Then Norma eagerly explained what she was doing, and all that Natalie and Janet had already accomplished. That made her remember something. “Oh, Janet had to go to buy chicken-wire to keep her chickens from gobbling Natalie’s greens, so Frances and Belle went along to help her carry the roll of wire back.”
“Where did they go for it?” asked Mr. Lowden.
“All the way to Four Corners, and a roll of wire ought to be rather heavy before they finish this mile, don’t you think, Mr. Lowden?” suggested Norma.
Frances’ father laughed, and said he would drive down the road and help them with the burden. Then he went out to tell his wife and send her in to the house to visit Mrs. James, while he went for the three girls and the chicken wire.
The object of the Lowdens’s early visit was soon told. And they were fully repaid for their offer to leave the touring car for the girls of Green Hill Farm to use during the summer while the owners were vacationing in the Rockies, by such happy faces and excited declarations of how good the Lowdens were, etcetera.
When it came time for the Lowdens to start for the train that left Four Corners at noon every day, Frances asked who of the girls would like to drive with her to the station. Janet simply had to begin that horrid chicken fence, and Natalie had to mend her broken plants and smooth the scratched-up soil; Belle said someone ought to help poor Janet, so Norma spoke up:
“I’d love to go with you, Frans, if you will leave me at Mrs. Tompkins and call for us on your way back. Jimmy and I invited her to visit us today and advise us with the landscaping about the house.”
“Sure! Jump in and I’ll drop you as we pass the store. You can have Mrs. Tompkins all ready to come back with me when I stop for you,” was Frances’s willing reply.
The trip was soon made, and Norma, with Mrs. Tompkins, were welcomed by Mrs. James who was waiting on the side porch. Frances left the car under the great oak that grew beside the corner of the driveway near the front fence corner, and then ran to the barn yard to see what Janet was doing. But she was soon drafted into service with Belle and the three forgot the three floriculturists at the house, for a time.
Norma and Mrs. James escorted their visitor across the lawns to the garden that had been planted that morning. “Oh, but you should have placed inverted flower-pots over the little plants during the hot sunshine, Norma,” said Mrs. Tompkins anxiously.