But Shep was no patriot, and evidently did not realize the honor of that big red cross, for suddenly he gave his huge body a shake, slipped from beneath the fussing fingers, and bounded away after his young masters, leaving a gentle friend to humanity lying sprawling on the grass.
As Nathalie turned, her eyes traveled slowly from one booth to another. There were seven of them, three on the left and three on the right of the Red Cross booth, which was in the center of the lawn, at one end, fronting its sister booths. The war booth, on the left, ablaze with the flags of the Allies, was curiously decorated on its front and posts with the paper coverings from magazines and books. On its counter were displayed the latest war books,—all donated after a sharp drive by the hostesses, the Camp Fire Girls, who wore embroidered deerskin robes aglisten with many-colored beads, and trench-caps stuck jauntily on one side of their heads, which gave them a very coquettish and natty appearance.
Scrap-books, in which were pasted funny verses, tidbits of news from all over the world, with many-colored pictures, and songs and rhymes to amuse the convalescents in the hospitals, were also on sale. Little candles of paper added to the attractiveness of this booth’s display, while one or two Camp Fire Girls were in attendance, who, on the payment of a nickel, taught the uninitiated the knack of making these trench-candles.
But the booth that held the first place in Nathalie’s heart was the Liberty-Garden booth, a leaf-embowered tent. Here were brilliant splashes of color from the vegetables piled on wicker mats, as carrots, turnips, beans, onions, beets, and other products, artistically softened by the light green of lettuce, the red of beet-leaves, and the delicate, lacy leaves of the carrot.
Here and there herbs tied in bunches, as thyme, caraway seeds, catnip, sweet lavender, and other herbs, suggested the days of long ago, when these little garden accessories held a higher place with the housewife as necessities of the day. Unwieldy tomatoes and potatoes, lazily resting on plates, added to the picturesque effect of the display, as well as the festoons of peppers, radishes, parsnips, and vegetables of similar character that were hung from side to side of the tent.
This booth was certainly a brilliant showing of the work done by the Pioneers. Oh, how they had scrubbed and polished those vegetables to bring out their colors, so they would not be messy or huddled-looking! And the time it had taken to print the little labels so neatly fastened to each exhibit!
Yes, through the sweat of her brow Nathalie had come to realize that gardening was not merely a matter of digging, plowing, or even planting or weeding, but that it meant straying into many paths of knowledge that hitherto had been closed to her. Then, too, there was the trench warfare, as she called the unceasing onslaught against the bugs, insects, and garden slugs, by a constant fire of hand-grenades and bombs, as the girls had come to call the spraying and powdering of the plants.
Ah, there was Lillie, with a number of Girl Pioneers, who, in bright-colored overalls and shirt-waists, and coquettish little sunbonnets tied under their chins, were rather gay editions of farmerettes, as they stood in picturesque attitudes, with their rakes and hoes. But a moment later Lillie was forgotten, for as Nathalie reached the booth she burst into a sudden squeal of delight on suddenly perceiving, on the top of a wall of canned vegetables, a little green imp, ingeniously made from a string-bean. He not only had a most rakish air, with his tiny soldier-hat cocked on one side, as he stood at attention with a flag for a gun, but he held forth a little placard on which was written:
“Little Beans, little Beans, whence did you come?”
“We came from the ground at the sound of the drum.”
“Little Beans, little Beans, why are you here?”
“We were scalded and canned by a Girl Pioneer.”
“Oh, who wrote that?” merrily inquired the girl of one of the Pioneers, for it was something she had not seen before.