“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.