The flower-beds had been carefully marked with stakes, and the people who were to make them ready began to dig, one set of people to each bed. Many of the young men were in their old khaki uniforms, and the young women came in overalls and bloomers in which they had been farmerettes during the war. There was only one mix-up. The committee who were to make the gravel paths wanted to make them at once, and this interfered with the people who were trying to dig the flower-beds. Mr. Harper explained to the gravel-path people that they would really have to wait. Grace Benson had brought her donkey. Its name was Souris, which is the French for a mouse, and it was all mouse-color except the black tips of its ears and tail. Grace expected Souris to help about making the park, but what could one wee donkey do? Souris was very small, and the moment Grace led him among the people he began to shiver and shake until his harness rattled. Nobody knew why Souris was afraid. Perhaps he did not like the big cart-horses several times larger than he; perhaps they spoke unkindly to him in horse language; at any rate, Souris stood still and shook from nose to tail. Only when Grace put her arms about his neck and spoke comfortingly to him did he stop trembling. The minute she took her arms away he began shivering again. Clearly Souris was of no use, and Grace took him home. He looked so miserable that nobody wanted him to stay and keep on feeling unhappy, but Grace felt ashamed of him. At first only the older people could work, because horses and machines were needed, and there was nothing the children could do. But soon they could help. The Boy Scouts cleaned a little brook which ran through the meadow. All proper parks have a brook or a lake, and so it was fortunate that the meadow possessed one. To plant flowers and bushes was easy, but to coax a brook to come from another place and run through the Victory Park might have been hard. The boys took out of the brook all the tin cans which thoughtless people had thrown into it. Never again would there be tin cans in the Victory brook. They pulled out sticks and branches and took away some stones, but only those which Mr. Lawrence said were to go. Some must be left so the brook could make pretty ripples and have something over which to sing. There were also stones in the meadow for the children to pick up and carry to baskets on the edge of the field. As fast as filled, men emptied these baskets into tip-carts, which took the stones away. The older boys raked where directed, so as to make the earth the proper level. The committees which had charge of the flowers dug the beds and did it very thoroughly. They dug down nearly two feet and put in fertilizer so the roots of the new plants would have plenty of food. They prepared the beds and then said that they must have water. The summer had been so dry that the plants could not grow unless the earth was made wet all around the roots.