The newly aroused interest in plants extended to the care of the house
plants which heretofore had been the sole concern of Mrs. Emerson and
Mrs. Morton. Now the girls begged the privilege of trimming off the dead
leaves from the ivies and geraniums and of washing away with oil of
lemon and a stiff brush the scale that sometimes came on the palms. They
even learned to kill the little soft white creature called aphis by
putting under the plant a pan of hot coals with tobacco thrown on them.
"It certainly has a sufficiently horrid smell," exclaimed Ethel Brown.
"I don't wonder the beasties curl up and die; I'd like to myself."
"They say aphis doesn't come on a plant with healthy sap," Ethel Blue
contributed to this talk, "so the thing to do is to make these plants so
healthy that the animals drop off starved."
"This new development is going to be a great comfort to me if it keeps
on," Mrs. Emerson confessed to her daughter humorously. "I shall
encourage the girls to use my plants for instruction whenever they want
to."
"You may laugh at their sudden affection," returned Mrs. Morton
seriously, "but I've noticed that everything the U.S.C. sets its heart
on doing gets done, and I've no doubt whatever that they'll have what
Roger calls 'some' garden this next summer."
"Roger has had long consultations with his grandfather about fertilizers
and if he's interested in the beginnings of a garden and not merely in
the results I think we can rely on him.
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