While they were busy getting the place in order, Miss Chadwick and her assistants declined all offers of inexperienced help, assuring the girls that they would have their "jobs" given them later on, when there was time to teach them. This did not at all content the enthusiastic spirits who were burning to throw lessons to the winds and spend their days in mixing putty, lime-washing hen-houses, and fixing up wire netting. They hung about disconsolately, snatching at such opportunities of assistance as holding ladders or handing nails. "You _might_ let me tar the roof of the chicken-coop," begged Wendy. "I'd just love to let it all squelch on, and I adore the smell!" But Miss Carr, who the day before had rashly allowed Diana the use of the lime-wash pail, was firm in her refusal. "I haven't time to show you how, and I don't want things spoilt. Put down that tar-brush, Wendy! If you get smears on your skirt, you'll never get them off again." "I don't see where _we_ come in!" groused Wendy. "I thought we were to learn agriculture." "You won't learn it by dabbing tar on the end of your nose," laughed Miss Carr. In the course of a few weeks, however, the preliminary stages were over. Some fowl-houses and runs were finished, and their feathered occupants arrived and took possession. A consignment of spades, rakes, and hoes was delivered by the carrier, and arranged by the students in the new tool-shed. Miss Carr announced herself ready to begin her course of instruction. To the girls the crowning-point of the preparations was the opening of several large boxes posted from a London shop. They contained twenty land costumes in assorted sizes. The excitement of trying them on was immense. Twenty little figures in smocks and gaiters went capering about the school, wild with the fun of the new experiment, and feeling themselves enthusiastic "daughters of the soil". "It was A1 of Toddlekins to let us have a 'land uniform'." "Couldn't do any decent work without, I should say." "I believe Miss Carr insisted on it." "Sensible woman!" "It feels so delightfully business-like." "Shall we win green armlets?" "I'm just dying to start and dig!" "And I want to climb a tree!" Miss Chadwick and her students set to work methodically. They gave classroom lectures on the principles of agriculture, and practical demonstrations in the garden. The girls learnt the constituents of soils, and also how to trench; the theory of scientific poultry-raising, and the actual mixing of the food. They prepared plots that would be sown in the spring, cleared and rolled paths, planted bulbs, and divided roots of perennials; they sawed wood, lifted rhubarb, and helped to prepare a mushroom bed. It was all new and exciting, and there was a spice of patriotism mixed up with it. They felt that they were training to be of some service to the community.