely enough it stopped, and out stepped the dear old lady, whom everybody tried to greet at once.

In the midst of the confusion, Mary Frances and Eleanor slipped away to the play house, and a little later Billy and Bob piloted the guests to the play house garden.

“Mistress Mary, never contrary,

Will show how her garden grows,”

announced Bob, leading the way up the path, where Mary Frances shook hands with each one in a most grown-up, dignified fashion introducing them to “My friend, Miss Eleanor,” just as Mother Paper Doll had done in the Housekeeper story.

“So this is you children’s garden surprise, dear! Isn’t it beautiful!” There were tears of joy in their mother’s eyes.

“Were there ever such children!” exclaimed their grandmother.

“If there are any more wonderful, I have yet to see them!” Aunt Maria’s nose went up into the air with pride.

“Jolly good gardener, Bill!” Bob slapped his friend on the back.

“What you’ll be next year,” Billy retorted.

“Father hasn’t said a word!” Mary Frances suddenly discovered.

“I’ve been speechless with surprise, dear,” he said. “It certainly paid to wait to see such a garden. The flowers are wonderful!”

“Why, haven’t you seen the garden before this?” everybody asked, and he told the whole story.

As he finished, Bob and Eleanor’s father spoke. “I’m gladder than ever that Bob’s to go away to Billy’s school!”

Then nearly everybody began to talk at once, saying how much more sensible the ideals of education were to-day than when they were young, and more of such grown-up talk, which gave the boys and girls a chance to slip away to get the refreshments.

“How did you guess we were hungry?” asked Bob’s father as Mary Frances served the salad, and Eleanor passed the sandwiches in a dainty basket, trimmed with pink bows.

“Where did you find such beautiful lettuce and tomatoes, dear?” asked Grandma, showing her enjoyment of the treat.

“That’s part of the secret,” laughed Mary Frances. “After you’ve tested our vegetables, we’ll show you our vegetable garden.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Bob, “you don’t mean to say you raised these?”

“Everything’s from this garden except the ice-cream!” Eleanor asserted proudly.

“Some farmers!” Bob started to say, but his father interposed.

“You forget, son, that you’re in a formal social gathering—at a garden party, if you please.”

“Please pardon me,” Bob begged, bowing to the company.

“Let them talk—it’s the youngsters’ party,” somebody whispered so loud that everybody heard, and everybody laughed.

After the ice-cream and coffee had been served, and the bonbon dish of candy was passed, “What delicious mints!” so many people praised, that Mary Frances said she would carry the candy dish with them to the vegetable garden, and all could see the bed of mint where she gathered the leaves for the flavor.

It would be impossible to tell you how happy and proud the children were as they showed their vegetable garden, with its beautiful neat beds bordered with nasturtiums.

You can imagine how they looked, for if you read the garden lists in early chapters of this story, you know what they had growing.

“Everybody may pick a bouquet,” said Mary Frances, seizing Eleanor’s hand and leading the party to the flower garden. Just as they started, Doctor Hopewell drove up with his son and two daughters.

“We couldn’t help stopping,” he declared. “You made such a beautiful picture.”

They were welcomed with delight, and the girls insisted upon their having some salad and ice-cream.

“Isn’t this the most charming thing you ever heard of!” sighed Marjorie Hopewell.

“It’s just like a girl’s dream come true!” her sister Helen agreed.

“The girls will never get over this. To have peace I’ll have to turn farmer yet! Bill and Bob will have to give me pointers!” their brother Harry laughed.

“Indeed, I’d like to see you all doing what these young people have done,” their father told them.

The doctor and his family left in about an hour, with flowers for Mrs. Hopewell, but the other guests stayed until five o’clock, sitting on the easy chairs which Billy had placed along the walk in front of the play house.

The day was so beautiful—not too warm, not too cool; not a rain cloud in the sky, but scattered about with little white fleecy “flocks of lambs” clouds, as Mary Frances said. Perhaps that and the beauty of the garden made them linger, but they seemed sorry to leave.

“You will all come again! Soon!” Mary Frances and Billy made them promise. “And you’ll come to our garden party next year! We’ll have both Bob and Eleanor for partners then!”

[CHAPTER LIV]
Feather Flop’s Conceit

“OH, Feather Flop! Feather Flop!” called Mary Frances, as she carried a pan of the “left overs” of the garden party out to the rooster the next morning.

Feather Flop made some queer gurgling noise in his throat.

“Why, what’s the matter, old fellow?” she asked in alarm.

“Matter?” cawed Feather Flop hoarsely. “Matter? Why, this: I’ve nearly crowed my bill off trying to call you. I’m so hoarse I can scarcely whisper! I grew so weak, finally I had to lean up against the fence to crow!”

“Mercy! Was it as bad as that?” asked Mary Frances. “Why, I must have been so tired out from our garden party that I slept so soundly I didn’t hear. I’m sorry—you must have wanted to see me very particularly, too!”

“‘Our garden party!’” echoed Feather Flop. “‘Our garden party!’ As though any mention had been made of me!”

“Oh! oh! oh!” cried Mary Frances. “Oh, was that it, Feather Flop? I never thought—really! I supposed I must keep you a secret just as I’ve been accustomed with other fairy folks.”

“Fairy folks!” exclaimed Feather Flop. “Fairy folks! I’m not a fairy! I’m a farmer! and even if you don’t remember, it doesn’t change the fact that if it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have had any garden at all.”

“Why, you conceited old fellow!” cried Mary Frances. “How do you make that out? But,” seeing the disappointment on his face, “of course, I appreciate your help. Indeed I do, Feather Flop,” she added.

“Don’t you recollect?” asked Feather Flop. “Don’t you recollect that day when you couldn’t understand the seed catalogue? Who was it that helped you then? Who was it, little Miss?”

He cocked his head and looked up at her expectantly.

“Why, it was you, Feather Flop!” Mary Frances exclaimed. “It certainly was you, my old friend!”

Feather Flop blinked. “I’m glad you can call it to mind!” he remarked. “If you had only just mentioned my name at the garden party, I wouldn’t have felt so bad.”

“Oh!” said Mary Frances.

“Even if you’d just said to me, if you’d just said, ‘Feather Flop, old chap, you can’t come to the garden party, of course, but you’re invited,’ I wouldn’t have felt as I did.”

“Oh, dear!” said Mary Frances.

“If you’d said at the party, ‘Now, if my old friend, Feather Flop, hadn’t helped me,’ or something like that, I’d have been so proud and glad.”

“How do you know I didn’t?” Mary Frances parleyed under sudden inspiration.

“How do I know? I was there. I was there even uninvited!” declared Feather Flop.

“Why, where in the world were you?” asked Mary Frances in astonishment. “You couldn’t have been in the garden, for we were everywhere.”

“It’s a riddle!” Feather Flop’s voice sounded as though he was laughing. “I was in the garden! You can’t guess where!”

“Indeed, I can’t.” Mary Frances shook her head. “Unless you were under something inside the play house.”

“No, I wasn’t inside the play house,” said Feather Flop, in a voice which still sounded like laughter. “Guess again! One more guess!”

“Give it up.” Mary Frances acknowledged her defeat.

“Why, I was outside the play house on the roof!” declared the rooster triumphantly.

“Oh!” cried Mary Frances, delighted. “So that is where you were! You really were at the party, after all! Now I shall feel better. If I’d only realized how you felt, I’d loved to have invited you and to have had you there!”

“That makes it all right,” said Feather Flop brightly. “I only thought you’d forgotten me and maybe didn’t want me! That’s what made me so sad!”

“Not want you!” exclaimed Mary Frances. “Not want you! I think you are the most wonderful rooster in the whole wide world, and the smartest——”

“Farmer?” asked Feather Flop anxiously.

“Yes, indeed, farmer!” declared the little girl, picking him up and tenderly smoothing him. “If it hadn’t been for you, I doubt if I’d have had a garden!”

“Oh, I’m the happiest rooster in the wide world!” sighed Feather Flop, “and if I weren’t just a plain farmer rooster, I’d turn into a fairy prince, dressed in blue satin trimmed with gold and diamonds, but as it is—I’m hungry!”

“Come!” laughed Mary Frances. “Come, eat,” she said. “I like you far better than any fairy prince, for you’re my own dear friend—my farmer, Feather Flop.”

And Feather Flop looked so proud you might have imagined him in tiny overalls and sun hat.

[CHAPTER LV]
Bob and Billy’s Vacation

THE boys had been at school several weeks, and Mary Frances and Eleanor were well started in their studies, when one golden-leafed day in October, each girl received a letter from her brother as they stopped at the post office on their way from school.

“We’re coming home on Friday,” both letters read alike, “to plant the bulbs, and we’ll expect your help after school, and all day Saturday, if necessary; and we’ll hope—just hope—for some play house cooking.”

“Isn’t it comical for them to say just the same thing!” exclaimed Eleanor.

“Won’t we have fun!” Mary Frances answered. “Let’s see, this is Wednesday. I wonder if Billy wrote to Mother.” And away they flew to find out.

“Mother, you’ve known for several days, I just believe,” declared Mary Frances, whereat her mother laughed and confessed that she had known, but that it was her turn to keep a surprise in store for them. Then all three fell to making plans for the visit.

“We’ll give a dinner in the play house,” decided Mary Frances, “and invite you and Father.”

“Oh, you children would have more pleasure without grown-ups,” protested her mother.

“Not a bit of fun without our kind of ‘grown-ups,’ you mean,” Mary Frances contradicted lovingly. “Doesn’t she, Eleanor?”

“Yes, indeed!” Eleanor answered emphatically.

“You dear children!” was all the mother said, but the girls knew that their invitation was accepted.

When the boys came, there was so much to talk about that they didn’t get to work until Saturday. There were stories of the jokes which the second year fellows played on the “Freshies,” and of the winning of the big football game, and of the rigid training in athletics, and a volume of other talk new to the girls; at least, new to Eleanor, and equally entertaining to Mary Frances and her parents.

“I wrote ‘the governor’ all about that,” said Bob as he finished relating one particularly amusing incident.

The girls looked puzzled.

“He means his ‘old man,’” explained Billy.

“Oh, Billy! How you talk!” cried Mary Frances. “Do you mean his father?”

“Sure guess!” nodded Billy.

“Well, Father, if that’s the way they learn to talk, I shouldn’t think you’d let them go back.” Mary Frances pretended to be indignant.

But he only laughed, saying, “Oh, they’ll outgrow it.” And the boys took up anew the threads of their stories.

It was quite late before they got to bed, but they were up bright and early Saturday morning.

“We fellows haven’t time now to explain why bulbous plants bloom so readily in the Spring.”

“We know; don’t we, Mary Frances?” Eleanor exclaimed without thinking.

Mary Frances pursed her lips to look like “Hush!” and shook her head, which made Eleanor remember that Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Bouncing Bet’s lessons were to be a secret.

“If you know so much, Nell,” Bob replied mockingly, “perhaps you can tell the difference between a corm, a rhizome, a tuber, and a fleshy root.”

“Well! Well!” cried Mary Frances, “I guess we better not lay claim to any more knowledge,” and she winked at Eleanor, who nodded understandingly.

“But,” said Billy, opening his note-book, “we will tell you a little something about—