demanded Roger. "This is only January."

"I know just how the girls feel," sympathized James. "When I make up my
mind to do a thing I want to begin right off, and the first step of this
new scheme is to get the catalogues hereinbefore mentioned."

"We can plan out our back yards any time, I should think," said Dorothy.

"Father says that somebody--was it Bacon, Margaret?--says that a man's
nature runs always either to herbs or to weeds. Let's start ours running
to herbs in the first month of the year and perhaps by the time the
herbs appear we'll catch up with them."

CHAPTER III

DOROTHY TELLS HER SECRET

"How queer it is that when you're interested in something you keep
seeing and hearing things connected with it!" exclaimed Ethel Blue about
a week after her birthday, when Della Watkins came out from town to
bring her her belated birthday gift.

The present proved to be a slender hillock covered with a silky green
growth exquisite in texture and color.

"What is it? What is it?" cried Ethel Blue. "We mentioned plants and
gardens on my birthday and that very evening Margaret brought me this
grapefruit jungle and now you've brought me this. Do tell me exactly
what it is."

"A cone, child. That's all. A Norway spruce cone. When it is dry its
scales are open. I filled them with grass seed and put the cone in a
small tumbler so that the lower end might be damp all the time. The
dampness makes the scales close and starts the seed to sprouting. This
has been growing a few days and the cone is almost hidden."

"It's one of the prettiest plants--would you call it a plant or a
greenhouse?--I ever saw. Does it have to be a Norway spruce cone?"

"O, no. Only they have very regular scales that hold the seed well. I
brought you out two more of them and some grass seed and canary seed so
you could try it for yourself."

"You're a perfect duck," and Ethel gave her friend a hug. "Now let me
show you what one of the girls at school gave Ethel Brown."

She indicated a strange-looking brown object hanging before the window.

"What in the world is it? It looks--yes, it looks like a sweet potato."

"That's what it is--a sweet potato with one end cut off and a cage of
tape to hold it. You see it's sprouting already, and they say that the
vines hang down from it and it looks like a little green hanging
basket."

"What's the object of cutting off the end?"

"Anna--that's Ethel Brown's friend--said that she scooped