"Do you remember the talk you and I had about Rose House just before the Fresh Air women and children came out?" asked Ethel Blue of her cousin.
Ethel Brown nodded, and Ethel Blue explained the conversation to Dorothy.
"We thought Roger's scheme was pretty hard for us youngsters to carry out and we felt a little uncertain about it, but we made up our minds that people are almost always successful when they _want_ like everything to do something and _make up their minds_ that they are going to put it through and _learn how_ to put it through."
"We've proved it again with the gardens," responded Ethel Brown. "We wanted to have pretty gardens and we made up our minds that we could if we tried and then we learned all we could about them from people and books."
"Just see what Roger knows now about fertilizers!" exclaimed Dorothy in a tone of admiration. "Fertilizers aren't a bit interesting until you think of them as plant food and realize that plants like different kinds of food and try to find out what they are. Roger has studied it out and we've all had the benefit of his knowledge."
"Which reminds me that if we want any flowers at all next week we'd better put on some nitrate of soda this afternoon or this dry weather will ruin them."
"Queer how that goes right to the blossoms and doesn't seem to make the whole plant grow."
"I did a deadly deed to one of my calceolarias," confessed Ethel Blue. "I forgot you mustn't use it after the buds form and I sprinkled away all over the plant just as I had been doing."
"It discouraged them. I ought to have put some crystals on the ground a little way off and let them take it in in the air."
"It doesn't seem as though it were strong enough to do either good or harm, does it? One tablespoonful in two gallons of water!"
"Grandfather says he wouldn't ask for plants to blossom better than ours are doing." Ethel Brown repeated the compliment with just pride.
"It's partly because we've loved to work with them and loved them," insisted Ethel Blue. "Everything you love answers back. If you hate your work it's just like hating people; if you don't like a girl she doesn't like you and you feel uncomfortable outside and inside; if you don't like your work it doesn't go well."