Chapter 5 HANNY’S SECRET

“WHY, Hanny!” exclaimed Connie, amazed to see the little girl weeping. “What is wrong?”

Hanny had not heard the Brownie Scouts come into the cheese room. She sat up quickly, wiping her eyes and blinking fast.

“Why are you crying?” Vevi asked when she did not answer Connie’s question.

Hanny shook her head and turned her face toward the wall. All the Brownies felt very sorry for her.

“Is it because you have to work hard here at the farm?” Connie asked after a moment.

“Oh, no!” Hanny denied, stirred by the question. “I do not work hard.”

“Then you must be crying because you never have any fun.”

Hanny shook her long yellow braids emphatically. She wiped away the tears and sat up on the couch.

“No, no!” she protested. “You do not understand. I am so very happy here. I love America. I love my so good uncle. Everyone!”

“Then what is wrong, Hanny?”

“I cry because I am sad. My uncle told me today that I may have to go back to my homeland.”

“But why?” demanded Jane. “I don’t get it.”

“My uncle is heavily in debt,” sighed Hanny. “He owes much money for this farm and all the what-you-call improvements on it. Now the bank men have told him he must pay.”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Vevi assured her carelessly. “Everything will turn out all right.”

“Not unless my uncle makes money fast,” Hanny insisted. “If tulip bulbs only sold for five thousand dollars apiece it would be easy.”

“Who ever heard of a bulb selling for that price!” scoffed Jane.

“Oh, but they did at one time,” Hanny said. “During the tulip-o-mania bulbs sold for great sums.”

“What is a tulip-o-mania?” curiously inquired Sunny.

“I know!” cried Connie before Hanny could answer. “It was a period in Dutch history when the people went crazy over tulips.”

“They lost and made fortunes buying and selling them,” added Hanny. “I will tell you about it.”

Forgetting the cause of her tears, the little Dutch girl began to describe the strange period in history.

She related that in 1634 the entire Dutch population traded in tulip bulbs. At first everyone made money. Tulips kept selling for higher and higher prices.

“Then suddenly, people came to their senses,” Hanny went on. “Instead of paying thousands of florins for a single bulb, no one wanted them at any price. People lost all their money.”

“I hope it won’t be that way here,” remarked Rosemary anxiously. “My father says that many nurserymen have invested heavily in tulips this year.”

“People always will buy tulip bulbs,” said Hanny. “But they will not pay high prices any more except for very special bulbs.”

“Can’t your uncle raise a special bulb?” Vevi questioned. “One that’s better than any other tulip in the world?”

Hanny smiled and said she did not think the Brownies knew how difficult it was to develop a fine, new tulip.

“Uncle Peter has one though,” she admitted. “If it should catch the fancy of the public, he might yet make his fortune. Then I could stay in America!”

“Does this new tulip have a name?” inquired Connie.

“I gave it one myself,” Hanny said proudly.

The Brownies pleaded with her to tell the name, but she would not.

“It’s a secret,” she insisted. “At least until after the prize is announced.”

“Prize?” Vevi asked alertly. “What prize?”

“Mrs. Langley has offered a blue ribbon for the best tulip entered in the show.”

“Only a ribbon?” asked Rosemary. “Not a cash prize?”

“The winner of the blue ribbon will earn much money selling the prize bulbs. If the tulip catches the public fancy, the winning grower will receive large orders from all over the country.”

“I wish you’d show us the tulip to be entered in the contest,” Vevi said.

“It is a secret. No one knows except my Uncle Peter, Bruno and me!”

“Bruno is a dog!” scoffed Vevi. “How can he know?”

“Bruno knows many things,” laughed Hanny. “He is a very smart dog. He hauls the milk and at night he keeps people from climbing the fence and stealing our flowers.”

“What color is that special tulip?” Vevi demanded. “Is it red?”

“I don’t dare tell,” laughed Hanny. “Wouldn’t the Mattoxes like to know, though!”

“The couple on the next farm?” questioned Connie, recalling mention of the name.

“Ja,” laughed Hanny, lapsing into a Dutch word. “They are what you call snoops! But they will never learn Uncle Peter’s secret!”

To keep the Brownies from asking too many questions about the tulip, the little Dutch girl took them through the old mill. It was exciting indeed to look at all the pulleys and machinery.

Hanny showed the girls a mechanism which acted as a brake. It was used to prevent the mill from pumping too much water into the irrigation ditches.

“It is my job to watch the windmill,” Hanny told her friends. “Whenever the wind is too strong, I lock the mechanism.”

After the tour had ended, the girls all sat down on the grass to talk. Connie invited Hanny to attend the next Brownie meeting at the Public Library.

“It will be Wednesday right after school,” she said. “Can you come?”

“I think so, but I am not sure,” Hanny replied. “It will depend upon my stand.”

“A flower stand?” asked Jane.

“Yes, my uncle is letting me have one at the roadside. I will sell bouquets of tulips mostly.”

“I’d like to do that myself,” Jane declared. “Maybe the Brownies will have a stand at Mrs. Langley’s garden show.”

“Everything’s so mixed up, we don’t know what we’re supposed to do,” Vevi added with a laugh. “We promised Mrs. Langley we would help her with the regular show. Then Mr. Piff came along and talked her into working with him for a bigger festival.”

“In my country we call a festival a kermis,” Hanny said. “You should bake ellekoek and sell them!”

“What is that?” asked Jane suspiciously.

“Thin cakes in long, narrow ribbons,” Hanny explained with a chuckle. “One sells them by the yard. In my country, the children buy them at the kermis or festival. A child takes each end of the cake. They eat toward each other and kiss at the last bite!”

“How silly!” exclaimed Jane. “I wouldn’t like that.”

“I’d rather sell flowers,” declared Vevi. “Either tulips or tussie-mussie bouquets.”

Hanny told the girls she would try very hard to attend the Wednesday Brownie Scout meeting.

“I’ve told you about Holland,” she declared. “Now you must tell me more about the Brownie Scout organization.”

“Our motto is ‘Be Prepared!’” Sunny explained. “I guess it means learning how to do things well ahead of time, so they can be done right when you’re called on to do it.”

“You ought to learn the greeting too,” Vevi asserted. “When one Brownie Scout meets another, she doesn’t just say ‘Hi!’”

“You use the sign of friendship.” Rosemary took up the explanation. “See, it’s done this way.”

She held up her first two fingers, stiff and straight, token of the two parts of the Brownie Scout Promise.

“The promise is this,” she added: “‘I promise to do my best to love God and my country, to help other people every day, especially those at home’.”

“I know that part,” Hanny declared.

“I guess you help out plenty at home,” Connie said. “Do you know the slogan?”

Hanny shook her head.

“It’s this: ‘Do a Good Turn Daily.’”

“Miss Gordon says that means doing something for someone without being asked or paid for it.”

“Things like setting the table for your mother,” Rosemary explained. “Or maybe washing the dishes.”

“I would like to do something for the Brownies!” declared Hanny. “I know! Next week I will give you some of our tulips. We will have oceans of them in bloom by then.”

“You can do something for the Brownies right now,” said Connie. “If we have our booth in the flower show, we plan to dress in Dutch costumes. Do you know where we can buy some wooden shoes?”

“Buy sabots?” Hanny echoed. “Why don’t you make them?”

“Make our own wooden shoes?” Connie repeated in amazement.

“My uncle does,” Hanny said proudly. “He carves them from wood, with special tools. Maybe he will make shoes for the Brownies!”

“That would be too much trouble,” Connie replied quickly.

“If Uncle Peter is not too busy, I think he will do it. I will ask him. First though, before we go to the office, would you like to see our south field? The first tulips are coming into bloom.”

Eagerly, the Brownies assented. Hanny walked ahead with Connie and Vevi over the soft ground. Entering through a picket gate, they made their way between seemingly endless rows of bright green plants.

“All of our fields are now in bud,” Hanny declared. “We will have a very large flower harvest unless rain or a heavy wind should harm the plants.”

“I haven’t seen any tulips in bloom except in the greenhouses,” Connie remarked.

“Uncle Peter’s are the first in Rosedale. The ones in this field are an especially early variety.”

“Is the prize tulip here?” Vevi teased.

“I’m not saying,” laughed Hanny. “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. You will have to discover the answer for yourself.”

Already, though not fully in bloom, the field was speckled with color. Never had the girls beheld so many different types of tulips.

There were rows of tall pink ones, and short, stubby double yellows. Some were variegated with odd markings.

“Wait until the parrot tulips bloom!” Hanny declared proudly. “They have ragged, queer-shaped petals that look like the feathers of a bird!”

“Your uncle’s prize tulip isn’t a parrot?” Vevi demanded.

“No, it is not a Parrot tulip or a Cottage type,” Hanny replied. “I will tell you that much. It is an early bloomer. My uncle developed it from seed.”

“Then it must be in this field,” Vevi insisted, allowing her gaze to rove over the brilliant mass of flowers. “Is it in bloom now?”

“I can’t say,” answered Hanny, her eyes twinkling. “But it is the most beautiful tulip I have ever seen.”

Everywhere Vevi and the other Brownies saw wonderful flowers. All were so pretty that they could not decide which one was nicer than the others. Jane loved a large flame colored tulip. Sunny’s favorite was a tall rose-hued variety with dark throat.

Then unexpectedly, Vevi saw the tulip that held her eye like a magnet. Only a single flower was in bloom, surrounded by other tulips in bud. Yet the single specimen, each petal perfect, was breath taking.

The flower had a long, straight stem and in color was a pure, golden yellow. Compared to it, all other yellow tulips in the field appeared faded.

“There it is! The one I like best!” cried Vevi.

“It’s my choice too,” declared Connie.

Hanny smiled in an odd sort of way. She seemed very pleased that her friends liked the tulip.

“This isn’t the special tulip, is it?” demanded Rosemary.

Hanny just kept smiling and did not answer.

“Does this flower have a name?” Vevi asked eagerly.

“We call it the ‘Golden Beauty.’”

“‘The Golden Beauty’,” Vevi repeated triumphantly. “That proves it! Your boat has almost the same name! You can’t fool us, Hanny! We’ve discovered the tulip your uncle intends to enter in the prize contest!”