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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ethel Morton at Sweetbrier Lodge, by Mabell
+S. C. Smith
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Ethel Morton at Sweetbrier Lodge
+
+
+Author: Mabell S. C. Smith
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 23, 2011  [eBook #35364]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHEL MORTON AT SWEETBRIER LODGE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Roger Frank, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      See 35364-h.htm or 35364-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35364/35364-h/35364-h.htm)
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+
+
+
+
+
+ETHEL MORTON AT SWEETBRIER LODGE
+
+by
+
+MABELL S. C. SMITH
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The World Syndicate Publishing Company
+Cleveland, Ohio         New York, N. Y.
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                            PAGE
+     I A New Craft                                                      9
+    II Playing with Concrete                                           25
+   III The Club Selects the Benches                                    37
+    IV Christopher Finds a New Lodging                                 52
+     V The Law of Laughter                                             67
+    VI Spring All the Year Round                                       80
+   VII Closets and Stepmothers                                         94
+  VIII "Off to Philadelphia in the Morning"                           104
+    IX Helen Distinguishes Herself                                    122
+     X The Land of "Cat-fish and Waffles"                             136
+    XI Lights and a Fall                                              150
+   XII In the Family Hospital                                         162
+  XIII A Golden Color Scheme                                          173
+   XIV At the Metropolitan                                            184
+    XV Preparations for the Housewarming                              203
+   XVI Columbus Day                                                   219
+  XVII The Parting Breakfast                                          234
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+                              A NEW CRAFT
+
+
+"Carefully! O, do be careful, Ethel Brown! I'm so afraid I'll drop one of
+them!"
+
+It was Ethel Blue Morton speaking to her cousin, who was helping her and
+their other cousin, Dorothy Smith, take Dicky Morton's newly hatched
+chickens out of the incubator and put them into the brooder.
+
+"I _have_ dropped one," exclaimed Dorothy. "Poor little dinky thing! It
+didn't hurt it a bit, though. See, it's running about as chipper as
+ever."
+
+"Are you counting 'em?" demanded Dicky, whose small hands were better
+suited than those of the girls for making the transfer that was to
+establish the chicks in their new habitation.
+
+"Yes," answered all three in chorus.
+
+"Here's one with a twisted leg. He must have fallen off the tray when he
+was first hatched." cried Ethel Brown.
+
+"He lookth pretty well. I gueth he'll live if I feed him by himthelf tho
+the throng ones won't crowd him away from the feed panth," said Dicky,
+examining the cripple, for in spite of his small supply of seven years he
+had learned from his big brother Roger and from his grandfather Emerson a
+great deal about the use of an incubator and the care of young chickens.
+
+"That's a good hatch for this time of year," Ethel Brown announced when
+she added together the numbers which each handler reported to her. "A
+hundred and thirty-seven."
+
+"Hear their little beaks tapping the wooden floor," Ethel Blue said,
+calling their attention to the behavior of the just-installed little
+fowls who were making themselves entirely at home with extraordinary
+promptness.
+
+"They take naturally to oatmeal flakes, don't they?" commented Dorothy.
+"I always thought the old hen taught the chicks to scratch, and there's a
+little chap scratching as vigorously as if he had been taking lessons
+ever since he was born."
+
+"They don't need lessons. Scratching is as natural as eating to them.
+Hear them hum?"
+
+They all listened, smiling at the note of contentment that buzzed gently
+from the greedy groups of crowding chicks. As the oatmeal disappeared the
+chickens looked about them for shelter and discovered the strips of cloth
+that did duty for the maternal wings. Rushing beneath them they cuddled
+side by side in the covered part of the brooder.
+
+"Look at that one tucking his head under his wing like a grown-up hen!"
+exclaimed Ethel Blue.
+
+"I'll have to turn the lamp up a little higher tho they won't crowd and
+hurt each other," Dicky decided.
+
+"I'd wait a minute until they begin to warm the whole of their house by
+the warmth from their bodies," urged Ethel Brown, and her brother agreed
+that there was no need of haste, but he watched them closely until he saw
+that they were not trampling on each other's backs or sitting down hard
+on each other's heads.
+
+"When will they come out again?" asked Dorothy, who had never seen an
+incubator and brooder in operation before and who was immensely
+interested.
+
+"When they are hungry."
+
+"How soon will that be?"
+
+"In about two hours. They're a good deal like babies."
+
+"And is this brooder a really good step-mother?"
+
+"It's a foster-mother," corrected Ethel Blue. "It isn't anything so
+horrid as a step-mother."
+
+"O, I don't think step-mothers are horrid," objected Dorothy.
+
+"Yeth, they are," insisted Dicky. "All the fairy stories say they're
+cruel."
+
+"O, fairy stories," sniffed Dorothy.
+
+"I imagine fairy stories are right about step-mothers," insisted Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"Did you ever know one?" asked Dorothy.
+
+"No, I never did; but I have a feeling that they couldn't love a child
+that wasn't their own."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Ethel Brown. "Mother loves you just as well as she
+does her own children and you're only her niece."
+
+"Not her own niece, either--Uncle Roger's niece," corrected Ethel Blue;
+"but then, Aunt Marion is a darling."
+
+"I don't see why a step-mother shouldn't be a darling."
+
+"I don't see why she shouldn't be but I don't believe she ever is," and
+Ethel Blue stuck to her opinion.
+
+"Well, there aren't any 'steps' around this family, so we can't tell by
+our own experience," cried Dorothy, "and we've got this chicken family
+moved into its new house, so let's go and see what the workmen are doing
+at our new house."
+
+Dorothy's mother had been planning for several months to build a house on
+a lot of land on the same street that they were living on now, but
+farther away from the Mortons' and nearer the farm where lived the
+Mortons' grandfather and grandmother, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson. The
+contractor had been at work only a few days.
+
+"He had just finished staking off the ground when I was there the other
+afternoon," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"He's way ahead of that now," Dorothy reported as they walked on, three
+abreast across the sidewalk, their blue serge suits all alike, their
+Tipperary hats set at the same angle on their heads, and only the
+different colors of their eyes and hair distinguishing them to a careless
+observer. "He told me yesterday that the whole cellar would be dug by
+this afternoon and they would be beginning to put in the concrete wall."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"The cellar wall."
+
+"I thought cellar walls were made of stone."
+
+"Sometimes they are, but when there isn't stone all cut, concrete is more
+convenient and cheaper, too."
+
+"And it lasts forever, I was reading the other day."
+
+"I should say it did. Those old Pyramids in Egypt are partly made of
+concrete, they think, and they are three or four thousand years old."
+
+"Does Aunt Louise expect her house to last three or four thousand years?"
+
+"She wants it durable; and fireproof, any way, because we're some
+distance from the engine house."
+
+"If we watch this house grow it will be almost like building it with our
+own hands, won't it?" exclaimed Ethel Brown, for, although the house was
+her aunt's, Mrs. Smith had made all the cousins feel that she wanted them
+to have a share in the pleasure that she and Dorothy were having in
+making a shelter for themselves after their many years of wandering. She
+and her daughter consulted over every part of the plans and they had
+often asked the opinion of the Mortons, so that they all had come to say
+"our house" quite as if it were to belong to them.
+
+As they approached the knoll which they had been calling "our house lot"
+for several months, they saw that the gravel for the concrete was being
+hauled to the top of the hill where the bags of sand and cement had
+already been unloaded and a small concrete mixer set up.
+
+"They do things fast, don't they!" exclaimed Dorothy. "There's Mr.
+Anderson, the contractor."
+
+A tall, substantial Scotsman bowed to them as they reached the top of the
+hill.
+
+"Have you come to superintend us, Miss Dorothy?" he asked pleasantly.
+"We're going to make all our preparations for mixing the concrete to-day,
+and then we'll start up the machine to-morrow."
+
+"You won't have the cellar wall all built by to-morrow after school, will
+you?" asked Dorothy anxiously. "We want to see how you do it."
+
+"It won't take long to do this small cellar so you'd better hurry right
+here from your luncheon," Mr. Anderson returned as he walked away to
+attend to the placing of the pile of gravel, and to lay a friendly hand
+on the sides of the panting horses.
+
+"If your driveway doesn't wind around more than this road that the
+hauling men have made all your friends' horses will be puffing like mills
+when they reach the top," Ethel Blue warned her cousin.
+
+"Mother and the architect and a landscape gardener have it all drawn on
+paper," Dorothy responded. "It's going to sweep around the foot of the
+knoll and come gently up the side and lie quite flat on top of the ridge
+for a little way before it reaches the front door."
+
+"That will be a long walk for people on foot."
+
+"Ethel Blue is speaking for herself," laughed Ethel Brown.
+
+"And for Dorothy, too. She'll walk most of the time even if Aunt Louise
+is going to set up a car."
+
+"There's to be a footpath over there," Dorothy indicated a side of the
+hill away from the proposed driveway. "It will be a short cut and it's
+going to be walled in with shrubs so it won't be seen from the driveway."
+
+"What would be the harm if you could see it from the driveway?"
+
+"O, the lines would interfere, the landscape artist said. You mustn't
+have things confused, you know," and she shook her head as if she knew a
+great deal about the subject.
+
+"I suppose it would look all mixy and queer if you should see the grounds
+from an airship," guessed Ethel Brown, "but I don't see what difference
+it would make from the ground."
+
+"I guess it would be ugly or he wouldn't be so particular about it,"
+insisted Dorothy. "That's his business--to make grounds look lovely."
+
+"I think I can see what he means," ventured Ethel Blue, who knew
+something about drawing and design. "I watched Aunt Marion's dressmaker
+draping an evening gown for her one day. She made certain lines straight
+and other lines curved, but the two kinds of lines didn't cross each
+other any old way; she put them in certain places so that they would each
+make the other kind of line look better and not make the general effect
+confusing."
+
+"Don't you remember how it was when we were planning Dorothy's garden on
+top of this ridge, back of the house and the garage?" Ethel Brown
+reminded them. "We had to draw several positions for the different beds
+because some of our plans looked perfectly crazy--just a mess of square
+beds and oblong beds and round beds."
+
+"They made you dizzy--I remember. We found we had to follow Roger's
+advice and make them balance."
+
+"Helen says there's a lot of geometry in laying out a garden. I guess
+she's right."
+
+Helen and Roger were Ethel Brown's older sister and brother. They were in
+the high school.
+
+They had come now to the excavation for the cellar and watched the
+Italian laborers throwing out the last shovelfuls of earth.
+
+"They're very particular about making the earth wall smooth," commented
+Ethel Brown.
+
+"I imagine they have to if the wall is to be concrete," returned Dorothy.
+
+"They've cut it under queerly at the foot on both sides; what's that
+for?"
+
+"I haven't the dimmest," answered Dorothy briefly. "Let's ask Mr.
+Anderson."
+
+"You'd find it hard to stand up straight if you had only a leg to stand
+on and not a foot," that gentleman answered to the question. "That
+concrete foot gives a good solid foundation, and it helps to repel the
+frost if that should get into the ground so deep. Do you see the planks
+the men are setting up twelve inches in from the bank?"
+
+The girls nodded.
+
+"They are making a fence all around the cellar you see; that is to keep
+the concrete in place when it is poured in, and to give it shape."
+
+"Is it soft like mud?"
+
+"It is made of one part of cement and two and one-half parts of sand and
+five parts of gravel. Do you cook?"
+
+They all nodded again.
+
+"When you come to-morrow you'll see the mixing machine making a stiff
+batter of those three things--cement and sand and gravel."
+
+"It must be like putting raisins in a plum pudding," suggested Ethel
+Brown. "You have to be careful the stones--the raisins--don't all sink to
+the bottom or get bunched together in one place."
+
+"That's the idea," smiled Mr. Anderson. "All those things and water go
+into one end of the mixer and they come out at the other end concrete in
+a soft state. Then the men shovel the stuff into the space between the
+fence and the earth bank, making sure that that widening trench at the
+foot is chock full and they thump it down and let it 'set.'"
+
+"I think the cellar will look very ugly with that old plank wall,"
+decided Dorothy seriously.
+
+"The planks will be taken away."
+
+"Won't the concrete show lines where the cracks between the boards were?"
+
+"Do you see those rolls of heavy paper over there? The planks will be
+lined with that so that the concrete will come against a perfectly smooth
+surface. When the wood is taken away the men will go over it with a
+smoothing tool and when they have finished even your particular eye will
+see nothing to take exception to."
+
+"O, I knew it would be right somehow," murmured Dorothy, who was afraid
+she had hurt Mr. Anderson's feelings. "I just didn't know how you managed
+it."
+
+"Here's the way the end of the wall would look if you could slice down
+right through it," and the contractor took out his notebook and drew a
+cross section of the concrete wall showing its widened foot.
+
+"What's the floor to be made of?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"Concrete--four inches of it," answered Mr. Anderson promptly. "It will
+slope a trifle toward this end, and there a drainage pipe will be laid to
+carry off any water used in washing the floor. Then a layer of cement
+will go on top of the concrete."
+
+"What's that for?"
+
+"To make it all smooth. It will be rounded up at the corners and sides
+where it joins the walls, so there won't be any chance for the dust to
+collect."
+
+"The cellar in our house is awfully damp," remarked Ethel Brown.
+"Sometimes you can see the water dripping down the stones."
+
+"The walls and the floor of this cellar will be waterproofed with a
+mixture of rich cement and sand mortar, and I think you'll find, young
+ladies, that you'll have a cellar that'll be hard to beat."
+
+The contractor slapped his notebook emphatically and beamed at them so
+amiably that they felt the greatest confidence in what he proposed.
+
+"Any way, I haven't anything better to suggest," said Dorothy dryly.
+
+Mr. Anderson walked off, giving a roar of amusement as he left them.
+
+"Where does the sun rise from here?" asked Ethel Blue as she stood at the
+spot where was to be the front of the house, and gazed about her. "Does
+the house face directly south?"
+
+"No, it faces just half way between south and west. The corners of the
+house point to north, south, east and west. Mother said that if the front
+was due south the back would be due north and she didn't want a whole
+side of her house facing north."
+
+"It does have a chilly sound," shivered Ethel Brown.
+
+"With a point stretching toward the north the rooms that have a northern
+exposure will also have the morning sun and the afternoon sun."
+
+"I know Aunt Louise will have her dining room where the morning sun will
+shine in."
+
+"Yes, _ma'am_," returned Dorothy emphatically. "It makes you feel better
+all day if you eat your breakfast in the sunshine. By this plan of
+Mother's every room in the house will have direct sunshine at some part
+of the day."
+
+"It's great," approved Ethel Blue. "Can't we ask Mr. Anderson about
+making a bird's bath out of cement?" she inquired. "Ethel Brown and I saw
+a beauty at Mrs. Schermerhorn's and perhaps he'd let us have some of the
+concrete to-morrow when the men are mixing it, and we can try to make
+one."
+
+The girls raced over to the spot where the contractor was just about to
+get into his Ford, and stopped him.
+
+"Would you mind letting us have a little concrete to-morrow to make a
+bird's bath with?" begged Dorothy breathlessly.
+
+"A bird's bath?" repeated Mr. Anderson. "How are you going to make it?"
+
+"Couldn't we put some concrete in a pan and squeeze another pan down on
+to it and let it harden?"
+
+"Why, yes, something like that," returned Mr. Anderson slowly.
+
+"Do you want to make it yourselves?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," all three girls cried in chorus.
+
+He smiled at their enthusiasm and offered a suggestion.
+
+"I suppose you want the bird's bath for your garden, Miss Dorothy;--why
+don't you make a little pool for the garden?"
+
+"Oh, could we?"
+
+"If you could get a tub and lay down a flooring of concrete and then put
+in another tub enough smaller so that there would be a space between the
+walls, then you could fill the space with concrete. When it set, you
+could take out the inner tub after two or three days and turn the
+concrete out of the outer tub and there you'd have a concrete tub that
+you could move about."
+
+"That sounds great," beamed Dorothy, "but wouldn't it be awfully heavy?"
+
+"Here's a better way, then. If you can make up your mind exactly where
+you want to have it in your garden you can have a hole dug, lay down your
+floor of concrete and put your small tub on it."
+
+"I see--then you fill the space between the tub and the earth with
+concrete."
+
+"Precisely; thump it down hard and let it stand untouched for a while.
+Then take away your tub, and there you are again."
+
+"You can't make the concrete floor and leave it, can you?"
+
+"No, indeed. You must have everything ready to do the whole thing at
+once. Put in your tub which is to be your mold, while the floor is still
+plastic--"
+
+"Eh?" inquired Ethel Brown.
+
+"Soft enough to mold; and then pour in the walls right off quick. You
+can't fool round when you're working with concrete."
+
+"How can we keep the water fresh in the tub?" asked Ethel Blue of
+Dorothy.
+
+Dorothy paused, not knowing what to say.
+
+"It would be fun to keep gold fish in it," she said, "but they would have
+to have fresh water, wouldn't they?" She turned appealingly to Mr.
+Anderson.
+
+"That's not hard to manage," he said. "You can put a bit of broomstick
+between the earth wall and the outer wall of your tub-mold and pour the
+concrete around it. When the concrete has hardened you pull out the stick
+and there is a hole. Then you can have a drain dug that will tap that
+hole on the outside and carry off the water through a few lengths of
+drain pipe."
+
+"What's to prevent the water running off all the time?" Ethel Blue wanted
+to know.
+
+"Keep a plug in it," answered the contractor briefly. "And there should
+be waterproofing stuff mixed with the materials. You have your gardener
+dig a hole in the garden," he said, adding, "don't forget to have plenty
+of grease."
+
+"What's that for?"
+
+"Why do you grease your cake pans?"
+
+"So the cake won't stick."
+
+"Same here. On the cellar wall we lined the inside of the wooden forms
+with paper. That isn't so easy with round forms, so you grease them."
+
+"I never thought there was any likeness between concrete and cooking,"
+laughed Ethel Brown as the girls watched Mr. Anderson's skill in taking
+his little car over the rough ground around the cellar excavation, "but
+there seems to be plenty."
+
+"Let's chase off and see if we can collect the things we shall need
+to-morrow," urged Dorothy. "I'll have to find Patrick and bring him here
+and show him just where to dig the hole."
+
+"Where are you going to dig the hole?"
+
+"I think just in the open place on top of the ridge."
+
+"I wouldn't," objected Ethel Brown.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Won't it be too warm in summer? If you're going to have gold fish you
+don't want to boil them."
+
+"The water would get pretty hot in the sun, wouldn't it?" considered her
+cousin. "What do you think of a place under that tree?"
+
+"It ought not to be too near the tree because the roots will grow out a
+long way from the trunk of the tree and they might get under the pool and
+break up the concrete."
+
+"Oh, could a tender little thing like a root break concrete that's as
+hard as stone?"
+
+"It certainly can. Grandfather showed me a crack in a concrete wall of
+his on the farm that was made by the root of a big tree not far off."
+
+"Well, then we can't have our pool anywhere near a tree. A shrub wouldn't
+hurt it, though; why can't it go near those shrubs that are going to
+separate the flower garden from the vegetable garden?"
+
+"That place would be all right because there's a tall spruce there that
+throws a shadow over the shrubs for a part of the day. That's all you
+need; you don't want to take away all the sunshine from the pool."
+
+So the exact spot was decided on and marked so that Patrick should make
+no mistake, and then the girls rushed off on a search for shallow basins
+and a tub.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+                         PLAYING WITH CONCRETE
+
+
+It was not the Ethels and Dorothy alone who appeared at the "new place"
+the next afternoon to make the experiments with concrete. Helen, Ethel
+Brown's elder sister, and her friend, Margaret Hancock, of Glen Point,
+were so interested in the younger girls' account of what they were going
+to do with Mr. Anderson's help that they came too.
+
+As they puffed up the steep knoll on which the new house was to stand
+they stopped beside the cellar hole to see what progress had been made
+since the day before.
+
+"They have just frisked along!" Dorothy exclaimed when she saw that not
+only was the inside fence-mold all built but that the concrete floor was
+laid and that the men were pouring the mixture in between the planks and
+the earth wall and pounding it down as they poured.
+
+"Mr. Anderson said 'you can't fool round when you're working with
+concrete,'" Ethel Brown repeated. "They aren't, are they?"
+
+The men were all working as fast as they could move, some of them
+shovelling the materials into the mixer, others running the machine,
+others wheeling the wet concrete in iron barrows to the men at the edge
+of the cellar who tamped it down as fast as it was poured into the narrow
+space that defined the growing wall.
+
+"When it is full, way up to the top, what happens next?" Dorothy inquired
+of Mr. Anderson who came over to where they were standing.
+
+"Then we're going to build on it a three foot wall of concrete blocks to
+support the upper part of the house."
+
+"That's the wall that has the cellar windows in it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then do make good big ones; Mother likes a bright cellar," urged
+Dorothy.
+
+"We're going to make her a beauty," promised the contractor. "Come up
+into your garden now and let's get this concrete work up there done.
+Here, Luigi," he called to an Italian, "bring us a load of concrete over
+there," and he waved his hand in the direction of the spot where Patrick
+had dug the hole for the tub.
+
+They all examined the hole with care and the Ethels fitted in the tub and
+found that their digger had done his work skilfully, since there were
+just about three inches between the earth and the tub all around. They
+pulled the tub out again and under Mr. Anderson's direction they greased
+it thoroughly.
+
+"We want to do every bit we can ourselves," they insisted when he
+suggested that Luigi might do that part for them.
+
+"Don't forget the hole for the drainage," he reminded them. "Have you got
+your stick? And on which side are you going to have that?"
+
+They surveyed the ground about the hole and decided that a drainage pipe
+might run a few inches underground for a short distance and discharge
+itself at the edge of a bank below which a vegetable garden was to lie.
+
+"If you're careful what you plant there it will be an advantage to the
+ground to have this dampening once in a while," said Mr. Anderson, who
+was something of a gardener. "There won't be enough water to drown out
+any of your plants."
+
+Luigi emptied a load of concrete into the hole and while he was gone to
+get a new supply the girls thumped it down hard, fitted in the greased
+tub and wedged a bit of broomstick which Roger, Ethel Brown's brother,
+had cut for Dorothy into the space between the tub and the earth just at
+the top of the concrete flooring. When Luigi came back they were ready to
+thump as he poured and three loads filled up the space entirely.
+
+"Now, then, Luigi will bring you one of the smoothing tools that the men
+over there are using and you can make the top look even," and Mr.
+Anderson gave more instructions to the Italian.
+
+"It will be pretty to have some plants at the edge so they'll bend over
+and see themselves in the water," suggested Margaret.
+
+"I should think there must be some water plants that would grow inside
+without much trouble," Ethel Blue said.
+
+"We must look that up; they'd probably need a little soil of some sort,"
+Helen reminded them.
+
+"They'd be awfully pretty," said Dorothy complacently. "Don't you seem to
+see it--with gold fish swimming around among the stems?"
+
+"Dicky might lend us his old turtle," laughed Ethel Brown. "He's tired of
+taking care of it. You could put a stick in here partly above the water,
+for him to sun himself on. I don't see why he wouldn't be quite happy
+here."
+
+Dicky's turtle was a family joke. Dicky had found him two years before
+and had taken him home thinking he was a piece of stone. His excitement
+and terror when the stone lying on the library table stuck out first a
+head and then one leg after another to the number of four, had never been
+forgotten by the people who saw him at this thrilling moment.
+
+"Now for your bird's bath," Mr. Anderson reminded his pupils. "You have
+to work fast, you know."
+
+Dorothy brought out her two shallow basins, one smaller than the other.
+The larger had its inside well greased and the smaller was thoroughly
+rubbed over on its under side. Into the larger they poured about an inch
+of concrete and then squeezed the smaller dish into it, but not so
+sharply that it cut through. They filled in the crack between the two,
+pushing and patting the mixture into place, and they smoothed the edge so
+that it turned over the rim of the larger bowl before they cut it off
+evenly all around with a wire.
+
+"There," said Mr. Anderson as he watched them. "We'll see what will come
+from that. It might be better done--" at which the girls all pulled long
+faces--"but also, it might be worse, or I'm very much mistaken."
+
+"I wish we could make some garden furniture," sighed Dorothy, holding up
+her dripping hands helplessly, but at the same time gazing with joy at
+their new manufacture.
+
+"You could if you would make the forms," said Mr. Anderson. "All you need
+to do is to make a bench inside of another bench and fill the space
+between with concrete."
+
+"That sounds easy, but if you were a girl, Mr. Anderson, you might find
+it a little hard to make the forms."
+
+"We can all drive nails," insisted Ethel Brown stoutly. "I believe I'll
+try."
+
+But the others laughed at her and reminded her that she would have to
+drive the nails through rather heavy planking, so she gave up the notion.
+
+"What are the walls going to be made of?" Margaret asked Dorothy.
+
+"Something fireproof, Mother said, but I don't know what she finally
+decided on. I'll ask Mr. Anderson."
+
+"Plaster on hollow tile," the contractor answered absent-mindedly over
+his shoulder, as he walked briskly before them back to the cellar.
+
+The girls saw that he was too full of business now to pay any more
+attention to them, so they thanked him for giving them so much time and
+made some investigations on their own account among the piles of material
+lying about on the grounds.
+
+"I wonder if this could be 'hollow-tile,'" Ethel Blue said to the rest as
+she came across a stack of strange-looking pieces of brown earthenware.
+
+"It's certainly hollow," returned Ethel Brown, "but I always supposed
+tiles were flat things. That's a tile Mother sets the teapot on to keep
+the heat from harming the polish of the table."
+
+They stood about the pile of brown, square-edged pipes, roughly glazed
+inside and out, through whose length ran three square holes. They asked
+two workmen as they passed what they were. One said "Hollow tile," and
+the other, "Terra-cotta."
+
+"I suspect they're both right," Helen decided. "Probably they're hollow
+tile made of terra-cotta."
+
+"But I thought terra-cotta was lighter brown and smooth. They make little
+images out of terra-cotta," insisted Dorothy.
+
+"I've seen those," agreed Margaret, "but I suppose there can be different
+qualities of terra-cotta just as there are different qualities of china."
+
+"This stuff is fireproof, any way," explained Dorothy. "I remember now
+hearing Mother and the architect talking about it. And they said
+something about a 'dead air space.' That must mean the holes."
+
+"What's dead air space for?" inquired Ethel Blue.
+
+"I think it dries up the dampness, or keeps it out so that it doesn't get
+into the house."
+
+"These are useful old blocks, then, even if they aren't pretty," decided
+Helen, patting the ugly pile.
+
+Mr. Anderson strolled toward them again after giving various directions
+to his men.
+
+"Just how is this tile used?" inquired Dorothy, as he seemed to be more
+at leisure now.
+
+"We build a wall of this hollow tile," he answered; "then we put the
+plaster right on to it. Do you see that the outside is rather rough? That
+is so the plaster will have something to take hold of. We mix it up of
+cement and lime and sand and put on three coats. The first one is mixed
+with hair, and mashed on hard so that it will stick and it is roughened
+so that the next coat will stick to it."
+
+"Is the next coat made of the same stuff?"
+
+"Without the hair; and the third coat is as thin as cream and is flowed
+on to make a smooth-looking outside finish."
+
+"That's a lot of work," commented Dorothy.
+
+"That's not all we're going to do to your walls; Mrs. Smith wants them to
+be a trifle yellowish in tone--a little warmer than the natural color of
+the plaster--so we're going to wash on some mineral matter that will give
+them color and waterproof them at the same time."
+
+"Killing two birds," murmured Helen.
+
+"Then the whole house will look plastery except the roof and chimneys,"
+said Ethel Brown.
+
+"Including the roof and chimneys," returned Mr. Anderson. "We're going to
+use concrete shingles--"
+
+"Concrete shingles! Doesn't that sound funny!"
+
+"They are colored, so they look like green or red shingles."
+
+"What color is Mother going to have?"
+
+"Dark green. The chimney is to be made of reinforced concrete."
+
+"'Reinforced' must mean 'strengthened,' but how do you strengthen it?"
+inquired Margaret.
+
+"You've seen how we build a mold to pour the concrete in; inside of the
+mold we build a sort of cage of steel rods. Don't you see that when the
+concrete hardens it would be almost impossible for such a reinforced
+piece of work to break through?"
+
+"Couldn't an earthquake break it?"
+
+"An earthquake might give a piece of solid concrete such a twist that it
+would crack through, but suppose the crack found itself up against a
+steel rod? Don't you think it would complicate matters?"
+
+The girls thought it would.
+
+"I'm awfully glad our chimney is going to be reinforced," Dorothy
+exclaimed, "because up on this knoll we're going to feel the wind a lot
+and it would be horrid if the chimney should fall down!"
+
+"It certainly would," agreed the Ethels, but Mr. Anderson assured them
+that they need not be afraid of any accident of the sort with a
+reinforced concrete chimney.
+
+"I've seen skyscrapers going up in New York," said Margaret "and all the
+beams were of steel. Are you going to use steel beams here?"
+
+"No, we don't often use steel construction for small houses, but this
+house is going to be more fireproof than most small houses even if it
+does have wooden beams. You watch it as it goes on and notice all the
+points that make for fireproofness. It will interest you," Mr. Anderson
+promised as he walked away.
+
+The girls all washed their hands as well as they could with the hose with
+which the workmen watered the concrete mixture, but they had nothing to
+dry them on and they walked down the road holding them before them and
+waving them in the breeze.
+
+"Mother will think we are crazy if she happens to be looking out of the
+window," said Dorothy.
+
+"My aunt sent you a message, Dorothy," said Margaret.
+
+"What aunt? I didn't know you had an aunt," replied Dorothy.
+
+"She seems like a new aunt to us; James and I haven't seen her since we
+were little bits of things."
+
+"Where does she live?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"In Washington. She's an interior decorator and she's awfully busy, so
+when she has had to come on to New York to buy materials or to see people
+she has never had a chance to stay with us."
+
+"Is she going to make a visit this time?" inquired Ethel Brown.
+
+"She has come for a long visit now. She has a commission to decorate a
+house in Englewood. It's going to take her several weeks, and then she
+wants to rest and do some studying and to make the rounds of the
+decorators in the city, so it will be several months before she goes back
+again."
+
+"That's nice," said Ethel Blue politely, and she was glad she had thought
+so because Margaret said at once, "We think it's splendid. She's a young
+aunt, lots and lots younger than Mother, and James and I think she's
+loads of fun."
+
+"What was her message to me?" asked Dorothy.
+
+"O, we were telling her about the United Service Club and the things we
+did--sending gifts to the war orphans and celebrating holidays and our
+plans for helping some poor women and children in the summer and for
+taking care of the Belgian baby. She was awfully interested and said she
+felt as if she knew all of you people and the Watkinses quite well, we
+talked about you so much. Then we told her about Dorothy's house, and how
+Mrs. Smith had said we might all give our opinions about the decorating,
+and she asked us to tell you that she'd be very glad indeed to act as
+consulting decorator when you come to the inside work."
+
+"Why, that's awfully sweet of her!" exclaimed Dorothy. "Mother isn't
+going to have a regular decorator, and I know she'll be immensely pleased
+to have Miss--what is your aunt's name?"
+
+"Graham; she's our Aunt Daisy!"
+
+"--to have Miss Graham give us advice and 'check up' on our suggestions."
+
+"By the time your house is ready for that part she will have finished her
+Englewood house; but she said she'd be glad to come over and see the
+house and the plans any time when she was free for the afternoon, and she
+hoped you'd consult her about everything you wanted to."
+
+"Daisy is a pretty name, isn't it?" Ethel Blue murmured to herself. "I
+wish one of us was named Daisy."
+
+"Her name is really Margaret; I'm named after her. Daisy is the nickname
+for Margaret, you know."
+
+"It's a lovely name," said Ethel Blue again.
+
+"And please tell Miss Daisy that I think she's the finest ever, and
+Mother will think so, too, when I tell her about this," added Dorothy.
+
+"And do ask her to come over to one of the U. S. C. meetings when we
+happen to be doing something that will interest her," concluded Helen,
+who was the president of the club.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+                      THE CLUB SELECTS THE BENCHES
+
+
+It seemed to Dorothy and the Ethels that the outside of Sweetbrier Lodge,
+as Mrs. Smith had determined to call her house, went up with remarkable
+speed, but that the inside would never be done--never! Every day the
+girls walked down the road after school, and stood and surveyed the
+general appearance from the sidewalk and from across the street and
+sometimes they went on to Mrs. Emerson's and discussed vigorously as to
+whether the view of the corner of the house that was to be seen now would
+still be seen after the leaves came out or whether the house would be
+entirely concealed by the foliage.
+
+"That's 'one of the things no feller knows,'" Mr. Emerson quoted. "We
+shall have to wait and see."
+
+"We can get an idea how it is to look from the road," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"Only there'll be a lot of planting," Dorothy explained. "There'll be a
+hedge along the street and a lot of shrubs on the knoll and the house
+will be covered with vines in the course of time."
+
+"That's another good point about concrete," declared Mr. Emerson; "vines
+don't injure it as they do brick."
+
+"We'll have it entirely covered, then," laughed Dorothy.
+
+"I thought it was to be a bungalow," said Mrs. Emerson. "Your mother has
+always spoken of it as a bungalow, but the plans I saw the men following
+the other day when I went up the hill to take a look at things, seemed to
+me like a two story house."
+
+"Mother changed her mind," said Dorothy. "She thought a bungalow would be
+too crowded now that we have little Belgian Elisabeth with us, so the
+house is going to have two stories and an attic."
+
+"The U. S. C. couldn't get on without Dorothy's attic," smiled Ethel
+Brown, for almost all of the presents for the Christmas Ship had been
+made in the attic of Dorothy's present abiding place, and the Club had
+had many meetings there.
+
+"There's nothing like having a well-thought-out plan before you attempt
+building," said Mr. Emerson, "and that your mother had."
+
+"She tried to think of every possible need, Ayleesabet's as well as our
+own," continued Dorothy, using the pronunciation that the Belgian baby
+had given her own name.
+
+"She has a good contractor in Anderson."
+
+"He didn't make the very lowest bid," said Dorothy. "There was one man
+who was lower, but he was such a lot lower that Mother thought there must
+be something the matter with the quality of the material he used, or that
+he employed workmen so poor that they might not do their work well, so
+she didn't consider that offer at all."
+
+"She was very wise," commended Mr. Emerson. "He might have spoiled the
+whole thing and have cost her more money in the end by turning out a poor
+job."
+
+While the building was going on and before the inside work was done the
+girls spent a good deal of time in planning for the furnishing of the
+garden. The flower and vegetable beds had all been arranged some weeks
+before and many of them had been planted, but the artistic part of the
+garden had been left until there should be time to devote to it. Mrs.
+Smith had promised Dorothy that she should have the choice of the garden
+furniture, reserving for herself a veto power if her daughter chose
+anything that seemed to her entirely unsuitable.
+
+"Not that I expect to use it," she said, smiling at the girls who were
+listening to her.
+
+The selection of the benches and tables and trellises was made a subject
+of attention by the whole United Service Club. A meeting was called in
+the partly begun garden so that they might have the "lie of the land"
+before them as they talked. Dorothy took with her a number of catalogues
+from which to select or to gather ideas.
+
+"We've got a good shelter of large trees already provided for us," she
+said as they all seated themselves in such shade as the young leaves
+made.
+
+"There ought to be a fine large settee under it where we can have Club
+meetings all summer, no matter how warm it is," urged Tom Watkins with
+wise foresight. Tom and his sister, Della, came out from New York for the
+club gatherings, and the prospect of meeting out of doors instead of in
+the attic, which was delightful in winter but not so attractive in warm
+weather, made him offer this shrewd suggestion.
+
+"In the first place," said Dorothy again, opening the various catalogues
+and spreading them on the grass where they could all see them, "don't you
+think it would be pretty to have all the chairs and benches of one
+pattern? Or don't you?"
+
+"I think it would," answered Ethel Brown, examining the pages carefully
+before she made her decision.
+
+"Would what?"
+
+"I should like them all alike. It would be messy to have a lot of
+different patterns."
+
+Ethel Blue, who had a good deal of artistic sense and ability, nodded her
+agreement with this belief. They all came to the same conclusion.
+
+"Then, let's pick out the pattern," said Dorothy, who had an orderly
+mind.
+
+"Something plain, so the visitor's eye won't be drawn to the benches
+instead of the flowers," recommended Helen. "Suppose we were sitting
+here, for instance, and looking toward the flower beds--there will be
+some tables and chairs between us and the flowers, probably--"
+
+"If the seeds will only grow," Dorothy sighed comically.
+
+"--and we want to forget them and not have them intrude on our
+attention."
+
+"Correct!" James Hancock thumped the ground by way of applause.
+
+"What's the plainest pattern there is?" asked Della, extending her hand
+for a book.
+
+"That one--but that's too plain," remonstrated Ethel Blue. "That's so
+plain that it draws your attention as much as if it were all fussed up."
+
+They laughed at her disgust and urged her to choose the next plainest.
+
+"I rather think this one with cross bars is pretty," she decided
+seriously. "You wouldn't get tired of that--especially if they're all
+painted dark green so you won't see them much."
+
+"You girls seem to want to have invisible furniture," grinned Roger. "Me
+for something more substantial."
+
+"These will be substantial enough--they're made of cypress," retorted
+Helen, "but you don't want to see a lot of chairs and benches when you
+come out to observe the beauties of nature, my child."
+
+"I can bay the moon on a white bench with an elaborate pattern just as
+musically as on a plain, dark green one," insisted Roger.
+
+"Don't pay any attention to him," urged Ethel Brown, which crushing
+remark from a younger sister was rewarded by a hair-pull effectively
+delivered by Roger.
+
+"Yow!" squealed Ethel.
+
+"Now who's baying the moon?" inquired her brother.
+
+"Let's decide on the cross-barred kind," decreed Dorothy.
+
+"The Lady of the Garden has made her decision," announced James, tooting
+through his hands as if he were a herald making an announcement. "Now for
+the shapes. How many are you going to have, Lady?"
+
+"I think there ought to be a very large bench that would hold almost all
+the Club, and then one or two smaller benches and two or three chairs and
+two small tables for lemonade and cocoa."
+
+"And to hold the Secretary's book when she's writing," urged Ethel Blue
+who held the office of scribe and had not always found herself
+conveniently situated to do her work.
+
+"Here's a bully bench for the whole U. S. C.," cried Tom. "It's curved so
+it will fit right under this semi-circle of trees as if it were made for
+this very spot."
+
+He held up the picture of a wide bench with two wings. It was greeted
+with applause.
+
+"When that is made in the pattern we chose it will be as pretty as any
+one could ask for," Dorothy decided.
+
+"And painted green," added Ethel Blue, at which they all laughed. "I'm
+serious about the green," she insisted. "Don't you see what I mean,
+Dorothy?" she continued, appealing to the person who was to have the
+final decision on the question.
+
+"I think you're right," replied Dorothy. "Don't mind what they say. Write
+down one of those, Miss Secretary, and one of these right-angled
+ones--don't you all of you think that's a comfy one?"
+
+They did, and they also approved of the single bench and the chairs and
+the small tables.
+
+"They won't be all jammed up in this corner, of course," Dorothy
+explained gravely, "but when we have a Club meeting we can bring them
+together if we want to and room enough for everybody."
+
+"I thought we were all to sit on the big bench," objected Tom with an air
+of deep disappointment.
+
+"So we shall if you boys are too lazy to pull the other benches and
+chairs over here," answered Dorothy. "If we have plenty we can arrange
+them any way we want to."
+
+"What about trellises?" inquired Ethel Blue who had been continuing her
+researches in the catalogues. "Here are some beauties. Don't you think
+you'll need some?"
+
+"She certainly will if that Dorothy Perkins rambler rose gets busy as it
+ought to," decided Roger.
+
+"There'll be a lot of vines and tall things if they'll only grow," said
+Dorothy hopefully. "I think there ought to be one or two flat ones and an
+arbor that will be a trellis."
+
+"Here's an arbor that you can walk through or sit down in while you
+admire your plants, and you will be protected from the sun," Tom pointed
+out.
+
+"And that same one with a lattice back and a bench inside makes a pretty
+good imitation of a summer house," suggested Ethel Brown.
+
+"We'll have one apiece of those, then."
+
+"Count up and see how much stuff you're planning to order," Roger
+suggested. "You've got a huge big place to set them in here but you don't
+want too much wood work, nevertheless."
+
+They came to the conclusion that there were not too many for the size of
+the grounds and were well satisfied with their choice.
+
+"Do you see how well we're going to see the house from here?" Dorothy
+asked.
+
+They all agreed that it would be very pretty from that point.
+
+"My idea is that the garden must look well from the house," said Dorothy.
+"Mother wants a pergola somewhere. Don't you think the right place for it
+would be covering a walk leading from the house to here?"
+
+"That's a great notion," approved Tom. "As you came toward the garden
+you'd have a--what do you call the effect--where you see a view framed in
+somehow?"
+
+"Do you mean a vista?" asked Margaret.
+
+"That's it. There would be a vista of the garden."
+
+"It will be lovely!" Helen said decisively. "And I don't see why there
+shouldn't be a trellis framing a view of the woods toward Grandfather
+Emerson's; that would be pretty, too."
+
+Dorothy went over to look at the drawing that Helen held up to her and
+decided straightway that it was worth trying. They all went toward the
+upper side of the garden where young peach trees were planted on the
+northern slope of the ridge and chose a spot which gave a charming
+picture of the adjoining field with its brook and the woods beyond.
+
+"The birds are coming along pretty well now," announced James who had
+been lying on his back gazing up into the branches swaying in the upper
+breeze.
+
+"Are you going to build any bird houses, Dorothy?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"I suppose we'll have to if we want them to stay late in the season or
+all winter," replied her cousin. "But bird houses are so ugly."
+
+"Not the modern ones," interposed James eagerly. "You make them out of
+pieces of the trunks of trees with the bark on, and you fix up a platform
+with a stick on it that has spikes to hang suet on and they aren't a bit
+conspicuous and lots of birds will stay all winter that otherwise would
+go south before the regular Palm Beach rush."
+
+"We must have some then," Dorothy made up her mind. "Say 'Robert of
+Lincoln'?" she begged Ethel Brown, who was the Club's reciter, "and then
+we'll go home and have some cocoa and cookies."
+
+"Do, Ethel Brown;" "Come on," were the cries from all the U. S. C.
+members as they settled themselves to listen to Bryant's charming verses.
+
+    Merrily swinging on brier and weed,
+        Near to the nest of his little dame,
+    Over the mountain side and mead,
+        Robert of Lincoln is telling his name,
+            Bob-o'link, bob-o'-link,
+            Spink, spank, spink;
+    Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
+    Hidden among the summer flowers,
+                Chee, chee, chee.
+
+    Robert of Lincoln is gaily dressed,
+        Wearing a bright black wedding coat;
+    White are his shoulders and white his crest,
+        Hear him call in his cheery note:
+            Bob-o'link, bob-o'-link,
+            Spink, spank, spink;
+    Look, what a nice new coat is mine,
+    Sure there was never a bird so fine.
+                Chee, chee, chee.
+
+    Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,
+        Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
+    Passing at home a patient life,
+        Broods in the grass while her husband sings:
+            Bob-o'link, bob-o'-link,
+            Spink, spank, spink;
+    Brood, kind creature; you need not fear
+    Thieves and robbers while I am here.
+                Chee, chee, chee.
+
+    Modest and shy as a nun is she,
+        One weak chirp is her only note,
+    Braggart and prince of braggarts is he,
+        Pouring boasts from his little throat:
+            Bob-o'link, bob-o'-link,
+            Spink, spank, spink;
+    Never was I afraid of man;
+    Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can.
+                Chee, chee, chee.
+
+    Six white eggs on a bed of hay,
+        Flecked with purple, a pretty sight!
+    There as the mother sits all day,
+        Robert is singing with all his might:
+          Bob-o'link, bob-o'-link,
+          Spink, spank, spink;
+    Nice good wife that never goes out,
+    Keeping house while I frolic about.
+              Chee, chee, chee.
+
+    Soon as the little ones chip the shell
+        Six wide mouths are open for food;
+    Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well,
+        Gathering seed for the hungry brood.
+            Bob-o'link, bob-o'-link,
+            Spink, spank, spink;
+    This new life is likely to be
+    Hard for a gay young fellow like me.
+                Chee, chee, chee.
+
+    Robert of Lincoln at length is made
+        Sober with work and silent with care;
+    Off is his holiday garment laid,
+        Half forgotten that merry air,
+            Bob-o'link, bob-o'-link,
+            Spink, spank, spink;
+    Nobody knows but my mate and I
+    Where our nest and our nestlings lie.
+                Chee, chee, chee.
+
+    Summer wanes, the children are grown;
+        Fun and frolic no more he knows;
+    Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone;
+        Off he flies and we sing as he goes:
+            Bob-o'link, bob-o'-link,
+            Spink, spank, spink;
+    When you can pipe that merry old strain,
+    Robert of Lincoln, come back again.
+                Chee, chee, chee.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+                    CHRISTOPHER FINDS A NEW LODGING
+
+
+There was trouble in chicken circles. The young chicks that the Ethels
+and Dorothy had helped Dicky move from the incubator to the brooder were
+making rapid progress toward broiler size, and had been transferred to a
+run of their own where they scratched and dozed happily through the long
+spring days. Dicky and Ayleesabet, the Belgian baby, were examining them
+on a late June afternoon. Dicky had brought with him his old friend, the
+turtle, which had not yet been moved to Dorothy's pool, since his present
+owner wanted to wait until his aunt's house was occupied before he let so
+cherished a possession go where he might slip away and his loss, perhaps,
+be unnoticed.
+
+"When you're living right there tho you can watch Chrithtopher Columbuth
+all the time I'll let you have him," Dicky had promised Dorothy.
+
+"I see myself in my mind's eye sitting side of the tank all day and night
+holding the turtle's paw!" Dorothy exclaimed when she told the Ethels of
+Dicky's decision.
+
+Perhaps because he felt that he was soon to be parted from his old
+comrade Dicky's affection for Christopher seemed to increase and he
+developed a habit of carrying him about, sometimes in his hand and
+sometimes in a little basket which Dorothy had made for Christopher's
+Christmas gift. To-day he had brought him to the chicken yard in his hand
+and had laid him down on the ground while he examined his flock and
+called Ayleesabet's attention to the beauties of this or the other
+miniature hen.
+
+Elisabeth's words were few, but she managed to make her wants and
+opinions known with surprising ease, and she never had the least trouble
+about expressing her emotions. Her little playmate had learned this and
+therefore when he heard loud howls behind his back he knew that it was
+not anger that was disturbing the usually placid baby, but terror. Shriek
+after shriek arose although it seemed to him that he turned about almost
+instantly.
+
+He was not in time, however, to prevent her from being thrown down in
+some mysterious way, or to see the cause of the commotion among the
+chickens. They fluttered and squawked and ran to and fro, tumbling over
+each other and running with perfect indifference over the baby as she lay
+yelling on the ground. Her blue romper legs came up every now and then
+out of the mass of chicken feathers, and their kicking only added to the
+disturbance and confusion of the chicks.
+
+The hubbub did not go unnoticed. Roger ran from his vegetable garden to
+see what was the matter; Helen appeared from her garden of wild flowers;
+Miss Merriam, the baby's caretaker, ran from the porch where she was
+talking with the Ethels who were waiting for the out-of-town members of
+the U. S. C. to arrive. At the moment when all these people were rushing
+to the rescue, Margaret and James Hancock, just off the Glen Point street
+car, hurried from the corner, and Della and Tom Watkins, arrived by the
+latest train from New York, burst open the gate in their excitement.
+
+To meet all these inquiries came Dicky, tugging after him by the leg, the
+baby, howling pitifully by this time as she was dragged over the grass.
+Miss Merriam seized her and hugged her tight.
+
+"What's the matter with the little darling precious?" she crooned.
+
+Ayleesabet gathered herself together courageously and her sobbing died
+away.
+
+"What was it all about?" Miss Merriam inquired of Dicky.
+
+"I don't know," replied Dicky, his own lip trembling as he tried to
+understand the rapid, thrilling experience.
+
+"Tell Gertrude what happened," Miss Merriam urged the baby, wiping away
+her tears and setting her down on her feet on the grass just as
+Christopher Columbus bumped his way over the sod to join them.
+
+Ayleesabet's conversational powers were not equal to the explanation, but
+her little hands could tell a great deal, and her caretaker was skilled
+in interpreting them. She pointed to the turtle and called him by the
+nickname that Dicky had given him, "Chriththy"; then she spread out her
+fat little fingers and waved a forward motion with her hand.
+
+"Chrissy stuck out his head and legs and walked ahead," interpreted Miss
+Merriam. "Where was he, Dicky?"
+
+"In the chicken yard."
+
+Elisabeth was kneeling beside the turtle now, tapping his shell with a
+chubby forefinger; after which she rolled over on her back and screamed.
+
+Miss Merriam shook her head at this demonstration, but Dicky translated
+it out of his previous experience.
+
+"The chickenth hit hith thhell with their beakth, and, when he moved they
+were frightened and knocked her over," he guessed.
+
+"That's just what happened, I believe," said Roger, setting Elisabeth on
+her feet once more. "I've seen the chickens run like anything from
+Christopher, and probably they ran between the baby's legs and upset her
+and then scampered all over her. I don't wonder she was scared."
+
+Christopher gave no testimony in the case. He may have been overcome by
+the confusion; at any rate he withdrew into his shell and preserved a
+studied calm from which he could not be roused.
+
+"I think you can have him," said Dicky suddenly to Dorothy, who had come
+through the fence at the corner where her yard joined her cousins'. "He
+botherth me."
+
+"Very well," said Dorothy. "Let's take him over to Sweetbrier Lodge this
+afternoon. We're all going over there anyway--bring him along, Dicky."
+
+So the procession set forth, Dicky and his shell-covered friend at the
+fore, escorted by all the rest of the United Service Club, while Miss
+Merriam and her charge, whose walking ability had not yet developed much
+speed, brought up the rear.
+
+As they all toiled up the hill to Sweetbrier Lodge Mrs. Smith and Mrs.
+Morton came out on the veranda of the new house to watch them.
+
+"Has anything happened?" called Mrs. Smith as soon as they were within
+earshot.
+
+"We're just bringing Christopher over to his new home," Dorothy explained
+to her mother.
+
+      "'The time of the singing of birds is come,
+      And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land,'"
+
+quoted Mrs. Morton. "I used to think that that meant a turtle like
+Dicky's and not a turtle-dove," and the two mothers laughed and
+disappeared within the house while the younger people kept on to the
+garden and the concrete pool.
+
+When they reached there Dicky gazed at the pool in dismay.
+
+"There ithn't any water in it," he objected, shaking his head doubtfully.
+
+"We can reach it with the hose and fill it up in no time," his cousin
+explained.
+
+"It'll run out of the hole," pointing to the hole made by the broomstick
+when the concrete was soft.
+
+"We'll put a plug in the hole."
+
+"He hasn't any log to sit on."
+
+"Roger will find him a stick."
+
+"I don't want to leave him here all alone," screamed Dicky, overcome by a
+renewal of his former misgivings. Casting himself on the ground he hugged
+his treasure to his breast and waved his legs in the air.
+
+"You can take him back again if you want to," Ethel Brown reminded him,
+"but you know he's always getting into trouble with the chickens now. He
+seems to run away every day."
+
+As the memory of the latest encounter between Christopher and the chicks
+with Elisabeth's overthrow, flashed before him, Dicky howled again. There
+seemed to be no haven on earth for his favorite.
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," suggested Dorothy soothingly. "Let's go
+down to the house. The laundry is finished, and we can put him in one of
+the tubs there until this pool is fixed to suit you."
+
+"It'th dark in the laundry," objected Dicky again.
+
+"Not in this laundry. You see," explained Dorothy, sitting down beside
+the sufferer and patting him gently, "the house is built on the side of a
+hill, so the laundry has full sized windows and is bright and cheerful
+though it's on a level with the cellar. I think Christopher will like
+it."
+
+Dicky stood up, his face smeared with tears, but a new interest gleaming
+in his reddened eyes.
+
+"Come on," urged Ethel Blue, tactfully; "let's all go and see if we can't
+make him comfortable."
+
+"I'll pick up a piece of log for him as we go along," promised Roger, and
+he and Tom and James went off towards the woods to look for just the
+right thing.
+
+"What a perfectly dandy cellar. Why, it's as bright as the upper part of
+the house!" exclaimed Margaret as the procession invaded the lower
+regions of the Lodge.
+
+"Isn't it fine!" agreed Dorothy. "The workmen have cleared it all up,
+and, if this part were all, it might be lived in right off."
+
+"The whitewashed walls make it look bright."
+
+"And the large windows! I never saw such windows in a cellar."
+
+"Mother says I may put little cheesecloth curtains in them."
+
+"Curtains will look sweet the day after you take in the winter supply of
+coal," grinned Roger, who appeared with the other boys, carrying
+Christopher's bit of log.
+
+"They won't look dirty, if that's what you mean by 'sweet,'" Dorothy
+retorted. "Look--" and she opened the door of a coal bin--"the coal is
+put in through a concrete chute that leads directly into the bin and the
+bin is entirely shut off from the cellar. No dust floats out of that,
+young man."
+
+"How do you get the coal out?"
+
+"Here's a little door that slides up and catches. You notice that the
+floor of the bin isn't level with the cellar floor; it's raised to make
+it a comfortable height for shoveling. Under it is the place for the logs
+for the open fires. There are two bins, one for furnace coal and the
+other for the coal for the stoves, and the kindling wood goes in this
+third one. They are all together and large enough but not too large, and
+the furnace coal is near the boiler and the small coal is near the
+laundry and the wood is close to the dumb waiter that will take that and
+the clean clothes upstairs."
+
+"All as compact as a cut-out puzzle," approved Roger. "I take off my hat
+to this arrangement."
+
+"Thank you," courtesied Dorothy. "Mother and I worked that out together,
+and we're rather pleased with it ourselves."
+
+"What do you do with the ashes?" asked Roger, who took care of several
+furnaces in the winter time, and therefore made his examination as a
+specialist.
+
+"Put them down that chute with a swinging door and into a covered can. It
+will be hard for the ashes to fly there."
+
+"This is the concrete floor we superintended," said Helen, looking at it
+closely.
+
+"All smooth and well drained with rounded edges. It's going to be as
+clean as a whistle down here. See the metal ceiling? That's for fire
+prevention, and so is the sprinkler system and there's a metal covered
+door at the head of the cellar stairs."
+
+"There seems to be a lot of machinery for a small house," observed James
+as he carried his examination around the space.
+
+"Mother said she couldn't afford luxuries but she could afford comforts
+and these are some of the comforts," smiled Dorothy.
+
+"Not very pretty comforts," remarked Ethel Blue dryly.
+
+"'Handsome is as handsome does,'" quoted her cousin. "When these things
+get to working you won't care whether they're beautiful to look at or
+not."
+
+"What's the heating system--steam or hot water?" asked Tom, standing
+before the boiler.
+
+"Hot water. They say it's more convenient for a small house because you
+don't have to keep up such a big fire all the time."
+
+"That's so; in steam heating there has to be fire enough to make steam,
+anyway, doesn't there?"
+
+"And when the steam in the pipes cools it turns to water and dribbles
+away, but in the hot water system there will be some heat in the outside
+of your radiator as long as the water inside has any warmth at all."
+
+"How does the expense compare?" inquired James who was always interested
+in the financial side of all questions.
+
+"The hot water system is said to be cheaper," replied Dorothy.
+
+"Why are there so many pipes?" asked Ethel Brown, looking with a puzzled
+air at the collection before her.
+
+"Hear me lecture on heating!" laughed Dorothy; "but I did study it all
+out with Mother, so I think I'm telling you the truth about it. There
+have to be two sets of pipes, one to take the hot water to the radiators
+and the other to bring it back after it has cooled."
+
+"There seem to be big pipes and small ones."
+
+"Mains and branch pipes they call them. The man who put these in said
+this house was especially well arranged for piping because it wouldn't
+take any more pressure to force the water into one radiator than another.
+He says there's going to be a good even heat all over everywhere."
+
+"There isn't a lot of difference between radiators for steam and those
+for hot water, is there?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"No, you have to put something with water in it on top of both kinds to
+make the air of the room moist. Here you have to open the air valve
+yourself and let out the air that accumulates in the radiator. In the
+steam ones they are automatically worked by steam."
+
+"There can't be much air in the hot water radiator, I should think," said
+Margaret thoughtfully.
+
+"There isn't. You only have to open the valve two or three times in the
+course of the winter. The biggest difference is that the hot water system
+has to have an expansion tank."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Why, when steam is shut up it just presses harder than ever, but when
+water is heated it swells and it's likely to burst open whatever it's in,
+so there has to be an open tank up at the top of the house where it can
+go and swell around all it wants to," laughed Dorothy.
+
+"What are these affairs?" inquired Margaret who had been looking at two
+other arrangements near by.
+
+"That one is a gas thing for heating water in summer when there isn't any
+other fire. There's a tiny flame burning all the time, and when the water
+is drawn out of the tank the flame becomes larger automatically and heats
+up a new supply."
+
+"That's a fine scheme; you don't have to heat the house up and yet the
+water is always ready. What's the other?"
+
+"That's to burn up the garbage. In the kitchen there's a tiny closet for
+the garbage pail. It's ventilated from the outside. There is a thing that
+burns the garbage and makes it heat the water, but Mother decided that we
+had so small a family that there might be days when there wouldn't be
+fuel enough to make a decent fire, so we'd better have the gas heater."
+
+"The other would be economical for a hotel," observed prudent James.
+
+"Here's the refrigerating plant," Dorothy said, motioning toward a tank
+and a set of pipes and a small motor.
+
+"Going to cut out the iceman?" grinned Tom.
+
+"We're going to be independent of him. Mother doesn't like natural ice,
+any way; she went over to the Rosemont pond last winter when the men were
+cutting and the ice was so dirty she made up her mind right off that she
+didn't want any more of it. This thing will chill the refrigerator up in
+the kitchen and pipes from it are going under the flooring of the drawing
+room and the dining room so they can be made comfy in summer."
+
+"Hope you can cut them off in winter!" and Roger gave a tremendous
+shiver.
+
+"We can," Dorothy reassured him.
+
+"Good work!"
+
+"It makes small cakes of ice too, so we can always have plenty for the
+Club lemonades."
+
+"I don't know but I think that's more useful than the heating
+arrangements," approved plump little Della.
+
+"That's because you're fat," responded Tom with brotherly frankness. "You
+think you suffer most in summer, but if you didn't have any heat in
+winter you'd change your cry."
+
+"I suppose I should, but I do nearly _melt_ in warm weather," sighed
+Della.
+
+"We don't mean to if we can help it," laughed Dorothy. "This is the
+air-washing arrangement over here," went on Dorothy, as she continued her
+round of the cellar.
+
+"Air-washing!" was the general chorus.
+
+"As long as we have a little motor we're going to make it useful. There's
+a small fan here that brings in the fresh air. It goes into a 'spray
+chamber' and is washed free of dust with water that is cold in summer and
+warm in winter."
+
+"I see clearly that the temperature of this castle is going to be just
+right," exclaimed Roger.
+
+"After the air leaves the spray chamber it goes over some plates that
+take all the moisture out of it, and then the fan forces it through the
+pipes that go into every room."
+
+"Are those the little gratings I noticed in all the rooms the other day?"
+asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"Those are the ventilators. Don't you think we've made everything very
+compact here? All these pipes take up very little room."
+
+"Mighty little!" commended Roger. "And they're all open so you can get at
+them without any trouble."
+
+"Here's a scheme Patrick suggested," laughed Dorothy, pointing upward to
+what looked like a concrete shelf with an upturned border almost at the
+top of the cellar wall.
+
+"What's it for?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"That shelf is directly underneath the seat beside the fireplace in the
+drawing room. Patrick plans to save himself the trouble of carrying up
+the logs by piling them on this shelf down here. Then he lifts the cover
+of the seat upstairs and all he has to do is to take out his wood and
+make his fire!"
+
+"That certainly is a cracker-jack labor saving device! Good for Patrick!"
+
+"He's especially tickled with the vacuum cleaner run by this same little
+motor. You ought to hear him talk about it."
+
+"What are these cupboards for?" asked Helen who had been exploring.
+
+"That one with the glass doors is for preserves, and the place in the
+other corner that has a fence for its two inside walls is a place for
+cleaning silver and shoes and lamps and brasses. See--there are cupboards
+along the inside of the fence. They hold all the cleaning materials, and
+the cleaner can sit in a swing chair in the middle and use a different
+part of the concrete shelf against the two cellar walls for boots or
+fire-irons or knives and forks or lamps. At one end is a sink so he can
+have what water he needs for his work and he can wash his hands when he
+turns from one kind of cleaning to another."
+
+"And he isn't all smothered up in a small room. Who thought of that?"
+
+"Patrick and I worked that out together. Patrick has lots of ingenuity."
+
+"I should say you had, too!" exclaimed Della, admiringly.
+
+"Here's where Dorothy does her carpentering," cried James.
+
+"I may move that bench up in the attic later," explained Dorothy, "but I
+thought I'd leave it here until the house was done, because there are apt
+to be little things to be hammered and nailed for some time, I suppose."
+
+"How long are you going to be before you fikth a plathe for Chrithopher
+Columbuth?" demanded Dicky, whose patience was entirely exhausted.
+
+"We'll make him happy right here and now," answered Dorothy briskly,
+throwing open the door of the laundry.
+
+The sun shone gayly on the concrete floor and the room was a cheerful
+spot. An electric washing machine stood ready although covered tubs were
+built against the wall for use in emergencies, and at one side was a
+drying closet. There were numerous plugs against the wall for the
+attachment of pressing irons.
+
+"What's this?" asked Ethel Brown, lifting a cover of a hopper at the base
+of a chute.
+
+"That's the chute for soiled clothes. The other end is on the bedroom
+floor, and it saves carrying."
+
+"That's as good as Patrick's log device!" smiled Helen.
+
+"Shall I put Christopher's log in here?" asked Roger, lifting the top of
+one of the stationary tubs.
+
+"Yes, fix it so he can crawl up and sit in the sunshine where it strikes
+the tub. We'll have to draw some water from the hydrant outside; the
+water isn't turned on in the house yet."
+
+Roger picked up a pail that was standing near by and went up the cellar
+stairs two at a time.
+
+"Now, sir," he said to Dicky when he came back, "I'll lift you up and you
+can put Christopher into his new abode."
+
+Dicky deposited his charge gently on the log and he lay there poking out
+his head to enjoy the sunshine.
+
+"Did you bring some bits of meat for him?" Roger asked.
+
+For answer Dicky turned out of the pocket of his rompers a handful of
+chopped beef.
+
+"Certainly unappetizing in appearance," said Tom, wrinkling his nose,
+"but I dare say Christopher is not particular."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+                          THE LAW OF LAUGHTER
+
+
+The Mortons were sitting on their porch on a warm evening waving fans and
+trying to think that the coming night promised comfortable sleep. The
+Ethels sat on the upper step, Roger was stretched on the floor at one
+side, Helen sat beside her mother's hammock which she kept in gentle
+motion by an occasional movement of her hand, and Dicky was dozing in a
+large chair. In a near-by tree an insect insisted that "Katy did," and in
+the grass a cricket chirruped its shrill call.
+
+"I do feel that Aunt Louise's being able to build this pretty house after
+all her years of wandering is about the nicest thing that ever happened
+out of a fairy story," murmured Helen softly to her mother, but loudly
+enough for the others to hear.
+
+"There are people who talk about the law of compensation," smiled Mrs.
+Morton in the darkness. "They think that if one good is lacking in our
+lives other goods take its place."
+
+"Do you believe that?"
+
+"I believe that everything that happens to us comes because we have
+obeyed or disobeyed God's laws. Sometimes we are quite unconscious of
+disobeying them, but the law has to work out just as if we knew all about
+it."
+
+"For instance?" came a deep voice from the floor, indicating that Roger
+had awakened.
+
+"Do you remember the time you walked off the end of the porch one day?"
+
+"I should say I did! My nose aches at the mere thought of it."
+
+"You didn't know anything about the law of gravitation, but the law
+worked in your case just as if you had known all about it."
+
+"I'm bound to state that it did," confirmed Roger, still gently rubbing
+his nose as he lay in the shadow.
+
+"It seems as if it might have held up for a little boy who didn't know
+what he was going to get by disobeying it," said Ethel Blue
+sympathetically.
+
+"But it didn't and it never does," returned Mrs. Morton. "That's one
+reason why we ought to try to learn what God's laws are just as fast and
+as thoroughly as we can; not only the laws of nature like the law of
+gravitation, but laws of morality and justice and right thinking and
+unselfishness and kindness toward others."
+
+"Sometimes mighty mean people seem to prosper," said Ethel Brown, with a
+hint of rebellion in her voice.
+
+"That's because those people obey to the letter the law that controls
+prosperity of a material kind. A man may be cruel to his wife and unkind
+to his children, but he may have a genius for making money. Some people
+call it the law of compensation. I call it merely an understanding of the
+financial law and a lack of understanding of the law of kindness."
+
+"I don't see what law dear Aunt Louise could have broken to have made her
+have such a hard time," wondered Ethel Blue. "Her husband being killed
+and her having to wander about without a home for so many years--that
+seems like a hard punishment."
+
+"Men have decided that 'ignorance of the law is no excuse'!" said her
+aunt, "and the same thing is true of laws that are not man-made."
+
+"That seems awfully hard," objected Helen; "it doesn't seem fair to
+punish a person for what he doesn't know."
+
+"If a cannibal should come to Rosemont and should kill some one and have
+a barbecue, we should think that he ought to be deprived of his liberty
+because he was a dangerous person to have about, even if we felt sure
+that he did not know that he was doing an act forbidden by New Jersey
+law. The position is that although a person may be ignorant of the law it
+is his business to know it. That seems to be the way with the higher
+laws; we may break them in our ignorance--but we ought not to be
+ignorant. We ought to try just as hard as we know how all the time to do
+everything as well as we can and to be as good as we can. If we never let
+ourselves do a mean act or think a mean thought we're bound to come to an
+understanding of the great laws sooner than if we just jog along not
+thinking anything about them. I believe one reason why your Aunt Louise
+was so slow in reaching the end of her troubles after Uncle Leonard died
+was because she was unable to control her sorrow. She has told me that
+she was completely crushed by his death and the condition of poverty in
+which she found herself with a little child--Dorothy--to take care of."
+
+"I don't blame her," murmured Ethel Blue.
+
+"She blames herself, because she has learned that giving way to grief
+paralyzes all the powers that God has given us to carry on the work of
+life with. If our minds are filled with gloom our bodies don't behave as
+they ought to--I dare say even you children know that."
+
+"I know," agreed Ethel Blue, who was sensitive and imaginative and
+suffered unnecessarily over many things.
+
+"Your mind doesn't go, either," Roger added. "I know when I got in the
+dumps last spring about graduating I couldn't do a thing. My work went
+worse than ever. It was only when Mr. Wheeler"--referring to the
+principal of the high school--"jollied me up and told me I was getting on
+as well as the rest of the fellows that I took a brace; and you know I
+did come out all right."
+
+"I should say you did, dear," acknowledged his mother proudly. "Instances
+like that make you understand how necessary it is to be brave and to be
+filled with joy because life is going on as well as it is. It is our duty
+to make the most of everything that is given us--our bodies, our minds,
+our spirits--and if courage will help or joy will help then we must
+cultivate courage and joy."
+
+"Did Aunt Louise see that after a while?"
+
+"Not for a long time, she says. After the shock of Uncle Leonard's sudden
+death had worn away somewhat she began naturally to have a little more
+courage--not to be so completely crushed as she was at first. Then she
+saw that when she was feeling brave she could accomplish more, and
+succeed better in new undertakings. If she went to ask for work somewhere
+and had no hope that she would receive it she usually did not receive it;
+but if she went feeling that this day was to be one of success for her it
+usually was."
+
+"I suppose she went in with a sort 'Of course you'll give it to me' air
+that made the men she was asking think of 'of course' they would," smiled
+Roger.
+
+"I don't doubt it. Then she says that she found out that there was real
+value in laughter."
+
+"In laughter!" repeated Ethel Brown. "Why laughter is just foolishness."
+
+"No, indeed; laughter is the outward expression of delight."
+
+"Lord Chesterfield told his son he hoped he'd never hear him laugh in all
+his life," offered Roger.
+
+"Lord Chesterfield hated noisy laughter as much as I do. There's nothing
+more annoying than empty, silly giggling and laughter; but the laughter
+that means real delight over something worth being delighted at--that's
+quite another matter. Lord Chesterfield and I are agreed in being opposed
+to a vulgar _manner_ of laughing, but we are also agreed in believing
+that delight needs expression. Isn't it in that same letter that he says
+he hopes he will often see his son smile?"
+
+"Same place," responded Roger briefly.
+
+"Aunt Louise says she found that even if she wasn't feeling really gay
+she could raise her spirits by doing her best to laugh at something. If
+you hunt hard enough there is almost always something funny enough to
+laugh at within reach of you."
+
+"Like Dicky here snoozing away as soundly as if he were in bed."
+
+"Poor little man. You needn't carry him up yet, though. He's not
+uncomfortable there."
+
+"There's one thing I think is perfectly wonderful about Aunt Louise,"
+said Ethel Blue; "she takes so much pleasure out of little things. She's
+interested in everything the U. S. C. does, and she wants to help on
+anything the town undertakes--you know how nice she was about the school
+gardens--and sometimes when a day comes that seems just stupid with
+nothing to do at all, if you go over to Aunt Louise's she'll tell you
+something she's seen or heard that day that you never would have noticed
+for yourself and that really is interesting."
+
+"She gets their full value out of everything that passes before her eyes.
+It's the wisest thing to do. The big things of life are more absorbing
+but very few of us encounter the big things of life. Most of us meet the
+small matters, the everyday happenings, and nothing else."
+
+"Isn't life full of a mess of 'em!" ejaculated Roger. "Getting up and
+dressing and brushing your hair and eating three meals a day have to be
+done three hundred sixty-five times a year; whereas you hear some
+splendid music or come across a fine new poem or find yourself in a
+position where you can do a real kindness about once in a cat's age.
+Queer, isn't it?"
+
+"That's just why it's a good plan to see the opportunities in the little
+things. If we see with clear eyes we may be able to do some small
+kindnesses oftener than 'once in a cat's age.' It's certainly true that
+the everyday troubles, the trifling annoyances, are really harder to bear
+than the big troubles."
+
+"O-o-o!" disclaimed Helen.
+
+"The big troubles give you a bigger shock, but then you pull yourself
+together and summon your strength, and strength to endure them comes. But
+the small matters--they come so often and they seem such pin pricks that
+it seems not worth while to call upon your powers of endurance."
+
+"Yet if you don't you're as cross as two sticks all the time," finished
+Helen. "I know how it is. It's like having a serious wound or a mosquito
+bite."
+
+They all laughed, for Roger, as if to illustrate her remarks, gave a slap
+at a buzzing enemy at just the appropriate moment.
+
+"Another thing that helps to make Aunt Louise a happy woman now is that
+she is at peace not only with everybody on earth but also with herself.
+If she makes a mistake she doesn't fret about it; she does her best to
+remedy it, and she does her best not to repeat it. 'Once may be excusable
+ignorance,' she says, 'but twice is stupidity,' and then she tells the
+tale of the boy who was walking across a field and fell into a dry well
+which he knew nothing about. He roared loudly and after a time a farmer
+heard him and pulled him out. The next day he was walking across the same
+field and he fell again into the same well."
+
+"He set up the same roar, I suppose."
+
+"A perfect imitation of the previous one. The same farmer came. When he
+looked down the well and saw the same boy he said disgustedly, 'Yesterday
+I thought ye were a poor, unknowin' lad; to-day I know ye're a sad
+fool.'"
+
+Again they all laughed.
+
+"She's always cheerful and always affectionate and she's as dear as she
+can be and I'm glad she's going to have this lovely house and I wish we
+had one just like it," cried Helen in a burst.
+
+"We have a good house."
+
+"But it doesn't belong to us."
+
+"We Army and Navy people can't expect to own houses, my child. You don't
+need to have that told you at this late day."
+
+"I know that. If Father weren't so keen on having us all together while
+we're being educated we wouldn't have been in Rosemont as long as we
+have; but I sometimes envy the people who have a home of their own that
+they are sure to stay in for ever so many years."
+
+"When you feel that way you must think of the many advantages of the Army
+and Navy children. If your father had not been on the Pacific station
+when you were the Ethels' age you wouldn't have had a chance to see
+California when you were old enough to enjoy it and remember it."
+
+"I know, Mother. I didn't mean to growl. I just thought that Father had
+as much money as Aunt Louise from his father, and he had his salary
+besides, and yet we haven't a house of our own."
+
+"We've had a good many of Uncle Sam's houses, which is more than your
+Aunt Louise has had. But you must remember that her inheritance from your
+Grandfather Morton was accumulating for many years while her family
+didn't know where she was, while your father and Ethel Blue's father have
+been spending the income of theirs all along."
+
+"Uncle Roger has had a lot of children to spend his on, but Father hasn't
+had any one but me," said Ethel Blue, whose life had been entirely spent
+with her cousins because her mother had died when she was a tiny baby.
+Never before had she thought whether her father, who was a captain in the
+Army, had any money or not. Now she saw that he must be better provided
+with it than his brother, her Uncle Roger, the father of Ethel Brown and
+Helen and Roger and Dicky, who was a Lieutenant in the Navy.
+
+"Your father is always generous with his money, but I dare say he is
+saving it for some time when he will want it," suggested Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I don't know when he'll want it any more than he does now," said Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"Perhaps he'll want to have a house of his own at whatever post he is
+when he has a grown-up daughter," smiled Helen. "You'd better learn to
+keep house right off."
+
+The idea thrilled Ethel. Never before had she happened to think of the
+possibility of joining her father after her school days were over. Never
+having known any home except with Ethel Brown and her other cousins she
+had always seen the future as shared with them. The notion of leaving
+them was painful, but the chance of being always with her father, of
+being his housekeeper, of seeing him every day, of making him
+comfortable, was one that filled her with delight. Her blue eyes filled
+with tenderness as she dreamed over the possibility.
+
+"I have lots to learn yet before I should know enough," she murmured,
+staring almost unseeingly at her cousin, "but it's wonderful to think I
+could do it."
+
+The new idea would not leave her mind, though, indeed, she made no effort
+to drive it out. That the future might hold for her a change so complete
+was something she wanted to let her thoughts linger on. She hardly
+noticed that Roger was gathering Dicky up into his arms to carry him
+upstairs to bed, or that there was a general stir on the veranda,
+betokening a move indoors.
+
+"Miss Graham was at Dorothy's this afternoon," Ethel Brown said as she
+rose and picked up the straw cushion on which she had been sitting.
+
+"Was she?" inquired Helen interestedly. "I wish I had seen her. I never
+have yet, you know."
+
+"Neither has Ethel Blue. She and Aunt Louise and Dorothy and I went over
+to the new house and looked at the attic. She says she'll come over next
+week and help us about the bedroom floor. That will be ready then for us
+to talk about the decorating."
+
+"Be sure and let me know when she is coming. What did she say about the
+attic?"
+
+"She liked it especially because it had been sheathed, following all the
+ins and outs. She thought the irregularity was pretty. She suggested a
+closet for furs over the kitchen. It won't cost much to bring the
+refrigerating pipes up there, she says."
+
+"That's bully. Aunt Louise may take care of my fur gloves for me next
+summer if the moths don't eat them up this year," promised Roger who had
+stopped in the doorway to hear Ethel Brown's report, and stood with the
+still sleeping Dicky over his shoulder.
+
+"She suggested a raised ledge about fourteen inches high to stand trunks
+on."
+
+"Then you don't break your back bending over them when you're hunting for
+something," exclaimed Helen. "That's splendid. She seems to have
+practical ideas as well as ornamental ones."
+
+"She thought there ought to be a fire bucket closet up there, too. You
+know Aunt Louise has had them put in on all the other floors, but she
+didn't think of it there."
+
+"What is it?" asked Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Just a narrow closet with four shelves. On each of the lower three are
+fire buckets to be kept full of water all the time and on the top shelf
+are some of those hand grenade things and chemical squirt guns. They
+don't look very well when they're right out in sight. This way covers
+them up but makes them just as convenient. There is to be no lock on the
+door of the closet and FIRE is to be painted outside so every one will
+know where it is even if he gets rattled when the fire really happens."
+
+"Are the maids' rooms to be on the attic floor?" asked Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Two little beauties, and a bath-room between them. One room is to be
+pink and the other blue and they're going to have ivory paint and fluffy
+curtains just like Dorothy's."
+
+"Did you think to say anything to Miss Graham about the Club's using the
+attic in winter for weekly meetings?"
+
+"Dorothy did. She thought a movable platform would be a great scheme; one
+wide enough for us to use for a little stage when we wanted to have
+singing or recitations up there. She picked out a good place for the
+phonograph, where the shape of the ceiling wouldn't make the sound queer,
+and she thought rattan furniture stained brown would be pretty, and scrim
+curtains--not dead white ones, but a sort of goldeny cream that would
+harmonize with the wood. There are lovely big cotton rugs in dull blues,
+that aren't expensive, she says; and if we don't want to see the row of
+trunks and chests against the wall we can arrange screens that will shut
+them out of sight and will also take the place of the pictures that you
+can't hang on a wall that slopes the wrong way."
+
+"I don't see, then, but Aunt Louise will have an attic and we'll have a
+club room and both parties to the transaction will be pleased," beamed
+Helen, who, as president of the Club was always careful that the members
+should be comfortable when they gathered for their weekly talking and
+planning and working.
+
+"Doesn't Miss Graham come from Washington?" asked Ethel Blue dreamily,
+half awakening to the conversation.
+
+"Yes, you know she does."
+
+"Fort Myer is just across the river; I wonder if she knows Father."
+
+"Ask her when you see her," recommended Ethel Brown, and they all went in
+to bed as a clap of thunder gave promise of a cooling shower.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+                       SPRING ALL THE YEAR ROUND
+
+
+It proved to be quite a week later before the workmen were far enough
+along to make it worth while for Miss Graham to be summoned to a
+conference on the decoration of the bedroom floor, and when Ethel Blue
+met her at last she forgot altogether to ask if she knew her dearly
+beloved father.
+
+There were several reasons why she did not ask. In the first place she
+had forgotten that she meant to; in the next, Miss Daisy was so absorbed
+in what she was hearing from all the Club members about their ideas for
+the bed-rooms, and so interested in comparing them with her own practical
+knowledge of how they could be carried out, that no one who listened to
+her or saw her at work wanted to interrupt her with any questions that
+had no bearing on the matter in hand.
+
+Not that she was not interested in the young people. She was thoroughly
+interested in them. She knew all of their names and sorted out one from
+the other immediately just from Margaret's and James's descriptions of
+them. She listened attentively to their suggestions and they all felt
+that she was treating their ideas with respect and that if she did not
+always agree with them she had a good reason for it.
+
+"I think she's the most competent woman almost that I ever saw," said
+Helen admiringly to Margaret as they stood at one side of the upper hall
+and watched her as she rapidly sketched for Mrs. Smith what she meant by
+a certain plan of window hanging.
+
+Helen was greatly interested in new occupations for women and the fact
+that this woman had studied to be an interior decorator and had succeeded
+so well that she had orders from the suburbs of New York itself had
+impressed the young girl as making her well worth trying to know well.
+Helen was not drawn toward interior decorating--she had already made up
+her mind, that she was to be one of the scientific home-makers educated
+at the School of Mothercraft--but she admired women with the courage to
+start new things, and this work seemed to her to be perfectly suited to a
+woman and at the same time of enough importance to be really worth while
+putting a lot of preparation into it. The dressing of shop windows seemed
+to her another peculiarly feminine occupation, hardly entered at all, as
+yet, by women, and capable of being developed into an art.
+
+"The decoration of a room or a building ought to seem a sort of growth
+from the room or the building," Miss Graham was explaining to the Ethels.
+"It ought to seem perfectly natural that it should be there, just as a
+blossom seems perfectly natural to find on a plant. I never like the
+phrase 'applied design,'" she continued, smiling as she turned to Mrs.
+Smith. "It sounds as if you made a design and then clapped it on to the
+afflicted spot as if it were a plaster of some kind."
+
+"Too often it looks that way," Mrs. Smith smiled in return. "Come and see
+how we've arranged our sleeping porches."
+
+As Miss Graham stood in the doorway that opened on to the porch of
+Dorothy's room, one hand resting on Ethel Brown's shoulder, Helen felt
+more than ever the power--for friendliness and good will as well as for
+the execution of her art--that this dark-eyed, dark-haired, ruddy-cheeked
+young woman possessed. Her nose was a trifle too short for beauty and her
+mouth a bit too wide, but her coloring denoted health, her hair curled
+crisply over a broad forehead, her teeth were brilliantly white, and the
+straight folds of her gown showed the lines of her strong figure as the
+strange dull blue-green of her linen frock, dashed with a bit of orange,
+brought into relief all the good points of her tinting.
+
+"She makes you want to stop and look at her," Helen decided, "and you
+want to know her, too."
+
+Mrs. Smith had arranged for three sleeping porches, one for her own room,
+one for Dorothy's, and a larger one outside of the nursery where the
+Belgian baby enjoyed herself in the daytime. This porch was also shared
+by Elisabeth's care-taker. Each porch was on a different side of the
+house, so that they did not encroach upon each other, and each was
+somewhat different in arrangement.
+
+"Did you originate this idea?" asked Miss Graham, as she examined the
+sliding windows by which the bed was to be shut off from the room at
+night and enclosed in the room in the morning. "You never need step out
+of bed on to the cold floor of the porch," she commented approvingly.
+
+"I saw that in a sanitarium," returned Mrs. Smith. "It was desirable that
+the patients should never be chilled and the doctor and architect
+invented this way of preventing it."
+
+"It's capital," smiled Miss Graham, "and so simple. When the inside sash
+is closed, the outside is up, and vice versa. Are they all like this?"
+
+"Yes," answered her hostess. "Dorothy is to have a couch in that corner,
+and a table and chairs. There is to be a screw eye attached to the foot
+of the couch. A weight on the end of a cord will go through a pulley
+fastened to the wall, high up over the head of the couch. There will be a
+hook at the other end of the cord. When this hook goes into the screw eye
+and the weight is pulled, the couch will stand on its head and will be
+out of the way at any time when floor space is more to be desired than
+lying down comfort."
+
+"Of course there will be some sort of drapery to cover the under side
+when it is hauled up against the wall," said Miss Graham with a question
+in her voice.
+
+"Dorothy has something in mind that is going to meet that difficulty, she
+thinks," answered Mrs. Smith.
+
+"Are you going to have your room of any decided color," asked Miss
+Graham.
+
+"I've been perfectly crazy for a rose-colored room, ever since I was a
+tiny child," answered Dorothy. "I've set my heart on this room's looking
+like a pink rose--"
+
+"Or a bunch of apple blossoms?" asked Miss Graham.
+
+Ethel Blue looked quickly at the decorator when she made this suggestion
+which at once stirred the young girl's imagination to a mental sight of a
+springtime tree laden with clusters of blossoms, whose delicate white was
+flushed with the delicate pink of the dawn. The suggestion appealed to
+her immediately as possible of a development far more exquisite than that
+which Dorothy had planned. Both would be pink, yet the fineness of the
+new color scheme seemed to her suited to Dorothy's slender grace. She
+could not have put it into words but she felt that Miss Graham had a
+feeling for color that enabled her to adapt the room in which the color
+was to be used to the personality of the young girl who was chiefly to
+use it. Instinctively she moved closer to Miss Graham and met her smiling
+glance with a nod and smile of understanding.
+
+Dorothy liked the new idea.
+
+"I think an apple-blossom room would be perfectly lovely," she exclaimed.
+"If Mother would only let me use wall-paper--I saw such a beauty pattern
+the other day. There were clusters of apple-blossoms all over it."
+
+"Are you going to use wall-paper," Miss Graham asked Mrs. Smith.
+
+"Dorothy and I decided that we would not use wall-paper in the bed-rooms
+at any rate," answered Dorothy's mother.
+
+"I wish we hadn't," pouted Dorothy, but she was cheered when Miss Graham
+nodded her approval of their decision.
+
+"You're quite right," she said. "Apart from the sanitary side it isn't a
+good plan to paper walls until the plaster is thoroughly dry. This is
+especially true of a house built on the side of a hill."
+
+"This house has such a wonderful concrete foundation," said Margaret,
+"that I should think it would be always perfectly solid."
+
+"So should I," answered Miss Graham, "but there's always a chance that
+some part of the soil beneath may give a little when the full weight of a
+house rests upon it. The settling of a house for only a half inch or an
+inch would play havoc with the plaster on these walls."
+
+"You think we'd better hold back the paper for a final resort?" asked
+Mrs. Smith.
+
+"I never advise paper in bed-rooms unless there's good reason to do so,"
+answered the decorator. "Here is what I should suggest for an
+apple-blossom room--though perhaps you have some ideas that you would
+like to have carried out?" she interrupted herself to ask Dorothy.
+
+"No," said Dorothy, "as long as it's pink and pretty I don't care how it
+is decorated."
+
+Miss Graham stood in the centre of the room now, noticing how the
+sunshine fell on the floor, the shadow at the end where the sleeping
+porch was, and the possible positions for the various articles of
+furniture.
+
+"I seem to see these walls washed with a white which is tinted with a
+faint flush of pink," said Miss Graham slowly, as she thought it out.
+"That means a pink so delicate that it will not irritate the weariest
+nerves and will soothe to sleep by its beauty. The wood-work should be
+similar in tone but a trifle more like ivory. Do you know that chintz
+that has blurry, indefinite flowers on it?"
+
+Dorothy said that she did.
+
+"I saw a lovely piece of it the other day with a design of
+apple-blossoms. I should use that as a covering for your bed, your couch,
+your chairs, and for hangings for the windows. Then across one end of the
+wall--on that shadiest side,--I should throw a branch of apple-blossoms,
+painted in the same blurry, indefinite way in which the flowers appear on
+the chintz. I knew a man who was enough of the artist in his soul to do
+the thing as if the wall had suddenly grown thin and through it you could
+see an apple tree in blossom out in the orchard."
+
+"I think that would be perfectly lovely," said Dorothy, and all the
+others expressed the greatest pleasure at the proposed scheme of
+decoration.
+
+"Here is what I would suggest for the windows," said Miss Daisy, taking
+out her note book, and sketching with a few rapid lines the folds of
+apple-blossom chintz, falling straight at the sides, with a valance at
+the top showing a very slight fullness.
+
+"Between these and the windows," said Miss Graham, "I should put Swiss
+muslin, either perfectly plain or dotted or with a fine cross-bar,
+whichever you like best. I should have those muslin curtains next to the
+glass all alike all over the house and the shades, too, so that the
+effect from the outside will be uniform and not messy."
+
+"That neatness will suit Ethel Brown's ideas of what is harmonious,"
+laughed Helen, and Miss Graham flashed her brilliant smile on Ethel
+Brown, who was nodding her approval of the idea as she listened.
+
+"Now, how had you planned to finish the other sleeping porches?" inquired
+Miss Graham.
+
+"We thought we'd better have a radiator on the one leading off the
+nursery," said Mrs. Smith.
+
+"You'll have to be awfully careful about its freezing," warned Miss
+Graham.
+
+"I suppose we shall, but it seemed as if it might be advisable with a
+child who has been so delicate as Elisabeth. You will see that the outer
+ledge of her porch is somewhat higher than either Dorothy's or mine and
+there are pieces of lattice work to fill in the openings on very cold
+nights. We thought we'd have out there a low play-table for the baby, and
+one or two little chairs and a work-table and easy-chair for Miss
+Merriam."
+
+"There are cotton Chinese rugs that are extremely pretty for upstairs
+porches," said Miss Graham. "One that is largely white but has a dash of
+green and pink, would be charming for Dorothy's porch. What color is the
+baby's room to be?"
+
+"Ethel Blue wants us to have it pale blue."
+
+Again a vivid look of appreciation came into Miss Graham's eyes as she
+turned them on Ethel Blue, but she merely said, "There are charming
+Chinese rugs in white with dull blue designs like old Chinese pottery.
+Tell me what you had planned in your mind for Elisabeth," she continued,
+turning toward the young girl and extending her hand so winningly that
+Ethel found herself not only standing beside her with a feeling that she
+had been her friend for a long time, but filled with confidence that her
+suggestions would not be laughed at, and might indeed be really good.
+
+"I thought of walls and paint of white faintly colored with blue. It was
+just about what you suggested for Dorothy's room, only blue instead of
+pink; and it seemed to me that there might be blue birds--for happiness,
+you know--skimming along the walls, up near the top."
+
+"One of those big Chinese rugs that is almost all white, but has a little
+blue, would be lovely, wouldn't it?" cried Helen, seizing the idea.
+
+"Several small ones would be better," returned Miss Graham, "because a
+baby's room has to be kept so spick and span that you want to have light
+rugs that are easy to take up and clean."
+
+"You know those little round seats that you sometimes see in railway
+waiting rooms?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+Miss Graham said she had noticed them.
+
+"Don't you think one would be cunning for Elisabeth? The seat part ought
+to be awfully low and there could be light blue cushions on it. And then
+I think it would be fun if there was a low bench running around two sides
+of the room, with cushions of the same color on it. It would do for a
+table and a seat both."
+
+Miss Graham thought the idea was capital.
+
+"How would you paint them?" she asked.
+
+"Wouldn't a sort of bluish-white like the wood-work be pretty," asked
+Ethel Blue. "You know that shiny paint that is so highly polished that
+the baby's finger marks won't show on it."
+
+"Enamel paint," translated Miss Graham. "I think it would be very pretty,
+and I should have all the little chairs and tables painted the same way.
+There are a lot of little things that would be charming in the nursery,"
+she continued. "You can have a solid table, whose top lifts off,
+disclosing a sand-pile inside. And some parts of that seat around the
+room ought to lift up so that the baby can put away her own toys in the
+box underneath the cushions."
+
+"I thought a great big doll's house might fit into one corner so that it
+would be two-sided," said Ethel Blue. "If the lower floor was all one
+room the baby could walk right in and sit down with the dolls."
+
+"Do you think she could keep still long enough to make a real visit?"
+laughed Helen.
+
+"You'll want to interest her in plants and animals as she grows up,"
+suggested Miss Graham. "You might begin even now by having an aquarium
+with a few water plants and some gold fish and you must arrange to have
+it on a good solid stand so that it won't tip over if Elisabeth should
+happen to throw her fat little self against it. I suppose she's too small
+to have had any regular training as yet?" she continued, turning to Mrs.
+Smith.
+
+"Miss Merriam, who is taking care of her, is trying some of the
+Montessori ideas."
+
+"I thought perhaps she was. Madame Montessori tries to make all her
+training a natural outcome of the children's lives and to develop them to
+use what they know in their daily occupations. If Elisabeth had a
+clothes-closet small enough for her to hang up and take down her own
+dresses and coats and rompers, I think Miss Merriam would find that she
+would be trying to put them on and fasten them herself very soon."
+
+"Wouldn't a clothes pole about three feet high be too cunning for words,"
+exclaimed Ethel Blue, and Dorothy cried, "Do let us have all these
+things, Mother. Elisabeth will look like a little white Persian kitten,
+trotting around in this blue and white room!"
+
+"Had you made any plans for your own room, Mrs. Smith?" asked Miss
+Graham.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Louise, I do wish you'd have one of those gray rooms, with
+scarlet lacquer furniture," cried Helen eagerly.
+
+Before Mrs. Smith could answer, Miss Graham had interposed a soft
+objection.
+
+"I wouldn't," she said. "A room like that has several reasons for
+non-existence. They are very handsome because the real scarlet lacquer is
+beautiful in itself, and it's valuable too, but a room whose chief appeal
+to the eye is scarlet is not restful."
+
+"You think scarlet is not a proper color for a bed-room," responded
+Helen.
+
+"Not at all suitable to my way of thinking. It's exciting, rather than
+soothing. Another objection to it here is that a room containing such a
+vivid color should be a dark room, and all of your bed-rooms are
+splendidly light. But the most serious objection to my mind, is this.
+Just step out here in the entry with me for a minute."
+
+They all followed Miss Graham on to the landing at the head of the
+stairs.
+
+"In a house as small as this," she said, "you can see from the hall into
+all the bed-rooms. That means that from the decorator's point of view,
+the entire floor ought to be harmonious. Behind us, for instance, is the
+baby's delicate blue nursery. Just ahead is Dorothy's apple-blossom room.
+Do you think that a room of gray and scarlet and black is going to be
+harmonious with those delicate tints?"
+
+They saw her meaning at once and agreed with her that it would not be
+suitable.
+
+"I decorated a small apartment last winter," she said, "that turned out
+very happily. The sitting room was one of these scarlet lacquer rooms and
+the bed-room was done in tones of pale green and dull orange. You felt as
+if you were sitting in an orange grove in Florida on an evening when a
+frost was expected and they were burning smudges to warm the trees."
+
+"I know," cried Dorothy, "I've seen them do that. You see the oranges
+gleaming through the misty smoke, and it's all hazy and beautiful."
+
+"It turned out well in this room that I did," said Miss Graham, modestly,
+"but if you accept the blue and pink colorings for the other rooms here,"
+she said, turning to Mrs. Smith with a smile, "I'm afraid your own room
+will have to be of some delicate tone to harmonize with them."
+
+"There are certain shades of yellow, that would be suitable," returned
+Mrs. Smith.
+
+"A primrose yellow," answered Miss Graham, "would be charming, and it
+would not be hard to find a lovely chintz, that would give you just the
+spring-like atmosphere that you'd enjoy having about you all the time."
+
+"I think we're going to have this floor a little piece of spring all the
+year around," said Ethel Blue; and again Miss Graham flashed at her a
+look of understanding.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+                        CLOSETS AND STEPMOTHERS
+
+
+After they had shown all the rest of the house to Miss Daisy the family
+party gathered on the brick terrace outside of the drawing room to
+investigate lemonade and little cakes. The Ethels had brought the
+lemonade from home in a thermos bottle which kept it cool and refreshing,
+and that morning Dorothy had made some "hearts and rounds" which proved
+most appetizing with the cool drink.
+
+A few canvas chairs which Mrs. Smith had sent over from home, so that she
+might have something to sit down on when she visited the new house, were
+all the furniture of the veranda, but the girls found several boxes which
+the workmen had left, and they laid planks on them and made benches that
+were entirely comfortable. A similar arrangement with the boxes turned on
+their ends provided a little table on which they placed the refreshments.
+Paper cups answered every necessary purpose, although they were not
+beautiful, and paper plates held the hearts and rounds just as well as if
+they had been china.
+
+They were all a little tired after walking about the house for so long a
+time, and those of them who had chairs leaned back with satisfaction and
+looked over the low parapet to the adjoining meadow with its brook and
+its cluster of woods at the upper end. Beyond the fields the Emersons'
+house could be seen dimly through the trees.
+
+"We wondered in the springtime whether we should be able to see this
+house from Grandfather's house," said Ethel Brown. "I haven't looked
+lately, but I guess we can, or else we shouldn't be able to see
+Grandfather's house from here."
+
+"The line of those far-away mountains is very beautiful against the sky,"
+Miss Graham noticed, with her keen observation of everything that added
+to the loveliness of the landscape.
+
+"They are far enough away to have a blue haze hanging over them," said
+Mrs. Smith, "and they give you a feeling that our quiet country scene
+here has a great deal of variety after all."
+
+"Your house is admirably placed to make the most of every beauty around
+you," said Miss Daisy, "and I hope you'll allow me to compliment you on
+the way it is turning out. You know they say that you have to build two
+or three houses in order to build one exactly to your satisfaction, but I
+should think that you were almost accomplishing that with your first
+attempt."
+
+"I am glad you like so many things about it," said Mrs. Smith. "Dorothy
+and I would be pleased with almost any house that really belonged to us,
+for we've had nothing of our own for many years, but of course it is a
+tremendous satisfaction to have this develop into something that is
+beautiful and livable too."
+
+"You've added so many happy touches," said Miss Graham. "Take for
+instance this terrace. A brick terrace always makes me think of some old
+country house in England, with its dark red walls buried among the
+brilliant green foliage. So many of those houses have terraces like this,
+partly roofed like yours, and wide enough to be really an extra room."
+
+"Aunt Louise's terrace is really two extra rooms," said Ethel Blue,
+"because it opens from the drawing room and also from the dining room."
+
+"We're going to have all our meals out here in pleasant weather, whenever
+it's warm enough," said Dorothy.
+
+"I can see you're sufficiently afraid of New Jersey mosquitoes to have a
+part screened."
+
+"It's the only prudent thing to do," returned Mrs. Smith. "Jersey
+mosquitoes are really more than a joke, but if you have this wire cage to
+get into you can defy them. You can see that at the end of the terrace
+opposite the dining room our cage covers the whole of the floor, while up
+at this end only a part is wired in. In the evening when the buzzers are
+buzzing we can take shelter behind the screen, but in the daytime we can
+sit outside as we're doing now."
+
+"Are you going to glass it in winter? I see you have a radiator."
+
+"There are to be long glass sashes that fit into the same grooves that
+hold the screens now. The open fire will take off the chill on autumn
+mornings and the radiator ought to keep us warm even when the snow is
+banked against the glass."
+
+"With palms and rubber plants and rugs and wicker chairs and tables--I
+suppose you'll have wicker?" Mrs. Morton interrupted herself to inquire
+of her sister-in-law.
+
+"Yes, wicker, but we haven't decided between brown or green," and Mrs.
+Smith turned appealingly to Miss Graham.
+
+"Neither, I should say. Don't you think a dull dark red, a mahogany
+red--would be pretty with this brick floor?"
+
+"And against the concrete wall. I do; and it ought not to be hard to find
+rugs with dull reds and greens that will draw all those earthy, autumnal
+shades together."
+
+"You might have one of those swinging settees hanging by chains from the
+ceiling."
+
+"Dorothy would enjoy that."
+
+"So would we," interposed Ethel Brown. "I seem to see myself perching on
+it, waving my lemonade cup."
+
+"Don't illustrate all over me," remonstrated Ethel Blue, dodging the
+flowing bowl.
+
+"I like very much the seclusion you've gained by building up the wall at
+the end of the terrace on the side toward the road," said Miss Graham.
+
+"We found that people could see from the road any one sitting on the
+terrace, although we're so high here," said Mrs. Smith, "but with the
+parapet built up at that end, they can't see anything, even though there
+is an opening in the wall."
+
+"And the window frames a lovely picture of the meadows across the road
+from you."
+
+"I don't see," said Ethel Brown, "why you always call your living room a
+drawing room, Aunt Louise."
+
+"It isn't a living room," returned Mrs. Smith. "A living room is really a
+room which is used both as a sitting room and a dining room. No room
+which is used for only one of those purposes should be called a living
+room."
+
+"Lots of people do," insisted Ethel Brown.
+
+"But they are not right," returned her aunt.
+
+"Drawing room seems a very formal name for it," Helen said. "Of course
+we're used to it, because Grandmother Emerson always calls her parlor a
+drawing room, but she has a huge, big room, so my idea of a drawing room
+is always something immense."
+
+"Perhaps it is rather old-fashioned and stately," admitted Mrs. Smith;
+"but the drawing room is simply a place where the family _withdraws_ to
+sit together and talk together, and it need not be any more formal than
+the people who use it. But I protest that my drawing room or sitting
+room, or whatever it may be, shall not be called a living room, because
+it is not devoted to eating as well as sitting."
+
+"I am glad you make that distinction," said Miss Graham. "So many people
+are careless about using the word and nowadays you seldom find a real
+living room except in a bungalow in the country where people are living
+very informally during the summer, and where space is limited. There's
+another thing about your house that I like exceedingly," she continued,
+"and that is your closets."
+
+Mrs. Morton, who had joined the party on the terrace, laughed heartily at
+this praise.
+
+"That ought to please you, Louise," she said, and added, turning to Miss
+Graham, "Louise has spent more time inventing all sorts of cupboards and
+closets than in drawing the original plan of the house, I really
+believe."
+
+"I know it wasn't wasted time," returned Miss Graham. "I have every
+sympathy with a craze for closets. You can't have too many to suit me. Do
+you remember that room at Mt. Vernon entirely surrounded by cupboards and
+closets? I always thought Washington must have had an extraordinarily
+orderly mind to want to have all his dining room belongings carefully
+placed on shelves behind closed doors!"
+
+"I wonder how many different kinds of closets we have," murmured Dorothy,
+beginning to count them up on her fingers. Everybody tossed in a
+contribution, naming the closet which she happened to remember.
+
+"A coat closet near the front door," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"Clothes closets in every bed-room and two extra ones in the attic,"
+added Mrs. Smith.
+
+"A dress closet with mirrors on the doors, that turn back to make a
+three-fold dressing glass. I envy you that comfort, Louise," said Mrs.
+Morton.
+
+"You'll notice that the coat closets and the clothes closets all have
+long poles with countless hangers on them," said Mrs. Smith. "They'll
+hold a tremendous number of garments; many more than Dorothy and I have."
+
+"The closet I'm craziest about is the one that is filled with glass cubes
+to put hats in," said Helen. "You open the door and there are half a
+dozen, and you can see the hats right through, so you don't have to keep
+pulling out one box after another, always getting the wrong one first."
+
+"That's a perfectly splendid idea," approved Miss Graham. "I suppose
+along the lower part of the closet side of your room, you have small
+closets and cupboards for shoes and for blouses."
+
+"I have my blouse closet above my shoe closet," returned Mrs. Smith.
+
+"Did you notice the tall, thin closet for one-piece dresses?" asked Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"I should think that would be splendid because it doesn't jam up your
+evening dresses," said Helen, who was beginning to think longingly of
+real, grown-up evening dresses.
+
+"That's the closet Ethel Blue always calls the 'stepmother closet,'"
+laughed Ethel Brown.
+
+"Why 'stepmother closet'?" inquired Miss Graham quickly.
+
+"Because it would pinch a stepmother so hard if she got into it," said
+Ethel Blue.
+
+Miss Graham looked puzzled and Dorothy explained.
+
+"Ethel Blue hates stepmothers. She doesn't know why, except that they are
+always horrid in fairy stories, but she thinks this long narrow closet
+would be just the place to put a horrid one into to punish her."
+
+"Stepmothers are often very nice," said Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I had a stepmother," said Miss Graham, "and I couldn't have loved my own
+mother more tenderly, and I'm sure she loved Margaret's mother and me
+quite as well as if we had been her own children. In fact, I think she
+was more careful of us than she was of her own children. She used to say
+we were a legacy to her and that she felt it her duty as well as her
+delight to be extra good to us, for our mother's sake."
+
+Ethel Blue listened and smiled at the kind brown eyes that were smiling
+at her, but she shook her head as if she were unconvinced.
+
+"At any rate you might select your closet to fit your stepmother," Miss
+Daisy laughed, "and if you wanted to be very bad to a thin one, you could
+make her squeeze up small in one of the glass hat boxes, and a fat one
+would suffer most in this narrow closet of yours."
+
+They all laughed again and went on with the list of closets in the house.
+
+"You noticed, I hope," said Mrs. Smith, "that almost every closet in the
+house has an electric bulb inside that lights when you open the door and
+goes out again when the door is closed."
+
+"Splendid," approved Miss Graham. "Is there one in your linen closet?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. Did you notice that the linen closet is on the bedroom
+floor? There need be no carrying up and down stairs of heavy bed linen.
+The linen for the maid's room, in the attic, is kept in a small linen
+closet up there, and the table linen belongs in a closet made especially
+for it in the dining room. It has many glass shelves quite close
+together, so that each table cloth may have a spot to itself and the
+centrepieces and doilies may be kept flat with nothing to rumple them."
+
+"I suppose the medicine closets will go into the bath-rooms when the
+other fittings are installed," said Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Yes," returned her sister-in-law.
+
+"Did you notice the pretty cedar shavings that the carpenters left on the
+floor of the cedar closet?" asked Dorothy. "They say they always leave
+the cedar shavings they made, because people like to put them among their
+clothes to make them fragrant."
+
+"I'm glad you are having a cedar closet," said Margaret. "Mother got
+along with a cedar chest for a great many years, but she has always
+longed for a cedar closet. She had one built this summer."
+
+"We have both," said Dorothy. "The chest is going up in the attic and the
+closet is on the bedroom floor."
+
+"The thing that pleases me most in the closet line," said Ethel Brown,
+who is a good cook, "is the pastry closet just off the kitchen. The
+carpenter told me there was a refrigerating pipe running around it so
+that it would always be cool, and there was to be a plate glass shelf on
+which the pastry could be rolled out."
+
+"You certainly have the latest wrinkles," exclaimed Mrs. Morton
+admiringly. "I have never seen that arrangement in real life. I thought
+it only existed in large hotels or the women's magazines!"
+
+"There are lots of other little comforts in our house," laughed Dorothy,
+"and there are two or three more kinds of closets if we count bookcases
+that have doors and cupboards to keep games in."
+
+"They're every one modern and useful except that stepmother squeezer,"
+said Miss Graham, rising to take leave. "That sounds like some invention
+of the Middle Ages when people used to torture each other to death so
+cheerfully."
+
+"O, I wouldn't _torture_ her," protested Ethel Blue.
+
+"Unless she were a really truly fairy story bad one," Miss Daisy
+insisted. "Could you resist that?"
+
+She held Ethel Blue's eyes for just a second with her smiling gaze that
+was graven down in the depths of her warm brown ones.
+
+"I wouldn't _really_ hurt her," Ethel Blue repeated, and wondered why she
+felt as if she had been taken seriously.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+                  "OFF TO PHILADELPHIA IN THE MORNING"
+
+
+"Helen," called Mrs. Morton a few days later just after the morning visit
+of the letter carrier, "I have a note here from Uncle Richard asking me
+if I can run over to Philadelphia and attend to a little matter of
+business for him. He is so tied up at Fort Myer that he can't possibly
+get away. Do you think it would be pleasant if you and I went over for a
+few days and took Roger and the children with us?"
+
+The "children" of the Morton family meant those younger than Roger and
+Helen. Helen received the suggestion with a cry of delight.
+
+"It would be just too lovely for anything," she said, waving in the air
+the little linen dress she was making for Elisabeth.
+
+"The younger girls had the Massachusetts trip this summer that you and
+Roger didn't share," her mother said. "I think this time we might all of
+us go, and I'm not sure that it would not be pleasant to ask the
+Watkinses and the Hancocks."
+
+"The whole U. S. C.!" cried Helen. "Mother, you certainly were born a
+darling. How did you ever think of anything so perfectly galoptious?"
+
+"It's natural for me to be 'galoptious,'" her mother returned, laughing.
+"Now, we shall have to work fast, if we are going to accomplish Uncle
+Richard's errand, because the people whom he wants me to see will be in
+Philadelphia only to-morrow. He has telegraphed them, asking them to keep
+an hour for me, so I must go over to-day or very early to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"Would you like to have me call up Margaret and Della on the telephone
+and see if they can go to-day? If they can, I don't see why we can't fly
+around tremendously and get our bags packed this morning and take an
+afternoon train," said Helen, who was beginning to grow energetic as the
+full prospect of the pleasure before her appeared before the eyes of her
+mind.
+
+Mrs. Morton agreeing, Helen flew to the telephone, and was lucky enough
+to catch Margaret at Glen Point and Della in New York without any
+difficulty. They both said that they would consult their mothers and
+would call Helen again within an hour. She then telephoned to Dorothy,
+but found that she was at Sweetbrier Lodge and as the telephone had not
+been put in yet, she was, for a moment, at a loss what to do. She
+remembered, however, that Ethel Brown and Ethel Blue had spoken of
+spending the morning at Grandmother Emerson's, and she therefore called
+up her house in the hope that they might be there.
+
+They had just left there to go and do a little house-cleaning in the cave
+in Fitzjames' woods, where they frequently enjoyed an afternoon lemonade.
+Mrs. Emerson said, however, that she could easily send a messenger after
+them, and that it would not be many minutes before she would ring Helen
+in her turn.
+
+"I haven't anything to report," Helen said to her mother after she had
+made these various calls, "but I had better be getting out our handbags
+and trying to find Roger, I suppose."
+
+Mrs. Morton was already packing her valise with her own and Dicky's
+requirements and she nodded an assent to Helen's suggestion.
+
+It was not many minutes before the telephone bell began ringing. The
+first summons was from Margaret Hancock who said that her mother and
+father were delighted with the opportunity to have her and James go to
+Philadelphia in Mrs. Morton's care.
+
+"It will be a real Club expedition," she said gleefully, "and I'm just as
+sure as if I saw it with my own eyes, that you're packing a 'History of
+Philadelphia' in your hand-bag."
+
+Helen laughed because she was well accustomed to being joked about her
+love of history.
+
+"I notice all of you are willing enough to listen when I tell about
+places," she said, "and this time you'll have to take it from me because
+Grandfather won't be there to tell you."
+
+The next ring meant that the Ethels had returned to Mrs. Emerson's.
+
+"What do you want of us?" Ethel Blue asked in a tone that sounded as if
+she were not particularly pleased at being called back.
+
+"How would you like to go to Philadelphia?" Helen answered triumphantly.
+
+"Do you really mean it?" asked Ethel, who was not quite sure that her
+ears were hearing correctly.
+
+"I do mean it, and if you and Ethel Blue want to go with Mother and me
+this afternoon, you must rush home just as fast as you can and get your
+bags packed. Aunt Louise says Dorothy may go, but I can't find her, so
+please stop at the new house and see if she's there and tell her about
+it."
+
+"Well I should say we would," returned a voice that was now filled with
+delight. "Ethel Blue wants to know why Mother is going?" she asked.
+
+"On some business for her father--for Uncle Richard. But do stop
+chattering and come home as fast as you can rush. If we don't get off
+this afternoon, we can't go until to-morrow morning and we shan't be able
+to stay so long in Philadelphia."
+
+It was not until they reached home that the Ethels learned that the
+Watkinses and the Hancocks were to join the party, and they were so
+excited over the prospect of this Club pilgrimage, that they were hardly
+able to get together their belongings.
+
+The most difficult person to find was Roger who did not seem to be within
+reach of the telephone anywhere. They called up all the places where they
+thought it possible that he might be, but he could not be found, and he
+walked in just before luncheon quite unprepared for the surprise that
+awaited him.
+
+"Helen has packed your bag for you," his mother told him, "so rush and
+change your clothes and go to the train to meet Della and Tom."
+
+Rosemont being already part way on the road from New York and
+Philadelphia, it was necessary for the party to take a local train to the
+nearest stopping place of the Express. The Watkinses came out from New
+York on a local and the Hancocks arrived on the trolley, so that the
+entire group met at the Mortons' about half an hour before the time to
+start. They were all chattering briskly, all filled with enthusiasm for
+this new adventure.
+
+"Don't you think I'd better go too?" Mr. Emerson asked his daughter, as
+he counted up the throng and noticed their eagerness.
+
+"I don't think it's necessary, Father," Mrs. Morton replied. "Roger and
+Tom and James are surely big enough to escort us, and I know Philadelphia
+so well that I have no fear of our being lost in the city with three such
+competent young men to take care of us."
+
+Mr. Emerson smiled somewhat doubtfully and murmured something about his
+daughter's having a hopeful disposition.
+
+"You don't realize how serious Roger can be when he feels that he has
+actual responsibility," said Mrs. Morton, "and as for James Hancock, he
+is sometimes so grave that he almost alarms me."
+
+"He may be grave, but has he any sense?" asked Mr. Emerson tartly.
+
+"The children seem to think he has a great deal. At any rate I feel sure
+that no difficulty is going to come to us with these three big boys on
+hand and I wouldn't think of taking you on this fatiguing trip, on such a
+hot day," insisted his daughter.
+
+Mr. Emerson looked somewhat relieved although he again assured Mrs.
+Morton that he would be entirely willing to escort her and her flock.
+
+"No farther than the Rosemont station, thank you," she said, smiling.
+
+It was at the station and just as the train was drawing in that Mr.
+Emerson handed Helen a notebook.
+
+"You've taken me by surprise this morning," he said, "and I haven't had
+much time to get up my usual collection of historical poetry, but I
+couldn't let you go off without having something of the kind to remember
+me by."
+
+Helen and the Ethels laughed at this confession, for Mr. Emerson was so
+fond of American history that he was in the habit, whenever they all went
+on trips together, of supplying himself with ballads concerning any
+historical happenings in the district through which they were to travel.
+
+"Philadelphia ought to be a fertile field for you, sir," said James
+Hancock.
+
+"It is," returned the old gentleman, "but you'll escape the full force of
+my efforts this time, thanks to your quick start."
+
+The run to the junction and then to Philadelphia was made in a short
+time. It was fairly familiar to all of them and the country presented no
+beauties to make it remarkable, although Roger pretended to be a guide
+showing wonderful sights to the New Yorkers, Della and Tom.
+
+"Do you think, Mother, we shall have time to look up some of the
+historical places in the city?" asked Helen.
+
+"I thought that would be the most interesting thing to do," Mrs. Morton
+replied. "I shan't have to meet my business people until midday
+to-morrow, so this afternoon and to-morrow morning we can see many points
+of interest if we don't delay too long at each one."
+
+"Being related to the Navy through my paternal ancestor," said Roger in
+large language, "Philadelphia has always interested me because the father
+of old William Penn, its founder, was an Admiral in the English Navy."
+
+"I didn't know that," said Helen.
+
+"Watch me run for base!" exclaimed Roger. "I got one off of Helen on the
+first ball. It isn't often that Helen admits there's something she
+doesn't know about American history."
+
+"You miserable boy! You sound as if I were pretending to be a
+'know-it-all'! There are plenty of things I don't know about American
+history. For instance I know very little about William Penn, except that
+he was a Quaker."
+
+"Well then," said Roger, "allow me to inform you, beloved sister, that
+William Penn was an Oxford man and a preacher in the Society of Friends.
+He seems to have had some pull because the powers gave him a grant of
+Pennsylvania (that means Penn's Woods), in 1680. He went to America two
+years later and founded this minute little town which we are
+approaching."
+
+"Those old Englishmen on the other side certainly had a calm way of
+giving out grants of land without saying anything about it to the
+Indians, didn't they?" said Margaret.
+
+"Penn got along much better with the Indians than many of the heads of
+the colonies. He made a treaty with them, which is said to have been very
+remarkable in two ways; in the first place he wouldn't swear to keep it
+because he was a Quaker, and Quakers won't take an oath; and in the next
+place, he _did_ keep it, which was quite an event in colonial circles!"
+
+"He must have been a good chap," commented Tom.
+
+"You're going to see a statue of him as soon as you get off the train,"
+interposed Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Where is it?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"On top of the City Hall. It's the first thing you see when you come out
+of the railroad station. In fact you're so close to the Public Buildings,
+as they're called, that I doubt if you can see the top at all until you
+get farther away from them."
+
+"The statue must be enormous if it's up so high," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"I've been told it was thirty-seven feet high," returned Mrs. Morton,
+"and that the rim of the old gentleman's hat was so wide that a person
+could walk on it comfortably."
+
+"Wouldn't it be fun to do our back step on the edge of his hat!"
+exclaimed Ethel Blue to Ethel Brown, as they looked out the cab which was
+taking them to the hotel, and saw the figure of the benevolent Quaker
+black against the sky some five hundred feet above the ground.
+
+The hotel wherein Mrs. Morton established her flock was "in the heart of
+conservative Philadelphia." Immediately after luncheon they packed
+themselves into a large touring car and began their historical
+explorations.
+
+"If we do things according to time, we ought to go first to all of the
+places that have to do with William Penn," said Helen.
+
+"I'm afraid that might make us jump around the city a little," said Mrs.
+Morton, "because if I am not mistaken, the house that William Penn gave
+to his daughter Letitia, is out in Fairmount Park, and the one belonging
+to his grandson is in the Zoo. We'll see them before we go home, but now
+we had better give our attention to the things that are here in the city.
+To begin with we can go to the little park on whose site William Penn
+made his famous treaty with the Indians. It takes us somewhat out of our
+way, but I know Helen's orderly mind will like to begin there."
+
+Helen smiled at her mother's understanding of her, and the car sped
+northwards along the river front, now given over to business and
+tenements. At the Treaty Park they looked about them with their
+imaginations rather than with their eyes, for there was little of
+interest before them, while the Past held a vision of the elm tree under
+which the group of broad-hatted Friends discussed terms with the
+copper-colored natives. Lieutenant Morton's children were interested in
+seeing not far away the ship building yards where many an American
+battleship had slipped from the ways to pursue her peaceful course upon
+the ocean.
+
+Returning as they had come, they passed on Second Street the site of a
+house in which the Great Settler had lived, and promised themselves to
+remember that in Independence Hall they were to look for a piece of the
+Treaty Tree.
+
+"Everything that isn't called 'Penn' in this town seems to be called
+'Franklin,'" said Ethel Blue, after reading many of the signs on the
+buildings.
+
+"That's because the great Benjamin lived here for most of his life," said
+James, by way of explanation. "He was born in Boston, but he soon
+deserted those cold regions for a warmer clime, and made a name for
+himself here."
+
+"I should say he left it behind him," commented Ethel Blue again as she
+read another sign, this time of a "Penn Laundry."
+
+"Penn and Franklin are the two great men of old Philadelphia, without any
+doubt," said Mrs. Morton, as the machine stopped before Carpenters' Hall.
+
+"Help! Help!" cried Tom. "I blush to state that I don't know Carpenters'
+Hall from a ham sandwich."
+
+Helen looked at him with horror on her face.
+
+"Stand right here before we set foot inside and let me tell you that I am
+perfectly shocked that any American boy, old enough to have graduated
+from high school and to be going to Yale in a few weeks, should make such
+a statement as that!"
+
+She was genuinely troubled about it and Tom flushed as he saw that she
+really was scornful of his ignorance.
+
+"Now, next," she said, "do you know what the Boston Tea Party was?"
+
+Tom meekly said that he remembered that in December, 1773, a number of
+Boston men disguised as Indians had thrown overboard from a ship in the
+harbor, boxes of tea on which they refused to pay the British duty.
+
+Helen nodded approvingly.
+
+"I'm glad you remember that much," she said tartly. "After that Tea Party
+there was a continual and rapid growth of dislike for the Old Country,
+which was trying to tax the colonists, without allowing them any
+representation in the Parliament which was governing them. The feeling
+grew so strong that a Continental Congress, made up of delegates from the
+thirteen original Colonies, was called to meet here in Philadelphia, in
+September, 1774. It met here at Carpenters' Hall," she concluded
+triumphantly.
+
+Tom glanced up at the Hall with an entirely new interest.
+
+"In this same old building?" he asked.
+
+"In this very identical place," said Helen, and then she allowed the
+procession to enter the building.
+
+"September 17, 1774," repeated Ethel Brown thoughtfully. "Why, that was
+the autumn before the battles of Concord and Lexington."
+
+"Yes, the Revolution had not yet begun. The Continental Congress met to
+talk over the situation, and here are the very chairs the members used."
+
+Ethel Blue touched one of them with the tips of her fingers.
+
+"I'm glad I've touched anything as interesting as this," she said.
+
+"Look at the inscription," said James, calling their attention to the
+lettering. "WITHIN THESE WALLS HENRY, HANCOCK AND ADAMS INSPIRED THE
+DELEGATES OF THE COLONIES WITH NERVE AND SINEW FOR THE TOILS OF WAR!"
+
+"John Hancock was my great-great-grandfather's brother," said James
+proudly.
+
+"Good for you, old chap," exclaimed Roger, thumping him on the back,
+while Helen beamed at Margaret.
+
+"How long did these Congressmen chat here?" meekly asked Tom of Helen.
+
+"After about a month they agreed on what they called a Declaration of
+Rights, and they sent it over to Franklin, who was in England, and asked
+him to present it to the House of Commons."
+
+"In the light of after events I suppose the House of Commons didn't take
+a look at it," said Roger.
+
+"They certainly did not," replied Helen, "and the battles of Lexington
+and Concord were the result. You remember they were fought in April of
+1775. Ticonderoga was captured in May of the same year and the battle of
+Bunker Hill was fought in June."
+
+"And Congress kept on sitting while all this fighting was going on?"
+
+"Yes; the men discussed each new move as it was made. Early in June one
+of the members made a motion before the Congress that 'these Colonies
+ought to be Independent.'"
+
+"That idea seems simple enough to us now," said Tom, "but I dare say it
+was startling when a mere colonist proposed to break off with the mother
+country."
+
+"It seems to me it's about time for Grandfather Emerson to have some
+poetry on this period of history," said Ethel Brown. "If he were here,
+I'm sure he would never have let this Congress sit for eight or nine
+months without discovering something in poetry about it."
+
+Helen laughed.
+
+"You certainly understand Grandfather," she said. "In just about a
+minute, while we're going over to Independence Hall, I'm going to read
+you some verses that belong right in here. On the first of July they
+began to debate about this proposal that the colonists should be
+independent. It was a mighty important matter, of course, because if they
+adopted it, it certainly meant war, and if they did not beat in the war,
+it might mean a worse state of affairs than they were in at the present
+moment. So there was much to be said on both sides and it looked as if
+the vote was going to be very close. Here's where Rodney the delegate did
+some hard riding," and Helen took out one of the type-written sheets,
+which her grandfather had given her.
+
+"What Colony did he represent?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"Rodney was from Delaware," she returned, "Now listen, while I read you
+this poem."
+
+
+                             "RODNEY'S RIDE
+
+    "In that soft mid-land where the breezes bear
+    The North and South on the genial air,
+    Through the county of Kent, on affairs of state,
+    Rode Caesar Rodney, the delegate.
+
+    "Burly and big and bold and bluff,
+    In his three-cornered hat and coat of snuff,
+    A foe to King George and the English State,
+    Was Caesar Rodney, the delegate.
+
+    "Into Dover village he rode apace,
+    And his kinsfolk knew, from his anxious face,
+    It was matter grave that brought him there,
+    To the counties three on the Delaware.
+
+    "'Money and men we must have'm,' he said,
+    'Or the Congress fails and the cause is dead:
+    Give us both and the King shall not work his will.
+    We are men, since the blood of Bunker Hill!'
+
+    "Comes a rider swift on a panting bay:
+    'Ho, Rodney, ho, you must save the day,
+    For the Congress halts at a deed so great,
+    And your vote alone may decide its fate.'
+
+    "Answered Rodney then: 'I will ride with speed;
+    It is Liberty's stress; it is Freedom's need.
+    When stands it?' 'To-night. Not a moment to spare,
+    But ride like the wind from the Delaware.'
+
+    "'Ho, saddle the black! I've but half a day,
+    And the Congress sits eighty miles away--
+    But I'll be in time, if God grants me grace,
+    To shake my fist in King George's face.'
+
+    "He is up: he is off! and the black horse flies
+    On the northward road ere the 'God-speed' dies;
+    It is a gallop and spur as the leagues they clear,
+    And the clustering mile-stones move a-rear.
+
+    "It is two of the clock! and the fleet hoofs fling
+    The Fieldboro's dust with a clang and a cling;
+    It is three; and he gallops with slack rein where
+    The road winds down to the Delaware.
+
+    "Four; and he spurs into New Castle town,
+    From his panting steed he gets trim down--
+    'A fresh one, quick! not a moment's wait!'
+    And off speeds Rodney the delegate.
+
+    "It is five; and the beams of the western sun
+    Tinge the spires of Wilmington gold and dun;
+    Six; and the dust of Chester Street
+    Flies back in a cloud from the courser's feet.
+
+    "It is seven; the horse-boat, broad of beam,
+    At the Schuylkill ferry crawls over the stream--
+    And at seven-fifteen by the Rittenhouse clock,
+    He flings his reins to the tavern jock.
+
+    "The Congress is met; the debate's begun,
+    And Liberty lags for the vote of one--
+    When into the hall, not a moment late,
+    Walks Caesar Rodney, the delegate.
+
+    "Not a moment late! and that half day's ride
+    Forwards the world with a mighty stride;
+    For the act was passed ere the midnight stroke
+    O'er the Quaker City its echoes woke.
+
+    "At Tyranny's feet was the gauntlet flung;
+    'We are free!' all the bells through the colonies rung,
+    And the sons of the free may recall with pride
+    The day of Delegate Rodney's ride."
+
+"Pretty stirring, isn't it! I take it that the Continental Congress had
+moved over to Independence Hall by this time," said Tom, when the reading
+was done.
+
+"Yes, they were over here, sitting in the East Room, when they passed the
+Declaration of Independence."
+
+An attendant seeing the interested faces of the young people, took them
+about the room and explained the relics to them.
+
+"This," he said, "is the very furniture that was in the room at the time
+of the signing of the Declaration. Right on this very table the Document
+received the signature of the President of the Congress--"
+
+"John Hancock," murmured Helen to James in an undertone.
+
+"--and the rest of them," continued the guide.
+
+"Is the original document here?" asked James, who was thrilling with
+interest, but who preserved the calmness which he inherited from his
+Scottish ancestors.
+
+"No," answered the caretaker. "That is kept at Washington in the Library
+of the State Department, but there is an exact copy of it over there on
+the wall."
+
+Going upstairs, the party remembered to look up the piece of the elm
+tree, under which Penn had signed his Treaty with the Indians, and they
+saw in addition the original Charter of Philadelphia, bearing the date
+1701.
+
+In another room they found some furniture belonging to Washington and
+Penn and various portraits of more historic than artistic interest. They
+enjoyed more seeing some of the boards of the original floor. These were
+carefully kept under glass, as if they were great treasures.
+
+"Now we're going to see the most sacred relic in America, next to the
+Declaration itself," said Helen, leading the way down the staircase at
+whose foot was the famous Liberty Bell, which had rung out its message of
+joy on July 4, 1775, when the delegates passed the Declaration and the
+people of Philadelphia knew that war was before them, and yet were glad
+to meet whatever might be the outcome of the defiance.
+
+They gathered in silence around the bell and read its
+description:--"PROCLAIM LIBERTY TO ALL THE LAND AND TO ALL THE
+INHABITANTS THEREOF." They noticed the crack which ran through it, and
+felt that they were looking upon a real veteran of that far-away time.
+
+"Grandfather told me not to forget to tell you about the little boy who
+gave the signal to the bell-ringer," Helen said. "He was stationed where
+he could see the door-keeper of the room in which the delegates were
+sitting. When the final vote was taken, the door-keeper gave the signal
+to the boy and he ran out, shouting the cry that resounded through the
+colonies, 'Ring! Ring! Ring!'"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+                      HELEN DISTINGUISHES HERSELF
+
+
+"Come out into the Park for a few minutes," said Mrs. Morton. "I'm
+perfectly sure Helen has some poetry to read to us before very long, and
+if we can sit down for a minute or two on the benches, we can hear it at
+our convenience."
+
+"The fire of discontent had been smouldering for a long time," said
+Helen, beginning her lecture promptly when they were seated, "and just as
+soon as the Declaration was passed the flames burst out. There was
+fighting all over the colonies from South Carolina to New York City.
+Washington was made Commander-in-Chief of the little Army there, but he
+was quite unable to defeat the large force which the British sent. He
+retreated across New Jersey, and in December of 1776--"
+
+"About a year and a half later," interposed Ethel Brown.
+
+Helen nodded and continued: "he reached the Delaware River. The British
+followed him on the other bank of the river, with the centre of the army
+at Trenton, New Jersey. On Christmas Night of 1776, the future of the
+Colonies looked about as dark as the night itself, but here is what
+happened, told in some of the rhymes that Grandfather found for us." And
+Helen read Virginia Woodward Cloud's poem, called the "Ballad of Sweet
+P."
+
+"She was a spirited girl," said James gravely.
+
+"She was too nice a girl to be a deceiving girl," said Ethel Blue, and a
+vigorous discussion as to how much deception was fair in war time would
+have broken out if Helen had not continued her account of the Revolution
+around Philadelphia.
+
+"At day-break on the 26th of December, Washington entered Trenton and
+surprised the enemy," Helen ended.
+
+"It was in the battle of Trenton and in the battle of Princeton about a
+week later, that our Emerson great-great-great-grandfather fought, wasn't
+it?" said Roger, recalling the account which his grandfather had read to
+the Mortons several times from the old family Bible.
+
+"Yes, don't you remember how he fought against his daughter's English
+lover?"
+
+"We must ask the chauffeur where the Betsy Ross house is," said Mrs.
+Morton, rising and leading the way to the car.
+
+The man knew and set off at once through the few narrow streets, and
+before long they were standing in front of the old-fashioned dwelling.
+
+"Who is the lady?" murmured Tom in an undertone to Ethel Brown,
+pretending to be afraid that Helen would hear him but really speaking
+loudly enough to draw her attention.
+
+"Tom Watkins, you're perfectly dreadful," Helen exclaimed promptly. "Do
+you really mean that you don't know who Betsy Ross was?"
+
+This direct question was too much for Tom's truthfulness and he broke
+into a laugh.
+
+"I don't know that I should have known if I hadn't read the other day a
+tale about a play that some urchins wrote for the stage at Hull House in
+Chicago."
+
+"Did Jane Addams tell the story?"
+
+"She did, so it must be true. It was entirely original with some
+immigrant boys who had been studying American history. It went something
+like this:--in the first act some American Revolutionary soldiers are
+talking together and one of them says, 'Gee, ain't it fierce! We ain't
+got no flag.' The others agreed that it was fierce. In the next act a
+delegation of soldiers approached General Washington. They saluted, and
+then said to him, 'General, we ain't got no flag. Gee, ain't it fierce?'"
+
+Tom's story was received with many giggles.
+
+"What did Washington say?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"Washington agreed that it was fierce, and said that he'd do something
+about it, so the next act shows him at the house of Betsy Ross. He said
+to her, 'Mrs. Ross, we ain't got no flag. Ain't it fierce? What shall we
+do about it?'"
+
+"They didn't have a very large vocabulary," laughed Margaret.
+
+"But the American spirit was there," insisted Mrs. Morton.
+
+"What did Betsy say," inquired Ethel Brown.
+
+"Mrs. Ross said, 'It _is_ fierce. You hold the baby, George, and I'll
+make you something right off.'"
+
+"Isn't that perfectly delicious!" gurgled Dorothy.
+
+"And that last realistic scene took place in this little house!" said
+Mrs. Morton, shaking with mirth. "It belongs to the city now, so Betsy's
+patriotism and industry are remembered by many visitors."
+
+"Here's Grandfather's contribution to this moment," smiled Helen as she
+brought out still another of her type-written sheets, and read some lines
+by Minna Irving.
+
+
+                          "BETSY'S BATTLE FLAG
+
+    "From dusk till dawn the livelong night
+    She kept the tallow dips alight,
+    And fast her nimble fingers flew
+    To sew the stars upon the blue.
+    With weary eyes and aching head
+    She stitched the stripes of white and red,
+    And when the day came up the stair
+    Complete across a carven chair
+      Hung Betsy's battle flag.
+
+    "Like the shadows in the evening gray
+    The Continentals filed away,
+    With broken boots and ragged coats,
+    But hoarse defiance in their throats;
+    They bore the marks of want and cold,
+    And some were lame and some were old,
+    And some with wounds untended bled,
+    But floating bravely overhead
+      Was Betsy's battle flag.
+
+    "When fell the battle's leaden rain,
+    The soldier hushed his moan of pain
+    And raised his dying head to see
+    King George's troopers turn and flee.
+    Their charging column reeled and broke,
+    And vanished in the rolling smoke,
+    Before the glory of the stars,
+    The snowy stripes, and scarlet bars
+      Of Betsy's battle flag.
+
+    "The simple stone of Betsy Ross
+    Is covered now with mold and moss,
+    But still her deathless banner flies,
+    And keeps the color of the skies,
+    A nation thrills, a nation bleeds,
+    A nation follows where it leads,
+    And every man is proud to yield
+    His life upon a crimson field
+      For Betsy's battle flag."
+
+"When was it that Washington made his historic visit to Betsy?" asked
+Roger of Helen.
+
+"That was in June of 1776. A year later, on the fourteenth of June, 1777,
+Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as our flag."
+
+"That's why June 14th is celebrated as Flag Day, I suppose," said Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"I think our flag has more meaning to it than any other flag in the
+world," declared Roger. "The thirteen stripes mean the thirteen original
+colonies, don't they?"
+
+"There were thirteen stars at the beginning. They've added a star for
+every new state that has joined the Union."
+
+"It certainly does make your heart beat to look at it, especially when
+you happen to come on it suddenly as Miss Bates said in those verses of
+hers that we had in our Peace Day Program on Lincoln's Birthday."
+
+"A Russian sea-captain once told me it looked to him like a mosaic," Mrs.
+Morton said.
+
+"But every piece of the mosaic is full of meaning," said Ethel Blue, "and
+mosaics make beautiful pictures any way."
+
+"There was a sad time ahead for Philadelphia in spite of Washington's
+successes at Trenton and Princeton," said Helen, taking up her story once
+more. "The Americans were successful in Vermont and northern New York,
+but in September, 1777, they were defeated at Brandywine Creek, and the
+British marched into Philadelphia a fortnight later and took possession
+of the town."
+
+"Wasn't it about that time that the American army spent the winter at
+Valley Forge?" asked Margaret. "I seem to remember something about their
+living in a great deal of distress, such as the soldiers in Europe are
+enduring now."
+
+"This was the time," confirmed Helen. "Grandfather has a few lines of
+Reed's here telling about it."
+
+    "Such was the winter's awful sight,
+    For many a dreary day and night,
+    What time our country's hope forlorn,
+    Of every needed comfort shorn,
+    Lay housed within a buried tent,
+    Where every keen blast found a rent,
+    And oft the snow was seen to sift
+    Along the floor its piling drift,
+    Or, mocking the scant blanket's fold,
+    Across the night-couch frequent rolled;
+    Where every path by a soldier beat,
+    Or every track where a sentinel stood,
+    Still held the print of naked feet,
+    And oft the crimson stains of blood;
+    Where Famine held her spectral court,
+    And joined by all her fierce allies;
+    She ever loved a camp or fort
+    Beleaguered by the wintry skies,--
+    But chiefly when Disease is by,
+    To sink frame and dim the eye,
+    Until, with seeking forehead bent,
+    In martial garments cold and damp,
+    Pale Death patrols from tent to tent,
+    To count the charnels of the camp.
+
+    Such was the winter that prevailed
+    Within the crowded, frozen gorge;
+    Such were the horrors that assailed
+    The patriot band at Valley Forge."
+
+"How long did the British hold the city?" asked Tom, after he had shaken
+his head over the Americans' troubles.
+
+"Six or eight months," said Helen, "and you can imagine what a thrilling
+time it was for American girls like Sweet P. I can fancy them walking
+daintily along the street turning their heads aside when a British
+officer passed them, as if he were too far beneath their notice for them
+even to glance at."
+
+They all laughed at the picture that Helen's words drew.
+
+"When Sir Henry Clinton evacuated Philadelphia in the middle of June, he
+started for New York. Washington followed him but did not win in the
+skirmish which they fought at Monmouth, New Jersey. The Indians on the
+western frontier had joined the British, and there was some terrible
+fighting there. Our fleet, as a general thing, was successful on the
+ocean. Clinton stayed for more than a year in New York City. Washington
+established himself just above the city where he could keep an eye on
+him."
+
+"Wasn't that the time when my old friend, Anthony Wayne, stirred up a
+little excitement up the Hudson?" asked Roger.
+
+"Yes, it was then he took Stony Point, which we saw when we went up the
+river to West Point. There was fighting in New Jersey and in the South,
+and the British seemed to be getting tired out."
+
+"It was at the end of several sharply fought fields that Cornwallis
+surrendered at Yorktown in Virginia, wasn't it?" inquired Roger.
+
+Tom looked at him with exaggerated respect.
+
+"It certainly is a great thing to be related to the Army and Navy. Here's
+Helen, a walking 'History of the Revolution,' and old Roger actually
+remembering something about Cornwallis's surrender!"
+
+"Bah!" acknowledged Roger.
+
+"They tell a story about the way that Philadelphia heard the news of the
+surrender," interposed the caretaker of the Betsy Ross house, who had
+been listening to the conversation. "There was an old German watchman
+walking the streets, and calling the hours through the night, as was the
+custom then. He cried out; 'Bast dree o'clock and Cornvallis ist daken.'
+People who had turned over in bed growling when they had been awakened by
+him before, were only too thankful to hear his hoarse voice croaking out
+the good news."
+
+"That was in October, 1781," went on Helen, after nodding her thanks to
+the caretaker for his addition to the story. "It took a good many months
+for the British to leave the country, for transportation was a difficult
+matter at that time."
+
+"I'll bet you the Americans were thankful to have peace," exclaimed
+James.
+
+"It sounds to me very much as if the British were, too," said Roger. "Any
+country must be grateful for a rest from such long distress."
+
+"Grandfather's poetry is by Freneau this time," said Helen. "I'm going to
+read you only two stanzas of it."
+
+    "The great unequal conflict past,
+    The Britons banished from our shore,
+    Peace, heaven-descended, comes at last,
+    And hostile nations rage no more;
+    From fields of death the weary swain
+    Returning, seeks his native plain.
+
+    In every vale she smiles serene,
+    Freedom's bright stars more radiant rise,
+    New charms she adds to every scene,
+    Her brighter sun illumes our skies.
+    Remotest realms admiring stand,
+    And hail the HERO of our Land."
+
+"Who is the Hero?" inquired Tom. "Washington, I suppose."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Helen. "These verses were written when he was
+traveling through Philadelphia on his way to Mt. Vernon."
+
+"I know enough American history to tell you that he didn't stay there
+long," said Tom, proud of being able to bring forward one sure piece of
+information. "He was made President on his war record. That I do know."
+
+They all applauded this contribution. The care-taker of the house again
+could not resist joining the conversation.
+
+"The five years after the signing of the Treaty of Peace in 1783 were
+very critical years," he said. "The new country had almost no money and
+no definite policy, now that they had cut themselves free from England.
+Somebody proposed a Federal Convention and it met here in Philadelphia in
+1787."
+
+"What did they want to do this time?" asked Margaret.
+
+"Now they had to draw up some sort of Constitution for the new country.
+Washington was chosen President of the Convention and they worked from
+May until September in planning the Constitution, which they nick-named
+the 'New Roof.'"
+
+"Yes, I know about that," cried Helen. "Grandfather gave me a poem about
+that. He thought we'd be especially interested in it on account of
+Dorothy knowing so much about the building of a house,"--and she read
+them the old poem called 'The New Roof,' by Francis Hopkinson, one of the
+signers of the Declaration of Independence.
+
+    Come muster, my lads, your mechanical tools,
+    Your saws and your axes, your hammers and rules;
+    Bring your mallets and planes, your level and line,
+    And plenty of pins of American pine:
+    _For our roof we will raise, and our song still shall be,_
+    _Our government firm, and our citizens free._
+
+    Come, up with _the plates_, lay them firm on the wall,
+    Like the people at large, they're the ground-work of all;
+    Examine them well, and see that they're sound,
+    Let no rotten part in our building be found:
+    _For our roof we will raise, and our song still shall be_
+    _A government firm, and our citizens free._
+
+    Now hand up the _girders_, lay each in its place,
+    Between them the _joists_, must divide all the space;
+    Like assemblymen _these_ should lie level along,
+    Like _girders_, our senate prove loyal and strong:
+    _For our roof we will raise, and our song still shall be_
+    _A government firm over citizens free._
+
+    The rafters now frame; your _king-posts_ and _braces_,
+    And drive your pins home, to keep all in their places;
+    Let wisdom and strength in the fabric combine,
+    And your pins be all made of American pine:
+    _For our roof we will raise, and our song still shall be_
+    _A government firm over citizens free._
+
+    Our _king-posts_ are _judges_: how upright they stand,
+    Supporting the _braces_; the laws of the land:
+    The laws of the land, which divide right from wrong,
+    And strengthen the weak, by weak'ning the strong:
+    _For our roof we will raise, and our song still shall be_
+    _Laws equal and just, for a people that's free._
+
+    Up! up with the _rafters_; each frame is a _state_:
+    How nobly they rise! their span, too, how great!
+    From the north to the south, o'er the whole they extend,
+    And rest on the walls, whilst the walls they defend:
+    _For our roof we will raise, and our song still shall be_
+    _Combine in strength, yet as citizens free._
+
+    Now enter the _purlins_, and drive your pins through;
+    And see that your joints are drawn home and all true.
+    The _purlins_ will bind all the rafters together:
+    The strength of the whole shall defy wind and weather:
+    _For our roof we will raise, and our song still shall be_
+    _United as states, but as citizens free._
+
+    Come, raise up the _turret_; our glory and pride;
+    In the center it stands, o'er the whole to _preside_:
+    The sons of Columbia shall view with delight
+    Its pillars, and arches, and towering height:
+    _Our roof is now rais'd, and our song still shall be,_
+    _A federal head o'er a people that's free._
+
+    Huzza! my brave boys, our work is complete;
+    The world shall admire Columbia's fair seat;
+    Its strength against tempest and time shall be proof,
+    And thousands shall come to dwell under our roof:
+    _Whilst we drain the deep bowl, our toast still shall be,_
+    _Our government firm, and our citizens free._
+
+"Now that we have put the United States on a good running foundation, I
+think we might finish up our Revolutionary history by whirling out to
+Valley Forge," said Mrs. Morton. "It's a delightful ride, and I think we
+could do it comfortably in what is left of the afternoon."
+
+"I shall be glad," said Helen, pretending extreme fatigue, "for these
+ignorant people have made me work so hard remembering dates and things,
+that I'm quite exhausted, and I'd like to sit still and view the scenery
+for a while."
+
+The chauffeur said that he could manage the ride and even give them time
+for a walk when they reached their destination, if they were not in a
+hurry to return.
+
+"I think it would be fun to come back in the evening," said Margaret, and
+they started off with great satisfaction.
+
+As they passed Fairmount Park they promised themselves to see it in
+detail in the morning, but now there was only time to notice that much of
+it had been left in a natural condition, which was far more beautiful
+than any results that Art could have brought about.
+
+The road lay through a rolling country with pleasant suburban towns and
+comfortable-looking farm houses. At Valley Forge they felt like real
+pilgrims at a shrine, for they remembered the bitter suffering of the
+American soldiers and the even greater mental anguish of their leader,
+who sometimes felt that he had led his brave men into this distress, and
+might not be able to lead them to the victory which he must have, if the
+colonies were to become independent of the land they had sprung from.
+
+Across the surrounding hills they walked, reading with utmost interest
+the monuments and markers which commemorate events and places and people
+connected with this fateful winter. Below swept the Schuylkill River,
+between peaceful banks, far different from those that hem it in farther
+down, as it runs through the great city.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+                   THE LAND OF "CAT-FISH AND WAFFLES"
+
+
+It was a tired party that tumbled into bed that night but the long ride
+in the fresh air made them sleep like tops and they awoke the next
+morning entirely refreshed, and ready to start out again on their
+investigations of the City of Brotherly Love.
+
+"To-day I am not going to open my mouth," said Helen. "I talked
+altogether too much yesterday."
+
+"You were a wonder," said Tom, admiringly. "I wish I could remember dates
+the way you do."
+
+"Hush," said Helen, with a finger on her lip. "My energetic grandfather
+blocked out the whole history of Philadelphia in the revolutionary days
+for me, so it was not my unaided memory that reeled off all that
+information. Any way, I'm going to sit back and have the rest of you
+inform me to-day about the places we shall see."
+
+"What are we going to see?" inquired Roger. "Mother, you know this
+village; can't you make out a list for us?"
+
+Mrs. Morton said that she had some suggestions to make and Roger jotted
+them down in a book.
+
+"There are one or two churches," she said, "which have an interest
+because they are old, or have connection with some important person or
+because there is some strangeness about the way they are built."
+
+"I shall like those," said Ethel Blue. "I'm going to try to draw some of
+the doorways for Miss Graham. She asked me to draw any little thing about
+buildings that I thought would interest her."
+
+"You'll see some old-timey doorways in Rittenhouse Square," said Mrs.
+Morton. "That is like Washington Square in New York, only here the whole
+square has been preserved in its former beauty. You'll find more than one
+doorway, and which will be worth putting into your sketch book."
+
+"Would it take too much time to see the Mint?" asked James. "I shouldn't
+want to suggest it if it will take too long, but it would be awfully
+interesting."
+
+"I had the Mint on my list," said Mrs. Morton, tapping her forehead.
+
+"I'll transfer it from that spot to paper," laughed Roger.
+
+"I hope we can get the same chauffeur we had yesterday," said Ethel
+Brown; "he knew a lot about things."
+
+"I suppose he's accustomed to driving tourists," replied her mother.
+
+As good fortune would have it they were able to secure the same car, and
+the good-natured driver beamed at them, as they stowed themselves away as
+they had the day before. Mrs. Morton told him the chief "sights" which
+they wanted to see, and directed him to point out anything that they
+passed which would have some interest for the young people.
+
+First they went over to the old part of the town along the Delaware, to
+find one of the churches of which Mrs. Morton had spoken. On the way they
+stopped at Christ Church. Its high box pews seemed to them full of
+dignity, and they imagined the elaborately arranged head-dresses of the
+ladies and powdered wigs of the gentlemen, rising above the old-fashioned
+seats. The pulpit was high up on one side of the chancel.
+
+"This is the church that was presided over by Bishop White, the first
+Episcopal bishop of Pennsylvania," said Mrs. Morton. "He was influential
+in organizing the Episcopal Church in this country."
+
+Out in the graveyard, whose quiet seemed strangely out of place amid the
+hurry of the city, they found many stones bearing well-known names, among
+them that of Benjamin Franklin.
+
+"He died in 1790," read Delia, from the stone. "Wasn't that just about
+the time Washington was elected President?"
+
+"One year after," said Helen, who could not resist giving historical
+information. "The first real American Congress after the separation of
+the country from England met here in Philadelphia in 1789, and elected
+Washington as President."
+
+"You can't escape a little history as long as Sister Helen is around,"
+murmured Roger.
+
+"It wasn't I who started it," retorted Helen.
+
+"Now, children, be quiet. You may thank your stars that your sister knows
+so much about history," said Mrs. Morton; "it would be an excellent
+thing, Roger, if you stowed away some of it in your brain, too."
+
+"Yes'm," answered Roger meekly.
+
+It was while the car was on its way to the second old church of their
+search that the chauffeur asked James, who was sitting beside him, if he
+knew that "Hail Columbia" was written in Philadelphia.
+
+"I certainly didn't," said James. "Helen, did you know that 'Hail
+Columbia' was written in Philadelphia?"
+
+"No, I didn't know that," said Helen. "Tell me about it."
+
+With his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel the chauffeur told
+James, who repeated the story over his shoulder to those in the back of
+the car, that while John Adams was president, there was a war scare,
+because French vessels were supposed to be off the coast ready to attack
+American merchant vessels. A man named John Hopkinson wrote the poem,
+which was sung one night at the Chestnut Street Theatre.
+
+"You mean our 'Hail Columbia'--the regular 'Hail Columbia'?" asked Ethel
+Brown.
+
+The chauffeur nodded at Ethel Brown. Her memory for verses was always
+good and she repeated the first stanza of the stirring song.
+
+    "Hail Columbia, happy land!
+    Hail! Ye Heroes, heaven-born band,
+    Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
+    Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
+    And when the storm of war was gone,
+    Enjoyed the peace your valor won;
+    Let independence be your boast,
+    Ever mindful what it cost,
+    Ever grateful for the prize,
+    Let its altar reach the skies."
+
+They all joined in the chorus.
+
+    "Firm united let us be,
+    Rallying round our liberty,
+    As a band of brothers joined,
+    Peace and safety we shall find."
+
+Almost on the river, toward the southern end of the town, was the church
+which the chauffeur called "Old Swedes Church," and whose correct name,
+Mrs. Morton said, was "Gloria Dei."
+
+"How old is it?" asked Dicky who was beginning to understand that they
+were on a historical pilgrimage. They all laughed at his seriousness, and
+his mother answered.
+
+"This building is only a little over two centuries old--but it's on the
+site of an old wooden church that was built in 1646. It was a Swedish
+church, originally, and then the whole congregation turned Episcopal."
+
+"It doesn't look as if they lived around the church in any great
+numbers," said Tom, gazing about him.
+
+"Most of the parishioners live now a long way from here," said the
+chauffeur, "but they love the church because they are the descendants of
+the original founders, and they come from great distances to the morning
+services and stay to Sunday School, old people and young ones, too, and
+cook their dinner in the Parish House."
+
+"That sounds like a New England village church to which all the farmers
+from around about come for the day," said Margaret Hancock. "I used to
+see them when I was a little girl and we went to New Hampshire for the
+summer. They bring their lunch and eat it under the trees between
+services."
+
+"Since we seem to be doing churches, we ought to go to a Quaker Meeting
+House," suggested Mrs. Morton, turning to the chauffeur for information.
+
+"There is one up on 12th Street, madam," he responded. "There's a boys'
+school connected with it that is very well known--the Penn Charter
+School. Lots of the old Quaker families send their boys there still."
+
+"I don't suppose there would be a meeting to-day," inquired Helen.
+
+The chauffeur shook his head.
+
+"You wouldn't like it, any way," he said. "I'm a Quaker myself, and I
+know when I was your age it was awfully hard work to keep still so long."
+
+"Is it worse than any other kind of church?" asked Dicky.
+
+The driver nodded again, dexterously avoiding a big truck as he answered.
+
+"The congregation just sits there until the Spirit moves someone to
+speak. I've been there many a time when they sat for two hours and
+nothing happened at all."
+
+"Dear me," exclaimed Ethel Blue, shaking her head gravely; "I don't
+believe I could keep still as long as that."
+
+"I dare say it's just as well that there is no meeting to-day," said Mrs.
+Morton. "Any way, I don't know that I should approve of your going to a
+religious service out of curiosity."
+
+Tom nodded in agreement with Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I'm sure Father wouldn't like it," he said.
+
+Tom's father was a clergyman in New York.
+
+"He doesn't object to our going to other churches," he went on, "but he
+has seen so much of tourists who come to New York and go around the city,
+taking in three or four churches on Sunday morning merely to hear the
+music or some celebrated speaker, that he has always warned us children
+against being 'religious rubber-necks.'"
+
+They all laughed and contented themselves with looking at the outside of
+the severely plain meeting-house.
+
+The tour over the Mint was filled with interest for all of them.
+
+"This is the oldest Mint in the United States," the guide explained to
+them.
+
+"What's the date?" Helen could not resist asking, although Roger shook
+his head at her and Tom visibly smothered a smile.
+
+"1792" the man replied. "We turn out gold and silver and copper here and
+we've done a great deal of minting for South America, and, of late years,
+for the Philippines."
+
+The boys were most interested in the processes by which the discs were
+cut out of plain sheets of metal and were then fed into tubes of just the
+right size to hold them, until they reached the stamping machine which
+gave them the impress they were to wear through life.
+
+"Those new gold pieces are certainly beauties," said Roger, looking at
+the eagle flying through the air on one coin and then at the same
+majestic bird standing with dignity on another.
+
+"I don't think this Indian has a very handsome nose," said Ethel Blue,
+critically, as she examined a five-cent piece.
+
+"But think how appropriate it is,--the noble red-man on one side of the
+nickel, and the buffalo of the plains on the other," returned James.
+
+The girls were more interested in the coin collection in the Mint's
+museum. Here they saw not only American coins, from the earliest to the
+most recent, but coins of other countries. One of them was the tiny bit
+of metal known as the "Widow's Mite."
+
+"The Widow didn't have to be very muscular to carry that around,"
+commented Roger.
+
+"But she must have had a separate bag to put it in or it would have been
+lost," returned practical Ethel Brown.
+
+"There's nothing doing in the Academy of Fine Arts now, ma'am," the
+chauffeur told Mrs. Morton, when she got into the car again. "It has a
+grand exhibition every winter but it's closed for the summer. Would you
+like to see the collections?"
+
+The question was put to the party and they agreed that they would prefer
+to stay out of doors in this brilliant summer weather.
+
+"We'll make an expedition to the Metropolitan Museum some day before
+long," promised Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I wish we might do it soon," said Dorothy. "Miss Graham said she'd go
+with us, and I think we should learn a lot from her because she's half an
+artist."
+
+"Let's ask her to take us as soon as we get back," said Ethel Blue. "I'm
+crazy about her, and this would be a good chance for us to be with her
+for almost all day."
+
+"I'll see that you have your opportunity soon," her Aunt Marion promised
+her.
+
+"We have time to run out to Mt. Airy this morning," suggested the
+chauffeur. "Then after luncheon, you could go to the Park and the Zoo in
+the afternoon."
+
+"What is Mt. Airy?" asked Della.
+
+"One of the finest deaf and dumb asylums in America," replied the young
+man proudly.
+
+Della shook her head and the rest of them pulled such long faces Mrs.
+Morton could not resist smiling.
+
+"I rather think these young people care more for human beings who can
+talk and hear," she said to the chauffeur. "At any rate," she went on,
+looking at her watch, "I must meet my business appointment now, so I
+suggest, Roger, that you take our party to Wanamaker's. You can see a lot
+of interesting things there, and can have your luncheon, and I'll meet
+you there when I am through with my business."
+
+So it was arranged, and the chauffeur was ordered for three o'clock to
+take them to Fairmount Park.
+
+At the appointed hour his cheerful face greeted them once again. Because
+of the Mortons' interest in the Navy, they first ran south to the League
+Island Navy Yard. Even their familiarity with many Navy Yards did not
+lessen their interest in this one, with its rows of officers' houses and
+its barracks and mess-room. Just because they were so familiar with
+similar places, however, they did not stay long, and the car was soon
+whirling northwards to the opposite end of the city. They went through
+miles and miles of streets lined with small houses.
+
+"These are the houses which have given Philadelphia the nick-name of the
+'City of Homes,'" exclaimed Mrs. Morton. "You see, in New York people are
+crowded on to a small tongue of land, between two rivers. Here there are
+two rivers also, but the space between them is wider. There's nothing to
+prevent the city's crossing the Schuylkill and running westward, as it
+began to do many long years ago."
+
+"These houses aren't very beautiful," commented Ethel Blue.
+
+"They are very neat," said Ethel Brown. "But don't you get tired of these
+red bricks and white shutters, and the little flights of white marble
+steps, all alike? I don't see how anybody knows when he has come home. I
+should think people would all the time be getting into their neighbors'
+houses by mistake."
+
+"It is much more wholesome for a family to have a house to itself, than
+for many families to be crowded into one building," said Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I don't see why," objected Tom, who had been born and reared in New
+York. "The large buildings are wonderfully constructed now-a-days for
+ventilation and sanitation. They couldn't be better in that respect."
+
+"That's true," said Mrs. Morton, "but a family loses something of its
+privacy when it lives in a building with other people. The householder is
+responsible for his own heating, his own side-walk, and so on, for all
+matters whose good care makes for the happiness of his family. The
+apartment dweller loses that work for the well-being of his family, when
+he lets go its responsibility."
+
+"I dare say you are right, Mrs. Morton," said Tom, "but in these days of
+co-operation, it seems to me you gain something by uniting, as apartment
+house people practically do, to hire some one to take the responsibility
+of the heating arrangements, the side-walks, the ashes, and so on."
+
+"It all depends on the conditions," returned Mrs. Morton. "In New York,
+especially on Manhattan Island, where land is so valuable that buildings
+must go up in the air, such co-operation has become desirable, but where
+there is plenty of space, it seems better for every household to be
+separate as far as possible."
+
+The chauffeur called their attention, as they passed through Logan
+Square, to the fact that this was the fourth city square they had seen
+since they had been in his care.
+
+"On our way south from the Penn Treaty Park, we went through Franklin
+Square, and then you saw Washington Square when you were down by
+Independence Hall. This morning you saw Rittenhouse Square. Logan is the
+fourth. These four squares were laid out by William Penn as a part of the
+original design of the city."
+
+Not far from Logan Square they were enabled to reach the bank of the
+Schuylkill, and the rest of the afternoon they spent in the lovely Park
+through which flows this river and the picturesque little Wissahickon.
+
+Their first visit was to the Zoo, which the chauffeur told them was one
+of the finest in the United States. They invested in peanuts and small
+cakes and made themselves popular with the animals whose cages they
+passed.
+
+Then they drove on, gliding swiftly in and out among the stately trees
+which the engineers of the Park had had the good sense to leave as they
+found them. Along the Wissahickon they noticed many small inns, all of
+which showed signs, inviting passers-by to come in and partake of
+"Cat-fish and Waffles."
+
+"I can understand the waffle supply being limited only by the energy of
+the cooks," exclaimed Roger, as he read one of the numerous summonses,
+"but if they catch the cat-fish in the Wissahickon they must keep an army
+of fishermen out in the boats all day long!"
+
+"I wish we could go out on the river," murmured Helen, as they whirled
+along the banks of the Schuylkill. "It looks so refreshing there."
+
+"I think we can get a barge at one of these boat houses and go up the
+river a little way," suggested Mrs. Morton, turning inquiringly to the
+chauffeur.
+
+"It's a pretty bit from about here up to a place called 'The Lilacs,'" he
+answered. "It's a pretty little club house."
+
+"Oh, do lets do it," cried Ethel Blue excitedly. "It would be lovely."
+
+So they went to a near-by boat house and made the arrangements. The boats
+were large, with seats for four rowers besides the seats in the stern and
+bow.
+
+The Ethels had learned to row at Chautauqua the summer before, so they
+occupied one seat.
+
+The three boys each took one of the other seats, each rowing a single
+oar. Helen sat on the seat with Tom, Margaret with Roger, and Dorothy
+with James.
+
+Mrs. Morton and Dicky sat in the stern, and Della played look-out in the
+bow.
+
+It was a charming pull between shores beautiful by nature and gay with
+boat houses from which merry parties were establishing themselves in
+boats and barges and canoes. The rowers found the trip not too hard upon
+the muscles, even the Ethels saying that they were not at all tired, when
+The Lilacs came in sight.
+
+The car met them at the Club House because they had to go back to the
+hotel and pack their bags in order to catch the train for home. The
+chauffeur had brought up with him a man from the boat house, to take the
+barge back where it belonged.
+
+They returned over different streets to the city so that they felt that
+they had a good idea of the geography of the town.
+
+"I've had a perfectly stunning time, Mrs. Morton," said Tom, as he bade
+her "Good-bye" on the train and thanked her for her care. "It has been
+splendid fun, and my only grief is that I am afraid Helen may have
+fatigued her brain, remembering all that history!"
+
+Helen wrinkled her nose at him, but she laughed good-naturedly and agreed
+with him that the trip had been great fun.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+                           LIGHTS AND A FALL
+
+
+It was not often that Ethel Blue took a violent fancy to any one.
+Although she had something of the temperament that artists claim to have,
+she also had great reserve, and she found the companionship of her
+cousins, Ethel Brown and Dorothy, quite sufficient for her.
+
+Now, however, she was filled with admiration for Margaret's aunt, Miss
+Graham. Miss Graham suited her in so many ways. She was good to look at,
+and Ethel found herself gazing at her wholesome, amiable face, filled
+with life and earnestness and fun, and enjoyed it quite as much as if she
+had great beauty.
+
+Then, Miss Graham, because of her occupation as an interior decorator,
+knew something about art, and Ethel Blue wanted to know how to draw and
+paint, and how to appreciate pictures. She found that she never met Miss
+Graham without realizing afterwards that she had learned something from
+her. Perhaps it was only the meaning of a new phrase, or perhaps Miss
+Daisy called her attention to the light on the group of figures in some
+picture, or to the harmonies of color in the landscape. Whatever it was,
+it was not brought out in any preachy way and yet Ethel Blue found
+herself with quite a store of information that had come from her new
+friend.
+
+Miss Graham did not seem to single out Ethel Blue for particular
+attention. They naturally drifted together when there was a large party,
+because their tastes were similar.
+
+"I think your aunt Daisy is nicer than any aunt in the world except my
+aunt Marion," Ethel Blue confided to Margaret one day.
+
+"That's just about what James and I think," said Margaret.
+
+"Has she finished her Englewood house?" inquired Ethel.
+
+"Yes, that was done some time ago. That's why she has been able to go to
+see Mrs. Smith so many times recently. She has spent several afternoons
+at Sweetbrier Lodge, you know."
+
+Remembering this, Ethel Blue went to the new house one afternoon
+especially to see if Miss Graham was there. She had no definite reason
+for doing so--she merely thought she would like to see her. By good luck
+Miss Graham was there, as she had brought out some samples of hangings to
+show to Mrs. Smith, and she was waiting on the terrace for her to come,
+and resting as she waited.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, child," she called to Ethel Blue, and Ethel did not
+resent being called a child, for she realized that it was merely an
+endearing word coming from Miss Daisy's lips.
+
+"Bring one of those canvas chairs over here beside me," she urged, "and
+we'll look at the view and talk a while."
+
+"Isn't it going to be lovely when the real furniture is on the terrace
+here?" said Ethel Blue eagerly.
+
+"The view is lovely, no matter what the chairs are," returned Miss
+Graham, smiling at her affectionately. "When do you think your aunt is
+coming?"
+
+"I don't know. Did she expect you? Shall I run back to the house and tell
+her you are here?"
+
+"No, probably I'm a little early and I shall enjoy sitting here and
+talking with you until she comes."
+
+Ethel felt much complimented by this desire on Miss Graham's part and
+placed her chair beside her.
+
+Their eyes looked out across the field with its brook and the trees that
+sheltered Mr. Emerson's house. Across the street the meadows, rich with
+the field flowers of late summer, stretched away towards the distant
+river, and beyond that were more trees rearing their heights across the
+sky.
+
+As they looked a shadow fell on the meadow and moved swiftly across it.
+
+"It looks as if some huge birds were flying between the earth and the
+sun," smiled Miss Daisy.
+
+"Doesn't it go fast!" returned Ethel Blue.
+
+"Notice the change in the color of the meadow, when the sunlight is
+hidden for a minute and then falls again on the vegetation."
+
+Ethel Blue nodded, for she saw that the change was almost as if a sheet
+of colored glass had been held over a strong electric light.
+
+"Sometimes during a thunder shower," she said, "I've seen awfully queer
+colors over in that meadow."
+
+"The air is charged with electric particles sometimes," explained Miss
+Daisy, "and you are looking through them. You get different color effects
+during an ordinary rain storm, too."
+
+"I think rain over that meadow is going to be one of the prettiest things
+Dorothy will see from this terrace," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"She will have a long sweep to watch and a shower moves sometimes fast
+and sometimes slowly, so there will be opportunity to notice many
+changes," suggested Miss Graham.
+
+"I wonder if Aunt Louise is going to have electric lights out here on the
+porch," said Ethel Blue. "They will draw the mosquitoes like everything."
+
+"But she won't mind that because she can stay inside of her wire cage,"
+answered Miss Daisy. "Surely she's going to have electric lights. Don't
+you see the wires already put in?"
+
+"Of course," answered Ethel Blue. "How stupid of me! Those black ends are
+poking out all over the house and somehow I never thought what they were
+for."
+
+"Then you haven't noticed the lighting scheme that your Aunt and Dorothy
+have worked out. Let's walk through the house now, and see just how she
+has arranged it."
+
+They went through the door of the screen into the enclosed portion and
+then into the dining room.
+
+"Most people have one of those hang-down lights over the dining table,"
+said Ethel Blue. "I don't see any wire for one here. I'm glad Aunt Louise
+isn't going to have one. They never are the right height. You always have
+to be dodging under them to see the person across from you and the light
+shines on the table so brilliantly that you're almost afraid to eat
+anything it falls on."
+
+Miss Graham laughed at Ethel's vigorous protest, but she said that she,
+too, did not like a central light over the dining table.
+
+"There is no need of a very brilliant light in a dining room," she said.
+"You can see the people about the table without any difficulty in a
+subdued light and the general effect is far more beautiful than when
+people are sitting in a glare."
+
+"I think candle light is prettiest for the dining room," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"It is prettiest for the table," replied Miss Graham. "The place where
+you really want a strong light is over the serving table behind the
+screen. You don't want the maid to make any mistakes just because she
+can't see clearly the dishes she is handling. There you need a strong
+light, but it can be placed so low that the screen shields it for the
+room and it will not interfere with the dimmer light of the rest of the
+room."
+
+"I suppose there ought to be other lights in the room," said Ethel Blue.
+"You might find that there weren't any candles in the house some evening
+and then it would be awful to have only this light over the serving table
+and none of them in other parts of the room."
+
+Miss Graham laughed at the possibility of such a disaster.
+
+"There can be side-lights over the mantel-place," she said, "electric
+lights that look like candles, with pretty candle shades, and one or two
+similar arrangements on the other side of the room."
+
+"Don't you ever put a central light in the dining rooms you decorate?"
+asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"Sometimes I let the light flow out from a dull, golden globe set into
+the ceiling over the table. The glass of the bowl is so thick that only a
+gentle radiance comes from it and yet it ekes out the light from the
+candles."
+
+"Ethel Brown is particularly pleased with the switch out in the
+vestibule," said Ethel Blue. "You see you can come home when the house is
+all dark, and light the electricity in the hall by turning on the switch
+outside of the front door. Wouldn't it be a good joke on a burglar, if he
+did it by accident some night when he was trying to get in," laughed the
+young girl.
+
+"It's a capital invention," said Miss Graham. "You notice your aunt has
+side lights here in the hall. Have you ever happened to be in a house
+where they were moving the furniture about and every piece that passed
+the hall chandelier gave it a rap?"
+
+"That's the way it is in the house we're in now," said Ethel. "Every time
+any one goes away and the express man brings down a trunk, he hits the
+light in the hall. I don't know how many globes Aunt Marion has had
+broken that way."
+
+Upstairs they found the same side-lighting in all the bed rooms.
+
+"The theory of it is," said Miss Graham, "that when you want to see
+anything very clearly, you put in a light close to the place where you
+need to work. If you are going to arrange your hair before your dressing
+table, you want a light directly over your dressing glass. If you are
+going to read you turn on a light beside your reading stand. An upper
+light is usually for general illumination and a side light for real
+service."
+
+"A combination of the two lights makes a room ready for anything," said
+Ethel Blue.
+
+"I want you to notice particularly the fixtures that your Aunt Louise has
+selected for indirect lighting," said Miss Graham. "She has chosen
+beautiful bowls that look like alabaster. They turn upwards and the bulbs
+are hidden in them. The strong glare is against the ceiling so that the
+people get only the reflected light. There is to be one of those bowls on
+a high standard in the front hall, and one at the turn of the stair-case.
+They look like ancient Roman urns, giving forth a marvelous radiance."
+
+"I think that will be prettier than some clear, engraved glass covers,
+that I saw the other day," said Ethel Blue. "They showed the bulbs right
+through."
+
+"Far prettier," agreed Miss Graham. "The whole object of this indirect
+light is to make your room seem to be lighted by a glow whose real origin
+you hardly know. Of course your intelligence tells you that there are
+electric bulbs up there, but you don't want really to see them."
+
+"It seems to me that people must be thinking more about how to make
+things pretty than they used to," said Ethel Blue. "When Ethel Brown's
+grandfather built his house, Aunt Marion says it was thought very
+handsome by everybody in Rosemont. It has lots of convenient things in
+it, and plenty of brilliant lights, but the fixtures aren't pretty and
+the idea seems to be to make just as big a shine as possible."
+
+"Nowadays," said Miss Graham, "people try to make the useful things
+beautiful also whenever they can."
+
+"I'm glad to learn all about a house," said Ethel Blue, "because some
+time I may have to keep house for my father and I want to know everything
+there is to know. Of course army people have to live in Uncle Sam's
+houses, but still there are always different arrangements you can
+introduce, even in a government house."
+
+"I'm sure you'll be able to make useful everything you learn," said Miss
+Graham, "and your father will be pleased with whatever makes the house
+lovelier and more comfortable."
+
+"I've always meant to ask whether you didn't know my father," said Ethel
+Blue. "He is at Fort Myer, near Washington."
+
+"Captain Richard Morton," said Miss Daisy. "Yes, indeed. I know a great
+many of the officers and their families at Fort Myer. I've met your
+father and I know him well."
+
+"Isn't he the dearest old darling that ever walked?" said Ethel Blue,
+bouncing with enthusiasm.
+
+"He certainly is a very nice person," agreed Miss Graham, smiling, "and
+he thinks he has one of the finest daughters who ever walked."
+
+"Does he really?" cried Ethel Blue. "I'm so glad he does! You see, I so
+seldom see him that sometimes I'm afraid he'll forget all about me. Once
+when he came to Rosemont, I passed him in the street when he was walking
+up from the station, and he didn't know me and I didn't know him. Wasn't
+that perfectly frightful?"
+
+"That was too bad," agreed Miss Graham.
+
+"Somehow I've never thought of being able to live with him," said Ethel
+Blue. "You know I've always lived with Aunt Marion, because my mother
+died when I was a little bit of a baby, but the other day somebody said
+something about my going to Father later on, and I haven't been able to
+think of anything else since."
+
+"I know he wants you," said Miss Graham.
+
+"Has he spoken to you about it?"
+
+"Yes, often."
+
+"I suppose I'll have to be a million times older than I am now, before he
+thinks I'm able to take care of him," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"I don't believe it will be a whole million years," smiled Miss Graham.
+
+"I shall feel dreadfully to leave Aunt Marion and Ethel Brown. I've never
+been away from Ethel Brown more than three or four days in my whole
+life," said Ethel Brown's twin cousin, "but if my father needs me, why of
+course, I must go."
+
+"Indeed you must," returned Miss Graham, "and I'm sure he wants you just
+as soon as he can send for you."
+
+Ethel Blue was so overjoyed at this opinion, that she jumped up on the
+ledge on the top of the parapet running around the terrace, and danced
+with delight the fancy step--"One, two, three, back; one, two, three,
+back"--with which she and Ethel Brown were accustomed to express great
+satisfaction with the way in which life was treating them.
+
+To Miss Graham's horror, Ethel Blue's enthusiasm blinded her eyes and her
+third back step took her off the parapet. She fell to the ground and
+rolled down the hill, her slender little body bouncing from rock to rock
+with cruel force and increasing speed.
+
+Miss Graham gave a cry of distress and vaulted over the parapet with the
+ease which she had acquired in the gymnasium in her college days. Running
+the risk of rolling down hill herself, she bounded down the steep slope,
+and reached the foot almost as soon as did the body of the young girl,
+which lay very still, its head against the stone which had brought
+unconsciousness.
+
+Miss Graham turned over the limp little form, shuddering as she saw the
+bruise on the forehead. She tried to lift it but found she could make no
+progress up the steep knoll. Again and again she called to the workmen in
+the house, and finally two of them appeared at an upper window and made
+gestures of understanding when she beckoned to them. They leaped down the
+hill with long strides, and soon were carrying Ethel Blue up to the
+terrace.
+
+They laid her gently on the floor and ran to get water from the hydrant,
+while Miss Graham slipped off the young girl's shoes, raised her feet
+upon a block of wood that happened to be near by, so that the blood might
+flow towards her heart, and gently chafed her wrists. When the water
+came, she dashed a shower of it from the tips of her fingers on the pale
+little face lying so quietly against the bricks.
+
+"Will I run to de nex' house an' telephone for de doctor?" asked one of
+the men, and Miss Graham nodded an assent and added a direction to summon
+Mrs. Morton.
+
+Before either her aunt or the doctor came, however, Ethel Blue returned
+to consciousness. Before she opened her eyes, she heard a soft,
+affectionate voice crooning over her, "My dear little girl, my poor
+little girl."
+
+She kept her eyes closed for a minute or two, so pleasant was this sound
+from the lips of Miss Graham whom she had grown to love so fondly. When
+at last she opened her eyes and saw Miss Daisy's anxious face change its
+expression to one of delight, she almost felt that it was worth while to
+fall off a precipice to bring about such a result.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+                         IN THE FAMILY HOSPITAL
+
+
+Mrs. Morton was acting as head nurse in the home hospital. Ethel Blue's
+injuries from her fall were not serious, but besides the bruises on her
+forehead, she had numerous large black and blue spots all over her body
+and she had been so shaken that the doctor thought it was well for her to
+stay in bed for a day or two.
+
+In addition to Ethel Blue, Dicky was laid low for the time being. He had
+gone over to his grandfather's and as he was accustomed to run about the
+farm by himself, and as he usually stayed near some of the workmen,
+nobody paid any attention to him. This time, however, he went up into the
+pasture, where he found most of the cows lying down in the shade of the
+trees and meditatively chewing their cuds after their morning meal.
+
+Dicky was not in the least afraid of cows, having been familiar with them
+from his babyhood. He therefore walked up to one of the prostrate
+creatures and sat down comfortably upon her neck, steadying himself by
+her nearest horn.
+
+Nothing happened for a minute of two, for either his weight was so slight
+that the cow hardly noticed it, or else his position did not interfere
+with her comfort. After a time, however, he began to pull at her horns in
+time with the motion of her jaws, and this measured movement seemed to
+annoy her. Shaking her head, she rose, first behind, throwing her rider
+even farther forward than he was, and then in front, tossing him off
+altogether.
+
+The distance to the ground was not great, but it was far enough for Dicky
+to be peppered with bumps and pretty well shaken. The cow paid no farther
+attention to him but walked off to a spot where she might be free from
+annoyance, and the little boy lay for some time on the ground before he
+could pull himself together and go to his grandfather's. By the time he
+reached there, his bruises were already turning black and he was
+interesting both to himself and to his relatives, although he was
+manfully keeping back his tears. The doctor ordered him to bed for a day
+or two, and now he lay on a cot at one side of the large room which
+served as the family hospital, and Ethel Blue at the other, comparing
+their wounds, and receiving the attention of Mrs. Morton. She had
+finished reading one of the Br'er Rabbit stories to them when Ethel Blue
+introduced the subject that was so constantly in her mind.
+
+"Did I tell you how I happened to fall off the terrace wall?" she asked
+her aunt.
+
+"I wondered how you did it; you are usually so sure-footed."
+
+"I was talking with Miss Daisy about my going to live with Father
+by-and-by. You know I never thought of it until the other night when we
+were all together on the porch and Helen,--wasn't it?--said something
+about it. I wish I didn't have to wait to finish school before I can go
+to him."
+
+"Are you in such a hurry to leave us?" said Mrs. Morton, with a little
+sigh for the many years of loving care she had spent over this child, who
+was to her like one of her own.
+
+Ethel Blue was conscience-stricken.
+
+"You know, Aunt Marion, I love all of you just like my own people. Only
+it seems so wonderful to think about being with Father all the time that
+I can't get it out of my mind--now it's in my mind."
+
+"There are a good many things to be considered," answered Mrs. Morton.
+"You know that an officer often has to be away from home and your father
+wouldn't like to leave you alone."
+
+Ethel Blue's face fell.
+
+"If I only had somebody like Dicky's Mary to stay with me," she said,
+referring to the nurse who had always taken care of Dicky, and who had
+lived on with the family after he was too old to need a nurse.
+
+"Perhaps your father might marry again and then there would be no
+difficulty about your being with him all the time."
+
+Mrs. Morton made the suggestion gently but Ethel Blue flushed angrily at
+once.
+
+"I think that's a perfectly horrible idea, Aunt Marion. That means a
+stepmother for me, and I think a stepmother is detestable."
+
+"Have you ever known one," inquired Mrs. Morton coolly.
+
+"No, I never have, but I've read a great deal about them and they're
+always cross and mean and their stepchildren hate them."
+
+"Don't you suppose that a great many stepchildren work up a dislike
+beforehand just because they read the same kind of stories that you seem
+to have been reading?" asked Mrs. Morton.
+
+Ethel Blue was a reasonable girl, and she thought this over before she
+answered.
+
+"Perhaps they do," she said, although slowly, as if she disliked to admit
+it.
+
+"I have happened to know several stepmothers," said Mrs. Morton, "and I
+never have known one who was not quite as kind or even kinder to her
+stepchildren, than to her own children. A mother feels that she can do as
+her judgment dictates with her own children, but with her stepchildren
+she weighs everything with even greater care, because she feels an added
+responsibility toward them."
+
+"But she can't love them as she does her own children," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"I think there is very little difference," said her Aunt Marion. "I am
+not your stepmother but at the same time I am not your own mother, and I
+am not conscious of loving you any less than I love Ethel Brown. You are
+both my dear girls."
+
+"I love Father but I do think Father would be mean if he gave me a
+stepmother," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"But, wouldn't _you_ be mean if you objected to his having the happiness
+of a household of his own, after all these years when he has not had
+one?" returned Mrs. Morton promptly. "Your father has lived a lonely life
+for many years, and if such a thing should happen as his deciding to
+marry again, I can't think that my little Ethel Blue would be so selfish
+as to make him unhappy--or even uncomfortable--about it."
+
+This was a new idea for Ethel Blue and she snuggled down under her covers
+and turned her head away to think about it.
+
+Her aunt left her alone and the room was quiet except for the noise made
+by Dicky's little hands, as he turned the pages of a picture book.
+
+It was almost dark when Mrs. Morton came back with Mary, each of them
+bearing a tray with the supper for one of the invalids.
+
+"I must say," laughed Mrs. Morton, as she entered the hospital, "these
+are pretty hearty meals for people who call themselves ill."
+
+"My mind isn't ill," said Ethel Blue; "it's just these bruises that hurt
+me," and Dicky understood what she meant, for he told Mary, who was
+arranging his pillows, that his "black and blue thspotth were awful
+thore," but that he was going to get up in the morning.
+
+As Mrs. Morton leaned over Ethel Blue's bed, the young girl put an arm
+around her aunt's neck and drew her down to her.
+
+"I've made up my mind not to be piggy if anything like that does happen,"
+she said, hesitatingly. "Do you know that it is going to happen?"
+
+"No, I do not," answered Mrs. Morton, "but I saw that you were in a frame
+of mind to make your father very unhappy if it should come to pass. You
+ought not to allow yourself to have such thoughts, even about an
+indefinite stepmother. They might easily turn into thoughts of real
+hatred for an actual stepmother."
+
+"But do you think there _might_ be a stepmother some time or other?"
+asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"Yes, dear, I do. Your father probably seems old to you, but he really is
+not very old and, as I said before, he has lived a lonely life for many
+years. You know it was fourteen years ago that your mother died, and
+since then he has had no home of his own and no loving companionship. He
+has not even had the delight of helping to bring up his little daughter.
+If he can make happiness for himself now, after all these years, don't
+you think that his little daughter ought to help him?"
+
+Ethel Blue nodded silently and ate her supper thoughtfully.
+
+"While you two were taking your nap, I went to Sweetbrier Lodge," said
+Mrs. Morton, by way of entertaining the invalids. "I am so much
+interested in the way that Aunt Louise has arranged for the maids. You
+know so many people have only a servant's workroom, the kitchen; and the
+maids have no room to sit in after their work is done. Aunt Louise has
+been very thoughtful in all her plans. The laundry and the kitchen and
+the pantry between the kitchen and the dining room, all have the most
+convenient arrangements possible. Every shelf and cupboard is placed so
+that the number of footsteps that the kitchen worker must take will be
+reduced as greatly as possible. Then there are all sorts of labor saving
+arrangements. You saw those in the kitchen and the cellar. The
+electrician has been there daily fitting up an electric range and
+dish-washing machine. The wires in the kitchen are placed just where they
+will be most serviceable, and there are plenty of windows so that the
+room is bright in the day-time. Then just off the kitchen, there is a
+delightful little sitting room, with a porch opening from it. It has a
+view toward the garden and FitzJames's woods, and it is to be prettily
+furnished."
+
+"There are two bed-rooms and a bath for the maids in the attic story,"
+said Ethel Blue. "They are going to be prettily furnished too."
+
+"Will they have a garden?" asked Dicky from his corner.
+
+"Do you know?" Mrs. Morton turned to Ethel for an answer.
+
+"I do understand now," she replied, "why Dorothy insisted on having the
+herb garden down by the house. I thought it was just because it would be
+convenient to have the herbs near the kitchen, but she planted flowers
+there too, and now I see that it will be a pretty flower garden for the
+maids to enjoy and to cut for their own rooms."
+
+"There are two things about Aunt Louise that are interesting," said Ethel
+Blue. "One is the way she always tries to make other people happy and
+comfortable."
+
+"She is naturally thoughtful and considerate," said Mrs. Morton, "and she
+has had much unhappiness in her life and has happened to meet many people
+who are unhappy, so it has taught her to do all she can to brighten other
+people's lives and to make them easier."
+
+"I don't believe many people who are building a house would let a lot of
+children say what they thought would be nice about it," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"She wants Dorothy and all of you to learn about the new ways of building
+and fitting up a house," returned Mrs. Morton, "and she knows how much
+fun it is to talk over such matters in a general pow-wow. Haven't all of
+you had a good deal of fun out of it?"
+
+"We certainly have," replied Ethel Blue. "I liked fixing up Ayleesabet's
+room particularly, because I suggested the idea, but we have all made
+suggestions for every room in the house. Aunt Louise has not agreed with
+all of them, but she always told us why she didn't agree or why she
+didn't like our ideas. She never was snippy about it, just because we
+were children. The other thing that is interesting in Aunt Louise, is the
+way she wants to have all sorts of new arrangements in a house."
+
+"Almost everybody does that," answered Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I don't know anybody in Rosemont who has all the things that Aunt Louise
+has put in. People have vacuum cleaners now-a-days, that they move around
+from one room to another, but she has hers built in, so the dirt is drawn
+right down into the cellar. She has every kind of electric thing she has
+ever heard of, I do believe."
+
+"The electrician was there to-day as I told you, arranging wires in the
+kitchen."
+
+"I was trying to count up as I was lying here, all the things in the
+house that go by electricity. Of course there's the door bell to begin
+with. Then there are all the lighting switches--the one in the vestibule
+and all the regular ones in the halls and rooms and a lot of them in the
+different closets, so that she never will have to struggle around in the
+dark for anything she is hunting for."
+
+"I saw a man putting in a little pilot light for the oven, to-day," said
+Mrs. Morton.
+
+"What's that for?"
+
+"So the cook can investigate the state of affairs in the oven. Sometimes
+it's hard to say how far along a dish at the back of the oven is. This
+light enables you to make out whether it is browning properly or not."
+
+"The man who put in the summer water-heater called the little light that
+burns all the time in that, a 'pilot,'" said Ethel Blue.
+
+"The dumb-waiter that runs from the cellar up through the house to take
+up kindling or whatever needs to be taken up stairs, runs at the touch of
+an electric button," said Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I wish there had been an elevator for people," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"The house isn't large enough to call for that," said her aunt, laughing.
+"Dorothy and her mother are able to go up one or two flights of stairs
+without much suffering!"
+
+Ethel laughed at the suggestion, and went on with her enumeration of the
+uses of electricity.
+
+"The city water runs into the house, but do you know that Aunt Louise has
+had an extra pump fitted into a deep well at the back of the house, and
+that is to work by electricity? She was afraid the house was so high up
+that the power of the town water might be weak sometimes."
+
+"She's prepared for anything, isn't she? She'll be quite independent if
+any accident should happen to the Rosemont reservoir."
+
+"You know the fittings of the laundry are electric."
+
+"And the electrician to-day was going to put in an electric hair dryer in
+the bath-room, so that a shampoo will require only a few minutes' time."
+
+"I see where all of us girls visit Dorothy on shampoo day," giggled Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"She'll be as popular as I used to be when our cherries were ripe," her
+Aunt Marion smiled in return. "I never seemed to have so many friends as
+during the June days when I always entertained my guests by inviting them
+up into the cherry tree."
+
+"Was that the cherry tree on the right thide of Chrandfather'th houthe?"
+asked Dicky suddenly from the corner where he had been supposed to be
+dozing.
+
+"The very same cherry tree, young man. I dare say you know it."
+
+"It'th too fat for me to thin up," he said, "but nektht year I'm going up
+on a ladder the minute I see a robin flying off with the first ripe
+cherry."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+                         A GOLDEN COLOR SCHEME
+
+
+When the time came for having the interior decorating done in Sweetbrier
+Lodge and for getting the furniture, the U. S. C. felt that they were
+really in the very midst of a delightful experience. The attic was
+furnished with brown wicker, as Miss Graham had suggested. A small
+upright piano was brought up through a window, and this pleasant, quiet
+room at the top of the house, served to give Dorothy a spot for
+practising where she would disturb no one. Up here, too, she could keep
+any work that she was doing and merely put it into a chest that she had
+prepared for the purpose, whenever she wanted to leave it, or, if it was
+something that could not easily be moved, it might even be kept out upon
+the table and there would be no one to be annoyed by an appearance of
+untidiness.
+
+The piano was to be a pleasure at the club meetings, for all the U. S. C.
+members liked to sing, and Helen was planning that they should wind up
+every meeting during the coming winter with a good stirring chorus before
+they separated for the afternoon.
+
+On the bedroom floor, the furnishings were carried out as they had been
+planned, Elisabeth's room in blue, Dorothy's in pink, and Mrs. Smith's in
+primrose yellow, and the two guest chambers in violet and a delicate,
+misty grey. The wood-work was painted ivory white and the floors were all
+of hard wood. Rugs in harmonious tints gave the desirable depths of tone
+to the color plan.
+
+On this floor Mrs. Smith had a sewing room and also a small sitting room,
+where she could write business letters and be quite undisturbed. With the
+floor below came the really serious work of furnishing, the girls
+thought. The drawing room was the important feature of this floor.
+
+"Here is the family hearth," said Mrs. Smith to Dorothy, "and we want to
+make this room beautiful--one that people will like to come into and to
+stay in."
+
+"It must not be cold in color, then," said Dorothy. "Nobody likes to stay
+in a chilly looking room."
+
+"And it ought not to be too warm in color," said plump little Della, who
+suffered terribly from the heat in summer. "It just makes me perspire to
+_think_ of some of the thick, heavy-looking rooms I've been in. They are
+only suitable for zero weather and we don't seem to have any more zero
+weather nowadays."
+
+Mrs. Smith had allowed Dorothy to ask the club members to have cocoa with
+her on the afternoon when the final decisions were to be made. They had
+brought down from up-stairs some of the chairs and a table which had
+already been put into the bed-rooms. Dorothy and the Ethels had made
+cocoa and had baked some cocoanut cakes on the new electric oven, and
+they were all gathered in the drawing room, sipping their cocoa and
+looking about them at the possibilities of the room.
+
+"Before we begin, tell me how you made these cakes," said Margaret, who
+was always adding a new receipt to her cook book.
+
+"We took half a pound of dried cocoanut and two ounces of sugar and three
+ounces of ground rice, and mixed them all up together. Then we beat the
+whites of three eggs perfectly stiff and stirred the froth thoroughly
+into the other things," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"Then we dipped out a tablespoonful at a time and put it on to a buttered
+baking tin, and baked it all in a quick oven for five minutes," said
+Ethel Blue, "but we didn't take the tin out, right off. We let the oven
+cool and the little cakes cook slowly for half an hour longer."
+
+"They do be marvellous good," murmured James, and all the others agreed
+with him.
+
+Miss Graham had come over with Margaret and James, but she said that she
+was not going to give her professional advice until it was asked for.
+
+"I may as well tell you first of all," said Mrs. Smith, "what my color
+scheme is for this room, and then you can help me with the details. I
+want the whole thing to be in tones of brown, lightened by yellow, and
+contrasted with that dull blue you see in Oriental rugs. Now, keep that
+scheme of color in your mind and work it out for me."
+
+"I think you must have told the painter about it before he did the
+wood-work," guessed Margaret. "This wood-work is white, but a yellowish
+white that will be quite in harmony with your brown and gold scheme."
+
+"You've caught me," smiled Mrs. Smith. "It had to be done, so I told him
+what I wanted. It's successful, don't you think so?" she asked, looking
+toward Miss Graham.
+
+"Entirely," approved Miss Daisy.
+
+"The floors are hard wood, but I suppose you're going to have a big brown
+and gold and blue rug," said Helen.
+
+"Certainly those colors, if I can find just the right thing," said her
+aunt.
+
+"I was with Mother the other day in a rug shop," said Della, "and I saw
+beautiful Chinese rugs, with dull blue backgrounds and figures of brown
+and tan."
+
+"I've noticed," said Helen, "that Oriental rugs have a great deal of red
+and green in them. I should think it might be hard to find rugs with just
+brown and blue."
+
+"I have discovered that it is," said Mrs. Smith, "for I've already been
+on one or two searching trips. Still, those Chinese rugs that Della
+mentioned are always available, and if you hunt far enough you can get
+others with the brown note uppermost. What do you think about size?" she
+asked.
+
+"Oh," said Helen. "I seem to see in my mind's eye a huge, great, splendid
+one in the middle of the room."
+
+"It would be a beautiful rug probably," said Ethel Brown, "but I don't
+know that I should like one big fellow as much as two smaller ones."
+
+"Why not?" asked Miss Graham.
+
+"I don't know that I can tell you," answered Ethel Brown, blushing.
+"Perhaps it's because it makes the room seem too big and grand, and the
+arrangement of smaller ones would break it up into smaller sections, and
+make it seem more home-like."
+
+Miss Daisy nodded as if she were satisfied, but made no comment.
+
+"How do all of you feel about the size of the rugs?" inquired Mrs. Smith,
+and Helen put the question to vote.
+
+They decided that they liked the idea of two or more rugs of medium size
+with little ones where they were needed instead of a very large one in
+the centre of the room.
+
+"I think you're right," said Mrs. Smith, "and I think that it will be
+easier to find the smaller ones than the very large ones--and less
+expensive into the bargain," she said, laughing.
+
+"What is the furniture to be?" inquired Tom.
+
+"Dorothy and I had a few antiques that have been kept for us all these
+years from my father's house, and they have given us the note for the
+rest. They are mahogany, colonial in style, so we think that we must make
+the rest of the furniture harmonize with them."
+
+"Aunt Marion told me she saw some lovely reproductions of truly old
+chairs and tables and things," said Ethel Blue. "I suppose you can make
+the room look as if every piece in it was a truly old one."
+
+"If I had money enough, I could undoubtedly find truly old pieces," said
+Mrs. Smith, "but I think I shall content myself with the modern pieces in
+the old style."
+
+"At any rate, they will be stronger," said Margaret. "We have some very
+old furniture, and since we put steam heat in our house, they've been
+falling to pieces as fast as they could fall."
+
+"How are the walls of this room to be treated?" asked James.
+
+"There I want your help," said Mrs. Smith.
+
+"I saw a dark brown paper dashed with gold the other day, on the library
+wall at Mrs. Schermerhorn's," said Roger.
+
+"Too dark," cried the Ethels in chorus. "Mrs. Schermerhorn's wood-work is
+dark and Aunt Louise's is almost white."
+
+"There's a kind of Japanese paper that looks like metal burlap," said
+Margaret. "It has a little glint of gold in it."
+
+"That's too dark, too, I think," said Dorothy. "It ought to be something
+that will connect the yellow-white of the wood-work with the gold, which
+is the lightest tone in Mother's color scheme."
+
+Again Miss Graham nodded her approval, although she said nothing.
+
+"I saw a very wide pongee silk the other day that would be just about the
+right shade, if it could be put on like wall-paper," said Ethel Blue. "It
+would be a little darker than this paint, and it would tie on to the gold
+in the rug or in any piece of furniture covering."
+
+Again Miss Graham nodded.
+
+"And I don't see why it couldn't be stenciled," said Ethel Brown.
+"Something like the walls upstairs in the apple-blossom room, only of
+course something that would be appropriate for this room. But even if you
+didn't like that idea," she went on, "I think the pongee silk alone would
+be beautiful."
+
+Mrs. Smith liked that idea, too, but she hesitated to give her final
+decision until she had examined a certain homespun linen which she had
+had recommended to her as a possible success from the point of view of
+color.
+
+"Now that you have finished your cocoa, I want you to move your chairs
+over here, where you can look into the dining room," she said. "You see,
+I've had the dining room separated from this room by folding doors; there
+will be door curtains also, but I want to be able to shut off the room
+entirely from this room if I choose. Now, while we talk about the
+furniture here, look into the dining room and get the shape of it into
+your minds, so that you can regard it as a sort of outgrowth of this
+room. Are you comfortable now?"
+
+They said they were and went on to discuss the furniture.
+
+"Will all of the pieces be upholstered with the same material?" asked
+Ethel Blue.
+
+"Oh, no," cried Ethel Brown. "Let's have two or three different shades of
+brown, and one in the right shade of yellow and one or two in the same
+dull blue of the rug."
+
+Again Miss Graham nodded.
+
+"You want to repeat in the furniture the colors of the rug," she said.
+"They give you a wide range of tones because these Oriental rugs may have
+as many as twenty-five shades of blue, so finely graduated that you can
+hardly tell them apart, except with a reading glass. The brown and gold
+of the furniture will bring out the brown and gold of the floor covering
+and you must be careful that the yellow of the furniture is not so
+brilliant as to overpower the more delicate yellow of your walls. There
+should be a sort of scale from the yellowish white wood-work which is
+your highest note, down to the darkest shade of brown."
+
+"Now, that we've decided about the furniture, tell me what general idea
+you have for the dining room," said Mrs. Smith. "I'm all excitement to
+hear what you have to say about the dining room, because it isn't quite
+clear in my own mind, and I want to work it out with you."
+
+"You want it to be an outgrowth of this room," said Helen, "and you don't
+want it treated like an entirely separate room."
+
+"Since it is connected with this room by so wide an opening, when the
+doors are drawn back," said her aunt, "it seems to me as if it ought to
+be in harmony with the coloring here."
+
+They all agreed with this idea.
+
+"I suggest," said Margaret, "that the whole room might be a little darker
+than this room, although decorated with the same colors."
+
+Miss Graham again approved this.
+
+"It has the morning sun," said Dorothy, "and at night through most of the
+year the gas is lighted at dinner time so it isn't necessary to have it
+so bright as the other room."
+
+"Then why not have everything the same, except just a little deeper in
+tone," said Ethel Blue. "Have the wood-work a trifle darker and find some
+material for the walls or have them color-washed a few shades darker than
+the pongee. The floor is a little darker than this anyway and one of the
+darker blue Chinese rugs will be lovely on it."
+
+"Mother's china is blue Canton," said Dorothy. "That will give blue touch
+that will harmonize with the rugs."
+
+They were all pleased with their decisions and were greatly pleased when
+Miss Graham approved their wisdom.
+
+The electricians had put in the electric fixtures and they noticed that
+the dining room side lights of both the dining room and drawing room
+looked like sconces; that there was a glowing bowl of light in the
+ceiling above the dinner table; and that the half concealed lights were
+to give a pleasant radiance in the larger room, while plugs around the
+wall permitted the use of electric lamps for reading or sewing at many
+different points.
+
+"How is this little reception room to be done, Mrs. Smith?" asked James
+as he roamed into a small room just beside the front door.
+
+"This whole floor, all in all, is to have the same color scheme," said
+Mrs. Smith. "I think this and the hall will be done like the dining
+room."
+
+"Come out now, and see the maid's sitting room," cried Dorothy. "It is
+the cunningest thing and so pretty."
+
+The wicker furniture had already come for this room and the attic, and
+they all exclaimed at the delicate shade of gray rattan which made a
+charming back-ground for cushions of flowered chintz.
+
+"I think it's a dear duck of a room!" said Ethel Brown.
+
+"And see the roses on the walls!" exclaimed Dorothy. "And it opens on to
+a little porch that is going to be covered with rambler roses all summer,
+if I can possibly make them grow and blossom."
+
+"How many of you people can go to the Metropolitan Museum with me on
+Saturday?" asked Miss Graham. "I know you younger ones are all busy in
+school now, and the boys are getting ready to go to college, so that is
+your only day, for we want plenty of time."
+
+There was not one of them who could not go, so they arranged about trains
+and where they should pick up the Watkinses in New York, and separated
+with pleasant expectations of the very good time ahead of them.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+                          AT THE METROPOLITAN
+
+
+Dicky, the Honorary Member of the United Service Club, had been
+considered too young to become a member of the party to visit the
+Metropolitan Museum. He had, however, begged so hard not to be left
+behind, that Helen and Roger had relented, and had promised to take him
+if he, in his turn, would agree not to bother Miss Graham by asking more
+than a million questions every ten minutes. He was also under bond not to
+stray away from the party.
+
+As it turned out, however, the Honorary Member did not go to New York on
+the appointed day. He had planned an expedition of his own for purposes
+of investigation, and the results were such that he was not able to meet
+his other engagement later on.
+
+Underneath his bobbed hair Dicky kept a sharp pair of ears and there was
+very little of the talk about his aunt's new house that had escaped his
+attention. Among other things he had listened while his sisters and
+cousins had commented upon the manner in which the kitchen was equipped.
+The floor was concrete, the walls were of white tile, the shelves were of
+glass, and the cupboard doors of enameled metal.
+
+He had heard his mother say to his Aunt Louise: "Why, you could turn the
+hose on it to clean it, couldn't you?"
+
+The idea had inflamed his imagination and he determined to see how it
+would work. Detaching the hose and spray from the bath-room he trotted
+off immediately after breakfast, intent on putting into effect his
+mother's idea. It seemed to him that it would be a delight to live in a
+house where one might enter into the kitchen at any moment and find the
+cook spraying the walls with a hose. If the reality proved to be as
+charming as the anticipation, he was going to beg his mother to have
+their own kitchen made over promptly.
+
+The workmen were all upstairs at Sweetbrier Lodge but the lower doors
+were open so that there was no difficulty in achieving an entrance. He
+knew how to attach the spray to the faucet and a twist of the fingers
+turned on the water.
+
+It seemed to him as the first dash struck him full in the face, he having
+been a little careless about the nozzle, that his Aunt Louise need not
+have worried about the pressure of the town water. He shook his head like
+a pussy cat in the rain, but manfully restrained the ejaculation that
+leaped to his lips. He was glad that he did, because nobody interrupted
+and the succeeding moments were filled with ecstasy. He sprayed the
+floor, the electric range, the shiny white table, the glistening
+cupboards, and, best of all, the gleaming tiles of the walls down which
+the drops chased each other in a joyous race for the floor.
+
+The moments sped in this entrancing pursuit.
+
+At home a cry for Dicky had arisen as the time came to dress him for his
+trip to New York. Nobody knew where he had gone. It was not until Ethel
+Brown telephoned to Dorothy that they learned that he had been seen
+passing her house.
+
+"He must have gone to Sweetbrier Lodge for some reason or other," said
+Ethel Brown. "What on earth possessed him on this morning of all
+mornings!"
+
+She called to Roger, and he dashed off on the run to see if he could find
+his wandering brother. None of the workmen at the new house had any
+knowledge of his whereabouts, and it was not until Roger opened one of
+the carefully closed doors and was greeted by a dash of water, straight
+in his waistcoat, that he found the wanderer.
+
+Roger was a boy of even temper but he confessed to his mother afterwards
+that his fingers ached as never before to impress on Dicky his
+disapproval of his occupation.
+
+"What on earth are you doing here?" he demanded, snatching the hose from
+Dicky's reluctant fingers, and turning off the water.
+
+"Washing down the walls," replied Dicky truthfully.
+
+"Incidentally you've given yourself a good soaking," said Roger, looking
+at the thoroughly drenched little figure before him. "Here, slip into
+this coat, and I hope I haven't got to carry you home the whole way, you
+big, heavy creature."
+
+"I think I'd be warmer if I trotted myself," suggested Dicky, a little
+apprehensive of what might happen to him in the way of a bear hug, in his
+brother's strong arms.
+
+"I guess you're right," said Roger. "We'll have to run like deer, for
+it's almost time for the car to come for us. This puts an end to your
+going into town, I suppose you understand, young man."
+
+Dicky had not thought of losing his other joy while he was realizing his
+first delight, and he puckered his face for a howl, but before the sound
+could come out, Roger said: "You brought it on to yourself, so don't
+yell. This is the natural result of what you've been doing. You can't
+expect ten people to wait for you to be thoroughly dried and got ready to
+go into town, can you?"
+
+Dicky was an uncommonly reasonable child and he swallowed his sobs as he
+shook his head. There was no farther conversation, for both boys were
+running as fast as Roger's legs could set the pace. Dicky's strides were
+assisted by his brother, who seized his arm and helped him over the
+ground with giant steps.
+
+Mrs. Morton's view of the situation seemed to be painfully like Roger's,
+and Dicky found himself put into the care of Mary and an unnaturally
+rough bath towel, his only part in the expedition that had promised such
+happiness to him, being the sight of his relatives climbing into his
+grandfather's automobile and dashing off toward Glen Point, where they
+were to pick up Miss Graham and the Hancocks.
+
+When the party reached New York they made up their minds that they might
+as well approach the Museum containing many beautiful objects by the
+prettiest way possible, so at 59th Street the car swept into Central
+Park. As they entered, Miss Graham called their attention to the golden
+statue of General Sherman, made by the famous sculptor, Saint-Gaudens. As
+they neared the Museum, she pointed out Cleopatra's needle, an Egyptian
+shaft covered with hieroglyphics.
+
+"The poor old stone has had a hard time in this climate," said Roger. "It
+has scaled off terribly, hasn't it?"
+
+"They are trying to preserve it by a preparation of parafine," said Miss
+Graham.
+
+"I should think it would have to be repeated every winter," said Helen.
+"It doesn't seem as if parafine was much of a protection against heavy
+frost."
+
+Just inside the entrance of the building they found Della and Tom
+awaiting them. Miss Graham called their attention first to the tapestries
+hanging in the entrance hall, and told them something of the patient work
+that went into the production of one of these great sheets of painstaking
+embroidery.
+
+"Are they making them anywhere, nowadays?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"When the war is over and you go to Paris, you can see the tapestry
+workers in the Gobelins factory," said Miss Daisy. "Every machine has
+hung upon it the picture which the worker is copying. It may take a man
+six or seven years to complete one piece."
+
+"Shouldn't you think he would be sick to death of it!" exclaimed Dorothy.
+
+"I suppose the first year he tells himself he must be pleasant, so that
+he will see the picture get started. In the second year perhaps he'll be
+ready to put in the feet of his figures. Then all the middle years must
+be comparatively exciting because he's doing the central part of the
+picture; and the last year he has a sort of a thrill because it's almost
+done, even though the work may be all in the clouds."
+
+"I judge that they make landscapes with figures, chiefly," guessed James.
+
+"Many of them are landscapes with figures," replied Miss Daisy. "They
+have a wide variety of objects. The factory belongs to the government and
+the pieces are used as decorations for government buildings, and as gifts
+to people of other countries. The French Government gave Miss Alice
+Roosevelt a piece of Gobelin when she was married. I've seen it on
+exhibition in the Art Museum at Cincinnati."
+
+"I suppose all the workmen now have gone to the war, and the factory is
+closed," said Tom.
+
+"Probably. The men who work there now are descendants, sometimes in the
+third or fourth generation, of the early workers. They hold their
+positions for life and although their pay is not large they also have
+each a cottage and piece of land on the grounds of the factory."
+
+As the U. S. C. ascended the great stair-way they passed numerous
+impressive busts and stopped to look at all of them. Most of the men were
+famous Americans, whose names were already familiar to the young people.
+
+"Now," said Miss Graham, as they reached the head of the stairs, "later
+on we can choose the kind of thing we would like especially to see, but
+first I want to show you two or three pictures and we can talk a little
+about them. Then perhaps we will enjoy better the pictures we see
+afterwards."
+
+"I am sure we shall," answered Roger, politely, although his heart was
+yearning for the Riggs collection of armor.
+
+Miss Daisy read his mind.
+
+"I know you want to see the Riggs armor most of all," she said, "and
+Margaret and James have been talking a lot about the Morgan collection
+and the Ethels told me on the way in that they had seen in the Sunday
+papers reproductions of some of the pictures in the Altman collections
+and they want to see the originals. We can see all those later on, but
+first we will look for a minute at a very famous picture by a
+Frenchwoman, Rosa Bonheur."
+
+"Oh, I remember about her," said Helen. "She used to wear men's clothes
+when she was working in her studio. She said skirts bothered her."
+
+"I should think they would," said James. "I remember about her, too. She
+made a specialty of animals and sometimes she had lions and other wild
+animals from some Zoo, and let them wander about. She needed to be
+dressed so she could skip lively if they made any demonstration!"
+
+"Those are huge horses, aren't they," said Ethel Blue, as they stood
+before the "Horse Fair."
+
+"They look as if they were 'feeling gayly,' as the North Carolina
+mountaineers say," quoted Dorothy.
+
+"What is it all about?" asked Miss Graham.
+
+"Why, I don't know," answered Ethel Blue slowly. "Is it about anything in
+particular? Isn't it just a lot of horses being taken to a Horse Fair for
+exhibition?"
+
+Miss Graham nodded and said that that was probably all there was to it.
+Then she led them to a picture by a French artist, Meissonier.
+
+"I spot Napoleon," said Tom promptly, as they took up their position.
+
+"This is called 'Friedland, 1807,'" said Miss Graham.
+
+Before she could ask any question or make any suggestion about the
+picture, Helen had explained "Friedland."
+
+"That was one of Napoleon's famous battles. Here he defeated the Russians
+and Prussians."
+
+"Eighteen hundred and seven?" repeated James. "Why, Napoleon was at the
+very height of his power then, wasn't he?"
+
+"He looks it," said Margaret. "Doesn't he look as if he were the lord of
+the world? And how those men around him gaze at him with adoration! He
+certainly had a wonderful ability for making himself beloved by his
+soldiers!"
+
+Miss Graham had been listening to these comments with the greatest
+interest.
+
+"What difference do you see between this picture and the 'Horse Fair'?"
+she asked.
+
+They looked carefully at the picture before them and Ethel Blue scampered
+back to refresh her memory on the "Horse Fair."
+
+"There isn't any more action in one than the other," said James, "though,
+of course, it's different."
+
+"But this one makes me think a lot about a great man," added his sister.
+
+"And you want to know what it's all about," exclaimed Ethel Brown.
+
+"You feel as if there must be some story about this one," said Ethel
+Blue, returning from her expedition to the "Horse Fair."
+
+"That's just the point," said Miss Graham, patting her shoulder, "There's
+no especial appeal to the imagination in the 'Horse Fair.' You just see
+horses going to any horse fair in northern France, and there's nothing to
+tell you that one horse has won a ploughing match and that another is a
+candidate for a blue ribbon because of his great weight. But here you
+realize at once that Napoleon was a man to command attention. You want to
+know what he has been doing. You feel that there is some good reason for
+the evident admiration of his soldiers. Those two pictures are examples
+of two different classes of pictures. The 'Horse Fair' you might call a
+sketch in a traveller's note book. The Napoleon picture is an
+illustration in a story."
+
+The young people thought over all this and nodded their agreement.
+
+"Now come with me and see this picture of a pretty girl."
+
+Miss Graham led the way to the Morgan collection and they looked into the
+winning face of "Miss Farren." She seemed to be moving swiftly across the
+canvas, her dress and cloak streaming behind her from the speed of her
+motion.
+
+"She's a pretty girl," said Roger, with his hand on his heart. Tom nodded
+in agreement, but James shook his head.
+
+"She looks silly," he said sternly.
+
+"There isn't any story to her picture, I'm sure," said Helen. "That's
+just a portrait."
+
+"But may not a portrait indicate something of the character of the
+sitter?" asked Miss Graham.
+
+"It ought to," returned Margaret, "and I should think there was something
+of this girl's character in the portrait, but there's nothing to show
+that this might be the illustration of a story."
+
+"Unless it were the frontispiece, showing the picture of the heroine,"
+said Roger.
+
+"But the heroine doing nothing that is told about in the story," insisted
+Helen.
+
+Miss Graham made no comment on these criticisms but led the way to
+another picture, also of a girl, but this time of a girl in the dress of
+a peasant and not handsomely arrayed as was Miss Farren.
+
+"There is a bigger difference than clothes between these two," said
+Della, "but I don't know just what it is. This girl isn't pretty like
+Miss Farren."
+
+"Do you know who this is?" asked Miss Daisy.
+
+"Somebody who is thinking a lot," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"She is seeing things in her mind," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"Who is the most famous girl in history, who did that?" asked Miss
+Graham.
+
+"Jeanne d'Arc," said Helen. "She saw visions that inspired her to be a
+leader of men in the army and she brought about the coronation of her
+king when he was kept from his throne by the English who held Paris and a
+large part of France."
+
+"She is seeing visions now," whispered Ethel Blue, clinging to Miss
+Graham's arm.
+
+Miss Graham gently smoothed the fingers that were tensely closed over the
+sleeve of her jacket.
+
+"Why do you suppose Helen told us about Jeanne d'Arc just now?" she
+asked.
+
+"Because Helen just naturally knows all the history there is to be
+known," said Roger, joking his sister in brotherly fashion.
+
+Helen flushed and murmured something that sounded like, "I thought you'd
+like to know why she looked like that."
+
+"There is something more than just her character and her disposition in
+that picture," said Margaret.
+
+"If a single picture can be a story picture, I should think this was a
+story picture as much as the Napoleon one," said Tom.
+
+Again Miss Daisy nodded her approval.
+
+"I call it a story picture," she said. "Helen felt that it was,
+immediately, and that is why she told us something of the story of Jeanne
+d'Arc."
+
+"Most landscapes must be just note book pictures, then," guessed Ethel
+Brown.
+
+"Unless the landscape should be a background for some story," said Della.
+"There might be gypsies kidnapping a child, for instance."
+
+"Of course there are other divisions," said Miss Graham, "but roughly
+speaking, almost every picture is either a record of fact or of
+imagination, or else it tells a story."
+
+"It's going to be interesting to think about that, when we look at the
+other pictures we shall see later on," said Tom, and even Roger nodded
+assent, although his heart was still set upon the armor.
+
+"Now, let's go back for a moment to look at the 'Horse Fair,'" said Miss
+Graham. "What do you think a picture ought to have in it to be a real
+picture?" she asked as they went along the gallery.
+
+"It seems to me that a picture that is nothing but a record, as you said
+a few minutes ago, can't be much of a picture," said Roger. "I should
+want something more in a picture, something that would stir me up. Why,
+even Miss Farren's there isn't exactly a record, because you have
+something more than just eyes and nose and hair. She looks as if she
+would be fun to talk to, and as for the 'Horse Fair,' which was the other
+picture that we decided was a record, why that has in it more than just a
+lot of horses."
+
+"If Rosa Bonheur had wanted merely to draw some horses, she might have
+strung them along in a row so that we could get an idea of their size and
+color and could make a guess at their weight, but here we see them in
+action and we know that they are in good spirits and we feel some
+sympathy with the men who have a hard time to hold them."
+
+"Yes, that picture stirs me a little, too."
+
+"That is because both 'Miss Farren' and the 'Horse Fair' are real
+pictures. Any picture that tries to be more than merely a photographic
+reproduction must stir your emotions in one way or another," said Miss
+Daisy. "Now as we look at this picture, do you think the artist put into
+it everything that she saw on the road that morning when she passed this
+group of men and horses?"
+
+"I dare say not," said Della, "because there would be likely to be dogs
+and boys with the men, and perhaps some ugly houses in the background."
+
+"Why do you suppose she didn't put everything in?"
+
+"Why, a picture ought to try to be beautiful, oughtn't it, and some of
+those things might be ugly, or there might be so many of them that it
+would be confusing."
+
+"Those are both good reasons," said Miss Daisy. "They both show that the
+artist has to _select_ the things that he thinks will be of the greatest
+interest to the people who look at his pictures."
+
+"Now when he has picked them out, what should you say the next step was?"
+
+They were all rather blank at this question but after a while Roger said
+slowly, "Evidently she picked out just so many as being the best looking
+ones to put in the picture; and she didn't like them all facing the
+audience, ready to bob their heads at you as you look at them; she made
+them trot along the road in a natural way."
+
+"Certainly," approved Miss Graham. "She _arranged_ what she had selected
+so that they would be natural and--"
+
+"And so that the colors would show well?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"Yes, so that there would be contrasts of color that would be pleasing to
+the eye. Then there should be _balance_. Have you any idea what that
+means?"
+
+Nobody had.
+
+"I wonder if you haven't all noticed a Japanese print that Margaret has?"
+
+"You mean the one with big green leaves up in one corner and the
+grasshopper clinging to a tendril?" asked Helen.
+
+"That's the one," returned Miss Daisy. "Did it ever occur to you that
+those leaves were all crowded off into one corner of the picture?"
+
+"I never thought of it," said Margaret, "and I have looked at it every
+day for a year. They are, aren't they?"
+
+"But it didn't affect you unpleasantly, did it?"
+
+"Why, no. I think it's a pretty picture," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"It is," agreed Miss Graham; "but what device did the artist use to make
+you feel comfortable about it, and to make you forget that he had put a
+bunch of foliage up in one corner and had left more than one-half of his
+sheet blank?"
+
+Nobody could answer this question and Miss Graham had to give the
+explanation herself.
+
+"It's all a question of balance," she said. "The great mass of white
+paper in the lower right hand part of the picture balances the mass of
+green leaves in the upper left hand corner. The green is a heavier
+looking color than the white, and it therefore takes a larger amount of
+white to balance the green. The Japanese who made this painting
+understood that, and he has so arranged his leaves and his grasshopper,
+that the eye is entirely pleased by the balance that results. If Rosa
+Bonheur has managed wisely there should be masses of light and dark,
+balancing each other, and there should be spaces and solids, balancing
+each other."
+
+"Has she done it? It doesn't worry me any," said Roger. "I think she must
+have succeeded."
+
+Keeping Miss Graham's explanation in mind they took another look at the
+Napoleon picture and concluded that Meissonier also knew what he was
+about.
+
+"'Composition' means the putting together of a picture, doesn't it?"
+asked Helen. "I should think that the composition of a picture that has
+so many figures, must be extremely difficult."
+
+"Far more difficult, of course, than one for which the artist has
+selected fewer objects."
+
+"And of two artists producing complicated pictures like these, he is the
+better who gives an effect of simplicity."
+
+"Suppose that Rosa Bonheur had noticed that one of the men struggling
+with the horses had his face bound up with a cloth; does that have
+anything to do with the picture?"
+
+They all agreed that it had not.
+
+"Then she was perfectly right to leave out any object that would distract
+the observer's mind. She put into this picture of horses going to the
+horse fair only such things as would make the onlooker think of the
+beauty and spirit of the horses as shown by their handsome coats and by
+the difficulty which the men had in controlling them, and his imagination
+would be stirred to wonder as to which of these fine animals was to win a
+prize. Everything which might compete with these simple ideas the artist
+left out of the picture."
+
+"It must have been awfully hard to do such a lot of legs," said Ethel
+Blue, who knew a little about drawing.
+
+"An artist has to know a good deal about anatomy," returned Miss Graham.
+"He must know how the human body is made, and the horse's body, too, if
+he is to do a picture like this, and he even must know something about
+the under-structure of the earth. He must make the lines of those legs
+all move harmoniously. Look at this Napoleon picture once more."
+
+Once again they stood before "Friedland."
+
+"If you were to prolong the up-standing lines of weapons and helmets you
+would find that they were parallel or tended toward some point possibly
+outside of the picture. Unless an appearance of confusion is desired it
+would not do to have lines leading in every direction."
+
+"It would make a picture look every which way, wouldn't it?" said Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"Attention to such points as this helps to give expression to the whole
+picture," went on Miss Daisy. "Not only do the figures in the pictures
+have their own expression, but the picture as a whole may wear an
+expression of peace, like that quiet landscape over there; or of
+confusion, like this picture of the attempted assassination of a pope, or
+of orderly excitement, like that cavalry charge yonder."
+
+As they turned from one canvas to another the Club realized the truth of
+what Miss Graham was saying.
+
+"That is a fact, isn't it?" agreed Tom. "You don't have to see the look
+on the fellows' faces to get the general effect of the picture even from
+a distance."
+
+"We've been talking so much about color schemes in connection with
+Dorothy's new house, that I am sure the phrase is familiar to you," said
+Miss Graham. "Look at the color schemes of these pictures around us. Do
+you see that there are no discords because a color note is struck and all
+of the other shades and colors harmonize with it? That battle rush, for
+instance, is a study in red. Compare that with the dull misty blues,
+greens, and greys in LePage's 'Jeanne d'Arc.'"
+
+They went from one picture to another and proved the truth of this
+statement to their satisfaction.
+
+"Now we'll call our lesson done," said Miss Graham. "We'll have some
+luncheon downstairs and when we come up we can let Roger have his heart's
+desire, and we'll give the afternoon to looking at the Morgan and Altman
+and Riggs collections of wonders. I doubt if there was ever gathered
+together anywhere three such groups. The Altman pictures are choice, the
+Riggs armor is unequalled anywhere in the world, and the Morgan
+collection is the finest general collection ever owned by a private
+individual."
+
+It was a weary but a happy party that returned to Rosemont in the late
+afternoon.
+
+"One of these days is awfully hard on your head," confessed Roger, as he
+was talking to his mother about the Club's experience, "but it certainly
+is good for your gray matter."
+
+"We're going to remember whenever we look at pictures again," said Ethel
+Brown.
+
+"And there are lots of things in it that we shall think about when we
+look over the decorating in our house," insisted Dorothy.
+
+"What I thought was the nicest of all was the way Miss Graham taught us.
+It was just like talking. I think she is awfully nice," was Ethel Blue's
+decision.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+                   PREPARATIONS FOR THE HOUSEWARMING
+
+
+The trip to the Metropolitan Museum gave every member of the party a new
+set of words for her vocabulary. They looked at pictures with opened eyes
+and talked of their "composition" and "balance." They were all of them
+more or less interested in photography and now they tried to take
+photographs that would be real pictures.
+
+"It isn't so easy to make a picture by selecting what you want to have
+and leaving out the things you don't want," said Roger to Helen one
+morning as they walked toward Sweetbrier Lodge, "when the things are
+right there in the landscape and won't get out of the camera's way. A
+painter would leave out that stupid old wooden house in the field there,
+but he'd leave in the splendid elm bending over it. Now if I 'shoot' the
+elm I've got to 'shoot' the house, too."
+
+"The only way out is to take the house at some angle that will show off
+any good points it may have," declared Helen, wrinkling a puzzled brow.
+
+"Then as likely as not you'll have to take the tree on the side where the
+lightning hit it and peeled off all its bark," growled her brother
+gloomily.
+
+"That just shows that a photographer has to be more skilful than a
+painter," she said. "The painter can do what he likes, but the
+photographer has to get good results out of what is set before him."
+
+"And as for balance--if nature happens to have placed things in balance,
+well and good; but if she didn't what can you do about it?"
+
+"Nothing, my child, unless you introduce some object that you have some
+power over. Put in a girl or a dog or a horse somewhere where their
+weight will bring about the result you want."
+
+"You can't carry girls and dogs and horses round with you," objected
+Roger, who was in a depressed mood this morning and found difficulties in
+every suggestion.
+
+"You've got enough sisters and cousins for the girls, and you can take
+Christopher Columbus around with you in your pocket to play the
+four-footed friend," laughed Helen.
+
+"Speaking of Columbus--are we going to celebrate Columbus Day this year?"
+asked Roger, as he deftly inserted a new spool of film. "It's just luck
+James and I being here at all, you know. We'd like to do something to
+celebrate being exposed to scarlet fever as soon as we got to Boston, and
+being sent home for it to incubate, and then having nothing hatch!"
+
+"Haven't you heard? Aunt Louise is going to have her housewarming on
+October 12, Columbus Day? She has asked the Club to do something
+appropriate."
+
+"I thought the Watkinses had asked us to go into New York to see the
+parade."
+
+"They have. That won't interfere with us. They'll come out here later and
+then we'll do something in the evening in the new attic to amuse Aunt
+Louise's guests."
+
+"Any idea what?"
+
+"I've got an idea in the back of my head. I'll have to talk it over first
+with the girls to see if we can manage the costumes. If we can I think it
+will be mighty pretty."
+
+Roger nodded absent-mindedly. He had perfect confidence in his sister's
+good judgment and he was willing to do his part for his aunt's sake as
+well as for the good name of the Club.
+
+"What are you taking?" Helen asked him after they had roamed about the
+new place for a time. "You seem to be using a lot of film."
+
+"I am. I thought I'd take the new house and garden from every point of
+view I could, inside and out, and make two or three portfolios of them
+and send them to Father and Uncle Richard, as they'd probably like to
+have them."
+
+"What a perfectly darling idea! Isn't Aunt Louise delighted?"
+
+"She seems to be," returned Roger.
+
+"You knew she had asked Uncle Richard to come up for her house-warming?"
+
+"Father, too; but it's dollars to doughnuts they won't be able to come,
+so I thought I'd do these any way."
+
+"Father won't be able to, but Uncle Richard may."
+
+"He'll be glad to have the prints even if he has seen the original
+places."
+
+"Perhaps he'll like them better on that account."
+
+"I think I should. It would be like having your memory illustrated."
+
+"Are you going to do the rockery in the garden?"
+
+"If the frost has left anything."
+
+"It must be placed in just the right spot for there's a lot of it left. I
+passed it early to-day and it looked almost as pretty as if it were
+summer."
+
+"Dorothy certainly made a success of that."
+
+"It was an afterthought, too."
+
+"I believe the chief reason it has been so lovely is that it was placed
+in a natural position. The rocks look as if they ought to be just where
+they are."
+
+"Mrs. Schermerhorn's rockery looks as if she had said, 'Lo, I'll have a
+rockery,' and then she stuck it right in the middle of her lawn where no
+collection of rocks has been for twenty years."
+
+"And she has hot-house ferns in it!"
+
+The brother and sister laughed delightedly at their neighbor's ideas of
+natural beauty.
+
+"Perhaps it was fortunate that Dorothy didn't have a hot-house to draw
+on," said Roger, moving from one side to another of his cousin's rockery
+in order to get the best view of its remaining loveliness.
+
+"Dorothy has too much sense. In the first place she snuggled hers in here
+under the trees, just the way the rocks are naturally over in FitzJames's
+Woods. Then she brought over here exactly the plants she found there."
+
+"It had to look as if it were a bit of the woods, didn't it?"
+
+"Do you want me to be in this picture?"
+
+"You look too dressed up."
+
+"Thank you! This is a middy I've worn all summer, and I'm just wearing
+out the rags of it on Saturdays."
+
+"Nevertheless, you dazzle me."
+
+"That's a polite way of saying you don't want me in the foreground. You'd
+better put in what Miss Daisy calls 'contemporaneous human interest.' I'm
+a great addition to any picture in which I appear."
+
+"You are, ma'am, of course," replied Roger with exaggerated politeness,
+"but I think I'd like you under an arbor in a graceful attitude and not
+hobnobbing with these wild flowers."
+
+"You forget that wild flowers have been my special care this summer,"
+returned Helen, withdrawing to a point where she would not interfere with
+Roger's plans. "Dorothy's wild garden is only a copy of mine."
+
+"Not in arrangement. Hers is prettier with everything piled up on the
+stones this way--columbines, ferns, wild ginger, hepaticas."
+
+"You're right about that. Mine had to be in a regular bed. Are you going
+to take a picture of the vegetable garden?"
+
+"Certainly I am. And of tomatoes that were started with and without dirt
+bands."
+
+Roger's chief attention during the summer garden campaign had been
+devoted to the raising of vegetables, while the girls had done wonders
+with flowers.
+
+"What are dirt bands?" inquired Helen.
+
+"I know," cried the voice of Ethel Brown who came in sight through the
+pergola. "They're brown paper cuffs to put around young plants. It keeps
+the earth all close and cozy and warm and they grow faster than the ones
+that don't wear such fine clothes."
+
+"Listen to that," Roger said approvingly to Helen. "Those Ethels haven't
+let anything slip that happened in any of our gardens all summer. They
+know all about everything!"
+
+"Roger is in a very complimentary mood this morning," laughed Helen. "If
+I could only think of something to say I'd be polite in return."
+
+"I'm sorry it doesn't come to you spontaneously," replied her brother,
+"but what care I?" and he broke into song:
+
+    "I'm a careless potato, and care not a pin
+      How into existence I came;
+    If they planted me drill-wise or dibbled me in,
+      To me 'tis exactly the same.
+
+    The bean and the pea may more loftily tower,
+      But I care not a button for them.
+    Defiance I nod with my beautiful flower
+      When the earth is hoed up to my stem."
+
+"Oo-hoo!" came a voice from the Lodge. "Come in and help."
+
+"There's Dorothy calling," cried Ethel Brown, and they all moved toward
+the house where they found their cousin on the back porch with an array
+of plates, bowls, stones, small plants, tiny trees and small china
+figures before her.
+
+"May I inquire, madam, what on earth--" began Roger, but Ethel Brown's
+exclamation enlightened him.
+
+"You're making Japanese gardens!"
+
+"I'm going to try to. I think they're awfully pretty and cunning. Let's
+each make one."
+
+Mrs. Smith had bought a professionally made garden at an Oriental shop in
+New York, and the girls were seized with a desire to copy it.
+
+"Here's the real thing," and Dorothy indicated a flat bowl of gray and
+dull green pottery. In it were some stones outlining the bed of a stream
+over which stretched the span of a tiny porcelain bridge. A twisted tree
+that looked aged in spite of its height of only three inches reared its
+evergreen head at one end of the bridge; a patch of grass the size of
+three fingers grew greenly at the other end, and a goldfish swam happily
+in a pool at the side.
+
+"Margaret told me that horse-radish would grow if you kept it damp and
+let it sprout, so I've got several pieces started for our gardens."
+
+Sure enough, the horse-radish had sent forth shoots and a head of small
+leaves quite tall enough for the size of the garden, and its body looked
+brownish and gnarled like some bit of queer Oriental wood. Dorothy had
+taken up little plants of running growth like partridge berry and she had
+collected many wee ferns.
+
+"We can sprinkle a pinch or two of grass seed and bird seed over them all
+when they're done," she said. "That ought to bring up something fresh
+every little while."
+
+"These will be all started for your housewarming," suggested Helen.
+
+"That's why I'm doing them. We can leave them here, and I'll come over
+every day so they'll be watered. I think they'll be awfully pretty and
+they'll be different from the usual decorations."
+
+"I read somewhere the other day that the Japs arrange their flowers with
+a meaning."
+
+"O, they do," cried Dorothy. "They have very little in one holder,
+perhaps only three flowers. One--the highest one--means Heaven, the next
+lower is Man, and the lowest is Earth."
+
+"I should have to have a diagram with every vase," insisted Roger.
+
+"The water in the bowl that holds the flowers represents the surface of
+the earth and the edge of the bowl is the horizon. Then they have ways of
+suggesting the different seasons--spring by flowers, summer by a lot of
+green leaves, autumn by bright colored leaves and winter by tall stems
+without much on them."
+
+"We've got flowers left in the gardens--lots of them," insisted Ethel
+Brown proudly.
+
+"Plenty," answered Dorothy; "and by this time next year I hope we'll have
+a little hot-house of our own so that we can have flowering plants all
+winter, but I like other things, too."
+
+"Miss Daisy was telling me the other day that we Americans didn't pay
+enough attention to using through the winter branches of trees and
+seedling trees from the woods and boughs of pine and fir and cedar," said
+Ethel Blue, who came through the house and had been listening to the
+conversation.
+
+"I don't see why you couldn't have a small maple-tree growing all winter
+in the dining-room if you put your mind on it," answered Helen.
+
+"A great jar of Norway spruce with cones hanging from the fingers would
+be stunning," decided Roger, as he set his horse-radish in place and
+planted a tree at one end of it.
+
+"The covers for the radiators are all on now," said Dorothy, changing the
+subject. "Did you notice them when you came through the house?"
+
+The Ethels had not and Helen and Roger had gone directly to the garden,
+so they all went in on a tour of examination.
+
+"Mother said that there was one thing about heating that she couldn't
+stand, and that was the ugly radiators; so the heating man has tried to
+hide them as much as he could. There isn't one in the house that stands
+out like a monument of pipes," declared Dorothy.
+
+"Even in the attic?"
+
+"Not even in the attic. See, he's covered most of them with grilles
+bronzed or painted like the wood-work of the room, so they aren't at all
+conspicuous."
+
+"It's these little points that make this house so attractive," declared
+Helen. "Aunt Louise has thought of everything."
+
+"What are you going to wear at the party?" asked Ethel Blue of Dorothy.
+
+"If we do that Columbus thing--" began Dorothy, looking at Helen.
+
+"Go on," the president of the U. S. C. replied to the inquiring gaze; "we
+might as well tell Roger now as later."
+
+"If we have the tableaux and pantomimes we can stay in our court
+dresses."
+
+"Court dresses?" inquired Roger, sitting up interestedly. "Why so
+scrumptious?"
+
+"Columbus at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella," answered Helen.
+
+"You as Columbus."
+
+"Me? Me? Why this honor?" asked Roger meekly.
+
+"Need you ask?" returned Helen. "That's in reply to your remarks about me
+as an addition to the foreground of your photographs."
+
+"Even. I don't care what I do as long as I have time to get it up."
+
+"You shall have plenty of time," promised Dorothy. "What I'm more
+interested in just now is what we're to have to eat on the festive
+night."
+
+"Is Aunt Louise going to let us decide?"
+
+"Subject to her veto, I suspect," smiled Helen.
+
+Dorothy nodded.
+
+"She says she wants something different from ice-cream and cake and
+chicken salad."
+
+They all laughed, for Rosemont was noted for invariably having these
+three excellent but monotonous viands at all her teas and receptions and
+church entertainments.
+
+"I move we have cold turkey," said Roger.
+
+"It's rather early for turks, but we can have capon if we can't find a
+good turkey," replied Ethel Brown, who kept the run of the Rosemont
+market.
+
+"Let's have little birds in aspic jelly," suggested Dorothy.
+
+They all gurgled with pleasure at this idea.
+
+"Squabs," went on Dorothy as her imagination began to work.
+
+"Um," commented Roger, his eyes shut.
+
+"Split them down the back, dip them into beaten egg and melted butter,
+sprinkle them with the finest bread crumbs and broil them."
+
+"O," came a gentle murmur from Roger, who was deeply affected by the
+recital of this appetizing dish. "Where's the aspic?"
+
+"You cut each squab in halves and put one-half in a mold and then you
+pour on the aspic."
+
+"Dorothy, you talk as if you'd been doing birds in aspic all your life.
+Did you ever cook them?"
+
+"Once," dimpled Dorothy. "At cooking school."
+
+"I know how to make aspic," declared Ethel Brown proudly.
+
+"Let's have it."
+
+"Soak a quarter of an ounce of vegetable gelatine in a pint of water for
+two hours; then add the strained juice of a lemon, pepper and salt and
+cayenne, two tablespoonfuls of Tarragon vinegar and another pint of
+water. Let it cook for a few minutes over a slow fire and then boil it
+for two or three minutes and strain it through a jelly bag over your
+birdies."
+
+"O, you can't do that that way," cried Ethel Blue. "Their elbows will
+show through when they're turned out of their molds. You have to put in a
+layer of jelly and when it is stiffened a little put in your bird, and
+then pour the rest of the jelly over it."
+
+"Correct," approved Dorothy. "We must be sure to have enough for each
+person to have a half bird in a mold. They are turned out at the last
+minute and a sprig of parsley is laid on top of each one."
+
+"Help! Help!" came a faint cry from Roger. "I am swooning with joy at the
+sound of this delicious food. I'm so glad Aunt Louise is giving this
+party and not one of the chicken salad ladies of Rosemont."
+
+"Aspic is good to know about for hot weather use," said Ethel Blue. "I've
+been meaning all summer to tell Della how to make it--she feels the heat
+so awfully."
+
+"You can put all sorts of meats in it, I suppose."
+
+"And vegetables; peas and beets and carrots very tender and cut very
+fine. Tomato jelly makes a good salad, too."
+
+"You could make pretty little individual molds of that."
+
+"What are we going to have for salad after these birds?" inquired Roger.
+
+"Let's have alligator pear salad. It's as easy as fiddle. You just have
+to pare the alligators and take out their cores--"
+
+"With a butcher's knife?" inquired Roger.
+
+"--and cut them in halves lengthwise. Then you put the pieces on a pale
+yellow-green lettuce leaf, and pour French dressing over it, and there
+you are!"
+
+"I like it all except the name," objected Roger.
+
+"Christen it something else, and be happy," urged Helen.
+
+"What for sweeties?" Roger demanded. "I'm going through this feast
+systematically."
+
+"Don't go on to the sweeties until we've settled on the bread, then,"
+insisted Ethel Brown, "I say Parker House rolls."
+
+"Or pocket book rolls--the same thing, only smaller," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"I haven't made any since we were at Chautauqua; I shall have to look
+them up again," confessed Dorothy.
+
+"I remember," said Ethel Brown. "You scald two cups of milk and then put
+into it three tablespoonfuls of butter, two teaspoonfuls of sugar and a
+teaspoonful and a half of salt. When it has cooled off a little add a
+dissolved yeast cake and three cups of flour and beat it like
+everything."
+
+"Command me on the day of the party," offered Roger politely.
+
+"We will," giggled the girls, and they said it so earnestly that Roger
+gazed at them suspiciously.
+
+"Cover it up and let it rise; then cut it through and through and knead
+in two and a half cups more flour. Let it rise again. Put it on a floured
+board, knead it, and roll it out to half an inch in thickness. Then cut
+out the rolls with a floured biscuit cutter. Brush one-half of each roll
+with melted butter and fold the round in halves."
+
+"Won't they slide open?"
+
+"Not if you pinch the edges together. Arrange them in your pan and cover
+them over so they can rise in comfort. Then bake them in a hot oven for
+from twelve to fifteen minutes," ended Ethel Brown.
+
+"They aren't as easy as Della's lightning biscuits, but they're so good
+when they're done that you don't mind having taken the trouble about
+them."
+
+"Now for the sweeties," insisted Roger. "I'm afraid you'll forget them
+and my tooth is as sweet as ever it was."
+
+"Are frozen things absolutely forbidden?" inquired Dorothy.
+
+"O, no, let's have one frozen thing. We're going to have some of the
+Rosemont people who aren't relatives, you know, and I hate to think of
+what they'd say about Aunt Louise if she didn't give them something
+frozen!" laughed Helen.
+
+"Let's have frozen peaches, then. Make them in the proportion of two
+quarts of peaches to two cups of sugar, a quart of water, and the juice
+of a lemon and a half. You peel the peaches and take out the stones and
+rub the fruit through a colander. Put the peach pulp and the lemon juice
+into a syrup made by boiling the sugar and water together for five
+minutes and letting it cool. Pour it all into the freezer and grind it
+until it is firm."
+
+"Command me," murmured Roger again.
+
+"Poor old Roger! You shan't be worked to death! Patrick will do the
+grinding."
+
+"For small mercies I'm thankful," returned Roger, a beaming smile
+breaking over his face.
+
+"I speak for chopped preserved ginger with whipped cream, served in those
+lovely ramequins of Aunt Louise's," cried Ethel Blue.
+
+"Why can't we have maple marguerites to go with everything?"
+
+"New to me, but let's have 'em," urged Roger.
+
+"Boil together a cup and a half of brown sugar and a half a cup of water
+until it makes a soft ball when it's dropped into cold water. Let it cool
+for a few minutes and then put in half a teaspoonful of maple flavoring
+and beat it all together. Have ready a quarter of a cup of finely chopped
+nut meats. Add half of this amount and drop this perfectly _dee_-licious
+stuff on to crackers. While it's still warm enough to be sticky sprinkle
+over the crackers the remainder of the nut meats."
+
+"I'll grind the nut meats," offered Roger.
+
+"And ask for heavy pay in marguerites!" laughed Ethel Brown.
+
+"I scorn your aspersions of my character," returned her brother solemnly.
+"What are you going to have to drink?"
+
+"Coffee--grape-juice--lemonade--the usual things."
+
+"I think that's a pretty good list. Write it down and let's see what Aunt
+Louise thinks of it," recommended Helen.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+                              COLUMBUS DAY
+
+
+Ethel Blue, as Columbus Day approached, was filled with many strange
+feelings, some of them far from pleasant. When she read a letter from her
+father a few days before the twelfth she felt as if dread had brought
+upon her exactly what she had dreaded. The letter was filled with loving
+expressions but it told her that her father was to be married very soon.
+
+"I know that you will love the dear lady who has honored me by saying
+that she will relieve my loneliness," he wrote.
+
+"_I_ would have relieved his loneliness if he had given me a chance,"
+Ethel sobbed to herself as she lay on her bed and read the tear-blotted
+lines for the tenth time.
+
+  "It will be a sorrow to you to leave Aunt Marion and your cousins, but
+  perhaps the thought that now you will belong in a home of your own will
+  make up for it, in part, at any rate. I don't see how we can all help
+  being happy together, and we must all try to make each other happy."
+
+Ethel Blue thought of a great many things to say in reply to her father.
+They sounded very smart and very convincing as she said them over to
+herself in a whisper, but just as she was wiping her eyes and getting up
+to sit at her desk and put them on paper her Aunt Marion's suggestion
+that she would be selfish if she did anything that would hurt her father
+or prevent him from making a belated happiness for himself cut her to the
+heart.
+
+"He doesn't love me or he wouldn't do it," she repeated, and then she
+remembered that all her life she had had a home and a loving family of
+cousins who were as good as brothers and sisters, while her father had
+spent the same time without the thought, even, of home-making.
+
+"I suppose it's some old Fort Myer woman who's as cross as two sticks,"
+she murmured again and again; and then an inner voice seemed to speak in
+her ear and tell her that there was no reason why she should not imagine
+that it was some really lovely person who was as sweet as she was pretty.
+
+"Everybody says my mother was pretty," thought poor Ethel Blue, who had
+been making herself very miserable by her old habit of "pretending"
+without any basis of fact, and who now was trying to get a scrap of
+comfort from the thought that her father had had good taste once and
+might be trusted to exercise it again.
+
+Whether or not to show the letter to her Aunt Marion she did not know.
+Her father had not said whether he had informed her or not. Usually Ethel
+told her aunt everything promptly, but now she did not feel as if she
+could speak of the thing that had appeared dreadful when it was only a
+possibility. The reality was so much worse that it did not seem as if she
+could trust herself to mention it.
+
+"Aunt Louise has asked him to come on to the housewarming," she said.
+"I'll wait and see if he comes. Then he can tell her and Aunt Marion
+himself; and if he doesn't come it won't be any worse for me to tell them
+a few days from now than right off this minute."
+
+It was so forlorn an Ethel Blue who dragged herself through the
+preparations for the Columbus Day entertainment, that Ethel Brown could
+not help noticing the melancholy air that hung over her usually smiling
+face. Ethel Blue would make no explanation to her cousin, nor would she
+tell her aunt anything more than the reassuring words that she was
+perfectly well. They gave up trying to make her talk about herself,
+trusting to time to bring its own healing.
+
+No letter came from her father announcing his acceptance of his sister
+Louise's invitation, nor did another letter reach Ethel Blue. She was
+inclined to make a grievance of this until it occurred to her that she
+was not likely to hear until she replied to her father's announcement of
+his proposed marriage.
+
+"It's a serious thing and I ought to answer his letter right off," her
+conscience told her, "but I can't say I'm glad and I don't want to say
+I'm not glad. I'll wait until after the twelfth, any way."
+
+Her feelings of selfishness and uncertainty made her a miserable girl
+during the interval.
+
+On the morning of Columbus Day the Mortons and Hancocks went into New
+York to the Watkinses. Della's and Tom's father was a clergyman who
+worked among the foreigners of the East Side. This was an advantage to
+the Club members when they watched the procession that wound its way from
+the lower part of the city northward to Columbus Circle at 59th Street.
+
+"These people must come from all over Europe," exclaimed Ethel Brown as
+bits of conversation in languages that she never had heard drifted to her
+ears.
+
+"New York is called one of the largest foreign cities in the world,"
+laughed Roger, whose spirits had risen although he was having
+difficulties again with his camera and its persistent desire to take
+everything that came within its range, "whether the girls are pretty or
+not!" he complained.
+
+"They say that New York is the second largest German city in the world,
+and that there are more Hebrews of different nationalities gathered here
+than anywhere else," said Tom.
+
+"Here are a lot of people wearing peasant costumes that I never saw in
+any geography," cried Dorothy.
+
+"When otherwise not accounted for you can generally put them among the
+Balkan states," laughed Della.
+
+"Look at that girl over there in peasant costume and right side of her is
+a girl in the latest New York style! That's a tremendous contrast."
+
+"I suppose the American-dressed girl thinks she is very fashionable, but
+the other looks much more sensibly dressed and more attractive, too,"
+said James gravely.
+
+"She's a great deal prettier girl for one reason," smiled his sister.
+"She would look better whatever she wore."
+
+They all laughed at James who insisted that he preferred peasant dress,
+but they all exclaimed with delight at the gorgeous costumes worn by a
+group of Hungarian men. Some of them were riding in carriages and they
+seemed very self-conscious but greatly pleased at the attention they
+attracted.
+
+"This is a great day for the Italians," said Helen as band after band,
+and society after society, bearing the Italian red, white and green
+passed them.
+
+"Well, Columbus was an Italian. They ought to feel comfortable about it.
+He discovered us."
+
+They all shouted at James's way of putting his defense of Columbus's
+countrymen.
+
+"If we're going to hear any of the speeches at Columbus Circle we'd
+better hop into the subway and speed to 59th Street," urged Tom.
+
+They were in plenty of time, and watched the placing around the Columbus
+monument of numberless wreaths and emblems which the societies brought
+with them, chiefly at the ends of tall poles and deposited at the feet of
+the statue of the great explorer.
+
+As soon as they reached home the Mortons all went over to Sweetbrier
+Lodge to help with the final decorations. The attic they had set in order
+the day before. This was necessary for they had to have a curtain and
+they wanted to put it through a rehearsal as well as themselves. Extra
+chairs had been brought in for the occasion and they were now unfolded so
+that the little audience room was ready for its opening performance.
+
+Below stairs all was ready in the kitchen department, the Ethels learned
+when they offered their services there. What was not completed was the
+arrangement of flowers and branches throughout the rooms. At the end of
+an hour during which the Ethels and Dorothy and Helen arranged and Roger
+carried, the house looked really lovely.
+
+The color scheme of the lower floor was so autumnal that it was not hard
+to follow it out in leaves and blossoms. Chrysanthemums were ready to
+emphasize the yellow tones, and bronze leaves from oaks and chestnuts
+carried on the darker hues. Here and there one of Dorothy's Japanese
+gardens gave an air of quaintness to a corner, or stood in relief against
+a screen.
+
+Upstairs the nursery was a bower of white cosmos; Dorothy's room was
+feathery with pink blossoms of the same delicate flower; against Mrs.
+Smith's primrose walls trailed the yellow leaves of a grapevine; purple
+asters nodded in the violet chamber, and the gray guest room wore fluffs
+of clematis.
+
+It was not a large party that gathered at Mrs. Smith's for the
+housewarming. The family connection was not small, however, and the
+newcomers had made some warm friends during the year that they had lived
+in Rosemont. The older Watkinses and Hancocks had come, and about fifty
+people filled the drawing room comfortably, admiring its beauty as they
+waited for the signal to go upstairs to the attic to see one of the
+entertainments which Rosemonters had learned to expect from the United
+Service Club.
+
+"It's very charming," murmured Mrs. Hancock to her sister. "I see your
+hand here."
+
+"Not very much," demurred Miss Graham. "I merely made an occasional
+suggestion or told them how to work out some good idea of their own. The
+color scheme is Mrs. Smith's."
+
+"It is charming," repeated Mrs. Hancock, her eyes moving from the
+yellow-white wood-work to the natural pongee walls and then on to the
+next shade of yellow, found in the draperies of the windows, made of a
+heavy linen dyed to strike the next note in the color scale. The
+furniture was upholstered in three or four shades of brown; a bit of gold
+flashed sombrely from the shadows, and an occasional touch of dull blue
+brought out the blue tones of the handsome rugs.
+
+Every one took a peek into the upper rooms as they passed upstairs to the
+attic. Ayleesabet's nursery received much praise, and the delicate tones
+of the bed-rooms won immediate approval. In the attic they found
+comfortable wicker chairs arranged about the room facing a small stage
+before which hung a tan linen curtain.
+
+"What are the children going to do?" asked Mr. Emerson of his hostess.
+
+"I really don't know," returned Mrs. Smith. "Dorothy said it would be
+appropriate for Columbus Day, so I entrusted it all to the young people."
+
+When the curtain was drawn the Club was disclosed grouped on the stage.
+They sang Miss Bates's "America the Beautiful," Mrs. Smith accompanying
+them on the piano.
+
+"That's all I have to do with the program," she said to Mr. Emerson when
+it was over and she had again taken her seat beside him.
+
+Then Tom told the story of Columbus--how he was born at Genoa and became
+a sailor and when he was about thirty-four years old went with a brother
+to live in Lisbon. Tom was seated on the stage at a table and two or
+three of the others sat about as if they were in a library listening to
+the talk. They entered quite naturally into the conversation.
+
+"Four years later," continued Tom, "somebody gave Columbus a map that put
+the Orient directly west of Spain, and Columbus became filled with a
+desire to search out the East by sailing west."
+
+"I've read that he died thinking he had discovered the East," responded
+Helen.
+
+"He laid his plans before the Portuguese king, but he found he couldn't
+trust him, so he went to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in Spain. They
+summoned their wisest men to pass on the subject at a council held at
+Salamanca. For three years they kept him waiting about in uncertainty
+before they reported to the king that his idea was absurd. Columbus was
+furious--"
+
+"I should think he might have been."
+
+"--and he started at once for Paris to try to get the king of France,
+Charles VIII, to help him. He took his little son with him and one night
+they slept at a monastery. The prior became interested in Columbus's
+story and believed in him and didn't want the glory of his achievement to
+go to another country. So he managed to secure for him another interview
+with Ferdinand and Isabella, and we're going to see now," said Tom,
+turning to the audience, "what happened at the convent."
+
+With that the curtain fell. When it parted once more a dark curtain
+across the stage represented the outside of the convent. Ethel Brown
+recited Trowbridge's "Columbus at the Convent," while James acted the
+part of the Prior; Roger, Columbus; and Dicky, little Diego.
+
+"Those children have a real feeling for costume," whispered Miss Graham
+to her neighbor, and then started as she found that it was not her
+brother-in-law, Dr. Hancock, as she supposed, but Ethel Blue's father,
+Captain Morton, who had come in in the darkness.
+
+"How do you do?" he said, smiling at her startled air. "I suppose they
+made these things themselves."
+
+"The boys are wearing their sisters' long stockings and the girls made
+the short, puffy trunks and short, full coats."
+
+Ethel Brown's voice sounded clearly through the darkness though her
+hearers could not see her.
+
+    "Dreary and brown the night comes down,
+      Gloomy without a star.
+    On Palos town the night comes down;
+    The day departs with a stormy frown;
+      The sad sea moans afar.
+
+    "A convent-gate is near; 'tis late;
+      Ting-ling! the bell they ring.
+    They ring the bell, they ask for bread--
+    'Just for my child,' the father said.
+      Kind hands the bread will bring.
+
+    "White was his hair, his mien was fair,
+      His look was calm and great.
+    The porter ran and called a friar;
+    The friar made haste and told the prior;
+      The prior came to the gate."
+
+Here the dark curtain was drawn and a room was disclosed with a table at
+which the men sat and a small bed in which Dicky was put to sleep.
+
+    "He took them in, he gave them food;
+      The traveller's dreams he heard;
+    And fast the midnight moments flew,
+    And fast the good man's wonder grew,
+      And all his heart was stirred.
+
+    "The child the while, with soft, sweet smile,
+      Forgetful of all sorrow,
+    Lay soundly sleeping in his bed.
+    The good man kissed him then and said:
+      'You leave us not to-morrow!'
+
+    "'I pray you rest the convent's guest;
+      The child shall be our own--
+    A precious care, while you prepare
+    Your business with the court, and bear
+      Your message to the throne.'
+
+    "And so his guest he comforted.
+      O, wise, good prior, to you,
+    Who cheered the stranger's darkest days,
+    And helped him on his way, what praise
+      And gratitude are due!"
+
+The pantomime followed the lines closely.
+
+"Wasn't Dicky cunning!" exclaimed Dicky's adoring grandmother.
+
+"Dicky was a duck!" exclaimed Helen, who had slipped out to see the
+pantomime. "We told him what he was supposed to be--a little boy
+travelling with his father, and that they had to stop and ask for food
+and that a kind man took them in and gave him a comfy bed. He seemed to
+understand it all, and he took hold of James's hand and looked up in his
+face as seriously as if he were the real thing. He was splendid."
+
+"All the same I'm always relieved when Dicky's part is over and he hasn't
+done anything awful!" confessed Dorothy, who had come out also. "It would
+be just like him to say to James, 'You needn't give me any bread; I want
+cookieth!'"
+
+"We tried to impress on him that he wasn't to say anything--that nobody
+but Ethel Brown was to say anything; that was the game. I dare say if
+James had spoken Dicky would have ordered his meal to suit his fancy."
+
+Tom went on with Columbus's story at this point, but he spoke from the
+floor because tableaux were being arranged behind the curtains. He told
+how the interview with the king and queen that the prior had arranged,
+all went wrong and how Columbus started again for France but was called
+back by the queen whose imagination had been excited by what he told her,
+and who promised to pledge her jewels to raise money for his expedition.
+
+Here the curtains swung open and showed a brilliant scene, Della
+representing the queen, James the king, and all the other Club members,
+courtiers. Columbus was arguing his case before the court and he was
+shown in the act of knocking off the end of an egg to convince the men
+who had said that they would believe the world was round when they saw
+the impossible happen--when an egg should stand upright.
+
+"I hope Roger's hand won't slip," murmured Roger's mother; "that's a real
+egg!"
+
+It was while she was standing beside the queen as one of her ladies in
+waiting that Ethel Blue's eyes happened to fall on her father out in the
+audience. The light from the stage illuminated his face and she thought
+that she never had seen him so happy as he looked at that moment.
+
+"He's so dear and he's going away from me," she groaned inwardly. "Now if
+it were only dear Miss Daisy he's going to marry," she wished with all
+her heart as she noticed that Miss Graham sat in the next chair; "but it
+isn't; it's some old Fort Myer woman."
+
+The curtain fell on her misery and Tom again took up his tale. He told
+about the three tiny ships that Columbus managed to secure, and their
+setting sail and how frightened the sailors became when day after day
+passed and they saw no chance of ever reaching new land or ever returning
+home, and how they threatened to mutiny if he did not turn back.
+
+Then came another pantomime with Roger as Columbus and James as the mate
+of the _Santa Maria_, while Ethel Brown recited Joaquin Miller's poem:
+
+
+                                COLUMBUS
+
+    "Behind him lay the gray Azores,
+      Behind the Gates of Hercules;
+    Before him not the ghost of shores,
+      Before him only shoreless seas.
+    The good mate said: 'Now must we pray,
+      For lo, the very stars are gone.
+    Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?'
+      'Why, say, "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"'
+
+    "'My men grow mutinous day by day;
+      My men grow ghastly wan and weak.'
+    The stout mate thought of home; a spray
+      Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
+    'What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
+      If we sight naught but seas at dawn?'
+    'Why, you shall say at break of day,
+      "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"'
+
+    "They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
+      Until at last the blanched mate said:
+    'Why, now not even God would know
+      Should I and all my men fall dead.
+    These very winds forget their way,
+      For God from these dread seas is gone.
+    Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say'--
+      He said: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'
+
+    "They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
+      'This mad sea shows his teeth to-night.
+    He lifts his lip, he lies in wait,
+      With lifted teeth as if to bite;
+    Brave Admiral, say but one good word:
+      What shall we do when hope is gone?'
+    The words leapt like a leaping sword:
+      'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'
+
+    "Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
+      And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
+    Of all dark nights! And then a speck--
+      A light! a light! a light! a light!
+    It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
+      It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
+    He gained a world; he gave that world
+      Its grandest lesson: 'On! sail on!'"
+
+The last picture was Columbus gazing joyfully at the land he had
+discovered through his perseverance. It was supposed to be the early
+morning of October 12, 1492, and Roger, surrounded by his sailors, stood
+with a foot on the rail of his boat, shielding his eyes from the rising
+sun, while the others crowded behind him, whispering with delight.
+
+When the curtains fell together for the last time the lights flashed out
+upon the audience and disclosed Captain Morton greeting his sister and
+sister-in-law and his nieces and nephews.
+
+"Where's my girl?" he inquired in his cordial, hearty voice. "Where's
+Ethel Blue?"
+
+Some one gave her a friendly push forward so her father did not notice
+the reluctance with which she had been almost creeping toward him. He
+threw his arm around her shoulders regardless of possible damage to the
+elegancies of her court costume, and kissed her heartily. The tears shone
+in her eyes as she forced herself to meet his searching gaze.
+
+"Not crying!" he whispered in her ear, and she felt her heart give a real
+pang as the happiness left his face and was replaced by his old look of
+sorrow and endurance. "Not crying!" he repeated in her ear. "Why, I
+thought you loved her! You've done nothing but write to me about Miss
+Daisy all summer!"
+
+"About Miss Daisy? Do you mean--? Is it Miss Daisy?"
+
+"It certainly is Miss Daisy. Here, come behind the curtain," and he swept
+his daughter and his _fiancee_ out of sight of the retiring audience. "It
+is Daisy Graham who is to be your dear mother, my little Ethel Blue. Are
+you satisfied now?"
+
+"O, Father! O, Miss Daisy!" cried Ethel Blue, sobbing now from relief and
+joy and clinging to both of them; "I never guessed it! It's too wonderful
+to be true!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+                         THE PARTING BREAKFAST
+
+
+Ethel Blue's change of mind about stepmothers was so complete that her
+cousins would have joked her about it except that her Aunt Marion advised
+them to say nothing to her on a subject that had once been so sore a
+theme.
+
+"Don't recall those painful thoughts," she advised. "Ethel Blue will be
+happier and certainly Miss Daisy will be if the present mood continues."
+
+"I thought you couldn't help loving her when you knew her," Captain
+Morton had said to Ethel Blue. "That's why I was willing to postpone the
+wedding all summer so that you and she might have a chance to become
+really well acquainted."
+
+"It was a good way," answered Ethel frankly. "If I had known about it I
+should have thought everything Miss Daisy did was done for its effect on
+me. I should have been suspicious of her all the time."
+
+"You have come to know a very dear woman in a natural way and it crowns
+my happiness that you should care so much for each other."
+
+Since he had waited so patiently for so many months Captain Morton begged
+that the wedding should take place at once. Mrs. Hancock urged her sister
+to have it in Glen Point.
+
+"If you go to Washington you'll have many acquaintances there but not any
+more loving friends than you've made here and in Rosemont," she said
+cordially. "It will give the Doctor and me the greatest happiness to have
+you married from our house, and it will be such a delight to all the U.
+S. C. if they know that they can all be at the wedding of their dear
+'Miss Daisy.'"
+
+"It will be easier for all the Rosemont people--and it would be very
+sweet to go to Richard from your house," murmured Daisy thoughtfully. "I
+believe I'll do it."
+
+"It will be easier to bring Aunt Mary on here than for all the New Jersey
+clans to go to Washington," insisted Mrs. Hancock, referring to the aunt
+with whom her sister had lived in Washington.
+
+"I'll do it," decided Daisy. "Richard's furlough is almost over so it
+will have to be very soon," she continued. "I'll have to begin my
+preparations at once."
+
+So all the plans were made for a quiet wedding for just the two families
+and their intimate friends. It was to be ten days after the housewarming.
+The ceremony was to be in the church at Glen Point, with Ethel Blue as
+maid of honor, and Margaret and Helen, Ethel Brown and Della as the
+bridesmaids.
+
+Even this very first decision gave the Ethels a twinge of pain, because
+it prophesied their coming separation. Never before had they been
+separated at any such function, yet now Ethel Blue was to be in one
+position and her twin cousin in another. They both sighed when it was
+talked over, and they glanced at each other a trifle sadly. They did not
+need to put the meaning of their glances into words.
+
+Dr. Hancock was to give the bride away. To everybody's regret Lieutenant
+Morton could not be present to act as his brother's best man.
+
+"I'm more sorry than I can tell you, old fellow," he wrote. "Roger will
+have to take my place and give you all my good wishes with his own. You
+may congratulate me, too, for I've just got word that my step has come. I
+can now sign myself,
+    "Your affectionate brother,
+        "Roger Morton,
+            "Capt. U.S.N."
+
+
+There was great rejoicing in the Morton family when they learned this
+news, and telegrams poured in on them all day long after the announcement
+was publicly made.
+
+"It gives one more touch of happiness," smiled Richard Morton, who went
+about beaming. He had to content himself with the companionship of his
+daughter, for his betrothed was too busy to give him much time. Probably
+this was a good thing, for it made her father's visit much as it always
+had been to Ethel Blue, and did not impress on her too abruptly the idea
+of their new relation.
+
+It was at the meeting of the U. S. C. held very soon after the
+housewarming that the members decided to give a breakfast in celebration
+of the wedding and of Ethel Blue's departure from Rosemont.
+
+"We'll call it a breakfast, but we'll have it rather late," said Helen.
+
+"Why?" growled Roger hungrily. "I like my morning nourishment early."
+
+"It's going to be out on our terrace, and it's getting to be late in the
+season and if it's too cold we can't have it there," said Dorothy.
+
+"Put in your glass windows and have it at a civilized hour," implored
+Roger.
+
+Dorothy looked at Helen.
+
+"I'll ask Mother if she won't do that," she said. "Then we can have a
+fire in the open fireplace out there if it should be really frosty. I
+forgot we had all those comforts!"
+
+"We must give the Glen Point people time to get over, if Roger can
+restrain his appetite a trifle," urged Ethel Brown.
+
+"We'd better have Della and Tom stay all night so they'll be here on
+time," urged Ethel Blue. "I can't get over New Haven being near enough
+for Tom to go back and forth so easily. I always thought it was as far
+off as Boston."
+
+"I declare I almost weep every time I think of Ethel Blue's leaving the
+club," sobbed Tom with loud groans.
+
+Ethel Blue tossed a pillow at him.
+
+"Stop making fun of me," she said with her pretended severity.
+
+"Ethel Blue was the founder of this club. Don't forget that," said James
+gravely.
+
+"Don't be so solemn, people; you'll make me bawl," and Ethel Blue looked
+around her wildly, as Ethel Brown made a dive into her pocket for her
+handkerchief, and Della sniffed.
+
+"Stop your nonsense, children," urged Helen. "Let's make a list of what
+we are going to do at our breakfast. First, what shall we eat?"
+
+The discussion waxed absorbing, but when it came to the arrangement of a
+program it was found that there seemed to be fewer ideas than was
+customary among them.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Helen. "Usually we're tumbling over ourselves
+suggesting things."
+
+"I've got an idea, but it's sort of a joke and I don't want to take the
+edge off it by telling it now," admitted James.
+
+It proved that all of them were in the same predicament.
+
+"I'll tell you--let's have Helen and Roger the committee to arrange this
+program," suggested Tom. "Then we can each one tell the committee what
+our particular idea is, and they'll be the only ones who will know all
+the jokes."
+
+They decided that this would be the best way, and the committee withdrew
+to a corner where it was visited by one after the other of the rest of
+the members, while the unoccupied people drew around the piano on which
+Ethel Blue was playing popular songs.
+
+"When do you go?" Tom asked her as she stopped for a few minutes to hunt
+up a new piece of music.
+
+"The wedding is the day after our breakfast; then they go off on a week's
+trip and when they come back they'll pick me up here and take me on to
+Fort Myer with them."
+
+"That means that you'll only be here about ten days longer?"
+
+Ethel Blue nodded, her eyes filling.
+
+"I wish you'd give us your idea now, Tom," called Helen, seeing from
+across the room that her little cousin was not far from tears, and Tom
+went away, leaving her to let her fingers slip softly through a simple
+tune that her Aunt Marion had taught her to play in the dusk without her
+notes. She wondered if she would ever do it again; if her new mother and
+her father would want her to play it to them; if she should be happy, the
+only young person in the household when she had been accustomed to a
+large family; if she could ever get along without Dicky to tease her and
+to be teased.
+
+"Aunt Marion says that every change in life has its good points and its
+bad ones," she thought. "I must make the most out of the good points and
+try not to notice the bad ones or to change them into good ones."
+
+The tune rang out with a gayer lilt.
+
+"Any way, there are so many good points now that I ought not to think
+about the others. I've all my life wanted to live with Father. Here's my
+chance, and I must see only that my wish has come true."
+
+"You sound very gay over here by yourself," said James's voice behind
+her. "You don't sound as if you were sorry at all about leaving us."
+
+"I'm trying to balance things," Ethel Blue answered. "I lose Ethel Brown
+and all of you, but I gain Father."
+
+"You'll be coming north for your holidays next summer, I suppose. That
+will be a great old time for the U. S. C.," he said hopefully.
+
+"It would be simply too fine for words if the U. S. C. could go to
+Washington for Washington's Birthday next winter the way it did this
+winter," returned Ethel Blue, beaming at him.
+
+"There certainly is every inducement to get up an excursion there now,"
+said James. "You know we've decided on a round robin, don't you?"
+
+"A round robin? How does it work?"
+
+"Helen and Ethel Brown and the Honorary Member and Dorothy will be here
+in Rosemont, Margaret will be in Glen Point, Della in New York, you at
+Fort Myer and we boys at Harvard and Yale and the Boston Tech. Helen is
+going to start a letter on the first day of each month. She'll tell us
+what she's been doing. Ethel Brown will add on a bit; so will Dicky and
+Dorothy. It will go to Margaret. She'll put in a big batch of Glen Point
+news and send it in town to Della. When she has finished she'll send it
+on to Tom at New Haven, and in course of time it will reach Roger and me
+in Boston and Cambridge and we'll send it on to you in Washington."
+
+"That will be perfectly great!" exclaimed Ethel. "You can illustrate it
+with kodaks, and we'll all know what every one of us is doing all the
+time."
+
+"That was Aunt Daisy's idea. She thought we'd all like to keep together
+in some way even if we couldn't have our Saturday meetings."
+
+"Isn't she splendid!" ejaculated Ethel Blue, and at that instant she felt
+that she was far richer than ever before in her life.
+
+The morning of the breakfast proved to be clear and not too frost-filled
+for comfort.
+
+"We really hardly need the glass," Mrs. Smith said as she and Dorothy
+examined the terrace at an early hour.
+
+"It was safer to have it, though," answered Dorothy. "It might have
+rained and it never would have done to have the bride take cold. Now we
+can have the sashes open and the fire will take off the chill. It's a
+great combination."
+
+Mrs. Smith agreed that it was, and went on with her scrutiny of the
+table.
+
+When the guests arrived at nine o'clock, which was the very latest moment
+permitted them by Roger, they found the sun shining merrily on silver and
+glass and china, twinkling as if it were in the secret of the jokes that
+Helen and Roger had up their sleeves. Mr. Emerson had sent over his car
+for the Hancocks, for the Doctor's car was too small to convey the entire
+family.
+
+"It does my heart good to see Richard so radiant," said Mrs. Morton to
+her sister-in-law as Captain Morton ran down the steps to help his
+_fiancee_.
+
+"I believe the best part of his life is before him," Mrs. Smith answered
+softly, a smile on her lips.
+
+The hostess sat at one end of the table and Dorothy at the other. In the
+middle of one side was Helen, the president of the United Service Club,
+and in the middle of the other, Ethel Blue, the secretary and departing
+member. Mingled with the other club members were Mr. and Mrs. Emerson,
+who had contributed so greatly to the Club's pleasure during the
+preceding year, and Dr. and Mrs. Hancock, relatives of to-morrow's bride.
+The hour was too early for Mr. and Mrs. Watkins to come out from New
+York, but they telephoned their good wishes and congratulations while the
+meal was in progress.
+
+It was a simple breakfast but everything was good both to eat and to look
+at. It began with fruit, of which there were several kinds, and continued
+with a well-cooked cereal.
+
+"None of your five minute cereals for me," smiled Mrs. Smith. "I always
+have even the short-time ones cooked at least twice as long as they are
+reputed to need. It brings out their flavor better."
+
+After the cereal with its rich cream came chops for the meat eaters and
+individual _omelettes souffles_, as light as a feather, for the egg
+eaters. The coffee was clear and turned to a warm gold when the cream
+worked its magic upon it. Broiled fresh mushrooms with bacon brought it
+all to an end.
+
+"Just the kind of muffins I like best," Ethel Brown said in a undertone
+to Dorothy.
+
+"Potatoes from our own farm," announced the hostess.
+
+"All praise to Dorothy, the farmer," hailed Mr. Emerson.
+
+"Mostly to Roger," protested Dorothy. "He managed the vegetable end of
+our planting."
+
+Helen tapped on her glass.
+
+"This will be the last meeting of all the members of the U. S. C.," she
+said, "because Ethel Blue and the boys are going away."
+
+A shade fell over the faces of all those around the table.
+
+"We who are left at home here are going to keep it up, so that there'll
+always be a Club for the wanderers to come back to. And we're going to
+have a round robin fly about every month."
+
+"Perhaps we'll all get together next summer in the holidays," suggested
+Tom.
+
+"We'll try to," the president continued. "Now I want to ask you to drink
+in Aunt Louise's nice brown coffee to the health of the founder of the
+United Service Club. She is its secretary and to-day she is distinguished
+as being about to leave us for good."
+
+They rapped the table and shouted Ethel Blue's name joyously. She sat
+with her head bowed, smiling.
+
+"Speech, speech," cried Mr. Emerson.
+
+"Thank you, thank you," replied Ethel Blue breathlessly. "I'm glad we've
+had the Club. It has been fun, although we've had to work pretty hard at
+it."
+
+"You've made fun for others," said Mrs. Emerson. "You've lived up to your
+name:--the United Service."
+
+"I'd like to propose the health of the Club as a whole," said Mrs.
+Morton. "As a citizen of Rosemont I can repeat what has been said to me
+by other citizens, even if, as the mother of some of the members, I might
+be somewhat embarrassed to utter such praise. Rosemont thinks that the
+United Service Club has done more to stir up the town than any other
+organization it has ever had."
+
+There was general applause from the grown-ups.
+
+"I'd like to hear some of these undertakings," said Captain Morton.
+"Won't some one recite them?"
+
+"O, Father, I wrote you all about them when each one came off," objected
+Ethel Blue.
+
+"Uncle Richard will hear what some of them are when we give out our
+prizes," said Helen. "We've decided to give prizes for certain especial
+successes. Ethel Brown, for instance, will be so good as to rise and
+receive a reward for reciting more poems than we ever knew could be
+learned by one small brain."
+
+Ethel Brown rose and received, while the rest applauded, a small sieve.
+
+"Why a sieve?" inquired Margaret.
+
+"The sieve is symbolic. Ethel takes in verse through her eyes and lets it
+out through her lips just like a sieve."
+
+After the laughter subsided, Helen continued:
+
+"Our next prize is for Grandfather Emerson, who supplied Ethel Brown with
+much of the material with which she has favored us."
+
+Mr. Emerson was decorated with a miniature well and pump.
+
+"I suppose this is the fount of English undefiled on which I drew," he
+commented.
+
+The president went on with her distribution. The jokes were all mild but
+for the Club members each had its meaning. James received a small pair of
+crutches, because he was the only one who had broken a leg.
+
+"I'm glad it wasn't scissors," said his father. "He might be led into
+cutting corners again."
+
+Dorothy received a pink tin containing a cake with pink icing--all by way
+of recognition of her love of cooking and of pink. Roger's gift was a set
+of collar and cuffs made from paper "dirt bands" and adorned with cuff
+buttons and a cravat of dazzling beauty.
+
+"A man of fashion and a farmer combined," Helen announced.
+
+Dicky received a watering can, by way of indicating his fondness for
+getting into trouble with water. A fan went to Della "for next summer's
+use." Tom had a little Roman soldier as a reminder of his representation
+of one of the Great Twin Brethren. Margaret's offering was a tiny
+Christmas Ship containing needles and a spool of thread. Helen gave
+herself a doll's coat like the one which she and Margaret had copied in
+great numbers for the war orphans. Ethel Blue's gift was a real
+present--a travelling case fitted with the necessaries of a journey. This
+came from all the members of the Club.
+
+"You're just too dear," whispered Ethel Blue, too overcome to speak.
+
+They drowned her voice in a burst of chatter, so that she might not burst
+into tears.
+
+"I have a few gifts left," said Helen, "and I'd like to give them out by
+acclamation. Whose tires have we worn until they were almost worn out and
+yet _she_ has never tired?"
+
+"Grandmother Emerson," came the ringing answer, and Helen ran around to
+her grandmother's chair and gave her a toy automobile.
+
+"Who made the most box furniture for Rose House?"
+
+"Roger," shouted James at the top of his lungs, while at the same moment
+Roger cried "James." The others, having been instructed to keep silent,
+concluded that the question was settled for them.
+
+"Roger _and_ James," decreed Helen, presenting each of them with a knife.
+
+"Who are our high-flyers?"
+
+"The Ethels," every one said promptly, for the Ethels were the only ones
+present who had been up in an aeroplane.
+
+A tiny flyer was given to each of them.
+
+So it went on until the supply of parcels in Helen's basket was
+exhausted.
+
+"Now, to wind up with," Helen said, "I want to thank Uncle Richard for
+giving us the very finest kind of present," and she waved her hand across
+the table to Miss Daisy, whose shining eyes and glowing cheeks told of
+her delight in all she had seen. "Uncle Richard is taking away Ethel
+Blue, but he's giving us an aunt. We love her already and we think we've
+all won a prize in her."
+
+"Ah, no," exclaimed Miss Daisy, slipping one hand into Ethel Blue's and
+laying the other on Captain Morton's shoulder. "It is I who have won a
+prize--a double prize!"
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+
+--Silently corrected some obvious typographical errors and misspellings.
+
+--Used hyphens more consistently, when the original showed a clear
+  preference.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHEL MORTON AT SWEETBRIER LODGE***
+
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+******* This file should be named 35364.txt or 35364.zip *******
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