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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ethel Morton and the Christmas Ship, 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 and the Christmas Ship
+
+Author: Mabell S. C. Smith
+
+Release Date: May 1, 2011 [EBook #36007]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHEL MORTON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Roger Frank, Emmy and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETHEL MORTON
+
+AND THE
+
+CHRISTMAS SHIP
+
+
+BY
+
+MABELL S. C. SMITH
+
+          M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
+          CHICAGO           NEW YORK
+
+
+
+          Made in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                          PAGE
+      I THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB AT HOME                 9
+     II DOROTHY'S COTTAGE                              18
+    III THE CHRISTMAS SHIP                             26
+     IV FINANCIAL PLANS                                35
+      V ROGER GOES FORAGING                            47
+     VI IN THE SMITH ATTIC                             57
+    VII FOR A TRAVELLER'S KIT                          70
+   VIII THE RED CROSS NURSE SETS SAIL                  85
+     IX PLANNING THE U. S. C. "SHOW"                   90
+      X THE EVENTFUL EVENING                          101
+     XI "SISTER SUSIE'S SEWING SHIRTS FOR SOLDIERS"   115
+    XII JAMES CUTS CORNERS                            129
+   XIII PASTING                                       139
+    XIV JAMES'S AFTERNOON PARTY                       151
+     XV PREVENTION                                    163
+    XVI FOR SANTA CLAUS'S PACK                        177
+   XVII THE CLUB WEAVES, STENCILS AND MODELS CLAY     194
+  XVIII ETHEL BLUE AWAITS A CABLE                     206
+    XIX LEATHER AND BRASS                             211
+     XX THE ETHELS COOK TO KEEP                       221
+    XXI THE CHRISTMAS SHIP SAILS                      232
+   XXII A WEDDING AND A SURPRISE                      242
+
+
+
+
+ETHEL MORTON AND THE CHRISTMAS SHIP
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB AT HOME
+
+
+"IT'S up to Roger Morton to admit that there's real, true romance in the
+world after all," decided Margaret Hancock as she sat on the Mortons'
+porch one afternoon a few days after school had opened in the September
+following the summer when the Mortons and Hancocks had met for the first
+time at Chautauqua. James and Margaret had trolleyed over to see Roger
+and Helen from Glen Point, about three quarters of an hour's ride from
+Rosemont where the Mortons lived.
+
+"Roger's ready to admit it," confessed that young man. "When you have an
+aunt drop right down on your door mat, so to speak, after your family
+has been hunting her for twenty years, and when you find that you've
+been knowing her daughter, your own cousin, pretty well for two months
+it does make the regular go-to-school life that you and I used to lead
+look quite prosy."
+
+"How did she happen to lose touch so completely with her family?"
+
+"I told you how Grandfather Morton, her father, opposed her marrying
+Uncle Leonard Smith because he was a musician. Well, she did marry him,
+and when they got into straits she was too proud to tell her father
+about it."
+
+"I suppose Grandfather would have said, 'I told you so,'" suggested
+Helen.
+
+"And I believe it takes more courage than it's worth to face a person
+who's given to saying that," concluded James.
+
+"Aunt Louise evidently thought it wasn't worth while or else she didn't
+have the courage and so she drifted away. Her mother was dead and she
+had no sisters and Father and Uncle Richard probably didn't write very
+often."
+
+"She thought nobody at home loved her, I suppose," said Helen. "Father
+and Uncle Richard did love her tremendously, but they were just young
+fellows at the time and they didn't realize what their not writing meant
+to her."
+
+"Once in a while they heard of Uncle Leonard through the music papers,"
+went on Roger, "but after his health failed, Aunt Louise told us the
+other day, he couldn't make concert appearances and of course a man
+merely playing in an orchestra isn't big enough to command public
+attention."
+
+"By the time that Grandfather Morton died about twelve years ago she was
+completely lost to the family," Helen continued, "and she says she
+didn't know of his death until five years after, when she came
+accidentally upon some mention of it in a local paper that she picked up
+somewhere."
+
+"That was after Uncle Leonard's death, but it seemed to her that she
+could not make herself known to her people without being disloyal to his
+memory," Roger carried on the story.
+
+"She probably thought that your father and uncle were just as much
+opposed to him as her father had been," guessed Margaret.
+
+"As a matter of fact, they have been hunting hard for her through every
+clue that promised any result ever since Grandfather died because they
+wanted to give her her share of his property."
+
+"He didn't cut her off with a shilling, then?"
+
+"Grandfather seems to have had a change of heart, for he left her more
+than he did his sons. He said she needed it more."
+
+"And it has been accumulating all this time."
+
+"Seven years. That means a very pleasant increase for her and Dorothy."
+
+"She must think rather sadly of the days when they suffered real
+privation for the lack of it," said Helen.
+
+"Anyway, here they are now, with money in their pockets and an
+affectionate family all ready made for them and they are going to live
+here in Rosemont near us, and Dorothy is going to school with the
+Ethels, and I'm willing to admit that it comes nearer to being a romance
+than anything I ever heard of in real life," and Roger nodded his head
+gleefully.
+
+"I'm glad she's going to live here so we can see her once in a while,"
+said Margaret. "Mother and Sister and I all loved her at Chautauqua, she
+was so patient and gentle with the people she taught. And of course we
+all think Dorothy is a darling."
+
+"The Ethels are crazy over her. They treat her as if she were some new
+belonging and they can hardly bear to have her out of their sight."
+
+"It was Grandfather Emerson who said all summer that she looked like the
+Ethels," remarked Roger. "Her hair is fuzzy and her nose is puggy, but
+I didn't see much other likeness."
+
+"When she grows as fat as the Ethels I think she'll look astonishingly
+like them. She's thin and pale, now, poor little dud."
+
+"I wish she could grow as plump as Della Watkins."
+
+"I saw Tom Watkins yesterday," said James.
+
+"What was a haughty New Yorker doing on the Jersey side of the Hudson?"
+
+"It seems he boards Cupid and his family at the Rosemont Kennels--you
+know they're half way between here and Glen Point. He was going to call
+on them."
+
+"Dear Cupid!" laughed Margaret, recalling the bulldog's alarming face
+which ill agreed with his mild name and general behavior. "Let's go over
+to the Kennels and see him some day."
+
+"His wife is named Psyche," went on James, "and they have two pups named
+Amor and Amorette."
+
+"I should think Cupid's puppy would be the funniest little animal on
+earth," roared Roger. "Never, never shall I forget the day old Cupe ran
+away with his market wagon," and he kicked his legs with enthusiasm.
+
+"Did Tom say anything about coming to see us?" asked Margaret.
+
+"He said he and Della were coming over on Saturday afternoon and he
+inquired how far it was from Glen Point to Rosemont and whether they
+could make two calls in one afternoon."
+
+"Not if he stays at either place as long as we'd like to have him," said
+Roger.
+
+"Why don't we have a meeting of the United Service Club on Saturday
+afternoon?" suggested Helen, "and then the Watkinses can come here and
+you two can come and we can all see each other and at the same time
+decide on what we are going to do this winter."
+
+"Great head!" approved Roger. "Can you people be here?"
+
+"We can," assented Margaret.
+
+"And we will." James completed the sentence for her.
+
+"Here are the children. They've been asking when we were to have the
+first meeting, so I know they'll be glad to give Saturday afternoon to
+it."
+
+"The children" of Helen's patronizing expression came rushing into the
+yard at the moment. Ethel Brown Morton, tall and rosy, her cheeks
+flushed with running, led the way; her cousin, Ethel Blue Morton, not
+quite so tall or quite so rosy, made a fair second, and their
+newly-found cousin, Dorothy Smith, brought up the rear, panting a trifle
+harder than the rest, but already looking plumper and sturdier than she
+had during the summer at Chautauqua.
+
+They greeted Margaret and James gladly, and sat down on the steps of the
+porch to engage in the conversation.
+
+"Hullo," a voice came through the screen door. "I'm coming out."
+
+"That must be my friend Dicky," declared James. "Come on, old man," and
+he arranged his knees in position to serve as a seat for the
+six-year-old who calmly sat himself down upon them.
+
+"How are you?" questioned James gravely. "All right?"
+
+"Firtht rate," replied Dicky briefly. "Have a thuck?" and he offered
+James the moist end of an all-day-sucker, withdrawing it from his own
+mouth for the purpose.
+
+"Thank you, I'm not eating candy to-day, sir," responded James
+seriously. "Much obliged to you, all the same."
+
+Dicky nodded his recognition of James's thanks and resumed his
+occupation.
+
+"It keeps us still though we're not pretty to look at as we do it,"
+commented Ethel Brown.
+
+"You're talking about me," asserted Dicky suddenly, once more removing
+his sucker from his increasingly sticky lips and fixing an accusing eye
+upon his sister.
+
+"She was, Dicky, that's true," interposed Helen quickly, "but she loves
+you just as much as if she were talking about Roger."
+
+Dicky regarded this as a compliment and subsided against James's chest.
+
+"We're going to try and get the Watkinses to come out next Saturday
+afternoon and the Hancocks will come over and we'll have a meeting of
+the United Service," explained Roger to the new arrivals.
+
+"Good enough!" approved Ethel Brown.
+
+"What are you going to do, Madam President?" inquired Ethel Blue, who
+felt a lively interest in any future plans because the Club was her
+idea.
+
+"We'll all think of things between now and Saturday, and suggest them
+then."
+
+"Tell the Watkinses when you write to them, Helen."
+
+"I'm just boiling over with ideas for the Club to put into execution
+some time or other," announced Roger.
+
+"Big ones or little?" asked Dorothy.
+
+"Some of them are pretty big, but I have a feeling in my bones that
+they'll go through."
+
+"Good for old Roger's bones!" commended James. "May we venture to ask
+what some of them are?"
+
+"'Nothing venture, nothing have,'" quoted Roger. "I'm merely saying now,
+however, that the biggest scheme is one that I told Grandfather Emerson
+about the other day and he said he'd help by giving us the house for
+it."
+
+"What should we do that would need a house?"
+
+"What do you mean--house?"
+
+Roger grinned delightedly at the commotion he had caused.
+
+"This plan I have is so big that we'll have to get the grown-ups to help
+us, but we'll do most of the carrying out ourselves in spite of that."
+
+"I should think we would have to have their help if your plan calls for
+a house."
+
+"You needn't be sarcastic, young woman. This is a perfectly good
+scheme--Grandfather said so. He said it was so good that he was willing
+to back it and to help us by supplying the house we should need."
+
+"Poor old Roger--gone clean crazy," sighed James.
+
+"I almost think so," agreed Helen.
+
+"Let me tell you something, you scoffers----"
+
+"Tell on; that's what we're waiting for."
+
+"Well, on the whole, I guess I won't tell you a thing about it."
+
+"If you aren't the very meanest boy I ever knew in my life," decided
+Margaret whole-heartedly. "To work our curiosity all up this way and
+then not to tell us a thing."
+
+"I didn't get the encouragement that the plan deserved."
+
+"Like all great inventors," commented James.
+
+"They all come out on top at the end, I notice," retorted Roger. "You
+just watch me about next April when the buds begin to swell."
+
+"Heads begin to swell at any time of year, apparently."
+
+"Especially bad cases begin in the autumn--about September."
+
+"Oh, you wait, just wait," threatened Roger. "When you haven't an idea
+what to do to make the Club really useful for another minute then you'll
+recall that I promised you a really big plan. _Then_--"
+
+"If you aren't going to tell us now I think we'd better talk about
+something that has some connection with what we're going to do in
+September instead of this April Fool thing of yours," said Helen
+somewhat sharply.
+
+"Let's not talk about it until Saturday," begged Ethel Blue. "Then we
+can all put our minds on it."
+
+"I rise to remark, Madam President," continued James, "that I believe
+this Club has a great future before it if it does not get involved in
+wildcat schemes--"
+
+"Now listen to that!" exclaimed Roger. "There speaks the canny Scot that
+was James's great-grandfather. Cautious old Hancock! Now you really have
+got me riled. I vow to you, fellow-clubmen and -women that I won't be
+the first to propose this scheme again. You'll have to come to me. And
+I'll prophesy that you will come to me about the first of next April."
+
+"Why April?"
+
+"Nothing to do with April Fool, I assure you. But about that time we
+shall have worked off all the ideas that we've cooked up to carry us
+through the winter and we'll be glad to undertake a service that is a
+service--the real thing."
+
+"We're going to do the real thing all the time." Ethel Blue defended her
+idea. "But I dare say we'll want to do your thing, too."
+
+"Grandfather's recommendation doesn't seem to count with you young
+know-it-alls."
+
+"Grandfather's recommendation is the only reason why our remarks weren't
+more severe," retorted Ethel Brown.
+
+"Each of us must bring in a list next Saturday," said Helen, as they all
+walked to the corner to see that the Hancocks took the car safely.
+
+"And I believe that every one will be a perfectly good plan," said Roger
+magnanimously.
+
+"There won't be one that will require a house to hold it anyway,"
+retorted Margaret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+DOROTHY'S COTTAGE
+
+
+ROSEMONT and Glen Point were two New Jersey towns near enough to New
+York to permit business men to commute every day and far enough away
+from the big city to furnish plenty of air and space for the growing
+generation. It was the latter qualification that endeared them to the
+Morton and Hancock families, for there were no commuters in their
+households. Lieutenant Morton, father of Roger and Helen and Ethel Brown
+and Dicky, was on his ship in the harbor of Vera Cruz. Captain Morton,
+his brother, father of Ethel Blue, had returned to Gen. Funston's army
+after finding their sister, Mrs. Smith, at Chautauqua and convoying her
+with all the Mortons and Mrs. Morton's father and mother, Mr. and Mrs.
+Emerson, back to Rosemont. His short furlough did not allow him to
+remain long enough to see his sister established in a house of her own,
+but it was understood that she was to hire a furnished house as near as
+possible to the Mortons' and live in it until she made up her mind where
+she wanted to build.
+
+"Dorothy and I have wandered about the United States so long," she said
+plaintively, "that we are thankful to settle down in a town and a house
+that we can call our own, and we shall be even happier when we have a
+bungalow actually belonging to us."
+
+At present they were still staying with the Mortons, but the Morton
+family was so large that two visitors crowded them uncomfortably and
+Mrs. Smith felt that she must not trespass upon her sister-in-law's
+hospitality longer than was absolutely necessary.
+
+"I think the white cottage just around the corner will be the one that
+we will take," she said to Dorothy. "Come with me there again this
+afternoon for one more look at it, and then we'll make up our minds."
+
+So they went to the white cottage and carefully studied its merits.
+
+"The principal good thing about it is that it is near Aunt Marion's,"
+declared Dorothy.
+
+"I think so, too. And it is near school and church and the butcher's and
+baker's and candlestick-maker's. We shan't have very far to walk for
+anything."
+
+"Oh, Mother, it doesn't seem possible that this can be _us_ really
+living and not just perching around, and having enough money and enough
+to eat and nothing to worry about."
+
+Mrs. Smith threw her arm about Dorothy's shoulder.
+
+"The thing for you to do to show your gratitude is to grow well and
+strong just as fast as you can. I want to see you as rosy as the
+Ethels."
+
+"They run me around so much that I think they'll do it for me before
+very long."
+
+"They have a start, though, so you'll have to do all the vigorous things
+that they do and others too."
+
+"You mean exercises at home?"
+
+"Every morning when you get up you should do what a cat does when he
+wakes from a nap."
+
+"I know--he stretches himself way out to the tips of his claws."
+
+"And shakes himself all over. What do you suppose he's doing it for?"
+
+"To stretch his muscles, I should think."
+
+"And to loosen his skin and make himself generally flexible. Have you
+ever seen a sick cat? His coat looks dull and dry and woolly instead of
+silky, and when you feel of him his skin doesn't slip over his bones
+easily. It wouldn't be very complimentary to ourselves to say that you
+and I are sick cats just now, but it wouldn't be far from the truth."
+
+"I don't much like the sound of it," laughed Dorothy. "What can we
+invalid pussies do to get well?"
+
+"A few simple exercises we ought to take every morning when we first get
+out of bed. We ought to stand first on one foot and then on the other,
+and swing vigorously the foot that is off the floor."
+
+"That's easy."
+
+"Then if we stretch our arms upward as high as we can, first one and
+then the other and then both, and then put our hands on the ribs of each
+side and stretch and lift them we shall have limbered up the lower and
+the upper parts of ourselves pretty thoroughly."
+
+"I learned a good exercise for the waist muscles at the Girls' Club last
+summer. You sit down and roll the body at the waist line in all
+directions. You can do it standing, too; that brings in some different
+muscles."
+
+"We'll do that. These few exercises will wake up every part of the
+body."
+
+"We ought to do them with the windows open."
+
+"When you first wake up after having the windows wide open all night you
+don't realize the cold in your room. It isn't until you have been to a
+warmer room that you notice the cold in your bedroom. So the best time
+to take these exercises is just the minute you hop out of bed. Stand in
+front of the open window and take deep breaths of air way down into the
+very lower tips of your lungs so that every tiny cell will be puffed out
+with good, fresh oxygen."
+
+"It will take a lot of time to do all those exercises."
+
+"Five minutes every morning will be enough if we do them vigorously. And
+you mustn't forget that your aim is to catch up with the Ethels."
+
+"And then to beat them. I'll do it."
+
+They went slowly through the cottage and planned the purpose to which
+they would put each room. It was simply furnished, but all the
+necessities were there.
+
+"It's more fun this way than if there were a lot of furniture," said
+Dorothy, "because we can get what is lacking to suit ourselves."
+
+"All the time that we are here we can be making plans for building our
+own little house."
+
+"I can hardly wait to have it."
+
+They hugged each other in their happiness and the tears were not far
+from the eyelids of both of them, for Mrs. Smith had not known anything
+but the actual necessities of living for many years and Dorothy had
+never known many comforts that had been every day matters and not
+luxuries to her mother's youth.
+
+So Mrs. Smith hired the white cottage and she and Dorothy moved in at
+once. A cousin of Mary, Mrs. Morton's old servant, who had been Dicky's
+nurse, came to work for them, and by the time of the first meeting of
+the United Service Club Dorothy felt so settled in her new home that she
+wanted to have the meeting in the living-room or the big attic just to
+see how it felt to be entertaining people in her own house.
+
+"I think I wouldn't suggest it this time," Mrs. Smith warned her. "Helen
+is the president, you see, and it seems more suitable for the first
+meeting to be held at her house. Ask if you mayn't have the next one
+here. How often are you going to meet?"
+
+"I hope it will be once a week, and so does Ethel Blue. She thinks
+there's plenty of occupation to keep a service club busy all the time."
+
+At noon the sun disappeared and the Rosemont members of the U. S. C.
+began to have doubts as to whether the Hancocks and Watkinses would
+appear.
+
+"Even if it rains hard I think James and Margaret will come," said
+Helen. "The trolley brings them almost from their door to ours; but I
+don't feel so sure about the Watkinses."
+
+"It doesn't take but ten minutes longer for them to come out from New
+York than for the Hancocks to come over from Glen Point."
+
+"But they have to cross the ferry and take the train and it seems more
+of an undertaking than just to hop into a street car."
+
+"It's getting so dark and gloomy--what do you say if you Ethels make
+some candy to enliven the afternoon?"
+
+"Is there time before they come?"
+
+"Just about. Try Vinegar Candy this time. If you leave half of it
+unstirred and stir the other half it will be as good as two kinds, you
+know."
+
+So the Ethels went off into a pantry back of the kitchen, where Mrs.
+Morton had had a small gas stove installed so that the children might
+cook to their hearts' content without interfering with the occupants of
+the kitchen.
+
+"There's nothing that upsets people who are trying to make a house run
+smoothly and to do its work promptly and well as to have children come
+into the kitchen and use the stove when it is needed for other purposes,
+and get in the way and leave their cooking apparatus around and their
+pots and pans uncleaned," declared Mrs. Morton.
+
+So the Ethels and Helen, and Roger, too, for he was a capital cook and
+was in great demand whenever the boys went on camping trips, all
+contributed from their allowances to buy a simple equipment for this
+tiny kitchen which they called their own. Mrs. Morton paid for the
+stove, but the saucepans and baking tins, the flour and sugar and eggs,
+the flavoring extracts and the seasonings were all supplied by the
+children, and it was understood that when a cooking fit seized them they
+must think out beforehand what they were going to want and provide
+themselves with it and not call on the cook or Mary to help them out of
+an emergency caused by their own thoughtlessness. Mrs. Morton was sure
+that her reputation as a sensible mother who did not let the children
+over-run the kitchen at times when they were decidedly in the way was
+one of the chief reasons why her servants stayed with her so long.
+
+So now Ethel Brown said to Ethel Blue, "Have we got all the materials we
+need for Vinegar Candy?" and Ethel Blue seized the cook book and read
+the receipt.
+
+"Mix together three cupfuls of sugar, half a cupful of vinegar, half a
+cupful of water. When it comes to a boil stir in one teaspoonful of
+soda."
+
+"We've got sugar and soda and water," announced Ethel Brown after
+investigating the shelves of the tiny storeroom, "but there isn't any
+vinegar. I do hate to go out in this rain," for the dark sky was making
+good its threat.
+
+"I'll get it for you. Give me your jug," said Roger, swinging into his
+raincoat. "I'll be back in half a jiff," and he dashed off into the
+downpour, shaking his head like a Newfoundland dog, and spattering the
+drops as he ran.
+
+He was back before the Ethels had their pans buttered and the water and
+sugar measured, so briskly had he galloped. It was only a few minutes
+more before the candy stiffened when a little was dropped into a cup of
+cold water.
+
+"Now we'll pour half of it into one of the pans," directed Ethel Brown,
+"and then we'll get Roger to beat the other half so it will be creamy."
+
+Roger was entirely willing to lend his muscles to so good a cause and
+soon had the mass grained and white.
+
+"Good work; one boiling for two batches!" he declared. "That pleases my
+notions of scientific management."
+
+When the door-bell rang for the first arrivals the whole thing was
+almost cold, and Mary, who was always willing to help in an emergency,
+hastened the chilling process by popping the tins into the ice box.
+
+"They're not warm enough any longer to melt the ice," she decided, "so
+I'll just hurry 'em up a bit."
+
+After all the discussion about the city dwellers' dislike of going into
+the suburbs it was the Watkinses who came first.
+
+"We're ahead of the hour," apologized Della. "We couldn't time ourselves
+exactly for so long a distance."
+
+"The Hancocks will come just on the dot, I've no doubt," laughed Tom.
+"Old James is just that accurate person!"
+
+As the clock's hand was on the appointed minute a whir at the bell
+announced Margaret and James, both dripping from their run from the
+corner.
+
+"Mrs. Morton's compliments and she thought they had better drink this so
+they won't get cold."
+
+"Our compliments and thanks to Mrs. Morton," returned Tom, his hand
+dramatically placed over a portion of his person which is said to be the
+gateway to a boy's heart.
+
+When the cups had been emptied and the wafers consumed and the Ethels
+had taken away the tray with the remains of the feast and had brought
+back the two kinds of candy, carefully cut into squares and heaped in
+two of the pretty Japanese bowls which made a part of their private
+kitchen equipment, they all settled down in big chairs and on couches
+except Roger, who sat near the fire to stir it, and Helen, who
+established herself at one end of the table where she could see them all
+conveniently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE CHRISTMAS SHIP
+
+
+"THE meeting will come to order," commanded Helen, her face bubbling
+with the conflict between her dignity and her desire to laugh at her
+dignity.
+
+"We haven't any secretary, so there can't be any minutes of the last
+meeting."
+
+Helen glanced sidewise at James, for she was talking about something she
+never had had occasion to mention in all her life before and she
+wondered if he were being properly impressed with the ease with which
+she spoke of the non-existent minutes.
+
+James responded to her look with an expression of surprise so comical
+that Helen almost burst into laughter most unsuitable for the presiding
+officer of so distinguished a gathering.
+
+"Oughtn't we to have a secretary?" asked Tom. "If we're going to have a
+really shipshape club this winter it seems to me we ought to have some
+record of what we do."
+
+"And there may be letters to write," urged Roger, "and who'd do them?"
+
+"Not old Roger, I'll bet!" cried James in humorous scorn.
+
+"I don't notice that anybody is addressing the chair," remarked Helen
+sternly, and James flushed, for he had been the president's instructor
+in parliamentary law at the meeting when the Club was organized, and he
+did not relish being caught in a mistake.
+
+"Excuse me, Madam President," he apologized.
+
+"I don't see any especial need for a secretary, Miss President," said
+Margaret, "but can't we tell better when we're a little farther along
+and know what we're going to do?"
+
+"Perhaps so," agreed Helen. "There isn't any treasurer's report for the
+same reason that there isn't any secretary's," she continued.
+
+"Just to cut off another discussion I'd like to repeat my remark," said
+Margaret.
+
+"If we become multi-millionaires later on we can appoint a treasurer
+then," said Della, her round face unusually grave.
+
+"Instead of a secretary's report it seems to me it would be interesting
+to remember what the Club did last summer to live up to its name,"
+suggested Tom. "You know Della and I weren't elected until after you'd
+been going some time, and I'm not sure that I know everything that
+happened."
+
+The Mortons and Dorothy and the Hancocks looked around at each other
+rather vaguely, and no one seemed in a hurry to begin.
+
+"It looks to me as if a secretary is almost a necessity," grinned Tom,
+"if nobody remembers anything you did!"
+
+"There were lots of little things that don't seem to count when you look
+back on them," began Ethel Blue.
+
+"We did some things as a Club," said Roger, "and we can tell Watkins
+about those without embarrassing anybody."
+
+"Our first effort was on Old First Night," said Margaret thoughtfully.
+"Don't you remember we went outside the gate and picked flowers and
+decorated the stage?"
+
+"In the evening James and Roger passed the baskets to collect the
+offering in the Amphitheatre," Ethel Blue said. "And then we all did
+things that helped along in the Pageant and on Recognition Day."
+
+"I don't think those really counted for much as service," said Helen,
+"because they were all of them mighty good fun."
+
+"I think we ought to do whatever will help somebody, whether we like it
+or not," declared Ethel Blue, "but I don't see why we shouldn't hunt up
+pleasant things to do."
+
+"What are we going to do, anyway?" asked Della. "Has anybody any ideas?
+Oh, please excuse me, Helen--Miss President--perhaps it wasn't time to
+ask that question."
+
+"I was just about to ask for suggestions," said Helen with dignity. "Has
+any one come across anything that we can do here in Rosemont or in Glen
+Point or in New York? Anything that will be an appropriate beginning for
+the United Service Club? We want to do something that would be suitable
+for the children of our father and uncle who are serving in the Army and
+Navy trying to keep peace in Mexico, and of a man like Doctor Hancock,
+who is serving his fellowmen in the slums every day, and of a clergyman
+who is helping people to do right all the time."
+
+Helen flushed over this long speech.
+
+"Rosemont, Glen Point, and New York--a wide field," said Tom dryly. "It
+seems as if we might find something without much trouble."
+
+"I thought of the orphanage in Glen Point," said Margaret.
+
+"What is there for us to do for the kids there that the grown people
+don't do?" asked Roger.
+
+"The grown people contribute clothes and food and all the necessaries,
+but sometimes when I've been there it seemed as if the children didn't
+have much of any of the little nothings that boys and girls in their own
+homes have. It seemed to me that perhaps we could make a lot of things
+that weren't especially useful but were just pretty; things that we'd
+like to have ourselves."
+
+"I know just how they feel, I believe," said Margaret. "One of my aunts
+thinks that perfectly plain clothes are all that are necessary and she
+won't let my cousins have any ruffles or bows. It makes them just
+miserable. They're crazy for something that 'isn't useful.'"
+
+"How would it do to get together a lot of things for Christmas for the
+orphans? We might offer to trim a tree for them. Or to give each one of
+them a foolish present or a pretty one to offset the solid things the
+grown-ups will give."
+
+"When I was a kid," observed James, "I used to consider it a mean fraud
+if I had clothing worked off on me as Christmas presents. My parents had
+to clothe me anyway; why should they put those necessities among my
+Christmas gifts which were supposed to be extras!"
+
+"There you are again; what people want in this world of pain and woe,
+ye-ho, he-ho," chanted Roger, "is the things they can go without."
+
+"Has any one thought of anybody else we can benefit?" questioned Helen.
+"We might as well have all the recommendations we can."
+
+"There's an old couple down by the bridge on South Street," said Roger.
+"I've often noticed them. They're all bent up and about a thousand years
+old. We might keep an eye on them."
+
+"I know about them," contributed Ethel Brown. "I asked about them. They
+have a son who takes care of them. He gives them money every week, so
+they aren't suffering, but they both have the rheumatism frightfully so
+they can't go out much and I shouldn't wonder if they'd like a party
+some time, right in their own house. If we could go there and sing them
+some songs and Dicky could speak his piece about the cat and we could do
+some shadow pantomimes on a sheet and then have a spread, I believe
+they'd have as good a time as if they'd been to the movies."
+
+"We'll do it." Tom slapped his leg. "I'll sing 'em a solo myself."
+
+Groans rose from James and Roger.
+
+"Poor old things! What have you got against them?"
+
+"Oh, well, if you're jealous of my voice--of course I wouldn't for the
+world arouse any hard feelings, Madam President. I withdraw my offer.
+But mark ye, callow youths," he went on dramatically, "the day will come
+when I'm a Caruso and you'll be sorry to have to remember that you did
+your best to discourage a genius that would not be discouraged!"
+
+"The meeting will come to order." Helen rapped for quiet, for the
+entire room was rocking to and fro over Tom's praise of one of the
+hoarsest voices ever given to boy or man.
+
+"We'll give the old people a good show, even if Tom does back out,"
+cried Roger. "I wish we had a secretary to put down these suggestions.
+I'm afraid we'll forget them."
+
+"So am I," agreed Helen. "Let's vote for a secretary. Roger, pass around
+some paper and pencils and let's ballot."
+
+Roger did as he was bid, and Ethel Brown and Della collected the ballots
+and acted as tellers.
+
+"The tellers will declare the vote," announced Helen, who had been
+conferring with James while the balloting was going on, and had learned
+the proper parliamentary move. Margaret had coached Ethel Brown so that
+she made her report in proper style.
+
+"Total number of votes cast, eight; necessary to a choice, five.
+Margaret has one, Dorothy has one, Roger has two, Ethel Brown has one,
+Ethel Blue has three. Nobody has enough."
+
+"Have we got to vote over again?" Helen asked of James.
+
+"I move you, Madam President, that we consider the person receiving the
+highest number of votes as the person elected and that we make the
+election unanimous."
+
+"Is the motion seconded?"
+
+Cries of "Yes," "I second it," "So do I," came from all over the room
+and included a call from Ethel Blue. Roger pealed with laughter.
+
+"Ethel Blue means to get there," he shouted.
+
+"I do? What have I done?" demanded Ethel Blue, so embarrassed at this
+attack that the tears stood in her eyes.
+
+"Why, you're the person who's receiving a unanimous election," returned
+Roger, between gasps. "You've made it unanimous, yourself, all right."
+
+Poor Ethel Blue leaned back in her chair without saying a word.
+
+"Roger, you're too mean," cried Helen. "Don't you mind a word he says,
+Ethel Blue. It's very hard to follow votes and it isn't at all
+surprising that you didn't understand."
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"It means that you're elected secretary."
+
+"But there weren't enough votes."
+
+"You had three and Roger had two, and nobody else had more than one.
+When one candidate has more than the rest he may be considered as
+elected, even if he didn't get the right number of votes--that is, if
+everybody agrees to it."
+
+"And you agreed to it," chuckled Roger.
+
+"Stop, Roger. You're our new secretary, Ethel Blue, and it's very
+suitable that you should be, for the club was your idea and you ought to
+be an officer. Roger, give Ethel Blue your pencil and the rest of that
+paper you had for the ballots. Come and sit next to me, Ethel."
+
+Ethel Blue felt that honors were being thrust upon her much against her
+will, but she was afraid that she would make some other mistake if she
+objected, so she meekly took the pencil and paper from Roger and began
+to note down the proceedings.
+
+"We've had a suggestion from Glen Point and one from Rosemont--let's
+hear from New York," said the president. "Della--anything to say?"
+
+"Papa can suggest lots of people that we can help if we ask him," said
+Della. "I didn't ask him because I thought that perhaps you'd have some
+pet charities out here where there aren't so many helping hands as there
+are in New York."
+
+"How about you, Tom?"
+
+"To tell you the truth," responded Tom gravely, "I didn't think up
+anything to suggest this afternoon because my mind has been so full of
+the war that I can't seem able to think about anything else."
+
+Everybody grew serious at once. The war seemed very close to the
+Mortons, although it was a war across the sea, because they knew what it
+would mean to their father and uncle if ever our country should be
+involved in war. The thought of their own mental suffering and their
+anxiety if Captain and Lieutenant Morton should ever be sent to the
+front had given them a keen interest in what had been going on in Europe
+for six weeks.
+
+"I read the newspapers all the time," went on Tom, "and I dare say I
+don't gain much real information from them, but at least I'm having
+ground into my soul every day the hideous suffering that all this
+fighting is bringing upon the women and children. The men may die, but
+at least they can fight for their lives. The women and children have to
+sit down and wait for death or destruction to come their way."
+
+"It's too big a situation for us way off here to grasp," said Roger
+slowly, "but there are people on the spot who are trying to give
+assistance, and if Americans could only get in touch with them it seems
+as if help might be handed along the way we handed the water buckets
+last summer when the cottage was on fire."
+
+"The Red Cross is working in all the countries that are at war," said
+Helen. "There's an American Red Cross and people are sending clothing
+and food to the New York branch and they are sending them on to Europe.
+That's Roger's bucket brigade idea."
+
+"Why don't we work for the Red Cross?" asked Della.
+
+"I saw in the paper a plan that seems better still for us youngsters,"
+said Ethel Blue. "Some people are going to send over a Christmas ship
+with thousands and thousands of presents for the orphans and the other
+children all over Europe. Why don't we work for that? For the Santa
+Claus Ship?"
+
+"'Charity begins at home,'" demurred Margaret.
+
+"We needn't forget the Glen Point orphans. The Christmas Ship is going
+to sail early in November and we'll have plenty of time after she gets
+off to carry out those other schemes that we've spoken of."
+
+"I'd like to move," said Ethel Brown, getting on to her feet to make her
+action more impressive, "that the United Service Club devote itself
+first to preparing a bundle to send off on the Christmas Ship. After
+that's done we can see what comes next."
+
+"Does any one second the motion, that we work first for the Christmas
+Ship?" asked Helen.
+
+Every voice in the room cried "I do."
+
+"All in favor?" There was a chorus of "Ayes."
+
+"Contrary minded?" Not a sound arose.
+
+"It's a unanimous vote that we start right in on the bundle for the
+Santa Claus Ship."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FINANCIAL PLANS
+
+
+"This parliamentary business fusses me," exclaimed Helen. "Let's just
+talk, now that we've decided what we are going to do."
+
+"Take a more comfortable chair," suggested Tom, pulling over a Morris
+chair nearer the fire.
+
+Roger stirred up the flames and tossed on some pine cones.
+
+"These cones remind me that our old people down by the bridge might like
+some. They have a funny open stove that they could use them in."
+
+"What are they good for? Kindling?" asked Della.
+
+"Ha! There speaks the city lady used only to steam! Certainly they are
+good for kindling on account of the pitch that's in them, but they're
+also great in an open fire to brighten it up when it is sinking somewhat
+and one or two at a time tossed on to a clear fire make a pretty sight."
+
+"And a pretty snapping sound," added Dorothy, remembering the cones from
+the long leaf pines.
+
+"Our old couple gets a bushel on Monday afternoon if it ever stops
+raining," promised Roger. "Dicky loves to pick them up, so he'll help."
+
+"The honorary member of the United Service Club does his share of
+service work right nobly," declared James, who was a great friend of
+Dicky's.
+
+"The thing for us to do first is to decide how we are to begin," said
+Helen.
+
+"We might talk over the kinds of presents that the war orphans would
+like and then see which of them any of us can make," suggested Margaret
+wisely.
+
+"Any sort of clothing would come in mighty handy, I should think,"
+guessed James, "and I don't believe the orphans would have my early
+prejudices against receiving it for Christmas gifts."
+
+"Poor little creatures, I rather suspect Santa Claus will be doing his
+heaviest work with clothing this year."
+
+"As far as clothing is concerned," said Margaret, "we needn't put a
+limit on the amount we send or the sizes or the kinds. The distributors
+will be able to use everything they can lay their hands on when the
+Christmas Ship comes in and for many months later."
+
+"Then let's inquire of our mothers what there is stowed away that we can
+have and let's look over our own things and weed out all we can that
+would be at all suitable and that our mothers will let us give away, and
+report here at the next meeting."
+
+"While we're talking about the next meeting," broke in Dorothy while the
+others were nodding their assent to Helen's proposition, "won't you
+please come to my house next time?"
+
+"We certainly will," agreed Della and Margaret.
+
+"You bet," came from the boys.
+
+"And Mother told me to offer the Club the use of our attic to store our
+stuff in. It's a big place with almost nothing in it."
+
+"I'm sure Aunt Marion will be glad not to have anything else go into her
+attic," said Ethel Blue, and all the Mortons laughed as they thought of
+the condition of the Morton attic, whose walls were almost bulging with
+its contents.
+
+"If that's settled we must remember to address all our bundles to 'Mrs.
+Leonard Smith, Church Street, Rosemont,'" James reminded them.
+
+"It seems to me," Ethel Brown said slowly, thinking as she spoke, "that
+we might collect more clothing than we shall be able to find in our own
+families."
+
+"There are a good many of us," suggested Della.
+
+"There are two Watkinses and two Hancocks and five Mortons and one
+Smith--that's ten, but if the rest of you are like the Morton family--we
+wear our clothes pretty nearly down to the bone."
+
+All the Mortons pealed at this and the rest could not help joining in.
+
+"One thing we must not do," declared Helen. "We must not send a single
+old thing that isn't in perfect order. It's a poor present that you have
+to sit down and mend."
+
+"We certainly won't," agreed Margaret. "I wear my clothes almost down to
+the skeleton, too, but I know I have some duds that I can make over into
+dresses for small children. I'm gladder every day that we took that
+sewing course last summer, Helen."
+
+"Me, too. My dresses--or what's left of them--usually adorn Ethel
+Brown's graceful frame, but perhaps Mother will let us have for the
+orphans the clothes that would ordinarily go to Ethel Brown."
+
+Ethel Brown looked worried.
+
+"Ethel Brown doesn't know whether that will mean that she'll have to go
+without or whether she'll have new clothes instead of the
+hand-me-downs," laughed Roger.
+
+"I don't care," cried Ethel Brown. "I'd just as lief go without new
+clothes if Mother will let the Club have the money they'd cost."
+
+"I've been thinking," said Tom, "that we're going to need money to work
+this undertaking through successfully. How are we going to get it?"
+
+"But shall we need any to speak of?" inquired Margaret. "Fixing up our
+old clothes won't cost more than we can meet ourselves out of our
+allowances. I'm going to ask my Aunt Susy to let me have some of the
+girls' old things. The girls will be delighted; they're the ones who
+have the plain clothes."
+
+"We'll fix them up with ruffles and bows before we send them away,"
+smiled Helen.
+
+"Why can't we ask everybody we come across for old clothes?" Ethel Blue
+wondered.
+
+"Grandmother Emerson would be sure to have something in her attic and I
+shouldn't wonder if she'd be willing to ask the ladies at the Guild if
+they'd contribute," said Helen.
+
+"Do we want to take things from outside of the Club?" objected Ethel
+Brown.
+
+"I don't see why not," answered Margaret. "The idea is to get together
+for the orphans as many presents as possible, no matter where they come
+from. We're serving the orphans if we work as collectors just as much as
+if we made the clothes ourselves."
+
+"Right-o," agreed Roger. "Let's tackle everybody we can on the old clo'
+question. We can ask the societies in our churches--"
+
+"Why not in all the churches in town?" dared Ethel Blue.
+
+The idea brought a pause, for the place was small enough for the
+churches to meet each other with an occasional rub.
+
+"I believe that's a good idea," declared Tom, and as a clergyman's son
+they listened to his views with respect. "All the churches ought to be
+willing to come together on the neutral ground of this club and if we
+are willing to take the responsibility of doing the gathering and the
+packing and the expressing to the Christmas Ship I believe they'll be
+glad to do just the rummaging in their attics and the mending up."
+
+"We needn't limit their offerings to clothes, either," said Della.
+"We'll take care of anything they'll send in."
+
+"Let's put it up to them, I say," cried Roger. "There's at least one
+member of the Morton family in every society in our church and we ought
+to get the subject before every one of those groups of people by the end
+of next week and start things booming."
+
+"We'll do the same at Glen Point," agreed Margaret.
+
+"I can't promise quite as much for New York, because I don't know what
+Father's plans are for war relief work in his church, but I do feel
+pretty sure he'll suggest some way of helping us," said Della.
+
+"That's decided, then--we'll lay our paws on everything we can get from
+every source," Tom summed up the discussion. "Now I come back to what I
+said a few minutes ago--I think we're going to need more money to run
+this association than we're going to be able to rake up out of our own
+allowances, unless Margaret's is a good deal bigger than mine," and he
+nodded toward Margaret, who had objected to the more-money idea when he
+had offered it before.
+
+"Just tell me how we'll need more," insisted Margaret.
+
+"I figure it out that the part we boys will have to do in this
+transaction will be to district this town and Glen Point and make a
+house to house appeal for clothes and any sort of thing that would do
+for a Christmas present, all to be sent to Mrs. Smith's."
+
+"That won't cost anything but a few carfares, and you can stand those,"
+insisted Margaret.
+
+"Carfares are all right and even a few express charges for some people
+who for some reason aren't able to deliver their parcels at Mrs. Smith's
+house. But if you girls are going to make over some of these clothes and
+perhaps make new garments you'll need some cash to buy materials with."
+
+"Perhaps some of the dry goods people will contribute the materials."
+
+"Maybe they will. But you mark my words--the cost of a little here and a
+little there mounts up amazingly in work of this sort and I know we're
+going to need cash."
+
+"Tom's right," confirmed Della. "He's helped Father enough to know."
+
+The idea of needing money, which they did not have, was depressing to
+the club members who sat around the fire staring into it gloomily.
+
+"The question is, how to get it," went on Tom.
+
+"People might give us money just as well as cloth, I suppose," suggested
+Margaret.
+
+"I think it would be a thousand times more fun to make the money
+ourselves," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"The infant's right," cried Tom. "It will be more fun and what's more
+important still, nobody can boss us because he's given us a five dollar
+bill."
+
+"I suppose somebody might try," murmured Helen.
+
+"They would," cried Tom and Della in concert.
+
+"We aren't a clergyman's children for nothing," Tom went on humorously.
+"The importance a five dollar bill can have in the eyes of the giver and
+the way it swells in size as it leaves his hands is something that few
+people realize who haven't seen it happen."
+
+"Let's be independent," cried Dorothy decidedly, and her wish was
+evidently to the mind of all the rest, for murmurs of approval went
+around the room.
+
+"But if we're so high and mighty as not to take money contributions and
+if we nevertheless need money, what in the mischief are we going to do
+about it?" inquired Roger.
+
+"We must earn it," said Helen. "I'll contribute the money Mother is
+going to pay me for making a dozen middy blouses for the Ethels. She
+ordered them from me last summer when I began to take the sewing course
+and I haven't quite finished them yet, but I'll have the last one done
+this week if I can get home from school promptly for a day or two."
+
+"I can make some baskets for the Woman's Exchange," said Dorothy.
+
+"I learned how to make Lady Baltimore cake the other day," said
+Margaret, "and I'll go to some ladies in Glen Point who are going to
+have teas soon and ask them for orders."
+
+"I can make cookies," murmured Ethel Brown, "but I don't know who'd buy
+them."
+
+"You tell the kids at school that you've gone into the cooky business
+and you'll have all the work you can do for a while," prophesied Roger.
+"I know your cookies; they're bully."
+
+"I don't notice that we boys are mentioning any means of making money,"
+remarked James dryly. "I confess I'm stumped."
+
+"I know what you can do," suggested Margaret. "Father said this morning
+that he was going to get a chauffeur next week if he could find one that
+wouldn't rob him of all the money he made. You can run the car--why
+don't you offer to work half time--afternoons after school, for half
+pay? That would help Father and he'd rather have you than a strange
+man."
+
+"He'd rather have half time, too. He likes to run the car himself, only
+he gets tired running it all day on heavy days. Great head, Sis," and
+James made a gesture of stroking his sister's locks, to which she
+responded by making a face.
+
+"I know what I can do," said Roger. "You know those bachelor girls about
+seventy-five apiece, over on Church Street near Aunt Louise's--the Miss
+Clarks? Well, they had an awful time last year getting their furnace
+attended to regularly. They had one man who proved to be a--er," Roger
+hesitated.
+
+"Not a total abstainer?" inquired James elegantly.
+
+"Thank you, Brother Hancock, for the use of your vocabulary. The next
+one stole the washing off the line, and the next one--Oh, I don't know
+what he did, but the Miss Clarks were in a state of mind over the
+furnace and the furnace man all winter. Now, suppose I offer to take
+care of their furnace for them this winter? I believe they'd have me."
+
+"I think they'd be mighty glad to get you," confirmed Helen. "Could you
+do that and take care of ours, too?"
+
+"Sure thing, if I put my mind on it and don't chase off with the fellows
+every time I feel in the mood."
+
+"Mother would like to have you take care of ours if you could manage
+three," said Dorothy.
+
+"I'll do it," and Roger thumped his knee with decision.
+
+"I wouldn't undertake too much," warned Helen. "It will mean a visit
+three times a day at each house, you know, and the last one pretty late
+in the evening."
+
+"I'm game," insisted Roger. "You know I can be as steady as an old horse
+when I put my alleged mind on it. Mother never had any kick coming over
+my work in the furnace department last winter."
+
+"She said you did it splendidly, but this means three times as much."
+
+"I'll do it," and Roger nodded his head solemnly.
+
+"It seems to be up to Della and me to tell what we can do," said Tom
+meditatively. "Father's secretary is away on a three months' holiday and
+I'm doing his typewriting for him and some other office stunts--as much
+as I can manage out of school hours. I'll turn over my pay to the Club
+treasury."
+
+This was greeted with applause.
+
+"I don't seem to have any accomplishments," sighed Della, her round head
+on one side. "The only thing I can think of is that I heard the ladies
+who have charge of the re-furnishing of the Rest Room in the Parish
+House say that they were going to find some one to stencil the window
+curtains. I might see if they'd let me do it and pay me. I didn't take
+that class at the Girls' Club last summer, but Dorothy and Ethel Brown
+could teach me."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Or you could get the order from them, I'd fill it, and you could make
+the baskets for the Woman's Exchange," offered Dorothy.
+
+Della brightened. That was a better arrangement.
+
+"Try it," nodded Tom. "If you turn out one order well you'll get more;
+see if you don't."
+
+"Our honorary member, Mr. Dicky Morton, might sell newspapers since he
+got broken in to that business last summer," laughed Ethel Brown.
+"Mother wouldn't let him do it here, I know, but he can weave awfully
+pretty things that he learned at the kindergarten and if there are any
+bazars this fall he could sell some of them on commission."
+
+"Dicky really understands about the Club. I think he'd like to do
+something for the orphans," Helen agreed.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Ethel Blue, rising in her excitement;
+"I have a perfectly grand, galoptious idea. Why do we wait for somebody
+else to get up a bazar to sell Dicky's weaving? Let's have a bazar of
+our own. Why can't we have a fair with some tables, and ice cream and
+cake for sale and an entertainment of some kind in the evening? We all
+know all sorts of stunts; we can do the whole thing ourselves. If we
+announce that we are doing it for the Christmas Ship I believe everybody
+in town would come--"
+
+"--And in Glen Point and New York," Roger mocked her enthusiasm.
+
+"You know we could fill the School Hall as easy as fiddle, Roger. You
+see everybody would know what we were at work on because we are going to
+begin collecting the clothes right off, so everybody will be
+interested."
+
+Tom nodded approval.
+
+"Perhaps we can do the advertising act when we do the collecting."
+
+"If I drive Father, I see myself ringing up all the neighboring houses
+while he's in on his case," said James, "and it's just as easy to talk
+bazar part of the time as it is to chat old clo' the whole time."
+
+"Can you get the School Hall free?" asked Tom.
+
+"We'd have to pay for the lighting and the janitor, but that wouldn't be
+much," said Roger. "It would be better than the Parish House of any of
+the churches because if we had it in a church there'd surely be some
+people who wouldn't go because it was in a building belonging to a
+denomination they didn't approve of, but no one can make any kick about
+the schoolhouse."
+
+"It's the natural neighborhood centre."
+
+"We'll have the whole town there."
+
+"If we let in some of the school kids we'll get all their families on
+the string," recommended Roger.
+
+"I'm working up a feat that I've never seen any one do," said Tom.
+"I'll turn it loose for the first time at our show."
+
+"Remember, you're all coming to me next Saturday afternoon," Dorothy
+reminded them as the Hancocks and Watkinses put on their overgarments
+and sought out their umbrellas preparatory to going home.
+
+"And we'll bring a list of what we can contribute ourselves and what
+we've collected so far and what we think we can collect and we'll turn
+in anything we've made."
+
+"If there's anything we can work on while the Club is going on we'd
+better bring it," suggested Helen.
+
+"Mother says we may have the sewing machine in the attic," said Dorothy.
+
+"I believe I'll take my jig-saw over," suggested Roger. "Aunt Louise
+wouldn't mind, would she?"
+
+"She'd be delighted. Bring everything," and Dorothy glowed with the
+hospitality that had been bottled up in her for years and until now had
+had but small opportunity to escape.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ROGER GOES FORAGING
+
+
+ALTHOUGH Helen never had been president of any club before, yet she had
+seen enough of a number of associations in the high school and the
+church to understand the advantage of striking while the iron of
+enthusiasm was hot. For that reason she and Roger worked out the
+districting of Rosemont before they went to bed that night, and the next
+afternoon Roger went over to Glen Point on his bicycle, and, with
+James's help, did the same for that town. It was understood that Tom
+would not be able to come out again until Saturday, but he had agreed to
+be on hand early in the morning to do a good half day of canvassing. The
+girls were to speak to every one to whom they could bring up the subject
+conveniently, wherever they met them.
+
+Roger began his work on Monday afternoon after school. He wheeled over
+to a part of the town where he did not know many people, his idea being
+that since that would be the most disagreeable place to tackle he would
+do it first and get it over with. He was a merry boy, with a pleasant
+way of speaking that won him friends at once, and he was not bothered
+with shyness, but he did hesitate for an instant at his first house. It
+was large and he thought that the owner ought to be prosperous enough to
+have plenty of old clothes lying about crying to be sent to the war
+orphans.
+
+It was a maid whose grasp on the English language was a trifle
+uncertain who opened the door. Roger stated his desire.
+
+"Old clothes?" she repeated after him. "I've no old clothes to give
+you," and she shut the door hastily.
+
+Roger stood still with astonishment as if he were fastened to the upper
+step. Then his feelings stirred.
+
+"The idiot!" he gasped. "She thought I wanted them for myself," and he
+looked down at his suit with a sudden realization that his long ride
+over one dusty road and a spill on another that had recently been oiled
+had not improved the appearance of his attire. However, he rang the bell
+again vigorously. The woman seemed somewhat disconcerted when she saw
+him still before her.
+
+"I don't want the clothes--" began Roger.
+
+"What did you say you did for?" inquired the maid sharply, and again she
+slammed the door.
+
+By this time Roger's persistency was roused. He made up his mind that he
+was going to make himself understood even if he did not secure a
+contribution. Once more he rang the bell.
+
+"You here!" almost screamed the girl as she saw once more his familiar
+face. "Why don't you go? I've nothing to give you."
+
+"Look here," insisted Roger, his toe in the way of the door's shutting
+completely when she should try to slam it again; "look here, you don't
+understand what I want. Is your mistress at home?"
+
+The girl was afraid to say that she was not, so she nodded.
+
+"Tell her I want to see her."
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"I'm Roger Morton, son of Lieutenant Morton. I live on Cedar Street. Can
+you remember that?"
+
+She could not, but her ear had caught the military title and upstairs
+she conveyed the impression that at least a general was waiting at the
+door. When the mistress of the house appeared Roger pulled off his cap
+politely, and he was such a frank-faced boy that she knew at once that
+her maid's fears had been unnecessary, though she did not see where the
+military title came in. Roger explained who he was and what he wanted at
+sufficient length, and he was rewarded for his persistency by the
+promise of a bundle.
+
+"I know your grandmother, Mrs. Emerson," said the lady, who had
+mentioned that she was Mrs. Warburton, "and your aunt, Mrs. Smith, has
+hired one of my houses, so I am glad on their account to help your
+enterprise, though of course its own appeal is enough."
+
+Roger thanked her and took the precaution to inquire the names of her
+neighbors, before he presented himself at another door. He also reached
+such a pitch of friendliness that he borrowed a whisk broom from Mrs.
+Warburton and redeemed his clothes from the condition which had brought
+him into such disfavor with the maid-servant.
+
+There was no one at home in the next house, but the next after that
+yielded a parcel which the old lady whom he interviewed said that he
+might have if he would take it away immediately.
+
+"I might change my mind if you don't," she said. "I've been studying for
+ten days whether to make over that dress with black silk or dark blue
+velvet. If I give the dress away I shan't be worried about it any
+longer."
+
+"Very well," cried Roger, and he rolled the frock up as small as he
+could and fastened it to his handle bars.
+
+There was no one at home at the next house, but the woman who came to
+the door at the next after that listened to his story with moist eyes.
+
+"Come in," she said. "I can give you a great many garments. In fact
+there are so many that perhaps I'd better send them."
+
+"Very well," returned Roger. "Please send them to my aunt's," and he
+gave the address.
+
+"You see," hesitated Roger's hostess, now frankly wiping her eyes, "I
+had a little daughter about ten years old, and--and I never have been
+willing to part with her little dresses and coats, but how could I place
+them better than now?"
+
+Roger swallowed hard.
+
+"I guess she'd like to have 'em go over there," he stammered, and he was
+very glad when he escaped from the house, though he told his mother,
+"she seemed kind of glad to talk about the kid, so I didn't mind much."
+
+"Count listening as one of the Club services," replied Mrs. Morton.
+
+Back in his own part of town Roger felt that his trip had been
+profitable. A very fair number of garments and bundles had been
+promised, and he had told everybody he could to watch the local paper
+for the announcement of the entertainment to be given by the U. S. C.
+
+"Everybody seemed interested," he reported at home. "I don't believe
+we'll have a mite of trouble in getting an audience."
+
+It was at a cottage not far from the high school that Roger came upon
+his nearest approach to an adventure. When he touched the buzzer the
+door was opened by an elderly woman who spoke with a marked German
+accent. Roger explained his errand. To his horror the woman burst into
+tears. When he made a gesture of withdrawal she stopped him.
+
+"My son--my son is mit de army," she exclaimed brokenly. "My son und de
+betrothed of my daughter. We cannot go to the Fatherland. The German
+ships go no more. If we go on an English or French ship we are kept in
+England. Here must we stay--here."
+
+"You're safe here, at any rate," responded Roger, at a loss what reply
+to make that would be soothing in the face of such depressing facts.
+
+"Safe!" retorted the woman scornfully. "Who cares to be safe? A woman's
+place is mit her men when they are in danger. My daughter and I--we
+should be in Germany and we cannot get there!"
+
+"It's surely a shame if you want to go as much as that," returned Roger
+gently, and just then to his surprise there came through an inner door a
+young woman whom he recognized as his German teacher in the high school,
+Fraulein Hindenburg. Her face was disfigured with weeping and he knew
+now why she had seemed so ill and listless in her classes.
+
+"You must not mind Mother," she said, looking surprised as she saw one
+of her pupils before her. "It is true that we would go if we could but
+we cannot, so we must stay here and wait."
+
+Roger explained his errand.
+
+"To work for the war orphans of all countries?" cried both women
+excitedly. "Gladly! Gladly!"
+
+"We are knitting every day--scarfs, socks, wristlets," said the older
+woman. "Also will we so gladly make clothing for the children and toys
+and playthings--what we can."
+
+Fraulein smiled a sad assent and Roger wheeled off, realizing that the
+pain caused by the war no longer existed for him only in his
+imagination; he had seen its tears.
+
+So freely had people responded to Roger's appeal that he began to wonder
+how the Club was going to take care of all the garments that would soon
+be coming in. After that thought came into his mind he made a point of
+asking the givers if they would send their offerings as far as possible
+in condition to be shipped.
+
+"Margaret and Helen can make over some of the clothes and the Ethels and
+Dorothy can help with the simple things, I suppose, but if there are
+many grown-up dresses like this one on my handle bar they won't have
+time to do anything else but dressmake," meditated Roger as he pedalled
+along.
+
+Nowhere did he meet with a rebuff. Every one was pleased to be asked.
+Many offered to make new garments. One old woman who lived in a
+wheel-chair but who could use her hands, agreed to sew if the material
+should be sent her. Many mothers seemed to consider it a Heaven-sent
+opportunity to make a clearance of the nursery toys though Roger stoutly
+insisted that they must all be in working order before they were turned
+in.
+
+"It's been perfectly splendid," breathed Roger joyfully as he finished
+his third afternoon and came into the house to report to his mother and
+Helen. "It's a delight to ask when you feel sure that you won't have to
+coax as you usually do when you're getting up anything. Everybody seems
+to jump at the chance."
+
+Toward the end of the week Ethel Blue came in beaming.
+
+"I've got some entirely new people interested," she cried.
+
+"Who? Who?"
+
+"The last people you'd ever think of--the women in the Old Ladies'
+Home."
+
+"Why should you think them the very last to be interested?" asked Mrs.
+Emerson who happened to be at the Mortons' and whose fingers were
+carrying the flying yarn that her needles were manufacturing into a
+sock. "Most of them are mothers and it doesn't take a mother to be
+interested in such a cause as this. Every human being who has any
+imagination must feel for the sufferings of the poor children."
+
+"It seemed queer to me because I've never seen them do anything but just
+sit there with their hands in their laps."
+
+"Poor souls, nobody ever provides them with anything to do."
+
+"Now all of them say that they'll be delighted to sew or knit or do
+anything they can if the materials are provided for them."
+
+"Here's where we can begin to spend the money Mother has offered to
+advance us," cried Ethel Brown. "Can't we go right after school
+to-morrow and buy the yarn for them, Mother?"
+
+"Indeed you may. Has Della sent you the knitting rules from the Red
+Cross yet?"
+
+"We're expecting them in every mail. If they don't come before we take
+the wool to the Home we can start the ladies on scarfs. They're just
+straight pieces."
+
+"Mrs. Hindenburg and Fraulein are knitting wristlets for the German
+soldiers. They could give the rule for them, I should think," suggested
+Roger, "and our old lady friends can just cut it in halves for the
+kids."
+
+It was the next day that Helen came in from school all excitement.
+
+"I've made a discovery as thrilling as Roger's about Fraulein!" she
+cried.
+
+"What? Who is it about? Tell us."
+
+"It's about Mademoiselle Millerand."
+
+"Your French teacher?" asked Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"She was new at school last year and you've heard us say she's the most
+fascinating little black-eyed creature."
+
+"Perhaps she can't talk fast!" added Roger.
+
+"What's the story about her?" demanded Ethel Brown.
+
+"It's not a romantic story like Fraulein's; that is, there's no
+betrothed on the other side that she's crazy to get to; but she's going
+over to join the French Red Cross."
+
+"That little thing!" cried Roger. "Why she doesn't look as if she had
+strength enough to last out a week!"
+
+"She says she's had a year's training in nursing and that a nurse is
+taught to conserve her strength. She hopes she'll be sent to the
+front."
+
+"The plucky little creature! When is she going?"
+
+"As soon as she can put in a substitute at the school; she doesn't want
+to leave us in the lurch after she made a contract for the year."
+
+"It may take some time after that to arrange for a sailing, I suppose."
+
+"Perhaps so. Any way I think it would be nice if we gave her a
+send-off--"
+
+"Just as we will Fraulein if her chance comes."
+
+"We can make some travelling comforts."
+
+"She won't be able to carry much," warned Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Everything will have to be as small as possible, but we can hunt up the
+smallest size of everything. I think it will be fun!"
+
+"She'll probably be very much pleased."
+
+"I wish there was something rather special we could do for Fraulein too,
+so we could be perfectly impartial."
+
+"Watch for the chance to do something extra nice for her. She's having
+the harder time of the two; it's always harder to stay and wait than it
+is to go into action, even when the action is dangerous."
+
+While the Mortons were canvassing Rosemont, James and Margaret were
+doing the same work in Glen Point. Dr. Hancock had accepted his son's
+offer and James was now regularly engaged as his father's chauffeur,
+working after school hours every school day and on Saturday mornings.
+The Doctor insisted that he should have Saturday afternoons free so that
+he might go to the Club. He was also quite willing that James should
+follow the plan he had sketched at the last Club meeting and visit the
+neighbors of his father's patients while Doctor Hancock was making his
+professional calls. The plan worked to a charm and James found Glen
+Point quite as ready as Rosemont to respond to the "bitter cry of the
+children."
+
+"So many people are getting interested I almost feel as if it weren't
+our affair any longer," James complained to his father as they were
+driving home in the dusk one afternoon.
+
+"Look out for that corner. That's a bad habit you have of shaving the
+curbstone. You needn't feel that way as long as your club is doing all
+the organizing and administration. That's the part that seems to make
+most people hesitate about doing good works. It isn't actual work they
+balk at; it's leadership."
+
+"If handling the stuff and disposing of it is leadership then we're a
+'going concern' all right," declared James. "Roger telephoned over this
+morning that the bundles were coming in to Mrs. Smith's at a great rate,
+and that a lot of people were making new garments and things that will
+turn up later."
+
+"When is Tom coming out?"
+
+"Saturday morning. I've saved one district for him to do then and that
+will finish up Glen Point as Roger and I sketched it out."
+
+"It hasn't been so hard a job as you thought."
+
+"Chasing round in the car has saved time. This is a bully job of yours,
+Dad."
+
+"You won't hold it long if you cut corners like that, I warn you again."
+
+"I'll try to cut 'em _out_," laughed James as he carefully turned into
+the Hancocks' avenue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN THE SMITH ATTIC
+
+
+"GRANDFATHER EMERSON wants to give the Club a present," cried Ethel
+Brown as the last arrivals, the Hancocks, came up the stairs and entered
+the attic of Dorothy's house on Saturday afternoon.
+
+The large room was half the width of the whole cottage and, with its low
+windows and sloping roof had a quaint appearance that was increased by
+its furnishing of tables and seats made from boxes covered with gay bits
+of chintz. Dorothy had not neglected her work for the orphans but she
+had found time to fit up the meeting place of the U. S. C. so that its
+members might not have to gather in bare surroundings. The afternoon sun
+shone brightly in through simple curtains of white cheesecloth, the
+sewing machine awaited Helen beside a window with a clear north light,
+and Roger's jig-saw was in a favorable position in a corner. Each one
+who came up the stairs gave an "Oh" of pleasure as the door opened upon
+this comfortable, cheerful room where there was nothing too good to be
+used and nothing too bad to have entrance to the society of
+beauty-loving folk. "What did your grandfather give us?" asked Margaret.
+
+"Grandfather has been awfully interested in the Club from the very
+beginning, you know. The other day he asked if we wouldn't like to have
+him give us club pins with our emblem on them."
+
+"How perfectly dear of him!" ejaculated Delia.
+
+"Don't let your hopes rise too high. I said it would be simply fine to
+have little forget-me-not pins like those we talked about at our very
+first meeting in the ravine at Chautauqua--do you remember?"
+
+"Blue enamel," murmured Dorothy.
+
+"He said he wanted us to have them, and that it was a lovely symbol and
+so on, and he'd seen some ducks of pins in New York that were just what
+we'd like, and some single flower ones for the boys--"
+
+"Um. This suspense is wearing on me," remarked Roger.
+
+"We talked it over and the way it came out was that Grandfather said
+that perhaps he'd better give us now the money the pins would cost and
+keep his present for later."
+
+No one could resist a groan.
+
+"He won't forget it. Grandfather never forgets to do what he promises.
+We'll get them some time or other. But I had a feeling that we'd like
+them later better even than now because we'd feel then that we'd really
+earned them after the Club had done something worth while, you know."
+
+"I suppose we will," sighed Della, "but they do sound good to me."
+
+"He was bound that we should have the forget-me-not in some form or
+other," went on Ethel Brown, "and he's sent us a rubber stamp with 'U.
+S. C.' on it and a forget-me-not at each end of the initials. There's an
+indelible pad that goes with it and we are to stamp everything we send
+out on some part where it won't be too conspicuous."
+
+"It will be like signing a letter to the child the present goes to,"
+said Dorothy.
+
+"Isn't he a darling!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "I love him as much as if he
+were my own grandfather."
+
+"He turned the money right over into my hand," continued Ethel
+Brown--"the money he didn't spend for the pins, I mean. It's fifteen
+dollars. What shall I do with it?"
+
+"Pay for the yarn you bought for the women in the Old Ladies' Home to
+knit with," said Helen promptly.
+
+"'"The time has come," the walrus said,'" quoted Tom, "when we must have
+a treasurer. It was all very well talking about not needing one when we
+didn't have a cent of money, but now we are on the way toward being
+multis and we can't get on any longer without some one to look after
+it."
+
+"Let's make Tom treasurer and then he can fuss over the old accounts
+himself," suggested Roger.
+
+Roger's loathing for keeping accounts was so well known that every one
+laughed.
+
+"Not I," objected Tom. "I'm not at all the right one. It ought to be one
+of you people who live out here where we're going to do our work. You'll
+have hurry calls for cash very often and it would be a nuisance to have
+to wait a day to write or phone me. No, sir, Roger's the feller for that
+job."
+
+"No, Roger isn't," persisted that young man disgustedly. "I buck, I
+kick, I remonstrate, I protest, I refuse."
+
+"Here, here," called Ethel Blue. "Who said you could have James's
+vocabulary?"
+
+"Well, James, then," said Tom. "It doesn't make much difference who it
+is as long as he lives in these precincts and not as far away as I do.
+Madam President, I nominate Mr. Hancock for treasurer of the United
+Service Club."
+
+"You hear the nomination," responded Helen. "Is it seconded?"
+
+"I second it with both hands and an equal number of feet," replied Roger
+enthusiastically.
+
+"Now is the opportunity for a discussion of the merits of the
+candidate," observed Helen drily.
+
+"There are many things that might be said," rejoined Dorothy, "but
+because it would probably embarrass him--"
+
+"Oh, say!" came from James. "Are they as bad as that?"
+
+"As I was remarking when I was interrupted," continued Dorothy severely,
+"because it might make the candidate feel queer if he were to hear all
+the compliments we should pay him, I think we won't say anything."
+
+"I'll trust old Roger not to pay compliments," responded James.
+
+"Old Roger is in such a good humor because this job is being worked off
+on to your shoulders instead of his that he might utter some
+blandishments that would surprise you."
+
+"I wouldn't risk it!"
+
+"Are you ready to vote?" asked Helen.
+
+"We are," came ringing back, and the resulting ballot placed James in
+the treasurership, the only dissenting vote being his own. His first
+official act after the money was put into his hands was to give it back
+to Ethel Brown in part repayment of the sum which her mother had
+advanced for the yarn for the Old Ladies' Home.
+
+"Here's another bundle," announced Mrs. Smith, appearing with a large
+parcel as the Club members were looking over the collection that had
+come in. All the contributions were piled in a corner, and already they
+made a considerable mound.
+
+"Roger will have to apply some of his scientific management ideas to
+that mass of stuff," laughed Mrs. Smith.
+
+"I wish we could spread them out so that we could get an idea of what is
+which."
+
+"Couldn't we boys make some sort of rack divided into cubes or even
+knock together a set of plain shelves? That would lift them off the
+floor."
+
+"I wish you would," said Helen. "Then we ought to put a tag on each
+bundle telling who sent it and what is in it."
+
+"And what we think can be done with it, if it isn't in condition to send
+off just as it is," added Ethel Brown.
+
+"I believe I saw some planks in the cellar that would make sufficiently
+good shelves for what you need," said Mrs. Smith. "Suppose you boys go
+down stairs with me and take a look at them while the girls are making
+out the tags."
+
+So the boys trooped after their hostess while Ethel Brown unscrewed the
+cap of her fountain pen and wrote on the tags that Dorothy cut out of
+cardboard, and Ethel Blue fitted them with strings, so that they might
+be tied on to the parcels.
+
+"These dresses and coats came from Mrs. Ames," said Helen. "They
+belonged to her daughter who died, and they're all right for a child of
+ten, so we'll just mark the bundle, 'From Mrs. Ames,' and 'O.K.,' and
+put it away."
+
+"There's an empty packing box over in that corner," said Dorothy.
+"Wouldn't it be a good scheme to put the bundles we shan't have to alter
+at all, right into it?"
+
+"Great. Then we shan't have to touch them again until the time comes to
+tie them up in fancy paper to make them look Christmassy."
+
+"Here's the dress Mrs. Lancaster couldn't decide whether to have made
+over with black silk or blue velvet."
+
+"Mrs. Lancaster," murmured Ethel Brown, making out her card.
+
+"That certainly can't go as it is," pronounced Della.
+
+"There's material enough in it for two children's dresses," decided
+Margaret. "Mark it, 'Will make two dresses.'"
+
+"Here's Maud Delano's jacket. She told Roger she'd send this over when
+she got her new one."
+
+"It came this morning. It's all right except for tightening a button or
+two," and Ethel Brown inscribed, "Coat; tighten buttons" on the slip
+which Della tied on to one of the incompetent fasteners.
+
+"Good for Mrs. Warburton!" cried Helen.
+
+"What's she done?"
+
+"Here's a great roll of pink flannelette--and blue, too--among her
+things. We can make dresses and wrappers and sacques and petticoats out
+of that."
+
+"It always seems just as warm as woolen stuff to me," said Dorothy. "Of
+course it can't be."
+
+"Cotton is never so warm as wool, but if it's warm enough why ask for
+anything different. What's in your mind?" inquired Margaret.
+
+"I was wondering if we couldn't do something to forward the cotton
+crusade at the same time that we're helping the war orphans."
+
+"You mean by making things out of cotton materials?"
+
+"Yes. The orphans will want the warmest sort of clothing for winter, I
+suppose, but spring is coming after winter and summer after that, and I
+don't believe anything we send is going to be wasted."
+
+"They might wear two cotton garments one over the other," suggested
+Della.
+
+"I don't say that we'd better make all our clothes out of cotton
+material, but where it doesn't make any especial difference I don't see
+why we shouldn't choose cotton stuff. After all, it's the war that has
+spoiled the cotton trade so we're still working for war sufferers only
+they'll be on this side of the Atlantic. You know they say the southern
+cotton planters are having a serious time of it because they aren't
+selling any cotton to speak of in Europe."
+
+"Let's do it!" cried Ethel Blue and she told their decision to James who
+had come up to measure the attic doorway for some reason connected with
+the planks they had found.
+
+"It's a great idea. Bully for Dorothy," he cried working away with a
+footrule. "This will go all right," he decided, and ran down again to
+give a lift to the other carpenters.
+
+There were eight planks each about six feet long that Mrs. Smith had
+discovered in the cellar. A telephone to Mrs. Warburton had gained her
+consent to their use and the boys set about fitting them together as
+soon as they were on the top floor. Fortunately they were already planed
+and of so good a length for the purpose they were to be used for that
+nothing was needed but hammer and nails to produce a set of shelves
+quite adequate for the purpose. Two of the boards made the sides, and
+between them the remaining six were nailed at intervals.
+
+"We can set it against the wall over here," decided Tom, "and it won't
+need a back."
+
+"Which is lucky," James declared, "cos there ain't no planks to make a
+back of."
+
+"Let's nail a block of wood or a triangle of wood under the bottom shelf
+in the corners," advised Roger, "so the animal won't wobble."
+
+"If we had enough wood and a saw we could make nice cubby-holes, one for
+each bundle," remarked Tom, his head on one side.
+
+"Tom's getting enthusiastic over carpentering. We haven't either any
+more wood or a saw, old man, so there won't be any cubby-holes this
+time," decreed Roger.
+
+"It will do perfectly well this way," said Helen. "Now if you'll help us
+up with these bundles--"
+
+It was a presentable beginning for their collection. Two parcels in
+addition to Mrs. Ames's had gone into the packing case in the corner,
+but three shelves of the new set were filled with tight rolls, each with
+its tag forward so that no time would be lost in examining the contents,
+again.
+
+"That's what I call a good beginning," announced Helen after the boys
+had swept up their shavings and had taken them and their hammers and the
+remaining nails down stairs.
+
+"What next, Madam President?" inquired James when they returned. The
+girls were already spreading out the pink and blue flannelette on a
+plank table that had been left in the attic by the carpenters who had
+built the house.
+
+"We are going to cut some little wrappers out of this material. I think
+you boys had better fix up some sort of table over on that side of the
+room and get your pasting equipment ready, for we'll need oodles of
+boxes of all sizes and you might as well begin right off to make them."
+
+"Right-o," agreed Roger. "Methinks I saw an aged table top minus legs
+leaning against the wall in the cellar. Couldn't we anchor it on to this
+wall with a couple of hinges and then its two legs will be a good enough
+prop?"
+
+"If they're both on the same side."
+
+"It seems to me they are."
+
+"Any superfluous hinges around the house, Dorothy?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Never mind, I'll get a pair when I go after the pasteboard and the
+flour for the paste and a bowl for a pastepot, and a--no, _three_
+brushes for us three boys to smear the paste with and some coarse cotton
+cloth for binders."
+
+"Don't forget the oil of cloves to keep your paste from turning sour,"
+Dorothy cried after them.
+
+"And mind you boil it thoroughly," said Margaret.
+
+The boys started again towards the cellar when Roger's eye happened to
+fall on the cutting operations of the girls.
+
+"Pshaw!" he cried in scorn. "You are time-wasters! Why don't you cut out
+several garments at once and not have to go through all that spreading
+out and pinning down process every time? I saw a tailor the other day
+cutting a pile of trousers two feet high."
+
+"What with, I should like to know?" inquired Della mystified.
+
+"He did have a knife run by electricity," admitted Roger, "but there's
+no reason why you can't cut four or five of those things just as easily
+as one."
+
+"We'll go on down and get the table top," said James, and he and Tom
+departed.
+
+"Now, then, watch your Uncle Roger. Is this tissue paper affair your
+pattern? All you need to do is to fasten your cloth tightly down on to
+your table four thicknesses instead of one. Thumb tacks, Dorothy? Good
+child! Now lay your pattern on it--yes, thumb-tack it down if you want
+to--and go ahead. You've got new, sharp shears. Don't be in a hurry.
+There you are--and you've saved yourself the fuss of doing that three
+times more."
+
+[Illustration: Pattern for Wrapper
+
+          e c e = twice the length from floor to neck
+          a b = slit
+          Fold cloth on line c b d
+          Sew together sides f to e
+          Insert sleeves c to f]
+
+"Roger really has a lot of sense at times," admitted Ethel Brown, after
+her brother had leaped down the attic stairs in pursuit of the boys.
+
+"He is good about helping," added Della.
+
+"What is this garment--a wrapper?" asked Margaret as Helen held up the
+soft flannelette.
+
+"Yes, it's the simplest ever, and we can adapt one pattern to children
+of all sizes or to grown people," explained Helen.
+
+"I never heard of anything so convenient!"
+
+"First, you measure the child from the floor to his neck--I measured
+this on Dicky. Then you cut a piece of material twice that length. That
+is, if the kiddy is thirty inches from the floor to the chin you cut
+your flannelette sixty inches long."
+
+[Illustration: Wrapper Completed]
+
+"Exactly. Then cut a lengthwise slit thirty inches long. Then fold the
+whole thing in halves across the width of the cloth and sew up the sides
+to within four and a half inches of the top and you have a wrapper all
+but the sleeves."
+
+"How do you make those?"
+
+"It takes half a yard for a grown person--a quarter of a yard for a
+youngster. Cut the width in halves and double it and sew it straight
+into the holes you've left at the tops."
+
+"Will that be the right length?"
+
+"You can shorten it if you like or lengthen it by a band. You finish the
+slit up the front by putting on a band of some different color. It looks
+pretty on the ends of the sleeves, too. We can use blue on this pink and
+pink on the blue."
+
+"It's easy enough, isn't it? I think I'll make myself one when we get
+through with the Ship."
+
+"All you need to know is the length from the person's chin to the floor
+and you can make it do for anybody. And all you need to do to make a
+short sacque is to know the length from the person's chin to his waist.
+I have a notion we'll have some wee bits left that we can make into
+cunning little jackets for babies."
+
+"I don't see why this pattern wouldn't do for an outdoor coat if you
+made it of thicker cloth--eider-down, for instance."
+
+"It would. Gather the ends of the sleeves about an inch down so as to
+make a ruffle, and put frogs or buttons and loops on the front and there
+you have it!"
+
+"Did you bring a petticoat pattern, Margaret?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"Haven't you seen the pictures of European peasant women and little
+girls with awfully full skirts? I believe they'd like them if we just
+cut two widths of the same length, hemmed them at the bottom, and ran a
+draw-string in the top. We can feather-stitch the top of the hem if we
+want to make it look pretty, or we can cut it a little longer and run
+one or two tucks."
+
+"Or we might buttonhole a scallop around the edge instead of hemming
+it," suggested Ethel Brown.
+
+"You know I believe in doing one thing well," said Dorothy. "How would
+it do if we Club girls made just coats and wrappers and sacques from
+that pattern of Helen's, and petticoats? We can make them of all sorts
+of colors and a variety of materials and we can trim them differently.
+We'd be making some mighty pretty ones before we got through."
+
+"I don't see why not," agreed Margaret thoughtfully. "Let's do it."
+
+"I brought the Red Cross knitting directions," said Delia. "I didn't get
+them till this morning."
+
+"Grandmother will be delighted with those. She's going to take them to
+the Old Ladies' Home and start them all to work there."
+
+"Are you sure they'll knit for the children?"
+
+"She's going to ask them to knit for the children now, with
+bright-colored yarns. Afterwards they can knit for the soldiers, and
+then they must use dark blue or grey or khaki color--not even a stripe
+that will make any poor fellow conspicuous."
+
+As they finished reading the instructions they heard the boys tramping
+upstairs with their paraphernalia.
+
+"It looks to me, Dorothy," said Tom, "as if you had us on your hands for
+most of these club meetings, to do our work here. Are you sure Mrs.
+Smith doesn't mind?"
+
+"Mother is delighted," Dorothy reassured him. "And she wants you all to
+come down and have some chocolate."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FOR A TRAVELLER'S KIT
+
+
+ONCE the Club was started on its work it seemed as if the days were far
+too short for them to accomplish half of what they wanted to do. Mrs.
+Morton insisted that her children should have at least two hours out of
+doors every day, and that cut down the afternoons into an absurdly brief
+working time. Mrs. Smith had electric lights installed in her attic and
+it became the habit of the Mortons and often of the Hancocks to meet
+there and cut and sew and jig-saw and paste for an hour or two every
+evening. The Watkinses were active in New York evidently, for Della sent
+frequent postcards asking for directions on one point or another and Tom
+exchanged jig-saw news with Roger almost daily.
+
+Meanwhile the war was in every one's mind. The whole country realized
+the desirability of trying to obey President Wilson's request for
+neutrality in word, thought, and deed. The subject was forbidden at
+school where the teachers never referred to the colossal struggle that
+was rending Europe and the children of varied ancestries played together
+harmoniously in the school yard. If at the high school Fraulein and
+Mademoiselle were looked at with a new interest by their scholars no
+word suggestive of a possible lack of harmony was uttered to them, and
+their friendship for each other seemed to increase with every day's
+prolongation of the war.
+
+In the Morton family war discussion was not forbidden and the events of
+the last twenty-four hours as the newspapers reported them were talked
+over at dinner every evening. Mrs. Morton thought that the children
+should not be ignorant of the most upheaving event that had stirred the
+world in centuries, but she did not permit any violent expressions of
+partisanship.
+
+"You children are especially bound to be neutral," she insisted,
+"because your father and Ethel Blue's father are in the service of our
+country, and a neutrality as complete as possible is more desirable from
+them and their families than from civilians."
+
+A new idea was blossoming in the young people's minds, however. They had
+grown up with the belief that armament was necessary to preserve peace.
+Great men and good had said so. "If we are prepared for war," they
+declared, "other nations will be afraid to fight us." Captain and
+Lieutenant Morton had agreed with them, as was natural for men of their
+profession. They did not believe in aggression but in being ready for
+defense should they be attacked.
+
+Now it seemed to Roger and Helen as they read of the sufferings of
+invaded France and the distress of trampled Belgium that no country had
+the right to benefit by results obtained through such cruel means.
+
+"Just suppose a shell should drop down here just as we were walking
+along," imagined Roger as he and Helen were on their way to school.
+"Suppose Patrick Shea's cornfield there was marched over before the corn
+was harvested and all these houses and churches and schools were blown
+up or burned down and all the people of this town were lying around in
+the streets dead or wounded!"
+
+"When you bring it home to Rosemont it doesn't sound the way it does
+when you read in the histories about a 'movement' here and a 'turning of
+the right flank' there, and 'the end of the line crumpling up.' When the
+line crumples up it means fathers and brothers are killed and women and
+children starve--"
+
+"Think what it would be to have nothing to eat and to have to grub
+around in the fields and devour roots like the peasants in the famine
+time in Louis XIV's reign."
+
+"And think about the destruction of all the little homes that have been
+built up with so much care and happiness. Mary told me her sister bought
+a chair one month and a table at another time when she and her husband
+came across bargains," said practical Ethel Brown who had caught up with
+them. "They've furnished their whole house the way we children have
+added to our kitchen tins and plates; and then everything would be
+broken to smash by just one of those shells."
+
+"The people who've been spreading the gospel of peace for years and
+years needn't be discouraged now, it seems to me," observed Roger
+thoughtfully, "even if it does look as if all their talk had been for
+nothing. These horrors make a bigger appeal than any amount of talk."
+
+"Grandfather Emerson says that perhaps universal peace is going to be
+the result of the war. It seems far off enough now."
+
+"It will be dearly bought peace."
+
+"Hush, there goes Mademoiselle. I wonder when she's going to sail."
+
+"Why don't you ask her to-day? The Club must give her some kind of
+send-off, you know."
+
+"I wonder if she'd mind if we went to New York to see her start?"
+
+"It won't be hard to find out. We can tell her that we won't be offended
+if she says 'No.'"
+
+"If she's willing we might take that opportunity to go over the ship.
+I've always wanted to go over an ocean steamer."
+
+"Perhaps they won't let anybody do it now on account of the war. It will
+be great if we can, though."
+
+The Service Club learned more geography in the course of its studies of
+the war news than its members ever had learned before voluntarily. The
+approach of the German army upon Paris was watched every day and its
+advance was marked upon a large map that Roger had installed in the
+sitting-room. When the Germans withdrew the change of their line and its
+daily relation to the battle front of the Allies was noted by the
+watchful pencil of one or another of the newspaper readers.
+
+Thanks to the simplicity of the pattern which the Club had adopted for
+its own they were enabled to make a large number of gay garments in a
+wonderfully short time. From several further donations of material they
+made wrappers for children of fourteen, twelve, ten, down to the babies,
+adding to each a belt of the same color as the band so that the garments
+might serve as dresses at a pinch. They found that with the smaller
+sizes they could cut off a narrow band from the width of the cloth at
+each side, and that served as trimming for another garment of
+contrasting color.
+
+When they had constructed a goodly pile of long wrappers they fell upon
+the short sacques, and before many days passed a mound of pink-banded
+blue and blue-banded pink, and red-banded white and white-banded red
+rose beside their machines. Della wrote that she was using her mother's
+machine and was learning how better and better every day. Thanks to
+their lessons at Chautauqua Margaret and Helen sewed well on the machine
+already. Ethel Brown and Ethel Blue and Dorothy basted on the bands and
+the belts and added the fastenings. It was their fingers, too, that
+feather-stitched and cat-stitched the petticoats that came into being
+with another donation of flannelette. Dorothy was glad when any new
+material was cotton as every yard that they used helped the South to rid
+itself of its unsold crop.
+
+"Ladies are going to wear cotton dresses all winter, they say," she told
+the Club at one of its meetings. "Mother is going to let me have all my
+new dresses made of cotton stuff and she's going to have some herself."
+
+"We wear cotton middies all winter," protested the Ethels who felt as if
+Dorothy felt that they were not doing their share to help on the cause
+she was interested in.
+
+"When Aunt Marion gets your new dancing school dresses couldn't you ask
+her to get cotton ones?"
+
+"I suppose we could. Do you think they'd be pretty enough?"
+
+"Some cotton dresses that are going to be worn on the opening night of
+the opera at the Metropolitan are to be on exhibition in New York in a
+week or two."
+
+"If cotton is good enough for that purpose I guess it's good enough for
+your dancing class," laughed Helen.
+
+"Mother says they make perfectly beautiful cottons now of exquisite
+colors and lovely designs. Don't you think it would be great if we set
+the fashion of the dancing class?"
+
+"Let's do it. Mother says silk isn't appropriate for girls of our age,
+anyway."
+
+"If you can be dressed appropriately and beautifully at the same time I
+don't see that you have anything to complain of," smiled Helen.
+
+With the short time that the girls had at their command every day it did
+not seem as if they would be able to do much with the garments that came
+in to be made over. There were not many of these because the boys had
+been instructed after the first day to ask that alterations and mending
+be done at home, but there were a few dresses like Mrs. Lancaster's that
+were on their hands. Mrs. Smith came to their help when this work bade
+fair to be too much for them.
+
+"I'll ask Aunt Marion and Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Hancock and Mrs. Watkins
+to lunch with me some day," she promised Dorothy, "and after luncheon
+we'll have an old-fashioned bee and rip up these dresses and then we can
+see what material they give us and we can plan what to do with them."
+
+The scheme worked out to a charm. The elders enjoyed themselves mightily
+and the resulting pile of materials, smoothly ironed and carefully
+sorted gave Margaret and Helen a chance to exercise their ingenuity.
+Mrs. Watkins took back to town with her enough stuff for two, promising
+to help Della with them, and the suburban girls, with the assistance of
+the grown-ups, made six charming frocks that looked as good as new.
+
+It was early in October that Helen rushed home from school one day with
+the news that Mademoiselle was going to sail at the end of the week.
+
+"We must begin to-day to make up a good-bye parcel for her," she cried.
+
+"Red Cross nurses are allowed a very small kit," warned Mrs. Morton.
+
+"We can try to make things so tiny that she won't have to leave them
+behind her when she goes on duty, but even if she does she can give them
+to somebody who can make them useful."
+
+"I'll make steamer slippers to begin with," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"How?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+[Illustration: Top of Slipper
+
+Sew a and b together]
+
+"You get a pair of fleecy inner soles--they have them at all the shoe
+stores--and then you cut a top piece of bright colored chintz just the
+shape of the top part of a slipper and you sew it together at the back
+and bind the edges all around."
+
+"How do you put the top and the sole together?"
+
+"The edge of the sole is soft enough to sew through. You turn the top
+inside out over the sole and sew the binding of the chintz on to the
+edge of the sole over and over and when you turn it right side out there
+you are with gay shoes."
+
+"They'll fill up a bag, though," commented Ethel Blue. "I should think
+you might make a pair just like that only make the sole of something
+that would double up. Then they'd go into a case and be more compact."
+
+"That's a good idea, too," agreed Ethel Brown. "What could you use for a
+sole?"
+
+"Soft leather would be best. I imagine you could get a piece from the
+cobbler down town. Or you could get the very thin leather that they used
+at Chautauqua for cardcases and pocket books--the kind Roger uses--and
+stitch two pieces together."
+
+"Why wouldn't a heavy duck sole do?" suggested Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"If you stepped on a pin it wouldn't keep it out as well as leather,"
+objected her daughter.
+
+"I believe I'll try a pair with a flowery chintz top and a duck sole
+covered with chintz like a lining to the shoe," said Ethel Blue slowly
+as she thought it out. "Then I'll make the case of two pieces of chintz
+bound together."
+
+"One piece ought to be longer than the other so that it would be a flap
+to come over like an envelope."
+
+This was Ethel Brown's contribution to the slipper building.
+
+"You could fasten it with a glove snapper. I got some the other day for
+my leather work," said Roger. "I'll put them on for you."
+
+"Why don't you Ethels make both kinds?" suggested Dorothy. "She'll find
+a use for them."
+
+"If you girls will make it I'll contribute the silk for a bath wrap that
+she can throw over her warm one, just for looks, on the boat," said Mrs.
+Emerson. "I have one I use on sleeping cars and it rolls up into the
+smallest space you can imagine."
+
+[Illustration: Slipper Case
+
+          Place section a on section b and sew edges together, leaving
+             c d open
+
+          e = Snap fastening]
+
+"Good for Grandmother!" cried a chorus of voices.
+
+"Can we use our famous wrapper pattern?" asked Helen.
+
+"I don't see why not. Mine has a hood but that isn't a difficult
+addition if you merely shape the neck of your kimono a little and then
+cut a square of the material, sew it across one end and round the lower
+end a trifle to fit into the neck hole you've made."
+
+"How about longer sleeves, Mother?" asked Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I think I would make them longer. And I'd also make an envelope bag of
+the same silk to carry it in on the return trip from the bath. You'll be
+surprised to find into how small an envelope it will go."
+
+"Put a cord from one corner of the envelope to the other so that
+Mademoiselle may have her hands free for her soap and towel and other
+needfuls," advised Mrs. Smith, who had been listening to the
+suggestions.
+
+"Wouldn't another envelope arrangement of chintz lined with rubber cloth
+make a good washrag bag or sponge bag?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"Nothing better unless you put a rubber-lined pocket in a Pullman
+apron."
+
+This hint from Grandmother Emerson aroused the curiosity of the young
+people.
+
+"What is a Pullman apron? Tell us about it," they cried.
+
+"Mine is made of linen crash," said Mrs. Emerson. "Dorothy will insist
+on your making yours of cotton chintz and it will be just as good and
+even prettier. Get a yard. Cut off a piece thirty inches long and make
+it fourteen wide. Bind the lower edge with tape. Turn up six inches
+across the bottom and stitch the one big pocket it makes into smaller
+ones of different sizes by rows of up and down stitching. Make a bag of
+rubber cloth just the right size to fit one of the larger pockets. Take
+the six inches that you cut off from your yard of material and bind it
+on both edges with tape. Stitch that across your apron about four inches
+above the top of the lower row of pockets. Divide the strip into as
+many pockets as you want to for hairpins and pins and neck arrangements,
+and so on."
+
+"Your apron has two raw edges now," said Helen.
+
+"Bind it on each side with tape. That will finish it and it will also
+fasten the edges of the pockets securely to the apron. Sew across the
+top a tape long enough to serve as strings."
+
+[Illustration: Pullman Apron
+
+          d b plus the turned up portion, b a, = 30 inches
+          b a = 6 inches
+          b b = 14 inches
+          c c c = pockets
+          d d = strings]
+
+"The idea is to roll all your toilet belongings up together in your bag,
+eh?"
+
+"Yes, and when you go to the ladies' room on the train you tie the apron
+around your waist and then you have your brush and comb and hairpins and
+tooth brush and washrag all where you can lay your fingers on them in a
+second of time."
+
+"I got my best tortoise-shell hairpin mixed up with another woman's
+once, and I never recovered it," said Mrs. Morton meditatively.
+
+"It wouldn't have happened if you'd been supplied with a bag like this,"
+said her mother.
+
+"Mademoiselle's silk wrap must be grey to match her other Red Cross
+equipment," said Mrs. Emerson, "but I don't see why the chintz things
+shouldn't be as gay as you like."
+
+"Pink roses would be most becoming to her style of beauty," murmured
+Roger who had come in.
+
+"I don't know but pink roses would be becoming enough for slippers,"
+agreed Ethel Blue so seriously that every one laughed.
+
+"Let's get pink flowered chintz," said Ethel Brown. "You make the soft
+kind and I'll make the stiff kind and Dorothy'll make the apron and
+Helen will make the kimono. Who's got any more ideas?"
+
+"I have," contributed Roger. "I'll make a case for her manicure set. I
+haven't got time this week unfortunately to tool the leather but I'll
+make a plain one that will be useful if it isn't as pretty as I can do."
+
+"What shape will it be?"
+
+"I got part of my idea from Grandfather Emerson's spectacle case that I
+was examining the other day. Ethel Blue's case for the soft slippers is
+going to be something like it."
+
+"Two pieces of leather rounded at the lower corners and stitched
+together at the sides and with a flap to shut in the contents?" guessed
+Dorothy.
+
+"Correct. I shall make the case about four inches long when it's
+closed."
+
+"That means that you'd have one strip four inches long and the other,
+the one with the flap, six inches long."
+
+"Once more correct, most noble child. It will be a liberal two inches
+wide, a bit more in this instance because I'm not much of a sewer and I
+want to be sure that I'm far enough from the edge to make it secure."
+
+"You don't try to turn it inside out, do you?"
+
+"No, ma'am. Not that mite of an object. You fit a tiny pasteboard slide
+into the case. Cover it with velvet or leather or a scrap of Ethel
+Blue's chintz--"
+
+"'Rah for cotton," cheered Dorothy.
+
+"--and on one side of this division you slip in the scissors and the
+file and the tweezers or the orange stick and on the other a little
+buffer with a strap handle that doesn't take up any room."
+
+"How in the world do you happen to be so up in manicure articles?"
+queried Helen, amazed at his knowledge.
+
+"Nothing strange about that," returned Roger. "Aunt Louise showed me
+hers the other day when I was talking to her about making one for just
+this occasion. Aha!"
+
+"You could make the same sort of case without the pasteboard partition,
+for a tiny sewing kit," offered Ethel Blue, "and one of the envelope
+shape will hold soap leaves."
+
+"I'd like to suggest a couple of shirtwaist cases," said Mrs. Smith.
+"They are made of dotted Swiss muslin that takes up next to no room and
+washes like a handkerchief. You'd better make Mademoiselle's of colored
+muslin or of colored batiste for she won't want to be bothered with
+thinking about laundry any oftener than she has to."
+
+"What shape are the bags?"
+
+"Find out whether she will take an American suitcase or a bag. In either
+case measure the size of the bottom. Take a piece of muslin twice the
+size and lay it flat. Fold over the edges till they meet in the centre.
+Then stitch the tops across, on the inside, of course, and hem the slit,
+and turn them right side out and that's all there is to it. They keep
+waists or neckwear apart from the other clothing in one's bag and
+fresher for the separation."
+
+[Illustration: Shirtwaist Case]
+
+"Since I have my hand in with knitting," said Grandmother, "I believe
+I'll contribute a pair of bed-shoes. They're so simple that any one who
+can knit a plain strip can do them."
+
+"Let's have the receipt."
+
+"Cast on stitches enough to run the length of the person's foot. Fifty
+will be plenty for any woman and more than enough for Mademoiselle's
+tiny foot. It's well to have the shoe large, though. Knit ahead until
+you have a strip six inches high. Then cast off from one end stitches
+enough to make four inches and go ahead with the remainder for four
+inches more."
+
+"That sounds funny to me," observed Ethel Brown. "Not exactly the shape
+of my dainty pedestal."
+
+"You'll have made a square with a square out of one corner like this
+piece of paper. Now fold it along the diagonal line from the tip of the
+small square to the farthest edge of the big square and sew up all the
+edges except those of the small square. That leaves a hole where you put
+your foot in. Crochet an edge there to run a ribbon in--and you're
+done."
+
+"I'm going to run the risk of Mademoiselle's laughing at me and give her
+a folding umbrella," said Mrs. Morton. "It will fit into her bag and at
+least she can use it until she goes to the front."
+
+"All this sounds to me like a good outfit for any woman who is going to
+travel," observed Helen. "I'm almost moved to sail myself!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE RED CROSS NURSE SETS SAIL
+
+
+THE girls' cheeks were rosy and their hair was tangled by the wind as
+Helen and the rest of the U. S. C. left the car at West Street and made
+their way to the French Line Pier. Roger was heading the flock of
+Mortons, Mrs. Smith was with Dorothy, the Hancocks had come from Glen
+Point, more for the fun of seeing a sailing than to say "Good-bye" to
+Mademoiselle, whom they hardly; knew. The Watkinses were accompanied by
+their elder brother, Edward, a young doctor.
+
+There was a mighty chattering as the party hastened down the pier. A
+mightier greeted them when they reached the gang plank.
+
+"Every Frenchman left in New York must be here saying 'Good-bye' to
+somebody!" laughed Tom as his eye fell on the throng pressing on to the
+boat over a narrow plank across which passengers who had already said
+their farewells were leaving, and stewards were carrying cabin trunks.
+
+"Only one _passerelle_ for all that!" exclaimed a plump Frenchman whose
+age might be guessed by the fashion of his moustache and goatee which
+declared him to be a follower of Napoleon III. He was carrying a bouquet
+in one hand and kissing the other vehemently to the lady on the deck who
+was to be made the recipient of the flowers as soon as her admirer
+could manage to squeeze himself down the over-crowded gang plank.
+
+Taxis driving up behind the U. S. C. young people discharged their
+occupants upon the agitated scene. All sorts of messages were being sent
+across to friends on the other side, many of them shouted from pier to
+deck with a volubility that was startling to inexperienced French
+students.
+
+It was quite twenty minutes before the Club succeeded in filing Indian
+fashion across the _passerelle_. They were met almost at once by
+Mademoiselle, for she had been watching their experiences from the
+vessel.
+
+"Before you say 'Good-bye' to me," she said hurriedly, "I want you to go
+over the ship. I have special permission from the Captain. You must go
+quickly. There are not many minutes, you were so long in coming on."
+
+She gave them over to the kind offices of a "_mousse_" or general
+utility boy, who in turn introduced them to a junior officer who
+examined their permit as "friends of Mademoiselle Millerand" and then
+conveyed them to strange corners whose existence they never had guessed.
+
+First they peeked into a cabin which was one of the handsomest on the
+ship but whose small size brought from Ethel Brown the comment that it
+was a "stingy" little room. The reading and writing rooms she approved,
+however, as being cheerful enough to make you forget you were seasick. A
+lingering odor of the food of yester-year seemed to cling about the
+saloon and to mingle with a whiff of oil from the engine room that had
+assailed them just before they entered. People were saying farewells
+here with extraordinary impetuosity, men embracing each other with a
+fervor that made the less demonstrative Americans smile. One group was
+looking over a pile of letters on the table to see if absent friends had
+sent some message to catch them before they steamed.
+
+Below were other staterooms, rows upon rows of them, and yet others
+below those. By comparison with the fragrances here that in the saloon
+seemed a breeze from Araby the Blest.
+
+From above the party had looked down on the engines whose huge steel
+arms slid almost imperceptibly over each other as if they were slowly,
+slowly preparing to spring at an unseen foe; as if they knew that great
+waves would try to still them, the mighty workers of the great ship. A
+gentle breathing now seemed to stir them, but far, far down below the
+waterline the stokers were feeding the animal with the fuel that was to
+give him energy to contend with storms and winds and come out victor.
+Half naked men, their backs gleaming in the light from the furnaces,
+threw coal into the yawning mouth. The heat was intense, and the Ethels
+turned so pale that young Doctor Watkins hurried them into the open air.
+Helen was not sorry to breathe the coolness of the Hudson again and even
+the boys drew a long breath of relief, though they did not admit that
+they had been uncomfortable.
+
+"Mademoiselle Millerand awaits you in the tea room," explained the young
+officer, and he conducted them to a portion of the deck where passengers
+could sit in the open, or, on cold or windy days, behind glass and watch
+the sea and the passengers pacing by.
+
+Mademoiselle greeted them with shining eyes. During their absence there
+had been some farewells that had been difficult.
+
+"You have seen everything?" she inquired pleasantly. "Then you must have
+some lemonade with me before you go," and she gave an order that soon
+brought a trayful of glasses that tinkled cheerfully.
+
+"We are not going to be sentimental," she insisted. "This is just
+'Good-bye,' and thank you many times for being so good to me at school,
+and many, many times more for the bundle that is in my room to surprise
+me. I shall open it when the Statue of Liberty is out of sight, when I
+can no more see my adopted land. Then shall I think of all of you and of
+your Club for Service."
+
+"Where do you expect to be sent, Mademoiselle?" inquired Doctor Watkins
+as the party walked toward the _passerelle_ over which they must somehow
+contrive to make their way before they could touch foot upon the pier.
+
+"To Belgium, I think. My brother is a surgeon and I have a distant
+relative in the ministry--"
+
+"What--_the_ Millerand?"
+
+Mademoiselle smiled and nodded.
+
+"So probably I shall be sent wherever I wish--and my heart goes but to
+Belgium. It is natural."
+
+"Yes, it is natural. May you have luck," he cried holding out his hand.
+
+"Mademoiselle is going to Belgium," he told the young people who were
+awaiting their turn at the gang-plank.
+
+They gazed at her with a sort of awe. Tales of war's horrors were common
+in the ears of all of them, and it was difficult to believe that the
+slight figure standing there so quietly beside them would see with her
+own eyes the uptorn fields and downfallen cottages, the dying men and
+the miserable women and children they had seen only in imagination.
+
+"Oh," gasped Ethel Blue; "oh! _Belgium!_ Oh, Mademoiselle, _won't_ you
+send us back a Belgian baby? The Club would _love_ to take care of it!
+Wouldn't we? Wouldn't we?" she cried turning from one to another with
+glittering eyes.
+
+"We would, Mademoiselle, we would," cried every one of them; and as the
+big ship was warped out of the pier they waved their handkerchiefs and
+their hands and cried over and over, "Send us a Belgian baby!"
+
+"_Un bebe belge! Ces chers enfants!_" ejaculated a motherly Frenchwoman
+who was weeping near them. "A Belgian baby! These dear children."
+
+And then, to James's horror, she kissed him, first on one cheek and then
+on the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+PLANNING THE U. S. C. "SHOW"
+
+
+IT was becoming more and more evident every day to the president of the
+United Service Club that it must have more money than was at its
+disposal at the moment or it would not be able to carry out its plans.
+Already it owed to Mrs. Morton a sum that Helen knew was larger than her
+mother could lend them conveniently. All of Grandfather Emerson's
+donation had gone to provide knitting needles and yarn for the occupants
+of the Old Ladies' Home, and the Club's decision to lay itself under no
+financial obligation to people outside of the immediate families of the
+members had obliged her to refuse a few small gifts that had been
+offered.
+
+All the members of the Club were working hard to earn money beyond their
+allowances and every cent was going into the Club's exchequer. Roger was
+faithful in his attention to the three furnaces he had undertaken to
+care for, though he was not above a feeling of relief that the weather
+was continuing so mild that he had not yet had to keep up fires
+continuously in any of them. James still drove his father, though the
+doctor threatened him with discharge almost every day because of his
+habit of cutting corners. The girls were carrying out their plans for
+money-making, and Della had secured another order for stenciled curtains
+which Dorothy and Ethel Brown filled.
+
+What with school and working for the orphans and working for the Club
+treasury these were busy days, and Helen felt that something must be
+done at once to provide a comparatively large sum so that their
+indebtedness might be paid off and the pressure upon each one of them
+would not be so heavy.
+
+Helen and James were going over the Club accounts one Saturday before
+the regular meeting. A frown showed Helen's anxiety and James's square
+face looked squarer and more serious than ever as he saw the deficit
+piled against them.
+
+"It's high time we gave that entertainment we talked about so much when
+we began this thing," he growled. "People will have forgotten all about
+it and we'll have to advertise it all over again."
+
+"That'll be easy enough if we make use of some of the small children in
+some way. All their relatives near and far will know all about it
+promptly and they'll all come to see how the kiddies perform," said
+Helen wisely, though her look of perplexity continued.
+
+"Let's bring it up at the meeting right now. I don't believe we can do
+anything better this afternoon than plan out our show and decide who and
+what and where."
+
+"'Where' is answered easily enough--the hall of the schoolhouse. 'Who'
+and 'what' require more thought."
+
+It turned out, however, that every one had been thinking of stunts to do
+himself or for some one else to do, so that the program did not take as
+much time as if the subject had not been lying in their minds for
+several weeks.
+
+"At the beginning," said Ethel Blue, "I think some one ought to get up
+and tell what the Club is trying to do--all about the war orphans and
+the Santa Claus Ship."
+
+"Wouldn't Grandfather Emerson be a good one to do that?"
+
+"I don't think we want to have any grown people in our show," was
+Helen's opinion. "If we bring them in then the outside people will
+expect more from us because they'll think that we've been helped and it
+won't be fair to us or to our grown-ups."
+
+"That's so," agreed Tom from the depths of a lifetime of experience of
+the ways of people in church entertainments. "Let's do every single
+thing ourselves if we can, and I believe the audience will like it
+better even if it isn't all as O. K. as it would be if we had a grown-up
+or two to help pull the oars."
+
+"The first question before us, then, is who will do this explanation act
+that Ethel Blue suggests?"
+
+There was a dead silence. No one wanted to offer. There seemed no one
+person on whom the task fell naturally unless--"The Club was Ethel
+Blue's idea," went on Helen. "Isn't she the right one to explain it?"
+and "The president of the Club ought to tell about it," said Ethel Blue.
+Both girls spoke at once.
+
+There was unanimous laughter.
+
+"'Ayther is correct,'" quoted Roger. "I think Helen is the proper
+victim."
+
+"Yes, indeed," Ethel Blue supported him so earnestly that every one
+laughed again.
+
+"You see, no one knows about its being Ethel Blue's idea and that would
+take a lot more explaining or else it would seem that there was no good
+reason for the president's not acting as showman and introducing her
+freaks to the audience."
+
+"'Speak for yourself, John!' I'm no freak!" declared James. "I think
+Helen's the right one to make the introduction, though."
+
+Helen shivered.
+
+"I must say I hate to do it," she said, "but we all agreed when we went
+into this that we'd do what came up, no matter whether we liked it or
+not, so here goes Number 1 on the program," and she wrote on her pad,
+beneath an elaborate
+
+          PROGRAM
+
+which she had been drawing and decorating as she talked.
+
+1. Explanatory address. Helen Morton.
+
+"Now, then," queried Ethel Brown, "what next?"
+
+"Music, if there's any one to tootle for the ladies," said Roger.
+
+"Dorothy's the singer."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't sing all alone," objected Dorothy shrinkingly. "But
+Mother said she'd drill a chorus of children and I wouldn't mind doing
+the solo part with a lot of others on the stage with me."
+
+"How about a chorus in costume?" asked Helen.
+
+"What kind of costume?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know--something historical, perhaps."
+
+"Why not the peasant costumes of the countries in the war?" suggested
+Ethel Blue. "We're working for the children and we'll have a child or
+two from each country."
+
+"A sort of illustration of Helen's speech," said Tom.
+
+"They might sing either the national songs of their countries or
+children's songs," said Dorothy.
+
+"Or both, with you dressed as Columbia and singing the Star Spangled
+Banner at the end."
+
+"La, la! Fine!" commended Margaret. "Put down Number 2, Helen, 'Songs by
+War Orphans.' We can work out the details later, or leave them to
+Dorothy and her mother."
+
+"I've been thinking that we might as well utilize some of the folk
+dances that we learned at Chautauqua last summer," said Ethel Brown.
+"Wouldn't Number 3 be a good spot to put in the Butterfly Dance?"
+
+"That was one of the prettiest dances at the Exhibition," said James.
+"Let's have it."
+
+"Margaret and I are too tall for it, but you four young ones know it and
+you can teach four more girls easily enough."
+
+"We'll ask them to-morrow at school," said Dorothy, "and we'll have a
+rehearsal right off. Mother will play for us and it won't take any time
+at all."
+
+"The costumes won't take any time, either. Any white dress will do and
+the wings are made by strips of soft stuff--cheese cloth or something
+even softer, pale blue and pink and green and yellow. They're fastened
+at the shoulders and a loop goes over the wrist or the little finger so
+the arms can keep them waving."
+
+"Do you remember the steps, Dorothy?"
+
+"They're very simple, but almost anything that moves sort of swimmingly
+will do."
+
+"There's Number 3, then," decided Dorothy. "Now the boys ought to
+appear."
+
+"Yes, what have you three been planning to throw us in the shade?"
+inquired Della.
+
+"I've got a fancy club-swinging act that's rather good," admitted Roger
+modestly.
+
+"You have?" asked Tom in surprise. "So have I. What's yours?"
+
+"Come over here and I'll tell you," and the two boys retired to a corner
+where they conferred. It was evident, from their burst of laughter and
+their exclamations that they highly approved of each other's schemes.
+
+"We've decided that we won't tell you what our act is," they declared
+when they came back to the broken meeting. "We'll surprise you as well
+as the rest of the audience."
+
+"Meanies," pronounced Ethel Brown. "Helen, put down 'Number 4, Club
+Swinging by Two Geese!'"
+
+"Not geese," corrected Tom, with a glance at Roger, who made a sign of
+caution.
+
+"What next?" queried the president.
+
+"Let's have some of the small children now. Our honorary member ought to
+be on the card," said Della.
+
+"Are you sure he wouldn't be afraid?" asked Tom of Dicky's brethren.
+
+"Not Dicky," they shrieked in concert.
+
+"I saw a pretty stunt in town the other evening. It was done by grown
+people but it would be dear with little kids," urged Della, her round
+face beaming with the joy of her adaptation of the idea. "It was a new
+kind of shadow dance."
+
+"Pshaw, that's old," declared Tom with brotherly curtness.
+
+"It wasn't done behind a sheet. That's the old way--"
+
+"A mighty good way, too," supported James stoutly. "I've seen some
+splendid pantomimes done on a sheet--'Red Riding Hood' and 'Jack the
+Giant Killer,' and a lot more."
+
+"This is much cunninger," insisted Della. "Instead of a sheet there's a
+dull, light blue curtain hung across the stage. The light is behind it,
+but the actors are in front of it."
+
+"Then you don't see their shadows."
+
+"You see themselves in silhouette against the blue. There is a net
+curtain down between them and the audience and it looks like moonlight
+with elves and fairies playing in it."
+
+"It would be hard to train Dicky to be a fairy," decided Ethel Blue so
+gravely that all the others laughed.
+
+"I was thinking that it would be fun to have Dicky and some other
+children dressed like pussy cats and rabbits and dogs, and playing about
+as if they were frisking in the moonlight."
+
+"Why not have them do a regular little play like 'Flossy Fisher's
+Funnies' that have been coming out in the _Ladies' Home Journal_?"
+screamed Ethel Brown, electrified at the growth of the idea. "Take
+almost any one of them and get the children to play the little story it
+tells and I don't see why it wouldn't be too cunning for words."
+
+"What kind of stories?" asked James who liked to understand.
+
+"I don't remember any one exactly but they are something like this;--Mr.
+Dog goes fishing on the bank of the stream. A strip of pasteboard cut at
+the top into rushes will give the effect of a brook, you know. He pulls
+up a fish with a jerk that throws it over his head. Pussy Cat is
+waiting just behind him. She seizes the fish and runs away with it. Mr.
+Dog runs after her. The cat jumps over a wheelbarrow, but the dog
+doesn't see it and gets a fall--and so on."
+
+"I can see how it would be funny with little scraps of kids," pronounced
+Tom. "Who'll train them?"
+
+"I'll do that," offered Ethel Brown. "Dicky's always good with me and if
+he understands the story he'll really help teach the others."
+
+"Pick out a simple 'Flossy Fisher' or make up an easy story with plenty
+of action," advised Margaret. "The chief trouble you'll have is to make
+the children stay apart on the stage. They'll keep bunching up and
+spoiling the silhouettes if you aren't careful."
+
+"Number 5. Silhouettes," wrote Helen on her pad. "What's Number 6?"
+
+"I don't know whether you'll approve of this," offered Dorothy rather
+shyly, "but when I was at the Old Ladies' Home the other day I thought
+they made a real picture knitting away there in the sunshine in their
+sitting room. Do you think some of them could be induced to come to the
+schoolhouse and make a tableau?"
+
+"Fine!" commended Helen.
+
+"You could have it a picture of sentiment, such as Dorothy had in mind,
+I judge," said Tom, "or you could turn it into a comic by having some
+one sing 'Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers.'"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A stay-at-home war song they're singing in England. It's funny because
+it's so full of S's that it's almost impossible to sing it without a
+mistake. I think it would be better, though, to have the old ladies
+just knitting away. After all, it's sympathy with the orphans we want to
+arouse."
+
+"Couldn't we have a tableau within a tableau--a picture at the back
+placed with the figures posed behind a net curtain so that they'd be
+dimmed--a picture of some of the Belgian orphans refugeeing into Holland
+or something of that sort?"
+
+"If Mademoiselle would only send us right off that Belgian baby that
+James got kissed for we'd have an actual exhibit," said Roger.
+
+James made a face at the memory of the unexpected caress he had earned
+unwittingly, but he approved highly of the addition to the picture of
+the old ladies.
+
+"They're thinking about the orphans as they knit--and there are the
+orphans," he said, and even his sister Margaret smiled at the
+approbation with which he looked on a tableau that left nothing to the
+imagination.
+
+"Number 6 is settled, then. Why can't we have the minuet for Number 7?"
+
+"Good. All of us here know it so we shan't need to rehearse much."
+
+"On that small stage four couples will be plenty, I say," offered Roger.
+
+"I think so, too. Eight would make it altogether too crowded," declared
+Helen. "That means that four of us girls will dance--we can decide which
+ones later--and you three boys, and we'll only have to train one new
+boy."
+
+"What's the matter with George Foster? His sister is a dancing teacher
+and perhaps he knows it already."
+
+"He's the best choice we can make. We want to get this thing done just
+as fast as we can for several reasons," continued Helen. "In the first
+place any entertainment goes off more snappily if the fun of doing it
+isn't all worn off by too many rehearsals."
+
+"Correct," agreed Tom. "Remember that Children's Symphony we exhausted
+ourselves on for a month last winter, Della?"
+
+Della did and expressed her memories with closed eyes and out-stretched
+hands.
+
+"If each one of us makes himself and herself responsible for having his
+own part perfect and the stunts that he's drilling others in as nearly
+perfect as he can, then I don't see why we need more than ten days for
+it."
+
+"Especially as we know all the dances now and the Old Ladies' Home
+tableau won't take much preparation."
+
+"Have we got enough numbers on the program, Helen?"
+
+"I think we ought to end with a long thing of some sort."
+
+"We'll never pull off the show if you try to stick in a play," growled
+James.
+
+"Not a play, but I was reading Browning's 'Pied Piper of Hamelin' the
+other day and it can easily be made workable with just a little speaking
+and some pantomime. Two or three rehearsals ought to do it."
+
+"All right, then. Your sufferings be on your head."
+
+"You'll all back me up, won't you?"
+
+"We'll do whatever you tell us, if that's what you want."
+
+"Read us the whole program, Madam President," begged Dorothy.
+
+"Here you are; I've changed the order a little:
+
+          PROGRAM
+
+          1. Address, Helen Morton.
+
+          2. Songs by War Orphans, led by Dorothy Smith.
+
+          3. Butterfly Dance.
+
+          4. Club Swinging by Roger Morton and Thomas
+          Watkins.
+
+          5. Knitting for the War Orphans by Ladies from the
+          Old Ladies' Home.
+
+          6. Silhouettes by Dicky Morton and other Juniors.
+
+          7. Minuet.
+
+          8. "The Pied Piper."
+
+"If I do say it as shouldn't, having had a modest part in its
+construction," remarked Roger complacently, "that's a good program."
+
+"Do you know," added Margaret earnestly, "I think so too."
+
+So, after discussion of details concerning responsibility and
+rehearsals, and the appointment of a publicity committee consisting of
+the officers of the Club plus Roger, the meeting adjourned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE EVENTFUL EVENING
+
+
+IF the U. S. C.'s had thought themselves busy before they undertook
+their entertainment they concluded as they rushed from one duty to
+another in the ten days of preparation for that function that they had
+not learned the A B C of busy-ness. Mrs. Morton always insisted that,
+whatever was on foot, school work must not be slighted.
+
+"Your education is your preparation for life," she said. "While you are
+young you must lay down a good foundation for the later years to build
+on. You know what happens when a foundation is poor."
+
+They did. A building in Rosemont had fallen into a heap of ruins not
+long before, to the shame of the contractor who had put in poor work.
+
+So all the school duties were attended to faithfully, and the
+out-of-door time was not skimped though the out-of-door time was largely
+devoted to doing errands connected with the "show," and the home lessons
+were learned as thoroughly as usual. But sewing went by the board for
+ten days except such sewing as was necessary for the making of costumes.
+
+"Here's a chance for your Club to try out some of Roger's ideas of
+system," said Grandfather Emerson as he listened to the plans which were
+always on the lips of the club members whenever he met them.
+
+"I think we're doing it all pretty systematically," Helen defended.
+"Each one of us is responsible for doing certain things and our work
+doesn't overlap. When we come together for a general rehearsal I believe
+we're going to find that all the parts will fit together like a cut-out
+puzzle."
+
+[Illustration: Costume for Butterfly Dance]
+
+Mr. Emerson said that he hoped so in a tone of such doubt that Helen was
+more than ever determined that all should run smoothly. To that end she
+made a diplomatic investigation into every number of the program. Every
+one she found to be going on well. Her own address was already blocked
+out in her mind. Dorothy had taken bodily a singing class that Mrs.
+Smith had started at the Rosemont Settlement and, with the knowledge of
+singing that the children already had, they soon were drilled in their
+special songs and in the motions that enlivened them. Mrs. Smith and
+Dorothy were also preparing the costumes and they reported that the
+mothers of the children were helping, some of them providing actual
+peasant costumes that had come from the old country.
+
+With four girls who already knew the butterfly dance the drilling of
+another quartette was swiftly done, and the Ethels were willing to put
+their flock of butterflies on the stage four days after they had begun
+to practice. Because every one of them had a white dress their costumes
+required almost no work beyond the cutting lengthwise of a yard and a
+quarter of cheesecloth. When they had gathered one end and attached the
+safety pin which was to fasten it to the shoulder, and gathered the
+other end and sewed on a loop which was to go over the little
+finger--all of which took about five minutes--that costume was finished.
+
+About the boys' club swinging Helen could not obtain any information
+beyond the assurance that all was well. With that she had to content
+herself.
+
+The old ladies at the Home were delighted to be able to help and also
+delighted at the excitement of taking part in the entertainment. They
+voted for the trio who should represent them in the tableaux and
+generously selected three who were the most handicapped of all of them.
+One was lame and always sat with her crutch beside her; one was blind,
+though her fast flying fingers did not betray it; and the third lived in
+a wheel-chair. They demurred strongly to their companions' choice, but
+the other old ladies were insistent and the appointees could not resist
+the fun. Mr. Emerson agreed to provide transportation for them,
+wheel-chair and all, and Doctor Hancock was to send over a wagonette
+from Glen Point so that the rest of the inmates of the Home might take
+advantage of the tickets that some mysterious giver had sent to every
+one of them. For the inner picture Dicky and two of his kindergarten
+friends were to be posed, clad in rags.
+
+"It's no trouble to provide Dicky with a ragged suit," said Mrs. Morton.
+"The difficulty is going to be to make him look serious and poorly fed."
+
+"A little artistic shading under his eyes and on his cheeks will make
+his plumpness disappear. I'll 'make up' the children," offered Mrs.
+Emerson.
+
+Most difficult of all were the silhouettes. This was because the
+children who were to take part were so tiny that they could not quite
+remember the sequence of the story they were to act out. There were
+moments when the Ethels were almost disposed to give up the youngsters
+and try the shadows with larger children.
+
+"The little ones make so much cunninger cats and dogs than the bigger
+children I don't want to do it unless we have to," said Ethel Brown, and
+they found at last that perseverance won the day. Here, too, the
+children's mothers helped with the costumes, and turned out a creditable
+collection of animal coverings, not one of them with a bit of fur.
+
+"They're another help to your cotton crusade," Ethel Blue told
+Dorothy.
+
+Grey flannelette made a soft maltese pussy; the same material in brown
+covered a dog; a white coat splashed with brown spots out of the family
+coffee pot was the covering of another Fido, while another white garment
+stained with black and yellow ornamented a tortoise-shell cat. The
+rabbits all wore white.
+
+As with the butterfly dance so many of the performers knew the minuet
+that it needed only two rehearsals. The new boy worked in without any
+trouble and was so graceful and dignified that the U. S. C. boys found
+themselves emulating his excellent manner.
+
+Helen herself took charge of "The Pied Piper" and so few were the
+speaking parts and so short and so natural the pantomime that she
+drilled her company in three rehearsals, though she herself worked
+longer in private over the manipulation of certain stage "properties,"
+and had one or two special sessions with Dr. Edward Watkins who was to
+take the principal part.
+
+Friday evening was chosen for the performance. The Rosemont young people
+usually had their evening festivities on Fridays because they could sit
+up later than usual without being disturbed about school work the next
+morning. The special Friday proved to be clear with a brilliant moon and
+the old ladies driving over from the Home felt themselves to be out on a
+grand lark. Evidently the boys had done their publicity work thoroughly,
+for not only did they see a goodly number of Rosemont people approaching
+the schoolhouse, but, just as they drove up to the door, a special car
+from Glen Point stopped to let off a crowd of friends of the Hancocks
+who had come over to see "what the children were doing for the war
+orphans."
+
+The school hall held 300 people and no seats were reserved except those
+for the old ladies. They found themselves in front where they could see
+well and where they were near enough to appreciate the care with which
+the edge of the platform was decorated. That had been Margaret Hancock's
+work and she had remembered the success of the Service Club in preparing
+the platform for the Old First Night exercises at Chautauqua.
+
+Tom had insisted that the Club should go to the extra expense of having
+tickets printed. James had objected.
+
+"This old treasury of ours is almost an empty box," he growled. "We
+can't afford to spend cold cash on printing."
+
+"It will pay in the end, believe me," insisted Tom slangily. "You know
+there are always a lot of people who think they'll go to a show and then
+at the last minute think they won't if something more amusing turns up.
+If you sell tickets beforehand you've got their contribution to the
+cause even if they don't appear themselves."
+
+"Tom's right," agreed Margaret. "They won't mind losing so small a sum
+as a quarter if they don't go."
+
+"And they'd think it was too small an amount to bother themselves about
+by hunting up the treasurer and paying it in if they didn't have a
+ticket," said Roger.
+
+"And there are some people who'd be sure to come and swell the audience
+just because they had spent a quarter on a ticket," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"What does the president think?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+Helen agreed with Tom and the tickets were printed. After all they came
+to only a small sum and Roger, peeking through a hole in the curtain,
+saw with satisfaction that if there were going to be any vacant seats at
+all they would not be many. When one of the old ladies turned about just
+before the curtain went up she saw a solid room behind her and people
+standing against the wall.
+
+There was music before the curtain rose. This enrichment of the program
+was a surprise to the performers themselves. Young Doctor Edward Watkins
+had become so interested in the United Service Club when he met them at
+the French Line Pier that he had insisted on helping with their work for
+the orphans.
+
+"If Mademoiselle really sends you that Belgian baby you may need a
+special physician for it," he said. "So you'd better stand in with one
+whose practice isn't big enough yet to take all his time."
+
+He said this to Helen when he appeared with Tom and Della on the evening
+of the performance and announced that not only did he know his part in
+the "Piper" but he had brought his violin and would be glad to be a part
+of the orchestra.
+
+"But we haven't an orchestra," objected Helen. "I wish we had."
+
+"Who's going to play for the dances?"
+
+"Aunt Louise."
+
+"Why can't she and I do something at the beginning? It will seem a
+little less cold than just having the curtain go up without any
+preliminaries."
+
+Mrs. Smith proved to be delighted to go over with Doctor Watkins the
+music he had brought and they selected one or two lively bits that would
+set the mood of the audience for the evening. So Mrs. Morton and the
+Emersons and the younger members of the cast were greatly surprised to
+hear an overture from a well-played violin accompanied by the piano.
+While the applause was dying away the curtain rose on Helen seated at a
+desk reading from a blank exercise book filled with Ethel Blue's neat
+writing.
+
+"This is the report of the Secretary of the United Service Club," began
+Helen when the applause that greeted her appearance had subsided. She
+was looking very pretty, wearing a straight, plain pink frock and having
+her hair bound with a narrow pink fillet.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know what the United Service Club is," she went on,
+and then she told in the simplest manner of the beginning of the Club at
+Chautauqua the summer before.
+
+"What we're trying to do is to help other people whether we want to or
+not," she declared earnestly.
+
+A soft laugh went over the audience at this contradictory statement.
+
+"I mean," continued Helen, somewhat confused, "that we mean to do things
+that will help people even if we don't get any fun out of it ourselves.
+We want to improve our characters, you see," she added artlessly. "So
+far we haven't had much chance to improve our characters because all the
+things that have come our way to do have been things that were great
+fun--like to-night.
+
+"To-night," she went on earnestly, "you have come here to see a little
+entertainment that we've gotten up to make some money so that we could
+send a bigger bundle to the Christmas Ship that is going to sail for
+Europe early in November. We thought we could make a good many presents
+for the war orphans but we found that our allowances didn't go as far as
+we thought they would, although we have a very careful treasurer," she
+added with a smiling glance at the wings of the stage where James
+greeted her compliment with a wry face.
+
+"We made a rule that we would make all the money we needed and not
+accept presents, so this show is the result, and we hope you'll like it.
+Anyway, we've had lots of fun getting it up."
+
+She bowed her thanks to the applause that greeted her girlish
+explanation and stepped behind the scenes.
+
+Immediately a gay march sounded from the piano. It was a medley of
+well-known national songs and in time with its notes a group of children
+led by Dorothy ran upon the stage. Dorothy stepped to the front and sang
+a few lines of introduction to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."
+
+          "Here we are from Fatherland,
+             From Russia and from France,
+           From Japan and from Ireland
+             We all together dance.
+
+          "At home they are not dancing now;
+             There's war and awful slaughter;
+           We here in Rosemont make our bow,
+             Each one Columbia's daughter."
+
+Then a flaxen-haired little girl stepped forward and sang a German folk
+song and after it she and two other children dressed in German peasant
+costume danced a merry folk dance. Representatives of the other
+countries which Dorothy's verses had named sang in turn. Then each group
+sang its national song, at the end uniting in "The Star Spangled
+Banner," in which the standing audience joined.
+
+There was a great clapping when the curtain fell, but the managers had
+decided that there should be no encores, so the curtain merely rose once
+upon a bowing, smiling group and then fell with a decision that was
+understood to be final.
+
+"Whatever we do wrong, the thing we must do right," Helen had insisted
+when she was drilling her performers, "is to have promptness in putting
+on our 'acts.'"
+
+"That's so," agreed Tom, "there's nothing an audience hates more than to
+wait everlastingly between 'turns' while whispering and giggling goes on
+behind the scenes."
+
+As a result of Helen's sternness the butterflies were waiting when the
+little internationals went off, and, as those of the children who were
+not to appear again filed quietly down into the audience where they
+could see the remainder of the performance, waving wings of soft pink
+and blue and green and yellow fluttered in from the sides. There was
+nothing intricate about the steps of this pretty dance. There were
+movements forward and back and to one side and another, with an
+occasional turn, but the slowly waving hands with their delicate burden
+of color made the whole effect entirely charming.
+
+When Tom and Roger, jersey clad, stepped on to the stage for the
+club-swinging act all the other performers were clustered in the wings,
+for it had roused their curiosity. Evidently Roger was to swing first
+for he stepped to the front while Tom beckoned to the janitor of the
+hall who came forward and attached electric light wires to a plug in the
+edge of the platform. Tom made a connection with wires that ran up under
+the back of Roger's jersey and down his sleeves and through holes bored
+into his clubs, and then he stepped forward to the front.
+
+"While Roger Morton is swinging his clubs the lights of the hall will be
+turned off," he explained. "I mention it so that no one will be startled
+when they go out."
+
+Out they went, and in a flash Roger's clubs, made of red and white
+striped cotton stretched over wire frames which covered electric light
+bulbs screwed to a sawed-off pair of clubs, were illuminated from
+within. The beauty of the movements as the clubs flashed here and there
+in simple or elaborate curves and whirls drew exclamations of enjoyment
+from the audience.
+
+"That's one of the prettiest stunts I ever saw," exclaimed Doctor
+Hancock, and Doctor Watkins led the vigorous applause that begged Roger
+to go on. True to his agreement with Helen, however, Roger stepped aside
+as soon as he was freed from his apparatus and the lights were turned on
+once more in the hall, and prepared to help Tom.
+
+It was clear that Tom, too, was not going to do ordinary club-swinging.
+He took up his position in the centre of the stage and Roger brought
+forward a box which he deposited beside him. The actors behind the
+scenes craned their heads forward until they were visible to the
+audience, so eager were they to see what the box contained.
+
+"My friend, Tom Watkins," said Roger gravely, "is something of a
+naturalist. In the course of his travels and studies he has come across
+a curious animal whose chief characteristic is what I may be permitted
+to call its adhesive power. So closely does it cling to anything to
+which it attaches itself that it can be detached only with great
+difficulty. So marked is this peculiarity of the _Canis Taurus_--"
+
+A peculiar grunt of amusement from certain high school members of the
+audience interrupted Roger's oration. "_Canis_, dog; _taurus_, bull,"
+they whispered.
+
+"--of the _Canis Taurus_," he went on, "that Watkins has been able to
+train two of his specimens to do the very remarkable act that you are
+about to see."
+
+As he ended he threw back the top of the box and there popped up over
+the edge the infinitely ugly heads of Cupid's two pup's, Amor and
+Amorette. A howl of laughter greeted their silly, solemn countenances.
+Tom whistled sharply and they sprang from their narrow quarters and ran
+to him. He stroked them, and faced them toward the footlights so that
+their eyes should not be dazzled by seeing them suddenly. Then he began
+to play with them, pushing them about and shoving them gently with the
+ravelled ends of two short pieces of knotted rope. When he had teased
+them for a minute he stood upright and Amor and Amorette were hanging
+each from a rope! It was a trick he had taught them as soon as their
+teeth were strong enough.
+
+Slowly he swung them back and forth, and then in semi-circles constantly
+increasing in sweep, until in a flash they rose over his head and
+described regular simple Indian club evolutions. Every move was slow and
+steady with no jerks that would break the dogs' hold and Amor and
+Amorette held on with a firmness that did credit to their inheritance of
+jaw muscle and determination.
+
+"Good for the _Canis Taurus_," laughed Mr. Wheeler, the high school
+teacher, from the back of the hall as the swinging died rhythmically
+away.
+
+"Speak to the ladies and gentlemen," commanded Tom as he dropped the
+ropes and their attachments to the floor. Each dog was still holding
+firmly to his bit of rope and manifested no desire to part from it. At
+their master's order, however, they let go of their handles and uttered
+two sharp barks. Then they picked them up again and trotted off the
+stage.
+
+All this was so unusual that it aroused the most fervent enthusiasm that
+had yet been shown. Feet stamped and canes rapped but Tom would do no
+more than walk on with a dog on each side of him and bow as they barked.
+
+With the announcement of the knitting tableau there was a flutter among
+the old ladies from the Home. Here was an act in which they felt a
+personal interest. It was almost embarrassing to be so nearly related to
+a number on the program!
+
+The curtain rose very slowly to soft music thrilling through the hall.
+It was a homely scene--just such a room as any one of the old ladies may
+have had when she still had a home of her own. There was a table with a
+lamp upon it and around the table were the three old ladies, one with
+her crutch and one in her wheel chair, and one sitting in the darkness
+that was daylight to her--the shining of a contented heart. All of them
+were knitting.
+
+Slowly there grew into view behind them on the wall the picture of the
+thoughts that were in their minds--the picture of three children, pale,
+thin, tear-stained, trudging along a weary road. Each one carried a
+bundle far too heavy for him and each looked unsmilingly out of the
+frame, though Mrs. Morton breathed a sigh of relief when the touching
+scene faded and she knew that there was no longer any danger of Dicky's
+spoiling the effect by a burst of laughter or a genial call to some
+acquaintance in the audience.
+
+Slowly the curtain fell and the old ladies were lost to view. Then the
+old ladies in front breathed a sigh of satisfaction. It had been simply
+perfect!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"SISTER SUSIE'S SEWING SHIRTS FOR SOLDIERS"
+
+
+WITH the evening well under way Helen was beginning to be relieved of
+the worry that she had not been able to control, but as the time for the
+silhouette approached the Ethels became distinctly disturbed. Dicky
+always was an uncertain element. Because he had behaved like an angel
+child in the tableau with the old ladies was no assurance that as a
+pussy cat in the silhouettes he would not raise an uproar which would
+put to shame any backyard feline of their acquaintance.
+
+Dicky's companions in the animal play were ready behind the scenes and
+their funny costumes were causing bursts of suppressed mirth as they
+danced about excitedly. When Dicky finished his tableau he was hurried
+into his maltese coat and by the time that his Aunt Louise had played
+the "Owl and the Pussy Cat" and Dorothy had sung it, the blue curtain
+had been lowered, the light behind it turned on, and between it and the
+net curtain in front the dogs and the cats and the rabbits frisked
+happily. In fact the raising of the outside curtain caught them tagging
+each other about the stage in a manner that was vastly amusing but had
+nothing to do with the play.
+
+For there was a little play. The Ethels had made it up themselves and it
+had to do not only with a fisher dog who lost his catch to a robber cat
+but with a clever rabbit who was chased by both dogs and cats and who
+took refuge in the rushes on the bank of the stream and was passed by
+because his pursuers mistook the tips of his ears for rushes. Then they
+made signs that, wherever he was, if he would come out and join them
+they should all be friends. He came out and they took paws and danced
+about in a circle. Against the dull blue background it looked as if the
+animals were playing in the moonlight, jumping and walking on their
+hindlegs like the creatures in the fairy books. The small children in
+the audience were especially pleased with this number and when at the
+end a boy appeared carrying his schoolbooks and all the animals fell
+into line behind him and walked off demurely to school it was so like
+what happens at the end of the holidays that they burst into renewed
+clapping.
+
+The minuet went with the utmost smoothness. Doctor Watkins added his
+violin to the piano's playing of the Mozart music from "Don Giovanni"
+and the picturesquely dressed figures stepped and bowed and courtesied
+with grace and precision. Helen danced with Tom, Margaret with Roger,
+Ethel Brown with James, and Ethel Blue with the new boy, George Foster.
+The girls all wore ruffled skirts with paniers elaborately bunched over
+them, and they had their hair powdered. The boys wore knee breeches,
+long-tailed coats, and white wigs. On the wall hung an old portrait of a
+Morton ancestor. A spinet stood at one side of the room which the stage
+represented. The whole atmosphere was that of a day long gone by.
+
+After this number was done Doctor Watkins appeared before the curtain.
+
+"I am asked by the president of the United Service Club," he said, "to
+tell you that there will be an interval of ten minutes between the
+minuet and the next offering of the program. During that time I am going
+to sing you a song that the English soldiers are singing. It isn't a
+serious song, for the soldiers are hearing enough sad sounds without
+adding to them. I may make some mistakes in singing it--you'll
+understand why in a moment."
+
+At a nod from him, Mrs. Smith broke into the opening notes of "Sister
+Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers," and by the time the doctor had
+finished the second stanza the audience was humming the chorus. "Come
+on," he cried. "I did make some mistakes. See if you can do better," and
+he led the tune for the four lines that announced,--
+
+  "Sister Susie's sewing shirts for soldiers.
+     Such skill at sewing shirts our shy young sister Susie shows,
+   Some soldiers send epistles, say they'd sooner sleep in thistles
+    Than the saucy, soft, short shirts for soldiers Sister Susie sews."
+
+Everybody laughed and laughed and tried to sing and laughed again.
+
+When the chorus was over, Doctor Watkins dashed into the Allies' song,
+"Tipperary," and followed it by "Deutschland ueber Alles." Then he
+taught the audience the words of "The Christmas Ship" and they quickly
+caught the air and soon were singing,--
+
+          "Hurrah, hurrah for the Christmas Ship
+             As it starts across the sea
+           With its load of gifts and its greater load
+             Of loving sympathy.
+           Let's wave our hats and clap our hands
+             As we send it on its trip;
+           May many a heart and home be cheered
+             By the gifts in the Christmas Ship."
+
+Edward had a good voice and he sang with so much spirit that every one
+enjoyed his unexpected addition to the evening's pleasure.
+
+A bell behind the scenes announced that "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" was
+ready and the curtain rose on the room in the Town Hall of Hamelin in
+which the Corporation held its meetings. Dorothy, whose voice was clear
+and far-reaching, stood just below the stage at one side and read the
+explanation of what had been happening in the city.
+
+                      Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
+          By famous Hanover city;
+                      The river Weser, deep and wide,
+                      Washes its wall on the southern side;
+                      A pleasanter spot you never spied;
+          But, when begins my ditty,
+                      Almost five hundred years ago,
+                      To see the townsfolk suffer so
+                        From vermin, was a pity,
+
+                      Rats!
+          They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
+                      And bit the babies in the cradles,
+          And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
+                      And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
+          Split open the kegs of salted sprats
+          Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
+          And even spoiled the women's chats
+                      By drowning their speaking
+                      With shrieking and squeaking
+          In fifty different sharps and flats.
+
+          At last the people in a body
+                      To the Town Hall came flocking.
+
+At this point the reading stopped and the action began. Roger, dressed
+as the Mayor in his mother's red flannel kimono banded with white
+stripes to which he had attached tiny black tails to give the effect of
+ermine, stalked in first. He wore a look of deep anxiety. Behind him
+came James and two of Roger's high school friends who represented
+members of the Corporation. They also were dressed in red robes but they
+did not attempt to equal the ermine elegance of the Mayor.
+
+After the Mayor and Corporation came a body of the townspeople. They all
+appeared thoroughly enraged and as the city fathers took their seats at
+the council table in the centre of the room they railed at them.
+
+          FIRST CITIZEN. [_Tom, in rough brown jacket
+          and baggy knee breeches, with long brown stockings
+          and low shoes. He frowned savagely and growled
+          in disgust._] "'Tis clear our Mayor's a noddy!"
+
+          SECOND CITIZEN. [_George Foster, dressed like Tom._]
+            "And as for our Corporation--shocking,
+            To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
+            For dolts that can't or won't determine
+            What's best to rid us of our vermin!"
+
+          THIRD CITIZEN. [_Another high school boy. He
+          was bent like a withered old man and spoke in a
+          squeaky voice._]
+
+            "You hope because you're old and obese,
+            To find in the furry civic robe ease?"
+
+          FIRST CITIZEN.
+            "Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking
+            To find the remedy we're lacking,
+            Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing."
+
+          THE MAYOR.
+            "For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell,
+            I wish I were a mile hence."
+
+          FIRST MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION. [_James._]
+            "It's easy to bid one rack one's brain--
+            I'm sure my poor head aches again,
+            I've scratched it so and all in vain."
+
+          SECOND MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION.
+            "Oh, for a trap, a trap, a trap."
+
+          At this instant came a rap on the door. Helen
+          did it, and a cry came from THE MAYOR.
+            "Bless us, what's that?"
+
+          FIRST MEMBER.
+            "Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
+            Anything like the sound of a rat
+            Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!"
+
+          THE MAYOR.
+            "Come in!"
+
+          In answer to this permission there entered Edward
+          Watkins as the Pied Piper. He had dashed around to
+          the back and slipped into his coat and Mrs.
+          Emerson had painted his face while the first words
+          of the poem were being read. He was tall and thin
+          with light hair, yet a swarthy complexion. He wore
+          a queer long coat, half yellow and half red and
+          around his neck a scarf of red and yellow in
+          stripes to which was attached a tiny flute with
+          which his fingers played as if he were eager to
+          pipe upon it. He smiled winningly and the people
+          crowded in the council chamber whispered,
+          wondering who he was and why his attire was so
+          curious.
+
+          FIRST CITIZEN.
+            "It's as my great-grandsire
+            Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,
+            Had walked this way from his painted tombstone."
+
+          THE PIED PIPER [_Edward Watkins_] advanced to the
+          council table.
+
+            "Please your honors, I'm able
+            By means of a secret charm to draw
+            All creatures living beneath the sun,
+            That creep or swim or fly or run,
+            After me so as you never saw!
+            And I chiefly use my charm
+            On creatures that do people harm,
+            The mole and toad and newt and viper;
+            And people call me the Pied Piper.
+            Yet, poor piper as I am,
+            In Tartary I freed the Cham,
+            Last June from his huge swarms of gnats;
+            I eased in Asia the Nizam
+            Of a monstrous brood of vampire bats:
+            And as for what your brain bewilders
+            If I can rid your town of rats
+            Will you give me a thousand guilders?"
+
+          THE MAYOR AND CORPORATION TOGETHER.
+            "One? Fifty thousand!"
+
+          Then THE PIPER walked slowly across the stage,
+          erect and smiling, and he piped a strange, simple
+          tune on his flute. As he disappeared at one side
+          the stage was darkened and at the back appeared a
+          picture such as had been used in the tableau of
+          the old ladies knitting. THE MAYOR and the
+          CORPORATION and the townsfolk turned their back to
+          the audience and gazed out through this window.
+          Across it passed first THE PIPER still piping, and
+          after him a horde of rats. They were pasteboard
+          rats and Helen was drawing them across the scene
+          with strings, but they made a very good illusion
+          of the dancing rats that the poet described;
+
+          Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats;
+          Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats.
+
+          As the crowd in the room watched they uttered
+          exclamations--"See!" "Look at that one!" "How they
+          follow him!" "He's leading them to the river!" "In
+          they go!" "They're drowning!" "Every one of them!"
+          "Let's ring the bells!"
+
+          With faces of delight the townsfolk left the
+          council chamber and from a distance came the
+          muffled ringing of bells of joy.
+
+          THE MAYOR addressed them as they passed out;
+            "Go and get long poles,
+            Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
+            Consult with carpenters and builders,
+            And leave in our town not even a trace
+            Of the rats."
+
+          THE PIPER entered suddenly. "First, if you please,
+          my thousand guilders!"
+
+          FIRST MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION. "A thousand
+          guilders!"
+
+          The other members of the Corporation shook their
+          heads in solemn refusal.
+
+          THE MAYOR.
+            "Our business was done at the river's brink;
+            We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
+            And what's dead can't come to life, I think."
+
+          SECOND MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION.
+            "So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink
+            From the duty of giving you something for drink,
+            And a matter of money to put in your poke--"
+
+          THE MAYOR.
+            "But as for the guilders, what we spoke
+            Of them, as you very well know, was in joke."
+
+          FIRST MEMBER.
+            "Besides, our losses have made us thrifty.
+            A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!"
+
+          THE PIPER [_looking serious, cried_];
+            "No trifling! I can't wait, beside!
+            I've promised to visit by dinner time
+            Bagdat, and accept the prime
+            Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in,
+            For having left in the Caliph's kitchen,
+            Of a nest of scorpions no survivor;
+            With him I proved no bargain-driver,
+            With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver!
+            And folks who put me in a passion
+            May find me pipe after another fashion."
+
+          THE MAYOR.
+            "How? D'ye think I brook
+            Being worse treated than a Cook?
+            Insulted by a lazy ribald
+            With idle pipe and vesture piebald?
+            You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst,
+            Blow your pipe there till you burst!"
+
+          Once more the Piper laid the pipe against his lips
+          and blew the strange, simple tune, and from both
+          sides of the stage there came rushing in children
+          of all sizes, boys and girls, flaxen-haired and
+          dark-haired, blue-eyed and brown-eyed. They
+          crowded around him and as he slowly passed off the
+          stage they followed him, dancing and waving their
+          hands and with never a look behind them.
+
+          Once more the window at the back opened and across
+          it went the Piper, still fluting, though now he
+          could not be heard by the audience; and behind him
+          still danced the children, blind to the gestures
+          of the Mayor and Corporation who stretched out
+          their arms, beseeching them to return. Terrified,
+          the city fathers made known by gestures of despair
+          that they feared the Piper was leading the
+          children to the river where they would meet the
+          fate of the rats.
+
+          Of a sudden they seemed relieved and the picture
+          showed the throng passing out of sight into a
+          cavern on the mountain. Then limped upon the stage
+          a lame boy who had not been able to dance all the
+          way with the children and so was shut out when the
+          mountain opened and swallowed them up. The
+          Corporation crowded around him and heard him say:
+
+          LAME BOY.
+            "It's dull in our town since my playmates left!
+            I can't forget that I'm bereft
+            Of all the pleasant sights they see,
+            Which the Piper also promised me.
+            For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
+            Joining the town and just at hand,
+            Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew
+            And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
+            And everything was strange and new;
+            The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
+            And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
+            And honey bees had lost their stings,
+            And horses were born with eagles' wings;
+            And just as I became assured
+            My lame foot would be speedily cured,
+            The music stopped and I stood still,
+            And found myself outside the hill,
+            Left alone against my will,
+            To go now limping as before,
+            And never hear of that country more!"
+
+          The MAYOR and CORPORATION were grouped around the
+          LAME BOY listening and the citizens at the back
+          leaned forward so as to hear every word. Almost in
+          tears the boy limped from the stage followed
+          slowly by Mayor and Corporation and citizens while
+          Dorothy's clear voice took up the tale.
+
+          "Alas, alas for Hamelin!
+              There came into many a burgher's pate
+              A text which says that heaven's gate
+              Opes to the rich at as easy rate
+          As the needle's eye takes a camel in!
+          The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,
+          To offer the Piper by word or mouth
+              Wherever it was men's lot to find him,
+          Silver and gold to his heart's content,
+          If he'd only return the way he went,
+              And bring the children behind him.
+          But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavor,
+          And Piper and dancers were gone forever,
+          They made a decree that lawyers never
+              Should think their records dated duly
+          If, after the day of the month and year,
+          These words did not as well appear,
+              'And so long after what happened here
+              On the Twenty-second of July,
+          Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:'
+          And the better in memory to fix
+          The place of the children's last retreat,
+          They called it the Pied Piper's Street--
+          Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
+          Was sure for the future to lose his labor.
+          Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
+              To shock with mirth a street so solemn:
+          But opposite the place of the cavern
+              They wrote the story on a column,
+          And on the great church window painted
+          The same, to make the world acquainted
+          How their children were stolen away,
+          And there it stands to this very day.
+          And I must not omit to say
+          That in Transylvania there's a tribe
+          Of alien people who ascribe
+          The outlandish ways and dress
+          On which their neighbors lay such stress,
+          To their fathers and mothers having risen
+          Out of some subterraneous prison
+          Into which they were trepanned
+          Long time ago in a mighty band
+          Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land.
+          But how or why, they don't understand."
+
+At the conclusion of the play, after hearty applause, the audience broke
+again into the song of the Christmas Ship:
+
+          Hurrah, hurrah for the Christmas Ship
+            As it starts across the sea
+          With its load of gifts and its greater load
+            Of loving sympathy.
+          Let's wave our hats and clap our hands
+            As we send it on its trip;
+          May many a heart and home be cheered
+            By the gifts in the Christmas Ship.
+
+"That's as good a show as if it had been put on by grown-ups," declared
+a New Yorker who had come out with Doctor Watkins. "It's hard to believe
+that those kids have done it all themselves."
+
+He spoke to a stranger beside him as they filed out to the music of a
+merry march played by Mrs. Smith.
+
+"My boy was among them," replied the Rosemont man proudly, "but I don't
+mind saying I think they're winners!"
+
+That seemed to be every one's opinion. As for the old ladies--the
+evening was such an event to them that they felt just a trifle uncertain
+that they had not been transported by some magic means to far away
+Hamelin town.
+
+"I don't believe I missed a word," said the blind old lady as the horses
+toiled slowly up the hill to the Home.
+
+"We'll tell you every scene so you'll know how the words fit in,"
+promised the old lady in the wheel chair.
+
+"It will be something to talk about when we're knitting," chuckled the
+lame old lady brightly, and they all hummed gently,
+
+          "Hurrah, hurrah for the Christmas Ship
+             As it starts across the sea."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+JAMES CUTS CORNERS
+
+
+"VERY creditable, very creditable indeed," repeated Doctor Hancock as he
+and James stepped into their car to return to Glen Point after packing
+the old ladies into the wagonette.
+
+Mrs. Hancock and Margaret had gone home by trolley because the doctor
+had to make a professional call on the way. The moon lighted the road
+brilliantly and the machine flew along smoothly over the even surface.
+
+"This is about as near flying as a fellow can get and still be only two
+feet from the earth," said James.
+
+James was quiet and almost too serious for a boy of his age but he had
+one passion that sometimes got the better of the prudence which he
+inherited from the Scottish ancestor about whom Roger was always joking
+him.
+
+That passion was for speed. When he was a very small child he had made
+it his habit to descend the stairs by way of the rail at the infinite
+risk of his neck. Once he had run his head through the slats of a
+chicken coop into which an over-swift hopmobile had thrown him. On
+roller skates his accidents had been beyond counting because his
+calculations of distance often seemed not to work out harmoniously with
+his velocity. It was because Doctor Hancock thought that if the boy had
+the responsibility for his father's machine and for other people's
+bones he would learn to exercise proper care, that he had consented to
+let him become his chauffeur. The plan had seemed to work well, but once
+in a while the desire to fly got the better of James's discretion.
+
+"Here's where the car gets ahead of the aeroplane," said the doctor. "An
+aviator would find it dangerous work to skim along only two feet above
+ground."
+
+"I did want to go up with that airman at Chautauqua last summer!" cried
+James.
+
+"Why didn't you?"
+
+"Cost too much. Twenty-five plunks."
+
+The doctor whistled.
+
+"Flying high always costs," he said meditatively.
+
+"The Ethels went up. They haven't done talking about it yet. They named
+the man's machine, so he gave them a ride."
+
+"Good work! Look out for these corners, now. When you've studied physics
+a bit longer you'll learn why it is that a speeding body can't change
+its direction at an angle of ninety degrees and maintain its equilibrium
+unless it decreases its speed."
+
+James thought this over for a while.
+
+"In other words, slow up going round corners," he translated, "and later
+I'll learn why."
+
+"Words to that effect," replied the doctor mildly.
+
+"Here's a good straight bit," exclaimed James. "You don't care if I let
+her out, do you? There's nothing in sight."
+
+"Watch that cross road."
+
+"Yes, sir. Isn't this moon great!" murmured James under his breath,
+excited by the brilliant light and the cool air and the swift motion.
+
+"Always keep your eyes open for these heavy shadows that the moon
+casts," directed Doctor Hancock. "Sometimes they're deceptive."
+
+"I'll keep in the middle of the road and then the bugaboo in the shadow
+can see us even if I can't see him," laughed James, the moonlight in his
+eyes and the rush of wind in his ears.
+
+"There's something moving there! LOOK OUT!" shouted the doctor as a cow
+strolled slowly out from behind a tree and chewed a meditative cud right
+across their path. James made a swift, abrupt curve, and did not touch
+her.
+
+"That was a close one," he whispered, his hands shaking on the wheel.
+
+"It hasn't worried her any," reported his father, looking back. "She
+hasn't budged and she's still chewing. You did that very well, son. It
+was a difficult situation."
+
+James flushed warmly. His father was not a man to give praise often so
+that every word of commendation from him was doubly valued by his
+children.
+
+"Thank you. I shouldn't like to have it happen every day," James
+confessed.
+
+They sped on in silence after the cow episode, the boy glad of the
+chance to steady his nerves in the quiet, the doctor thinking of the
+case he was to visit in a few minutes.
+
+The patient's house stood on the edge of Glen Point, and James sat in
+the car resting and watching the machines of the townspeople passing by
+with gay parties out to enjoy the moonlight. Some, like themselves, had
+been to Rosemont, and some of his schoolmates waved to him as they
+passed.
+
+"It was a great show, old man," more than one boy shouted to him.
+
+It had been a good show. He knew it and he was glad that he belonged to
+a club that really amounted to something. They did things well and they
+didn't do them well just to show off or to get praise--they had a good
+purpose behind. He was still thinking about it when his father came out.
+Doctor Hancock did not talk about his cases, but James had learned that
+silence meant that there was need for serious thought and that the
+doctor was in no mood to enter into conversation. When he came out
+laughing, however, and jumped into the car with a care-free jest, as
+happened now, James knew that all was going well.
+
+"Now, home, boy," he directed. "Stop at the drug store an instant."
+
+He gave some directions to a clerk who hurried out to them and then they
+drove on. The moonlight sifted through the trees and flickered on the
+road. A cool breeze stimulated James's skin to a shiver. On they went,
+faster and faster. He'd had a mighty good time all the evening, James
+thought, and Father was a crackerjack.
+
+"LOOK OUT, boy," his father's voice rang through his thoughts. The car
+struck the curb with a shock that loosened his grasp on the wheel and
+tossed him into the air. As he flew up he tried to say, "I cut the
+corner too close that time," but he never knew whether he said it or
+not, for his voice seemed to fail him and his father could not recall
+hearing such a remark.
+
+It was quite an hour later when he came to himself. To his amazement he
+found himself in his own room. The light was shaded, his mother with
+tears still filling her eyes was beside him, and his father and a young
+man whom he recognized as the new doctor who had just come to Glen
+Point, were putting away instruments. He tried to move in the bed and
+found that his leg was extraordinarily heavy.
+
+"Did I bust my leg?" he inquired briefly.
+
+"You did," returned his father with equal brevity.
+
+"Weren't you hurt?"
+
+"A scratch on the forehead, that's all. Doctor Hanson is going to patch
+me up now."
+
+The two physicians left the room and James did not know until long after
+that the scratch required several stitches to mend.
+
+His illness was a severe trial to James. His Scottish blood taught him
+that his punishment fitted his crime--that he was hurt as a direct
+result of doing what he knew was likely to bring that result. He said to
+himself that he was going to take his punishment like a man. But oh, the
+days were long! The Glen Point boys came in when they thought of
+it--there was some one almost every day--but the Indian Summer was
+unusually prolonged and wonderfully beautiful this year, and it was more
+than any one could ask in reason that the boys should give up outdoors
+to stay with him. Roger and Helen and the Ethels and Dorothy came over
+from Rosemont when they could, but their daily work had to be done and
+they had only a few minutes to stay after the long trolley trip.
+
+"We must think up something for James to do," Mrs. Hancock told
+Margaret. "He's tired of reading. He can use his hands. Hasn't your
+Service Club something that he can work on here?" Margaret thought it
+had, and the result of the conversation was that Mrs. Hancock went to
+Rosemont on an afternoon car. The Ethels took her to Mrs. Smith's and
+Dorothy showed her the accumulation for the Christmas Ship that already
+was making a good showing in the attic devoted to the work.
+
+"These bundles in the packing cases are all finished and ready for their
+final wrappings," Dorothy explained. "There are dresses and wrappers and
+sacques and sweaters and all sorts of warm clothing like that."
+
+"And you girls did almost all of it!" exclaimed Mrs. Hancock.
+
+"Helen and Margaret made most of those," said Ethel Brown. "In this box
+are the knitted articles that are coming in every day now. Most of them
+are from the Old Ladies' Home so far, but every once in a while somebody
+else stops and leaves something. We girls don't knit much; it seems to
+go so slowly."
+
+"I brought one pair of wristers with me and I have another pair almost
+done," said Mrs. Hancock. "What are these?"
+
+"Those are the boxes the boys have been pasting," said Ethel Blue,
+picking up one of them. "They began with the large plain ones first--the
+real packing boxes."
+
+"Here are some that are large enough for a dress."
+
+"We've gathered all the old boxes we could find in our house or in our
+friends' houses--Margaret must have hunted in your attic for she brought
+over some a fortnight ago. None of the things we are making will require
+a box as large as the tailors send out, so we took those boxes and the
+broken ones that we found and made them over."
+
+"That must have taken a great deal of time."
+
+"The boys paste pretty fast now. Some of them they made to lock
+together. They didn't need anything but cutting. They got that idea from
+a tailor's box that Roger found."
+
+Mrs. Hancock examined the flat pasteboard cut so that the corners would
+interlock.
+
+"The old boxes they cut down. That saves buying new pasteboard. And
+they've covered some of the battered looking old ones with fresh paper
+so they look as good as new--"
+
+"And a great deal prettier," said Dorothy.
+
+"We get wall paper at ten cents a roll for the covering," said Ethel
+Blue. "They have an old-fashioned air that's attractive, Aunt Marion
+says," and she held up a box covered with wild roses.
+
+"They're lovely! And they must have cost you almost nothing."
+
+"We did these when our treasury was very low. Now we've got almost fifty
+dollars that we cleared from our entertainment after we paid all our
+bills and repaid Mother what we owed her," explained Ethel Brown, "so
+now the boys can get some fresh cardboard and some chintz and cretonne
+and make some real beauties."
+
+"Is this what James has been doing on Saturdays?"
+
+"James is the best paster of all, he's so careful. He always makes his
+corners as neat as pins. Sometimes the other boys are careless."
+
+"Then I don't see why James couldn't do some of this at home now. He has
+altogether too much time on his hands."
+
+"Can't he study yet?"
+
+"He learns his lessons but his father doesn't want him to go to school
+for at least a fortnight and perhaps not then, so he has long hours with
+nothing to do except read and it isn't good for him to do that all the
+time."
+
+"We've got a lot of ideas for pasting that we've been waiting for time
+and cash to put into operation," said Helen who had come in in time to
+hear Mrs. Hancock's complaint. "If James could have an old table that
+you didn't mind his getting sticky, next to his wheel chair he could do
+a quantity of things that we want very much, and it would help, oh,
+tremendously."
+
+"Tell me about them," and Mrs. Hancock sat down at once to receive her
+instructions. Helen brought a sheet of paper and made a list of
+materials to be bought and drew some of the articles over which she
+thought that James might be puzzled.
+
+"Some of these ideas we got from magazines," she said, "and some people
+told us and some we invented ourselves. They aren't any of them very
+large."
+
+"James will like that. It is more fun to turn off a number of articles.
+When he has an array standing on his table you must all go over to Glen
+Point and see them."
+
+"We thought that perhaps you'd let us have a meeting of the U. S. C. at
+your house one Saturday afternoon, and we could take over some of our
+work to show James and we could see his, and we could work while we were
+there," suggested Helen diffidently.
+
+"You're as good as gold to think of it! It will be the greatest pleasure
+to James. Shall we say this next Saturday?"
+
+The girls agreed that that would be a good time, and Mrs. Hancock went
+home laden with materials for James's pasting operations and bearing the
+pleasant news of the coming of the Club to meet with him.
+
+Long before the hour at which they were expected James rolled himself to
+the window to wait for their coming. Now that the leaves were off the
+trees he could just see the car stop at the end of the street and he
+watched eagerly for the flock of young people to run toward the house.
+It seemed an interminable wait, yet the car on which they had promised
+to come was not a minute late when at last it halted and its eager
+passengers stepped off. James could see the Ethels leading the
+procession, waving their hands toward the window at which they knew he
+must be, although they could not see him until they came much nearer.
+
+Dorothy followed them not far behind, and Roger and Helen brought up the
+rear. Every one of them was laden with parcels of the strangest shapes.
+
+"I know the conductor thought we were Santa Claus's own children,"
+laughed Ethel Blue as they all shook hands with the invalid and inquired
+after his leg.
+
+"We've come up to have a pasting bee," said Helen, "and we all have
+ideas for you to carry out."
+
+"So have we," cried a new voice at the door, and Della and Tom came in,
+also laden with parcels and also bubbling with pleasure at seeing James
+so well again.
+
+"We shall need quantities of smallish presents that you can manage here
+at your table just splendidly," explained Ethel Brown.
+
+"And dozens of wrappings of various kinds that you can make, too."
+
+"Great and glorious," beamed James. "'Lay on, Macduff.' I'll absorb
+every piece of information you give me, like a wet sponge."
+
+"Let's do things in shipshape fashion," directed Roger. "What do you say
+to boxes first? We'll lay out here our patterns, and materials."
+
+"Let's make one apiece of everything," cried Dorothy, "and leave them
+all for James to copy."
+
+"And we can open the other bundles afterwards," said Della, "then those
+materials won't get mixed up with the box materials."
+
+"Save the papers and strings," advised Ethel Brown. "We're going to need
+a fearful amount of both when wrapping time comes."
+
+"The secretary has had a letter from Mademoiselle," Helen informed the
+invalid.
+
+"Where from?" James was aflame with interest.
+
+"She's in Belgium; you know she said she was going to try to be sent
+there. She doesn't mention the name of the town, but she's near enough
+to the front for wounded to be brought in from the field."
+
+"And she can hear the artillery booming all the time," contributed Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"And one day she went out right on to the firing line to give first
+aid."
+
+"Think of that! Our little teacher!"
+
+"She wasn't given those black eyes for nothing! She's game right
+through!" laughed Helen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+PASTING
+
+
+"SOME of these ideas will be more appropriate for Christmas gifts here
+in America than for our war orphans, it seems to me," said Helen, "but
+we may as well make a lot of everything because we'll be doing some
+Christmas work as a club and nothing will be lost."
+
+"Tell me what they are and I can do them last," said James.
+
+"And we can put them on a shelf in the club attic as models," suggested
+Dorothy.
+
+"Here's an example," said Helen, taking up a pasteboard cylinder. "This
+is a mailing tube--you know those mailing tubes that you can buy all
+made, of different sizes. We've brought down a lot of them to-day. Take
+this fat one, for instance, and cut it off about three inches down. Then
+cover it with chintz or cretonne or flowered paper or holly paper."
+
+"Line it with the paper, too, I should say," commented James, picking up
+the pieces that Helen cut off.
+
+"Yes, indeed. Cover two round pieces and fit one of them into the bottom
+and fasten the other on for a cover with a ribbon hinge, and there you
+have a box for string, or rubber bands for somebody's desk."
+
+"O.K. for rubber bands," agreed Roger, "but for string it would be
+better to make a hole in the cover and let the cord run up through."
+
+[Illustration: String Box made from a Mailing Tube]
+
+"How would you keep the cover from flopping up and down when you pulled
+the string?"
+
+"Here's one very simple way. You know those fasteners that stationers
+sell to keep papers together? They have a brass head and two legs and
+when you've pushed the legs through the papers you press them apart and
+they can't pull out. One of those will do very well as a knob to go on
+the box part, and a loop of gold or silver cord or of ribbon can be
+pasted or tied on to the cover."
+
+"If you didn't care whether it was ever used again you could put in the
+ball of twine with its end sticking through and then paste a band of
+paper around the joining of the top and the box. It would be pretty as
+long as the twine lasted."
+
+"It would be a simple matter for the person who became its proud
+possessor to paste on another strip of paper when he had put in his new
+ball of twine."
+
+"Any way you fix it," went on Helen, "there you have the general method
+of making round boxes from these mailing tubes."
+
+"And you can use round boxes for a dozen purposes," said Margaret; "for
+candy and all the goodies we're going to send the orphans."
+
+"Are you sure they'll keep?" asked careful James.
+
+"Ethel Brown asked the domestic science teacher at school about that,
+and she's going to give her receipts for cookies and candies that will
+last at least six weeks. That will be long enough for the Christmas Ship
+to go over and to make the rounds of the ports where it is to distribute
+presents."
+
+"Of course we'll make the eatables at the last minute," said Dorothy,
+"and we'll pack them so as to keep the air out as much as possible."
+
+"Give that flour paste a good boiling," Helen called after Margaret as
+she left the room to prepare it.
+
+"And don't forget the oil of cloves to keep it sweet," added Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"These round boxes will be especially good for the cookies," said Ethel
+Brown, "though the string box would have to go to Father. A string box
+isn't especially suitable for an orphan."
+
+"If you split these mailing tubes lengthwise and line them inside you
+get some pretty shapes," went on Helen.
+
+"Rather shallow," commented Della.
+
+"If you split them just in halves they are, but you don't have to do
+that. Split them a little above the middle and then the cover will be
+shallower than the box part."
+
+"Right-o," nodded Roger.
+
+"Then you line them and arrange the fastening and hinges just as you
+described for the string box?" asked James.
+
+"Exactly the same. Another way of fastening them is by making little
+chintz straps and putting glove snappers on them."
+
+"I don't see why you couldn't put ribbons into both cover and box part
+and tie them together."
+
+"You could."
+
+"You can use these split open ones for a manicure set or a brush and
+comb box for travelling."
+
+"Or a handkerchief box."
+
+"If you get tubes of different sizes and used military hair brushes you
+could make a box for a man, with a cover that slipped over for a long
+way," said Ethel Blue. "It would be just like the leather ones."
+
+"You make one of those for Uncle Richard for Christmas," advised Ethel
+Brown. "I rather think the orphans aren't keen on military brushes."
+
+"Oh, I'm just talking out any ideas that come along. As Helen suggested,
+an idea is always useful some time or other even if it won't do for
+to-day's orphans."
+
+"I saw a dandy box the other day that we might have put into
+Mademoiselle's kit," said Roger. "It's a good thing to remember for some
+other traveller."
+
+"Describe," commanded James.
+
+"I don't think these round boxes would be as convenient for it as a
+square or oblong one. It had a ball of string and a tube of paste and a
+pair of small scissors, and tags of different sizes and rubber bands and
+labels with gum on the back."
+
+"That's great for a desk top," said Della. "I believe I'll make one for
+Father for his birthday," and she nodded toward Tom who nodded back
+approvingly.
+
+"A big blotter case is another desk gift. The back is of very stiff
+cardboard and the corners are of chintz or leather. The blotters are
+slipped under the corners and are kept flat by them," continued Roger,
+who had noticed them because of their leather corners.
+
+"A lot of small blotters tied together are easy to put up," contributed
+Dorothy. "You can have twelve, if you want to, and paste a calendar for
+a month on to each one."
+
+"I think we ought to make those plain boxes the boys have made for the
+dresses a little prettier. Can't we ornament them in some way?" asked
+Ethel Blue.
+
+"The made-over ones are all covered with fancy paper you remember," said
+Tom.
+
+"I was thinking of the plain ones that are 'neat but not gaudy.' How can
+we make them 'gaudy'?"
+
+"Christmas seals are about as easy a decoration as you can get," Tom
+suggested.
+
+"Pretty, too. Those small seals, you mean, that you put on letters. A
+Santa Claus or a Christmas tree or a poinsettia would look pretty on the
+smaller sized boxes."
+
+"It would take a lot of them to show much on the larger ones, and that
+would make them rather expensive. Can't we think up something cheaper?"
+asked the treasurer.
+
+"I'm daffy over wall paper," cried Dorothy. "I went with Mother to pick
+out some for one of our rooms the other day and the man showed us such
+beauties--they were like paintings."
+
+"And cost like paintings, too," growled James feelingly.
+
+"Some of them did," admitted Dorothy. "But I asked him if he didn't have
+remnants sometimes. He laughed and said they didn't call them remnants
+but he said they did have torn pieces and for ten cents he gave me a
+regular armful. Just look at these beauties."
+
+She held up for the others' inspection some pieces of paper with lovely
+flower designs upon them.
+
+"But those bits aren't big enough to cover a big box and the patterns
+are too large to show except on a big box," objected Margaret who had
+come back with the paste.
+
+"Here's where they're just the thing for decoration of the plain boxes.
+Cut out this perfectly darling wistaria--so. Could you find anything
+more graceful than that? You'd have to be an artist to do anything so
+good. Paste that sweeping, drooping vine with its lovely cluster of
+blossoms on to the top of one of the largest boxes and that's plenty of
+decoration."
+
+Dorothy waved her vine in one hand and her scissors in the other and the
+rest became infected with her enthusiasm, for the scraps of paper that
+she had brought were exquisite in themselves and admirable for the
+purpose she suggested.
+
+"Good for Dorothy!" hurrahed James. "Anybody else got any ideas on this
+decoration need?"
+
+[Illustration: "Paste that vine on to the top of one of the largest
+boxes"]
+
+"I have," came meekly from Ethel Brown. "It isn't very novel but it will
+work, and it will save money and it's easy."
+
+"Trot her forth," commanded Roger.
+
+"It's silhouettes."
+
+Silence greeted this suggestion.
+
+"They're not awfully easy to do," said Helen doubtfully.
+
+"Not when you make them out of black paper, and you have to draw on the
+pattern or trace it on and you can hardly see the lines and you get all
+fussed up over it," acknowledged Ethel. "I've tried that way and I
+almost came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the trouble I put
+into it unless you happened to be a person who can cut them right out
+without drawing them first."
+
+"I saw a man do that at a bazar once," said Della. "It was wonderful. He
+illustrated Cinderella. He cut out a coach and tiny horses and the old
+fairy without drawing anything at all beforehand."
+
+"Nothing doing here," Tom pushed away an imaginary offer of scissors and
+black paper.
+
+"Here's where my grand idea comes in," insisted Ethel Brown. "My idea is
+to cut out of the magazines any figures that please you."
+
+"Figures with action would be fun," suggested Roger.
+
+"They'd be prettiest, too. You'll find them in the advertising pages as
+well as in the stories. Paste them on to your box or whatever you want
+to decorate, and then go over them with black oil paint."
+
+"Good for old Ethel Brown!" applauded her brother. "I didn't think you
+had it in you, child! Have you ever tried it?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I have. I knew I'd probably meet with objections from an
+unimaginative person like you, so I decorated this cover and brought it
+along as a sample."
+
+It proved to be an idea as dashing as it was simple. Ethel Brown had
+selected a girl rolling a hoop. A dog, cut from another page, was
+bounding beside her. Some delicate foliage at one side hinted at a
+landscape.
+
+"Wasn't it hard not to let the black run over the edges of the picture?"
+asked Della.
+
+"Yes, you have to keep your wits about you all the time. But then you
+have to do that any way if you want what you're making to amount to
+anything, so that doesn't count."
+
+"That's a capital addition, that suggestion of ground that you made with
+a whisk or two of the brush."
+
+"Just a few lines seem to give the child something to stand on."
+
+"These plans for decoration look especially good to me," said practical
+James, "because there's nothing to stick up on them. They'll pack easily
+and that's what we must have for our purpose."
+
+"That's true," agreed Helen. "For doing up presents that don't have to
+travel it's pretty to cut petals of red poinsettia and twist them with
+wire and make a flower that you can tuck in under the string that you
+tie the parcel with--"
+
+"Or a bit of holly. Holly is easily made out of green crepe paper or
+tissue paper," cried Della.
+
+"But as James says, none of the boxes for the orphans can have stick-ups
+or they'll look like mashed potatoes when they reach the other side."
+
+"We'll stow away the poinsettia idea for home presents then," said
+Margaret. "What we want from James, however, is a lot of boxes of any
+and every size that he can squeeze out."
+
+"No scraps thrown away, old man," decreed Tom, "for even a cube of an
+inch each way will hold a few sweeties."
+
+"Orders received and committed to memory," acknowledged the invalid,
+saluting.
+
+"By the way, I learned an awfully interesting thing to-day," said Helen.
+
+"Name it," commanded Roger, busy with knife and pastepot making one of
+the twine and tag boxes that he had described.
+
+"I'll tell you while we each make one of the things we've been talking
+about so that we can leave them for patterns with James."
+
+Dorothy had already set about applying her wistaria vine to the cover of
+a box whose body Tom was putting together. Ethel Blue was making a
+string box from a mailing tube, covering it with a scrap of chintz with
+a very small design; Ethel Brown was hunting in an old magazine for
+figures suitable for making silhouettes; James was writing in a notebook
+the various hints that had been bestowed upon him so generously that he
+feared his memory would not hold them all without help; Helen and Della
+were measuring and cutting some cotton cloth that was to be used in the
+gifts that Della was eager to tell about.
+
+"By the time Helen has told her tale I'll be ready to explain my gift
+idea," she said.
+
+"Go on, then, Helen," urged James, "I'm ready to 'start something'
+myself, in a minute."
+
+"You and Margaret have heard us talk about our German teacher?"
+
+"We've seen her," said Margaret. "She was at our entertainment."
+
+"So she was. I remember, she and her mother sat right behind the old
+ladies from the Home."
+
+"And they knitted for the soldiers whenever the lights were up."
+
+"I guess Mrs. Hindenburg knitted when the lights were off, too," said
+Helen. "I've seen her knitting with her eyes shut."
+
+"She sent in some more wristers for the orphans the other day," said
+Dorothy. "She has made seven pairs so far, and three scarfs and two
+little sweaters."
+
+"Some knitter," announced Roger.
+
+"Fraulein knits all the time, too, but she says she can't keep up with
+her mother. This is what I wanted to tell you--you remember when Roger
+first went there she told him that Fraulein's betrothed was in the
+German army. Well, yesterday she told us who he is."
+
+"Is it all right for you to tell us?" warned Roger.
+
+"It's no secret. She said that the engagement was to have been announced
+as soon as he got back from Germany and that many people knew it
+already."
+
+"Is he an American German?"
+
+"It's our own Mr. Schuler."
+
+Roger gave a whistle of surprise; the Ethels cried out in wonder, and
+the Hancocks and the Watkinses who did not know many Rosemont people,
+waited for the explanation.
+
+"Mr. Schuler was the singing teacher in the high school year before last
+and last year," explained Helen. "Last spring he had to go back to
+Germany in May so he was there when the army was mobilized and went
+right to the front."
+
+"It does come near home when you actually know a soldier fighting in the
+German army and a nurse in a hospital on the Allies' side," said Roger
+thoughtfully.
+
+"It makes it a lot more exciting to know who Fraulein's betrothed is."
+
+"Does she speak of him?" asked Margaret.
+
+"She talked about him very freely yesterday after her mother mentioned
+his name."
+
+"I suppose she didn't want the high school kids gossiping about him,"
+observed Roger.
+
+"As we are," interposed James.
+
+"We aren't gossiping," defended Helen. "She looks on the Club members as
+her special friends--she said so. She knows we wouldn't go round at
+school making a nine days' wonder of it. She knows we're fond of her."
+
+"We are," agreed Roger. "She's a corker. I wonder we didn't think of its
+being Mr. Schuler."
+
+"Her mother always mentioned him as 'my daughter's betrothed'; and
+Fraulein yesterday kept saying 'my betrothed.' We might have gone on in
+ignorance for a long time if Mrs. Hindenburg hadn't let it slip out
+yesterday."
+
+"Well, I hope he'll come through with all his legs and arms uninjured,"
+said Roger. "I hope it for Fraulein's sake, and for his, too. He's a
+bully singing teacher."
+
+"Has she heard from him since the war began?"
+
+"Several times, but not for a month now, and she's about crazy with
+anxiety. He was in Belgium when he got the last letter through and of
+course that means that he has been in the very thick of it all."
+
+"Poor Fraulein!" sighed Ethel Blue, and the others nodded seriously over
+their work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+JAMES'S AFTERNOON PARTY
+
+
+"NOW are you ready to take in all the difficulties of my art object?"
+asked Della.
+
+"Trot her out," implored James.
+
+"It's picture books."
+
+A distinct sniff went over the assembly, only kept in check by a desire
+to be polite.
+
+"There can't be anything awfully new about picture books," said Tom.
+
+"Especially cloth picture books. You and Helen have been cutting out
+cambric for cloth picture books," accused Ethel Brown.
+
+"Della has been making some variations, though." Helen came to Della's
+rescue. "She's made some with the leaves all one color, pink or blue;
+and here's another one with a variety--two pages light pink, and the
+next two pages pale green."
+
+Ethel Brown cast a more interested eye toward the picture book display.
+
+"How do you sew them together?" she asked.
+
+"You can do it on the machine and let it go at that. In fact, that's the
+best plan even if you go on to add some decoration of feather-stitching
+or cat-stitching. The machine stitching makes it firmer."
+
+"Is there an interlining?"
+
+"I tried them with and without an interlining. I don't think an
+interlining is necessary. The two thicknesses of cambric are all you
+need."
+
+"Dicky has a cloth book with just one thickness for each page," said
+Ethel Brown.
+
+"But that's made of very heavy cotton," explained Helen.
+
+"You cut your cambric like a sheet of note-paper," said Della.
+
+"Haven't my lessons on scientific management soaked in better than
+that?" demanded Roger. "If you want to save time you cut just as many
+sheets of note-paper, so to speak, as your scissors will go through."
+
+"Certainly," retorted Della with dignity. "I took it for granted that
+the members of the U. S. C. had learned that. Put two sheets of this
+cambric note-paper together flat and stitch them. That makes four pages
+to paste on, you see. You can make your book any size you want to and
+have just as many pages as you need to tell your story on."
+
+"Story? What story?" asked Ethel Blue, interestedly.
+
+"Aha! I thought you'd wake up!" laughed Della. "Here, my children, is
+where my book differs from most of the cloth picture books that you ever
+saw. My books aren't careless collections of pictures, with no relation
+to each other. Here's a cat book, for instance. Not just every-day cats,
+though I've put in lots of cats and some kodaks of my own cat. There are
+pictures of the big cats--lions and tigers--and I've put in some scenery
+so that the child who gets this book will have an idea of what sort of
+country the beasts really live in."
+
+"It's a natural history book," declared James.
+
+"Partly. But it winds up with 'The True Story of Thomas's Nine Lives.'"
+
+"The kid it is going to won't know English," objected Roger.
+
+"Oh, I haven't written it out. It's just told in pictures with 1, 2, 3,
+through 9 at the head of each page. They'll understand."
+
+"Do you see what an opportunity the different colored cambric gives?"
+said Helen. "Sometimes Della uses colored pictures or she paints them,
+and then she makes the background harmonize with the coloring of the
+figures."
+
+"Why couldn't you make a whole book of my silhouettes?" demanded Ethel
+Brown.
+
+"Bully!" commended James.
+
+"You can work out all sorts of topics in these books, you see," Della
+went on. "There are all the fairy stories to illustrate and 'Red Riding
+Hood,' and the 'Bears,' and when you get tired of making those you can
+have one about 'The Wonders of America,' and put in Niagara."
+
+"And the Rocky Mountains," said Tom.
+
+"And the Woolworth Building," suggested Ethel Brown.
+
+"And a cotton field with the negroes picking cotton," added Ethel Blue.
+
+"There wouldn't be any trouble getting material for that one," said
+Helen.
+
+"Nor for one on any American city. I've got one started that is going to
+show New York from the statue of Liberty to the Jumel Mansion and the
+Van Cortland House, with a lot of other historical buildings and
+skyscrapers and museums in between."
+
+"We'll be promoting emigration from the old country after the war is
+over if we show the youngsters all the attractions that Uncle Sam has
+to offer."
+
+"There'll be a lot of them come over anyway so they might as well learn
+what they'll see when they arrive."
+
+"I see heaps of opportunities in that idea," said Roger. "There's a
+chance to teach the kiddies something by these books if we're careful to
+be truthful in the pictures we put in."
+
+"Not to make monkeys swinging down the forests of Broadway, eh?" laughed
+Tom.
+
+"If I'm to do a million or two of these you'll all have to help me get
+the pictures together," begged James.
+
+"I've brought some with me you can have for a starter," said Della, "and
+I'm collecting others and keeping them in separate envelopes--animals in
+one and buildings in another and so on. It will make it easier for you."
+
+"_Muchas gracias, Senorita_," bowed James, who was just beginning
+Spanish and liked to air a "Thank you" occasionally.
+
+"I know what I'm going to make for some member of my family," declared
+Roger.
+
+"Name it, it will be such a surprise when it comes."
+
+"Probably it will go to Grandmother Emerson so I don't mind telling you
+that I think I'll write a history of our summer at Chautauqua and
+illustrate it."
+
+"That's the best notion that ever came from Roger," approved James. "I
+think I'll make one and give it to Father. The Recognition Day
+procession and all that, you know."
+
+"Envelopes make me think that we may have some small gifts--cards or
+handkerchiefs--that we can send in envelopes," said Ethel Blue, "and we
+ought to decorate them just as much as our boxes."
+
+"They won't be hard. Any of the ideas we've suggested for the boxes will
+do--flowers and silhouettes, and seals. You're a smarty with watercolors
+so you can paint some original figures or a tiny landscape, but the rest
+of us will have to keep to the pastepot," laughed Margaret.
+
+"For home gifts we can write rhymes to put into the envelopes, but I
+suppose it wouldn't do for these European kids," said Tom. "We don't
+know where they're going, you see, and it would never do if an English
+child got a German rhyme or the other way round."
+
+"O-oh, ne-_ver_," gasped Ethel Blue whose quick imagination sympathized
+with the feelings of a child to whom such a thing happened. "We'll have
+to make them understand through their eyes."
+
+"Fortunately Santa Claus with his pack speaks a language they can all
+understand," nodded Roger.
+
+"Here comes his humble servant right now," exclaimed Mrs. Hancock at the
+door.
+
+Tom ran to hold it open for her, and Roger relieved her of the waiter
+which she was carrying.
+
+"James has to have an egg-nog at this time," she explained, "so I
+thought all of you might like to be 'picked up' after your hard
+afternoon's work."
+
+These sentiments were greeted with applause though Tom insisted that the
+best part of the afternoon was yet to come as he had not yet had a
+chance to tell about his invention.
+
+"One that you'll appreciate tremendously, Mrs. Hancock," he said
+gravely. "All housekeepers will. You must get Margaret to make you
+one."
+
+"Don't tell her what it is and I can give it to her for Christmas,"
+cried Margaret.
+
+James's egg-nog and his wafers were placed on the table beside him. The
+others sat at small tables, of which there were several around the room,
+and drank their egg-nog and ate their cakes with great satisfaction.
+
+"Tell me how this egg-nog is made," begged Helen. "It is delicious and
+I'm sure Mother would like to know."
+
+"Mother always has it made the same way," replied Margaret. "I'm sure it
+is concocted out of six eggs and half a pound of sugar, and three pints
+of whipped cream and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg."
+
+"It's so foamy--that isn't the whipped cream alone."
+
+"First you beat the yolks of the eggs and the sugar together until it is
+all frothy. Then you beat the whites of the eggs by themselves until
+they are stiff and you stir that in gently. Then you put the spice on
+top of that and lastly you heap the whipped cream on top of the whole
+thing."
+
+"It's perfectly delicious," exclaimed Dorothy, "and so is the fruit
+cake."
+
+"Mother prides herself on her fruit cake. It is good, isn't it? She's
+going to let me make some to send to the orphans."
+
+"Won't that be great. Baked in ducky little pans like these."
+
+"They'll keep perfectly, of course."
+
+"Would your mother let us have the receipt now so we could be practicing
+it to make some too?" asked Dorothy.
+
+"I'm sure she'd be delighted," and Margaret ran off to get her mother's
+manuscript cook book from which Dorothy copied the following receipt:
+
+
+"Fruit Cake
+
+          "1/2 cup butter
+           3/4 cup brown sugar
+           3/4 cup raisins, chopped
+           3/4 cup currants
+           1/2 cup citron, cut in small pieces
+           1/2 cup molasses
+           2 eggs
+           1/2 cup milk
+           2 cups flour
+           1/2 teaspoon soda
+           1 teaspoon cinnamon
+           1/2 teaspoon allspice
+           1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
+           1/4 teaspoon cloves
+           1/2 teaspoon lemon extract or vanilla
+
+"Sift the flour, soda and spices together. Beat the eggs, add the milk
+to them. Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, add the molasses,
+the milk and egg, then the flour gradually. Mix the fruit, sift a little
+flour over it, rub it in the flour, add to it the mixture. Add the
+extract. Stir and beat well. Fill greased pans two-thirds full. Bake in
+a moderately hot oven one and a quarter hours if in a loaf. In small
+sizes bake slowly twenty to thirty minutes."
+
+"I'm ready to hear what Tom's got to offer," said James, leaning back
+luxuriously in his chair after the remains of the feast had been taken
+away.
+
+"Mine is a paper-cutting scheme," responded Tom. "Perhaps it won't come
+easy to everybody, but on a small scale I'm something of a paper cutter
+myself."
+
+"Dull edged?" queried Roger.
+
+"Hm," acknowledged Tom. "I can't illustrate 'Cinderella' like the man
+Della saw, but I can cut simple figures and I want to propose one
+arrangement of them to this august body."
+
+"Fire ahead," came Roger's permission.
+
+"It's just a variation of the strings of paper dolls that I used to make
+for Della when she was a year or two younger than she is now."
+
+Della received this taunt with a puckered face.
+
+[Illustration: "Fold strips of paper and then cut one figure of a little
+girl"]
+
+"You fold strips of white paper--or blue or yellow or any old color--in
+halves and then in halves again and then again, until it is about three
+inches wide. Then you cut one figure of a little girl, letting the tips
+of the hands and skirts remain uncut. When you unfold the strip you have
+a string of cutey little girls joining hands. See?"
+
+They all laughed for all of them had cut just such figures when they
+were children.
+
+"Now my application of this simple device," went on Tom in the solemn
+tones of a professor, "is to make them serve as lamp shades."
+
+"For the orphans?" laughed Roger.
+
+"For the orphans I'm going to cut about a bushel of strips of all
+colors. Children always like to play with them just so."
+
+"I don't see why those of us who can't draw couldn't cut a child or a
+dog or some figure from a magazine and lay it on the folded paper and
+trace around the edges and then cut it," suggested Dorothy.
+
+[Illustration: A String of Paper Dolls]
+
+"You could perfectly well. All you have to remember is to leave a folded
+edge at the side, top and bottom. You can make a row of dogs standing on
+their hind paws and holding hands--forepaws--and the ground they are
+standing on will fasten them together at the bottom."
+
+"How does the lamp shade idea work out?" asked Helen with Grandfather
+Emerson's Christmas gift in mind.
+
+"You cut a string of figures that are fairly straight up and down, like
+Greek maidens or some conventional vases or a dance of clowns. Then you
+must be sure that your strip is long enough to go around your shade.
+Then you line it with asbestos paper--the kind that comes in a sort of
+book for the kitchen."
+
+"I see. You paste the strip right on to the asbestos paper and cut out
+the figures," guessed James.
+
+"Exactly," replied Tom. "After which you paste the ends of the strip
+together and there you have your shade ready to slip on to the glass."
+
+[Illustration: Photograph Frame--front]
+
+"What keeps it from falling down and off?"
+
+"The shape of the shade usually holds it up. If it isn't the right
+shape, though, you can run a cord through your figures' hands and
+tighten them up as much as you need to."
+
+"I think that's a rather jolly stunt of Tom's," commended Roger
+patronizingly. Tom gave him a kick under the table and James growled a
+request not to hit his game leg.
+
+[Illustration: Photograph Frame--back]
+
+"If you boys are beginning to quarrel it's time we adjourned," decided
+the president. "Has anybody any more ideas to get off her alleged mind
+this afternoon?"
+
+"I thought of picture frames," offered James.
+
+"While my hand is in with pasting I believe I'll make some frames--a
+solid pasteboard back and the front with an oval or an oblong or a
+square cut out of it. You paste the front on to the back at the edges
+except at the bottom. You leave that open to put the picture in."
+
+"You can cover that with chintz--cotton, cotton, cotton," chanted
+Dorothy, who seldom missed a chance to promote the cotton crusade.
+
+"How do you hang it up?" asked Margaret.
+
+"Stick on a little brass ring with a bit of tape. Or you can make it
+stand by putting a stiff bit of cardboard behind it with a tape hinge."
+
+"That would be a good home present," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"Perfectly good for family photographs. You can make them hold two or
+three. But you can fix them up for the European kids and put in any sort
+of picture--a dog or a cat or George Washington or some really beautiful
+picture."
+
+"I believe in giving them pictures of America or American objects or
+places or people," said Dorothy.
+
+"Dorothy is the champion patriot of the United Service Club," laughed
+Roger. "Come on, infants; we must let James rest or Mrs. Hancock won't
+invite us to come again. I wish you could get over to Rosemont for the
+movies next week," he added.
+
+"What movies?"
+
+"The churches have clubbed together and hired the school hall and
+they're going to get the latest moving pictures from the war zone that
+they can find. It is the first time Rosemont has ever had the real
+thing."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PREVENTION
+
+
+THE Mortons were gathered about the fire in the half hour of the day
+which they especially enjoyed. Mrs. Morton made a point of being at home
+herself for this time, and she liked to have all the young people meet
+her in the dusk and tell her of the day's work and play. It was a time
+when every one was glad to rest for a few minutes after dressing for
+dinner.
+
+"I'm sure to get my hair mussed up if I do anything but talk to Mother
+after I brush it for dinner," Roger was in the habit of explaining, "so
+it suits me just to stare at the fire."
+
+He was sitting now on the floor beside her with his head leaning against
+the arm of her chair. Dicky was occupying the Morris chair with her, and
+the three girls were in comfortable positions, the Ethels on the sofa
+and Helen knitting a scarf as she sat on a footstool before the blaze.
+
+"You're not trying your eyes knitting in this imperfect light?" asked
+her mother.
+
+"This is plain sailing, Mother. I can rush along on this straight piece
+almost as fast as Mrs. Hindenburg, and I don't have to look on at all
+unless a horrid fear seizes me that I've skipped a stitch."
+
+"Which I hope you haven't done."
+
+"Never really but there have been several false alarms."
+
+"How is Fraulein?"
+
+"All right, I guess."
+
+"Did you see her to-day?"
+
+"We had German compo to-day. I didn't do much with it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It didn't seem to go off well. I don't know why. Perhaps I didn't try
+as hard as usual."
+
+"Did it disturb Fraulein?"
+
+"Did what disturb Fraulein?"
+
+"That you didn't do your lesson well."
+
+"Disturb Fraulein? I don't know. Why should it disturb her? I should
+think I was the one to be disturbed."
+
+"Were you?"
+
+"Was I disturbed? Well, no, Mother, to tell the truth I didn't care
+much. That old German is so hard and the words all break up so
+foolishly--somehow it didn't seem very important to me this morning. And
+Fanny Shrewsbury said something awfully funny about it under her breath
+and we got laughing and--no, I wasn't especially disturbed."
+
+"Although you had a poor lesson and didn't try to make up for it by
+paying strict attention in the class!"
+
+"Why, Mother, I, er--"
+
+Helen stopped knitting.
+
+"You think I'm taking too seriously a poor lesson that wasn't very bad,
+after all? Possibly I am, but I've been noticing that all of you are
+more careless lately than I want my girls and boys to be."
+
+Mrs. Morton stroked Roger's hair and looked around at the handsome young
+faces illuminated by the firelight.
+
+"You mean us, too?" cried the Ethels, sitting up straight upon the sofa.
+
+"You, too."
+
+"We haven't meant to be careless, Mother," said Roger soberly. His
+mother's good opinion was something he was proud of keeping and she was
+so fair in her judgments that he felt that he must meet any accusations
+like the present in the honest spirit in which they were made.
+
+"Do you want to know what I think is the trouble with all of you?"
+
+Every one of them cried out for information, even Dicky, whose "Yeth"
+rang out above the others.
+
+"If you ask for my candid opinion," responded Mrs. Morton, "I think you
+are giving so much time and attention to the work of the U. S. C. that
+you aren't paying proper attention to the small matters of every day
+life that we must all meet."
+
+"Oh, but, Mother, you approve of the U. S. C."
+
+"Certainly I approve of it. I think it is fine in every way; but I don't
+believe in your becoming so absorbed in it that you forget your daily
+duties. Aunt Louise had to telephone to Roger to go over and start her
+furnace for her yesterday when the sharp snap came, and the Ethels have
+been rushing off in the morning without doing the small things to help
+Mary that are a part of their day's work."
+
+"Oh, Mother, they're such little things! She can do them easily once in
+a while."
+
+"Any one of your morning tasks is a small matter, but when none of them
+are done they mount up to a good deal for Mary. If there were some real
+necessity for making an extra bed Mary would do it without complaining,
+but when, as happened yesterday morning, neither of you Ethels made
+your bed, and Roger left towels thrown all over his floor, and not one
+of Helen's bureau drawers was shut tight, and Dicky upset a box of beads
+and went off to kindergarten without picking them up--don't you see that
+what meant but a few minutes' work for each one of you meant an hour's
+work for one person?"
+
+"I'll bet Mary didn't mind," growled Roger.
+
+"Mary is too loyal to say anything, but if your present careless habits
+should continue we should have to have an extra maid to wait on you, and
+you know very well that that is impossible."
+
+"I'm sorry, Mother," said Roger penitently. "I'm sorry about the towels
+and about Aunt Louise and I'm sorry I growled. You're right, of course."
+
+"I rather guess we've been led astray by being so successful with our
+team work in the club," said Helen thoughtfully. "We've found out that
+we can do all sorts of things well if we pull together and we've been
+forgetting to apply co-operation at home."
+
+"Exactly," agreed Mrs. Morton. "And you've been so absorbed in the needs
+of people several thousand miles away that you overlook the needs of
+people beside you. What you've been doing to Mary is unkind; what Helen
+did to Fraulein this morning was unkind."
+
+"Oh, Mother! I wouldn't be unkind to Fraulein for the world."
+
+"I don't believe you would if you thought about it. She certainly is in
+such sore trouble that she needs all the consideration that her scholars
+can give her, yet you must have annoyed her greatly this morning."
+
+"I'm afraid Fraulein's used to our not knowing our lessons very well,"
+observed Roger.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that, but if you know you aren't doing as well as you
+ought to with your lessons that is the best reason in the world for you
+to pay the strictest attention while you are in class. Yet Helen says
+that she and Fanny Shrewsbury were laughing. I'm afraid Fraulein isn't
+feeling especially content with her work this afternoon."
+
+"Mother, you make me feel like a hound dog," cried Helen. "And I've been
+talking as if I were so sorry for Fraulein!"
+
+"You are sorry for her as the heroine of a romance, because her
+betrothed is in the army and she doesn't know where he is or whether he
+is alive. It sounds like a story in a book. But when you think what that
+would mean if it were you that had to endure the suffering it wouldn't
+seem romantic. Suppose Father were fighting in Mexico and we hadn't
+heard from him for a month--do you think you could throw off your
+anxiety for a minute? Don't you think you'd have to be careful every
+instant in school to control yourself? Don't you think it would be
+pretty hard if some one in school constantly did things that irritated
+you--didn't know her lessons and then laughed and giggled all through
+the recitation hour?"
+
+Helen's and Roger's heads were bent.
+
+"Imagine," Mrs. Morton went on, "how you would feel every day when you
+came home, wondering all the way whether a letter had come; wondering
+whether, if one _had_ come, it would be from Father or from some one
+else saying that Father was--wounded."
+
+"Oh, Mother, I can't--" Helen was almost crying.
+
+"You can't bear to think of it; yet--"
+
+"Yet Fraulein was just so anxious and--"
+
+"And we made things worse for her!"
+
+"I know you didn't think--"
+
+"We ought to think. I've excused myself all my life by saying 'I didn't
+think.' I ought to think."
+
+"'I didn't think' _explains_, but it doesn't _excuse_."
+
+"Nothing excuses meanness."
+
+"That's true."
+
+"And it's almost as mean not to see when people are in trouble as it is
+to see it and not to care."
+
+"I'm glad you're teaching us to be observant, Aunt Marion," said Ethel
+Blue quietly. "I used to think it was sort of _distinguished_ to be
+absent-minded and not to pay attention to people, but now I think it's
+just _stupidity_."
+
+"Mother," said Roger, sitting up straight, "I've been a beast. Poor
+Fraulein is worrying herself to pieces every minute of the day and I
+never thought anything about it. And I let Aunt Louise freeze yesterday
+morning and Dorothy had to go to school before the house was warmed up
+and she had a cold to-day because she got chilled. I see your point, and
+I'm a reformed pirate from this minute!"
+
+Roger rose and squared his shoulders and walked about the room.
+
+"When you think it out it's little things that are hard to manage all
+the time," he went on thoughtfully. "Here are these little things that
+we've been pestering Mary about, and when we kids squabble it's almost
+always about some trifle."
+
+"A pin prick is often more trying than a severe wound," agreed his
+mother. "You brace yourself to bear a real hurt, but it doesn't seem
+worth while for a trifle and so you whine about it before you think. If
+Father and Uncle Richard really were in action all of us would do our
+best to be brave about it and to bear our trouble uncomplainingly--"
+
+"The way Fraulein does," murmured Helen.
+
+"That's the way when you have a sickness," said Ethel Brown. "When I had
+the measles you and Mary said I didn't make much fuss, but every time I
+catch cold I'm afraid all of you hear about it."
+
+"We do," agreed Roger cheerfully.
+
+"I should say, then," remarked Mrs. Morton as Mary appeared at the door
+to announce dinner, "that this club should bear in mind that it is to
+serve not only those at a distance but those near home, and not only to
+serve people in deepest trouble but to serve by preventing suffering."
+
+"I get you, Mother dear," said Roger, taking his father's seat.
+
+"Prevention is a great modern principle that we don't think enough
+about," said Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I know what you mean--fire prevention," exclaimed Ethel Blue. "Tom
+Watkins was telling us the other day about the Fire Prevention parade
+they had in New York. There were a lot of engines and hose wagons and
+ladder wagons and they were all covered with cards telling how much
+wiser it was to prevent fire than to let it start and then try to put it
+out."
+
+"Della saw the parade," said Ethel Brown. "She told me there were signs
+that said 'It's cheaper to put a sprinkler in your factory than to
+rebuild the factory'; and 'One cigarette in a factory may cost
+thousands of dollars in repairs.'"
+
+"The doctors have been working to prevent disease," said Roger. "James
+has often told me what his father is doing to teach people how to avoid
+being sick."
+
+"All these clean-up campaigns are really for the prevention of illness
+as much as the making of cleanliness," said Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Everything of that sort educates people, and we can apply the same
+methods to our own lives," advised Mrs. Morton. "Why can't we have a
+household campaign to prevent giving Mary unnecessary work and to avoid
+irritating each other?"
+
+"All that can be worked in as part of the duties of the Service Club,"
+said Ethel Blue.
+
+"Certainly it can. What's the matter, Ethel Brown?"
+
+Ethel Brown was on the point of tears.
+
+"One of the girls at school gave me an order for cookies the other day,"
+she said, "and I didn't do them because we went over to the Hancocks'
+that afternoon."
+
+"You got your own punishment there," remarked Roger. "If you didn't fill
+the order you didn't get any pay."
+
+"That wasn't all. She was going to take them to a cousin of hers who was
+just getting over the mumps. She wanted to surprise her. She was awfully
+mad because I didn't make them. She said she had depended on them and
+she didn't have anything to take to her cousin."
+
+"There you see it," exclaimed Mrs. Morton. "It didn't seem much to Ethel
+Brown not to make two or three dozen cookies, but in the first place
+she broke her promise, and in the next place she caused real unhappiness
+to a girl who was depending on them to give pleasure to her sick
+cousin."
+
+"You've given us a shake-up we won't forget soon, Mother," remarked
+Roger. "There's one duty I haven't done this week that you haven't
+mentioned, but I'm pretty sure you know it so I might as well bring it
+into the light myself and say I'm sorry."
+
+"What is it?" laughed his mother.
+
+"I haven't been over to see Grandfather and Grandmother Emerson for ten
+days."
+
+"They'll be sorry."
+
+"I was relying on one of the girls going."
+
+"We haven't been," confessed the Ethels.
+
+"Nor I," admitted Helen.
+
+Mrs. Morton looked serious.
+
+"We love to go there," said Ethel Brown, "but we've been so busy."
+
+"Too busy to be kind to the people near at hand, eh?"
+
+The young people looked ruefully at one another.
+
+"Anyway, watch me be attentive to Fraulein," promised Helen.
+
+She was. She and Roger made a point of giving her as little trouble as
+possible; and of paying her unobtrusive attentions. Roger carried home
+for her a huge bundle of exercises; the Ethels left some chestnuts at
+her door when they came back from a hunt on the hillside, and even Dicky
+wove her a mat at kindergarten of red and white and black paper--the
+German colors.
+
+The Mortons were all attention to James, too. Every day they remembered
+to call him up on the telephone and ask him how his box-making was
+coming on. He had a telephone extension on the table at his elbow and
+these daily talks cheered him greatly. The others were leaving the
+making of most of the pasted articles to him, and they were going on
+with the manufacture of baskets and leather and brass and copper
+articles and of odds and ends of various kinds.
+
+"Perhaps I'll be able to get up to Dorothy's next Saturday," James
+phoned to Roger one day, "if Mrs. Smith wouldn't mind the Club meeting
+downstairs. I suppose the Pater wouldn't let me try to climb to the
+attic yet."
+
+Mrs. Smith was delighted to make the change for James's benefit, but
+before the day came he called up Roger one afternoon in great
+excitement.
+
+"When did you say those church movies were?" he asked.
+
+"To-morrow evening."
+
+"Father says he'll take me over if he doesn't have a hurry call at the
+last minute."
+
+Roger gave a whoop that resounded along the wire.
+
+"You'll find the whole Club drawn up at the door of the schoolhouse to
+meet you," he cried. "The Watkinses are coming out from New York. Will
+Margaret come with you?"
+
+"She and Mother will go over in the trolley."
+
+As Roger had promised, the Club was drawn up in double ranks before the
+door when Doctor Hancock stopped his machine close to the step. Roger
+and Tom ran down to make a chair on which to carry James inside, and
+Helen and Dorothy were ready with the wheel-chair belonging to the old
+lady at the Home who had been glad to lend it for the evening to the boy
+whose acquaintance she had made at the Club entertainment.
+
+James was rather embarrassed at being so conspicuous, but all his
+Rosemont acquaintances came to speak to him and he was quite the hero of
+the occasion.
+
+The moving pictures were an innovation in Rosemont. There had been
+various picture shows in empty stores in the town and they had not all
+been of a character approved by the parents of the school children who
+went to them in great numbers. The rooms were dark and there was danger
+of fire and the pictures themselves were not always suitable for young
+people to see or agreeable for their elders. The result of a conference
+among some of the townspeople who had the interests of the place at
+heart was this entertainment which was the first of a series to be given
+in the school hall on Friday evenings all through the winter. The films
+were chosen by a sub-committee and it was hoped that they would be so
+liked that the poor places down town would find it unprofitable to
+continue.
+
+The program was pleasantly varied. The story of a country boy who went
+to New York to make his fortune and who found out that, as in the
+Oriental story, his fortune lay buried in his own dooryard--in this case
+in the printing office of his own town--was the opener.
+
+That was followed by a remarkable film showing the habits of swallows
+and by another whereon some of the flowers of Burbank's garden waved
+softly in the California breeze.
+
+A dramatization of Daudet's famous story called "The Last Class" brought
+tears to the eyes of the onlookers whose thoughts were much across the
+Atlantic.
+
+It was a simple, touching tale, and it served appropriately as the
+forerunner of the war pictures that had just been sent to America by
+photographers in Germany and France and Belgium.
+
+The first showed troops leaving Berlin, flags flying, bands playing,
+while the crowds along the street waved a cheerful parting, though once
+in a while a woman bent her head behind her neighbor's shoulder to hide
+her tears.
+
+There were scenes in Belgium--houses shattered by the bombs of airmen,
+huge holes dug by exploding shells; wounded soldiers making their way
+toward the hospitals, those with bandaged heads and arms helping those
+whose staggering feet could hardly carry them.
+
+It was a serious crowd that followed every movement that passed on the
+screen before their eyes. The silence was deep.
+
+Then came a hospital scene. Rows upon rows of beds ran from the front of
+the picture almost out of sight. Down the space between them came the
+doctors, instruments in hand, and behind them the nurses, the red
+crosses gleaming on their arm bands.
+
+A stir went through the onlookers.
+
+"It looks like her."
+
+"I believe it is."
+
+"Don't you think so? The one on the right?"
+
+"It is--it's Mademoiselle Millerand!" cried Roger clearly.
+
+The operator, hearing the noise in front of his booth, and all
+unconscious that he was showing a friend to these townspeople where the
+pretty young French teacher had lived for two years, almost stopped
+turning his machine. So slowly it went that there was no doubt among any
+who had known her. She followed the physician to the bed nearest the
+front. There they stopped and the doctor turned to Mademoiselle and
+asked some question. She was ready with bandages. An orderly slipped his
+arm under the soldier's pillow and raised his head. His eyes were closed
+and his face was deathly white. The doctor shook his head. Evidently he
+would not attempt an operation upon so ill a man. He signed to the
+attendant to lay the man down and as he did so the people in Rosemont,
+far, far away from the Belgian hospital, heard a piercing shriek.
+
+"_Mein Verlobt!_ My betrothed!" screamed Fraulein Hindenburg.
+
+"That's Schuler."
+
+"Don't you recognize Schuler?"
+
+"No wonder poor Fraulein screamed!"
+
+Kind hands were helping Fraulein and her mother from the hall. Doctor
+Hancock went out with them to give a restorative to the young woman and
+to take them home in his car.
+
+"Didn't he die at that very moment, Herr Doctor?" whispered Fraulein,
+and the doctor was obliged to confess that it seemed so.
+
+"But we can't be sure," he insisted.
+
+Fraulein's agitation put an end to the entertainment for that evening.
+Indeed, the film was almost exhausted when the bitter sight came to her.
+The people filed out seriously.
+
+"If that poor girl has been in doubt about her betrothed, now she
+knows," one said to another.
+
+"Do you think he really died?" James asked his father as they were
+driving home.
+
+"I'm afraid he did, son. But there is just a chance that he didn't
+because the film changed just there to another scene so you couldn't
+tell."
+
+"That might have been because they didn't want to show a death scene."
+
+"I'm afraid it was."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FOR SANTA CLAUS'S PACK
+
+
+JAMES telephoned Dorothy that he was going to be at her house on the
+afternoon of the Club meeting if it was going to be downstairs and
+Dorothy replied that her mother was very glad to let them have the
+dining room to work in. All the members had arrived when Doctor Hancock
+stopped his car at the door and Margaret got out and rang the bell for
+Roger's and Tom's help in getting James into the house. Everybody hailed
+him with pleasure and everybody's tongue began at once to chatter about
+the dramatic happening of the evening before.
+
+"I'm perfectly crazy to hear everything you've learned this morning,"
+said Margaret, "but before we start talking about it I want to make a
+beginning on a basket so I can be working while I listen."
+
+"Me, too," said James. "I've pasted enough boxes and gimcracks to fill a
+young cottage. In fact they are now packed in a young cottage that
+Father is going to bring over some day when he hasn't any other load. He
+said the car wouldn't hold it and Margaret and him and me all at the
+same time this afternoon."
+
+"We've been making all sorts of things this week," said Ethel Brown.
+"I'm just finishing the last of a dozen balls that I've been covering
+with crochet. It's the simplest thing in the world and they're fine for
+little children because the slippery rubber balls slide out of their
+fingers and these are just rough enough for their tiny paws to cling
+to."
+
+"I've been making those twin bed-time dolls," said Ethel Blue. "You've
+seen them in all the shops--just ugly dolls of worsted--but mine are
+made like the Danish _Nisse_, the elves that the Danes use to decorate
+their Yuletide trees."
+
+She held up a handful of wee dolls made of white worsted, doubled until
+the little figure was about a finger long. A few strands on each side
+were cut shorter than the rest and stood out as arms. A red thread tied
+a little way from the top indicated the neck; another about the middle
+defined the waist; the lower part was divided and each leg was tied at
+the ankle with red thread, and a red thread bound the wrists. On the
+head a peaked red hat of flannel or of crochet shaded a face wherein two
+black stitches represented the eyes, a third the nose, and a red dot the
+ruby lips. From the back of the neck a crocheted cord about eighteen
+inches long connected one elf with his twin.
+
+"What's the idea of two?" inquired Tom.
+
+"To keep each other company. You tie them on to a wire of the baby's
+crib and they won't get lost."
+
+"Or on to the perambulator."
+
+"They don't take long to make--see, I wind the wool over my fingers, so,
+to get the right length, and then I tie them as quick as a wink; and
+when I feel in the mood of making the caps I turn off a dozen or two of
+them--"
+
+"And the cord by the yard, I suppose."
+
+"Just about. I've made quantities of these this week and I'm not going
+to make any more, so I'll help with the baskets or the stenciling."
+
+"I've been jig-sawing," said Roger. "I've made jumping jacks till you
+can't rest."
+
+"Where did you get your pattern?" asked Tom who also was a jig sawyer.
+
+[Illustration: Jumping Jack]
+
+"I took an old one of Dicky's that was on the downward road and pulled
+it to pieces so that I could use each part for a pattern. I cut out ever
+so many of each section. Then I spent one afternoon painting legs and
+arms and jackets and caps, and Ethel Blue painted the faces for me. I'm
+not much on expression except my own, you know."
+
+"Have you put them together yet?"
+
+"Dorothy has been tying the pull strings for me this afternoon and I'm
+going to do the glueing now while you people are learning baskets."
+
+"James ought to do the glueing for you," suggested Margaret in spite of
+James's protesting gestures.
+
+Roger laughed.
+
+"I wouldn't be so mean as to ask him," he said. "He's stuck up enough
+for one lifetime, I suspect."
+
+"I've been jigging, too," confessed Tom.
+
+"Anything pretty?" asked Roger.
+
+"Of course something pretty," defended Helen. "Don't you remember the
+beauty box he made Margaret?"
+
+"I certainly do. Its delicate openwork surpassed any of my humble
+efforts."
+
+"It was pretty, wasn't it?" murmured Margaret. "The yellow silk lining
+showed through."
+
+"What I've been doing lately was the very simplest possible toy for the
+orphans." Tom disclaimed any fine work. "I've just been cutting circles
+out of cigar boxes and punching two holes side by side in each one. Then
+I run a string through the two holes. You slip it over your forefinger
+of each hand and whirl the disk around the string until it is wound up
+tight and then by pulling the string you keep the whirligig going
+indefinitely."
+
+"It doesn't look like much of a toy to me," said Della crushingly.
+
+"May be not, ma'am, but I tried it on Dad and Edward and they played
+with it for ten minutes apiece. You find yourself pulling it in time to
+some air you're humming in the back of your head."
+
+"Right-o," agreed James. "I had a tin one once and I played with it from
+morning till night. I believe the orphans will spend most of their
+waking hours tweaking those cords."
+
+"I'm glad you think so," said Tom. "Roger was so emphatic I was afraid
+I'd been wasting my time."
+
+"What's Dorothy been up to this week?" asked James.
+
+"Dorothy couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted most to make bags
+or model clay candlesticks or dress dolls this week," responded Dorothy,
+"but she finally decided to dress dolls."
+
+"Where did you get the dolls?"
+
+"Some of them I got with treasury money--they're real dolls, and I made
+galoptious frocks for them out of scraps from piece-bags."
+
+"Were you patient enough to make all the clothes to take off?" asked
+Della.
+
+"Every identical garment," replied Dorothy emphatically. "Dolls aren't
+any fun unless you can dress and undress them. I never cared a rap for a
+doll with its clothes fastened on."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+Every girl in the room agreed with this opinion.
+
+"The rag dolls are the ones I believe the children will like best," said
+Helen; "that is, if they are at all like American children."
+
+"Isn't it funny--I always liked that terrible looking old rag object of
+mine better than the prettiest one Father ever sent me," agreed Ethel
+Blue.
+
+"Every child does," said Margaret.
+
+"Dorothy made some fine ones," complimented Helen.
+
+"Did you draw them or did you get the ones that are already printed on
+cloth?" asked Della.
+
+"Both. The printed ones are a great deal prettier than mine, but Aunt
+Marion had a stout piece of cotton cloth--"
+
+A shout arose.
+
+"Cotton cloth! That's enough to interest Dorothy in making anything,"
+laughed Tom.
+
+"Almost," agreed Dorothy good-naturedly. "Any way, I used up the piece
+of cloth making dolls and cats and dogs. I drew them on the cloth and
+then stitched them on the machine and, I tell you, I remembered the time
+when Dicky's stuffed cat had an awful accident and lost almost all his
+inner thoughts, and I sewed every one of the little beasties twice
+around."
+
+"What did you stuff them with?"
+
+"Some with cotton."
+
+"Ha, ha!"
+
+"Ha!" retorted Dorothy, "and some with rags, and one with sawdust, but I
+didn't care for him; he was lumpy."
+
+"I didn't know you could paint well enough to color them," said Roger.
+
+"I can't. I did a few but Ethel Blue did the best one. There was a cat
+that was so fierce that Aunt Marion's cat growled at it. He was a
+winner!"
+
+"All the rag dolls were dressed in cotton dresses," explained Ethel
+Brown.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"But the real dolls were positively scrumptious. There was a bride, and
+a girl in a khaki sport suit, and a boy in a sailor suit, and a baby.
+They were regular beauties."
+
+All the time that these descriptions had been given Dorothy and the
+Mortons had been opening packages of rattan and raffia and laying them
+out on the dining table. James sat in state at one end, his convalescent
+leg raised on a chair, and his right hand to the table so that he could
+handle his materials easily.
+
+"I'm simply perishing to hear about Fraulein," he acknowledged. "Do
+start me on this basket business, Dorothy, so I can hear about her."
+
+"We don't know such an awful lot," said Dorothy slowly as she counted
+out the spokes for a small basket. "In fact, we don't know anything at
+all."
+
+"Misery! And my curiosity has been actually on the boil! How many of
+those sticks do I need?"
+
+"Let's all do the same basket," suggested Ethel Brown. "Then one lecture
+by Miss Dorothy Smith will do for all of us."
+
+"Doesn't anybody else know how to make them?"
+
+"Della and I do," replied Ethel Blue. "We're going to work on raffia,
+but you people might just as well all do one kind of basket. We can use
+any number of them, you know, so it doesn't make any difference if they
+are all alike."
+
+"We'll start with a basket that measures three inches across the bottom
+and is two and a half inches deep," announced Dorothy, who was an expert
+basket maker. "You'll need eight spokes sixteen inches long and one nine
+inches long."
+
+There was a general cutting and counting of rattan spokes.
+
+"Are you ready? Take your knife and in four rattans make slits long
+enough to poke the other four rattans through."
+
+"They're rather fat to get through," complained James.
+
+[Illustration: "Make slits long enough to poke the other rattans
+through. Sharpen them to a point"]
+
+[Illustration: "You'll need eight spokes sixteen inches long and one
+nine inches long"]
+
+"Sharpen them to a point. Have you put them through so they make a cross
+with the arms of even length? Then put the single short piece through on
+one arm--no, not way through, James; just far enough to catch it."
+
+"That's pretty solid just as it is," commented Tom with his head on one
+side.
+
+"Nevertheless, you must wrap it with a piece of raffia. Watch me; lay
+your raffia at the left side of the upright arm and bring it across from
+left to right. Now pass it under the right hand arm and over the bottom
+arm and under the left hand arm. Instead of covering the wrapping you've
+just done you turn back and let your bit of raffia go _over_ the left
+hand arm."
+
+[Illustration: "This weaving process makes the spokes stand out like
+wheel spokes"]
+
+"That binds down the beginning end of the raffia," cried Helen.
+
+"Exactly. That's why you do it. Go under the bottom arm and over the
+right hand arm behind the top arm."
+
+"Back at the station the train started from," announced Margaret.
+
+"So far you've used your weaver--"
+
+"What's that? The raffia?"
+
+"Yes. So far you've used it merely to fasten the centre firmly. Now you
+really begin to weave under and over the spokes, round and round."
+
+"I could shoot beans through mine," announced James.
+
+"You haven't pulled your weaver tight as you wove. Push it down hard
+toward the centre. That's it. See how firm that is? You could hardly get
+water through that--much less beans or hound puppies, as they say in
+some parts of North Carolina."
+
+"This weaving process makes the spokes stand out like wheel spokes,
+doesn't it?"
+
+"That's why they're called spokes. By the time you've been round three
+times they ought all to be standing apart evenly."
+
+"Please, ma'am, my raffia is giving out," grumbled Tom.
+
+"It's time to use a rattan weaver, then. You used raffia at first
+because the spokes were so near together. Now you use a fine rattan,
+finer than your spokes. Wet it first. Then catch it behind a spoke and
+hold on to it carefully until you come to the second time round or it
+will slip away from you. You're all right as soon as the second row
+holds the first row in place."
+
+"My rattan weaver is giving out," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"Take another one and lap it over the end of the one that is on the
+point of death, then go right ahead. If they're too fat at the ends
+shave them down a bit where they lap."
+
+"This superb creation of mine is three inches across the middle,"
+announced James.
+
+"It's time to turn up the spokes then. Make up your mind how sharply
+you want the basket to flare and watch it as you weave, or you'll have
+it uneven."
+
+"Mine seems to have reached a good height for a small work basket,"
+decided Helen, her head on one side.
+
+"Mine isn't quite so high, but I can seem to see a few choice candies of
+Ethel Brown's concoction resting happily within its walls," said Tom.
+
+"Let's all make the border. Measure the spokes and cut them just three
+inches beyond the top of the weaving. You'll have to sharpen their tips
+a little or else you'll have trouble pushing them down among the
+weavers."
+
+"I get the idea! You bend them into scallops!"
+
+"Wet them first or there'll be broken fence pickets. When you've soaked
+them until they're pliable enough bend each spoke over to make a scallop
+and thrust it down right beside its neighbor spoke between the weavers."
+
+"Mine is more than ever a work basket," said Helen when she had
+completed the edge. "I shall line it with brown and fit it up with a
+thimble and threads and needles and a tiny pair of scissors."
+
+"Mine, too," was Ethel Brown's decision.
+
+"My sides turn up too sharply," James thought. "I shall call mine a
+cover for a small flower pot. Then I shan't have to line it!"
+
+"Here are some of the most easily made mats and baskets in the world,"
+announced Della. "They're made just like the braided rugs you find in
+farm houses in New England. Mother got some in New Hampshire once before
+we started going to Chautauqua for the summers."
+
+"I've seen them," said Margaret. "There are yards and yards of rags cut
+all the same width and sewed together and then they are braided and then
+the braid is sewed round and round."
+
+"You make raffia mats or baskets in just the same way, only you sew them
+with raffia," explained Della. "You braid the raffia first and that
+gives you an opportunity to make pretty color combinations."
+
+"A strand of raffia doesn't last forever. How do you splice it?"
+
+"Splice a thick end alongside of a thin end and go ahead. Try to pick
+out strands of different lengths for your plaiting or they'll all run
+out at once and have to be spliced at once and it may make them bunchy
+if you aren't awfully careful."
+
+[Illustration: The braid for easily made rugs and baskets]
+
+"I saw a beauty basket once made of corn husks braided in the same way.
+The inside husks are a delicate color you know, and they were split into
+narrow widths and plaited into a long rope."
+
+"Where the long leaf pine grows," said Dorothy, "they use pine needles
+in the same way, only they wrap them around with thread--"
+
+"Cotton thread?"
+
+"Cotton thread--of about the same color."
+
+"You can work sweet grass just so, except that you can wrap that with a
+piece of itself."
+
+"When you have enough material," went on Della, "you begin the sewing.
+If you're going to make a round or an oblong mat you decide which right
+at the beginning and coil the centre accordingly. Then all you have to
+do is to go ahead. Don't let the stitches show and sew on until the mat
+is big enough."
+
+"And for a basket I suppose you pile the braids upon each other when
+you've made the bottom the size you want it."
+
+"Exactly. And you can make the sides flare sharply or slightly just as
+we made them do with the rattan."
+
+"What's the matter with making baskets of braided crepe paper?" asked
+James. "My whole being has been wrapped in paper for a week so it may
+influence my inventive powers unduly, but I really don't see why it
+shouldn't work."
+
+"I'm sorry to take you off your perch," remarked Ethel Brown, "but I've
+seen one."
+
+"O--oh!" wailed James in disappointment. "They were pretty though,
+weren't they?"
+
+"They were beauties. There was a lovely color combination in the one I
+saw."
+
+"You could make patriotic ones for Fourth of July--red, white, and
+blue."
+
+"Or green and red ones for Christmas."
+
+"Or all white for Easter."
+
+"Or pinky ones for May Day."
+
+Just at this moment there came a rush of small feet and Dicky burst into
+the room.
+
+"Hullo," he exclaimed briefly.
+
+"Hullo," cried a chorus in return.
+
+"I've seen her," said Dicky.
+
+"Who is 'her'?" asked Roger.
+
+"Fraulein."
+
+"Fraulein! Dicky, what have you been doing?"
+
+Helen seized him by the arm and drew him to the side of her chair, while
+all the other members of the Club laid down their work and listened.
+
+Dicky was somewhat embarrassed at being the object of such undivided
+attention. He climbed up into Helen's lap.
+
+"I heard you talking at breakfatht about Fraulein and how thomebody
+perhapth wath dead and perhapth wathn't dead, tho I went and athked her
+if he wath dead."
+
+"Oh, Dicky!"
+
+Helen buried her face in his bobbed hair, and the rest of the Mortons
+looked at each other aghast.
+
+"We were wondering if it would be an intrusion to send Fraulein some
+flowers," explained Helen,--"and--"
+
+"--and here Dicky butts right in!" finished Roger.
+
+"I went to the houthe and I rang the bell," continued Dicky, "and an old
+lady came to the door."
+
+"Mrs. Hindenburg."
+
+"I thaid 'Ith Mith Fraulein at home?' The old lady thaid 'Yeth.' I
+walked in and there wath Mith Fraulein in front of the fire. I thaid,
+'Ith he dead?'"
+
+"You asked her?"
+
+"Great Scott!"
+
+"Fraulein thaid, 'I don't know, Dicky.' And I thaid, 'Here ith a
+chethnut I found. You can have it.' And Fraulein thaid, 'Thank you,
+Dicky,' and I that on her lap and the talked to me a long time about the
+man that perhapth ith dead, and thometimeth the thaid queer wordth--"
+
+"German," interpreted Margaret under her breath.
+
+"And onthe the cried a little, and--"
+
+"Dicky, Dicky, what have you done!"
+
+"I ain't done anything bad, 'coth when I thaid, 'Now I mutht go,' the
+old lady thaid, 'Thank you for coming.'"
+
+"She did?"
+
+"Perhaps it did Fraulein good to cry. Poor Fraulein!"
+
+"I'm going again."
+
+"Did she ask you?"
+
+"Of courth the athked me. And I thaid I'd go if the'd wear a white
+dreth. I don't like a black dreth."
+
+Silence reigned about the table.
+
+"I wish I knew whether he's done harm or good," sighed Helen.
+
+"Good, I should say, or Fraulein's mother wouldn't have asked him to
+come again," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"At this uncertain moment I think we'd better have some refreshments,"
+said Dorothy.
+
+"I'm certainly in need of something sustaining," groaned Roger.
+
+"Then try these sugar cookies of Ethel Brown's."
+
+"Let me write down right now how she makes them," exclaimed Della,
+borrowing a pencil from Tom. "This is the kind you're going to make for
+the orphans, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, they'll keep a long time, especially if they're wrapped in
+paraffin paper and put into a tin."
+
+"Recite the rule to me."
+
+"I never can remember rules. Dorothy's got it copied into her cook book.
+Ask her for it."
+
+"Here you are," said Dorothy who had overheard the conversation, "here
+on page twenty. And I know you're going to ask for the fudge receipt as
+soon as you taste Ethel Blue's fudge so you might as well copy that at
+the same time. It's on the next page."
+
+So Della copied diligently while Dorothy brought in the cookies and
+fudge in question and Helen and Roger discussed Dicky's performance
+under their breath.
+
+Here is what Della wrote:
+
+
+"Sugar Cookies or Sand Tarts
+
+          "1 cup butter
+           2 cups sugar
+           2 eggs
+           3-1/2 cups flour
+           4 teaspoons baking powder
+           Extra whites of 2 eggs
+           1-1/2 cups blanched almonds, chopped.
+           2 tablespoons sugar--extra
+           1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
+
+"Blanch the almonds by putting them in boiling water, let them stand on
+the table five minutes, remove a few at a time from the water, rub off
+the skin and dry them in a towel; then chop them.
+
+"Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, then the beaten eggs. Sift
+flour and baking powder together, add to the butter mixture gradually,
+using a knife to cut it in. Add the nuts. If stiff and dry add a few
+tablespoons milk to moisten slightly, and mould into a dough with the
+hands. Roll out portions quite thin, on a floured board, cut out with a
+cutter, brush with the extra whites, slightly beaten. Mix the cinnamon
+and the two extra tablespoons sugar together, sprinkle over the cookies.
+Place on a greased tin, bake about five minutes in a moderately hot
+oven."
+
+
+"Fudge
+
+          "3 cups brown or white sugar
+           1 cup milk or water
+           1 tablespoon butter
+           3 squares (inch) chocolate (about 1/4 cup grated)
+           1/2 teaspoon vanilla
+
+"Mix sugar, milk, butter and chocolate in a saucepan; let it melt
+slowly; bring to a boil and boil about ten minutes, or until a little
+forms a soft ball when dropped in a cup of cold water. Add the vanilla,
+stir a few minutes until slightly thick, turn at once into greased _tin_
+plates. Cool and cut into blocks. If it crumbles and is sugary, add half
+a cup or more hot water, melt, boil again, and try as before. If it
+should not be hard enough it may be boiled a second time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE CLUB WEAVES, STENCILS AND MODELS CLAY
+
+
+WHETHER Dicky had done something entirely inexcusable or something wise
+no one was able to decide, but everybody agreed that at any rate it was
+pleasanter to think that he had brought poor Fraulein some comfort, and
+that her mother's thanking him for coming seemed to mean that. They all
+felt somewhat shocked and queer.
+
+"I move, Madam President," said Tom, "that we don't talk about it any
+more this afternoon. We don't know and probably we never shall know, and
+so we might as well get to work again. Did you people realize that time
+is growing short? The Santa Claus Ship is booked to sail the first week
+in November."
+
+"We did and do realize it," said Helen. "I'd like to know next about
+these raffia sofa pillows that Ethel Blue and Della have been making."
+
+"The ones we made are sofa pillows for the orphans' dolls," explained
+Ethel Blue, "or they can be used for pincushions."
+
+"They make thothe at kindergarten," announced Dicky. "I can make thothe.
+Mine are paper."
+
+"They're made in just about the same way," said Della. "We made a small
+cushion with double raffia and wove it under and over on a pasteboard
+loom."
+
+"How do you make that?"
+
+"Just a piece of heavy pasteboard or a light board or you can take the
+frame of a smashed slate. You fasten the ends of the threads with pins
+or tacks or tie them around the bars. First you lay all the threads you
+want in one direction. That's the warp."
+
+"Warp--I remember. I always have to look it up in the dictionary to see
+which is warp and which is woof."
+
+"Warp is the thread that goes on first. In a rug or a piece of tapestry
+it's the plain, ugly thread that holds the beautifully colored threads
+in place. It's the up and down threads. In raffia you have to be careful
+to alternate the big ends and small ends so that the weaving will be
+even."
+
+"What do you do when the warp is ready?"
+
+"Before you begin to weave you must make a solid line across the end so
+that when you run your first bit of woof across it won't just push right
+up to the bar of the loom and then ravel out when you cut your product
+off the loom."
+
+"I get the reason for its existence. I should think you'd make it by
+tying a string right across the loom knotting it into each strand of
+warp as you pass by."
+
+"That's exactly what you do; and the ends you can leave flying to join
+in with the fringe."
+
+"Can we weave now?"
+
+"Go ahead. When you've made the cushion square, if you want it square,
+go around the three remaining sides and tie a break-water, so to speak,
+so that the weaving won't ravel out. Trim your fringe even and there's
+one side of your pillow."
+
+"One side would be enough for a pincushion."
+
+"If you want to make a big sofa cushion--a grown up one--you'll have to
+make a wide plait of raffia--a four strand or six strand braid--or else
+you'd never get it done."
+
+"The unbraided would be too delicate. I hate to make things that wear
+out before you can get used to them about the house."
+
+"You'd have to have a bigger loom for something that size."
+
+"It's no trouble to make. Roger nailed mine together," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"Any one want the dimensions?" asked Roger. "Take two pieces of narrow
+wood twenty-three inches long, and nail two other pieces of lighter
+stuff each twenty-five inches long on to their tops at the ends. These
+bits are raised from the table by the thickness of the first piece of
+lumber. See?"
+
+Tom and James, who were examining Ethel Blue's loom, nodded.
+
+"Then nail slender uprights, ten inches tall, at each of the four
+corners and connect them by two other thin sticks twenty-five inches
+long, running just above your first pair of twenty-fives. Do you get
+it?"
+
+Again the boys nodded.
+
+"That's all there is to it, and you really don't need to make that for a
+plain, smooth plank will do at a pinch."
+
+"How do you carry your woof across?" asked Margaret. "Your hand would be
+in its own way, I should think."
+
+"You thread the raffia into a wooden bodkin about twenty-six inches
+long."
+
+"I can see that you must draw the cross threads down tight the way we
+did in weaving the baskets," said James.
+
+"Indeed you must or you'll turn out a sleazy piece of weaving," answered
+Della.
+
+"There must be oceans of articles you can make out of woven raffia."
+
+"Just about everything that you can make out of a piece of cloth of the
+same size."
+
+"Of cotton cloth? Ha!"
+
+"Or silk."
+
+"Handkerchief cases and collar cases."
+
+"Coverings for boxes of all kinds. Another material for James to glue on
+to pasteboard."
+
+"I see lots of chances for it," he answered seriously.
+
+"I believe old James is really taking kindly to pasting," laughed Tom.
+
+"Certainly I am. It's a bully occupation," defended James.
+
+"There are a thousand things that can be made of raffia--you can make
+lace of it like twine lace, and make articles out of the lace; and you
+can make baskets of a combination of rattan and raffia, using the raffia
+for wrapping and for sewing. But we have such a short time left that I
+think those of us who are going to do any raffia work had better learn
+how to weave evenly and make pretty little duds out of the woven stuff."
+
+"Wise kid," pronounced Roger. "Now what's little Margaret going to teach
+us this afternoon?"
+
+"Little Margaret" made a puckered face at this appellation, but she came
+promptly to the front.
+
+"Ethel Brown and Dorothy have been teaching me to stencil. They could
+teach the rest of you a great deal better than I can, but they've done
+their share this afternoon so I'll try."
+
+"Go on," urged Ethel Brown. "We'll help you if you forget."
+
+"If you'll excuse me I'll go to the attic and get my clay," said
+Dorothy. "I found a new idea for a candlestick in a book this morning
+and I want to make one before I forget it."
+
+Margaret was in the full swing of explanation when Dorothy returned.
+
+"Why this frown, fair Coz?" demanded Roger in a Shakesperean tone.
+
+"It's the queerest thing--I thought I had enough clay for two pairs of
+candlesticks and it seems to have shrunk or something so there'll only
+be one and that mighty small."
+
+"'_Mighty small_,'" mimicked Roger. "How large is _'mighty_ small'?"
+
+"Don't bother me, Roger. I'll start this while Margaret talks."
+
+"When a drawing fit seizes Ethel Blue again we'll get her to make us
+some original stencils," said Helen. "These that we bought at the
+Chautauqua art store will do well enough for us to learn with."
+
+"They are very pretty," defended Dorothy.
+
+"Mine won't be any better, only they will be original," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"I hate to mention it," said Tom in a whisper, "but I'm not perfectly
+sure that I know what a stencil is."
+
+There was a shout from around the table.
+
+"Never mind, Thomas," soothed Roger, patting his friend on the shoulder.
+"Confession is good for the soul. A stencil, my son, is a thin sheet of
+something--pasteboard, the girls use--with a pattern cut out of it. You
+lay the stencil down on a piece of cloth or canvas or board or whatever
+you want to decorate, and you scrub color on all the part of the
+material that shows through."
+
+"Methinks I see a great light," replied Tom, slapping his forehead.
+"When you lift the stencil there is your pattern done in color."
+
+Roger and James leaned forward together and patted Tom's brow.
+
+"Such it is to have real intellect!" they murmured in admiring accents.
+
+Tom bowed meekly.
+
+"Enlighten me further--also these smarties. What kind of paint do you
+use?"
+
+"Tapestry dyes or oil paints. It depends somewhat on your material. If
+you want to launder it, use the dye."
+
+"Fast color, eh?"
+
+"When you wash it, set the color by soaking your article in cold water
+salted. Then wash it gently in the suds of white soap. Suds, mind you;
+don't touch the cake of soap to it."
+
+"I promise you solemnly I'll never touch a cake of soap to any
+stenciling I do."
+
+"You're ridiculous, Roger. No, I believe you won't!"
+
+"Here's a piece of cloth Ethel Brown is going to make into a doll's
+skirt. See, she's hemmed it already and I'll put this simple star
+stencil on the hem. Where's a board, Dorothy?"
+
+Dorothy brought a sewing board and the others watched Margaret pin her
+material down hard upon it and fasten the stencil over that.
+
+"Good girl! You've got them so tight they won't dare to shiver,"
+declared Tom.
+
+"Do you notice that this stencil has been shellacked so the edges won't
+roughen when I scrub? Stiff bristle brushes are what I'm using."
+Margaret called their attention to her utensils. "And I have a different
+brush for each color. Also I have an old rag to dabble the extra color
+off on to."
+
+"Are you ready? Go!" commanded Roger.
+
+[Illustration: "I'll put this simple star stencil on the hem"]
+
+Margaret scrubbed hard and succeeded in getting a variety of shading
+through the amount of paint that she allowed to soak entirely through or
+partway through the material. When she had done as many stars as there
+were openings on the pattern she took out the pins and moved the stencil
+along so that the holes came over a fresh piece of material, making sure
+that the space between the first new star and the last old one was the
+same as that between the stars on the stencil.
+
+"How can we boys apply that?" asked James.
+
+"You can stencil on anything that you would decorate with painting,"
+said Ethel Brown.
+
+"Your jig-saw disks, Tom. Stencil a small conventional pattern on each
+one--a star or a triangle."
+
+"Here's a stencil of a vine that would be a beauty on one of your large
+plain pasteboard boxes, James."
+
+"Dorothy has been turning white cheesecloth doll clothes into organdie
+muslins by stenciling on them these tiny sprays of roses and cornflowers
+and jasmine."
+
+"I'm going to do roosters and cats and dogs on a lot of bibs for the
+babies."
+
+"You'd better save a few in case Mademoiselle really sends us that
+Belgian baby."
+
+"I'll make some more if it does turn up."
+
+"Aunt Marion gave me some cotton flannel--"
+
+"Cot--ton!"
+
+"Cotton flannel, yes, sir; and I've made it into some little blankets
+for tiny babies. I bound the raw edges, and on some of them I did a
+cross stitch pattern and on others I stenciled a pattern."
+
+"It saves time, I should say."
+
+"Lots. When you have ever so many articles gathered, just have a
+stenciling bee and you can turn out the decoration much faster than by
+doing even a wee bit of embroidery."
+
+"If the Belgian baby really comes, let's make it a play-house. The boys
+can do the carpentry and we can all make the furniture and I'm wild to
+stencil some cunning curtains for the windows."
+
+"I'll draw you a fascinating pattern for it."
+
+"There's my candlestick half done," said Dorothy mournfully, "and I
+can't finish it. I don't understand about that clay."
+
+"Perhaps it dried up and blew away."
+
+"It did dry, but I moistened it and kneaded it and cut it in halves with
+a wire and put the inside edges outside and generally patticaked it but
+I'm sure it's not more than a quarter the size it was when I left it in
+the attic yesterday afternoon."
+
+"You seem to have made a great mess on the floor over there by the
+window; didn't you slice off some and put it in that cup?"
+
+"That's my 'slip.' It only took a scrap to make that. It's about as
+thick as cream and you use it to smooth rough places and fill up cracks
+with. No, that wouldn't account for much of any of the clay."
+
+"How did you make this thing, anyway?" asked James turning it about.
+
+"Careful. I took a saucer and put a wet rag in it and then I made a clay
+snake and coiled it about the way you make those coiled baskets, only I
+smoothed the clay so you can't see the coils. I hollowed it on the
+inside like a saucer. Then I put another wet rag inside my clay saucer
+and a china saucer inside that and turned them all upside down on my
+work board, and took off the original china saucer and smoothed down the
+coils on the underside of the clay saucer."
+
+Tom drew a long breath.
+
+"Take one yourself," he suggested. "You'll need it, you talk so fast."
+
+"It stiffened while Margaret was doing her stenciling. When it was firm
+enough to handle I turned it over again and took out the small china
+saucer and smoothed off any marks it had left."
+
+"It's about time to build up the candle holder, isn't it?"
+
+[Illustration: Dorothy's Candlestick]
+
+"Did you see me bring in a short candle? I wrapped it in a wet rag and
+stood it exactly in the middle of the clay saucer. Then I roughened the
+clay around it and wet the rough part with slip and pressed a fresh
+little snake round the foot of the candle. The slip makes it stick to
+the roughening, so you have to roughen the top of every coil and moisten
+it with slip."
+
+"You finished off the top of that part very smoothly," complimented
+Helen.
+
+"When it's stiff enough you take out the candle and smooth the inside.
+Here's where I'm stumped. I haven't got enough clay for a handle."
+
+"How do you make the handle?"
+
+"Pat out another snake and make a hoop attached to the holder and
+another one rolling up on to the lip of the saucer."
+
+"As if the serpent were trying to put his tail into his mouth."
+
+"I shall have to just smooth this over with a soft brush and wrap it up
+in a wet cloth until I get some more clay. If I let it get hard I can't
+finish it."
+
+"What's that drip, Dorothy?" asked Helen, as a drop of water fell on the
+table before her.
+
+They all looked at the ceiling where drops of water were assembling and
+beginning to fall with a soft splash. There was a scramble to get their
+work out of the way. Dorothy brought a salad bowl and placed it where it
+would catch the water and then ran to investigate the cause of the
+trouble.
+
+At a cry from upstairs Helen and the Ethels ran to her help. Roger went
+to the foot of the stairs and called up to inquire if they wanted his
+assistance. Evidently they did, for he, too, disappeared. In a few
+minutes he re-appeared bearing Dicky in his arms--a Dicky sopping wet
+and much subdued.
+
+"What in the world?" everybody questioned.
+
+"Dorothy's found her clay," said Roger. "Come on, old man. Wrap Aunt
+Louise's tweed coat around you--so--and _run_ so you won't catch cold,"
+and the two boys disappeared out of the front door, Dicky stumbling and
+struggling with the voluminous folds of his aunt's garment.
+
+Dorothy and the other girls came down stairs in a few minutes.
+
+"Do telephone to Aunt Marion's and see if Mother is there and ask her to
+come home," Dorothy begged Helen, while she gathered cloths and pans and
+went upstairs again, taking the maid with her.
+
+"What did Dicky do?" asked the others again.
+
+Both Ethels burst into laughter.
+
+"He must have gone up in the attic and found Dorothy's clay, for he had
+filled up the waste pipe of the bath tub--"
+
+"--and turned on the water, I'll bet!" exclaimed Tom.
+
+"That's just what he did. It looks as if he'd been trying to float about
+everything he could find in any of the bedrooms."
+
+"Probably he had a glorious time until the tub ran over and he didn't
+know how to stop it."
+
+"Dicky's a great old man! I judge he didn't float himself!"
+
+"Now Dorothy can finish her candlestick handle!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ETHEL BLUE AWAITS A CABLE
+
+
+MRS. SMITH begged that the meeting should not adjourn, and under her
+direction the trouble caused by Dicky's entrance into the navy was soon
+remedied, although it was evident that the ceiling of the dining-room
+would need the attention of a professional.
+
+Roger soon returned with the news that the honorary member of the Club
+had taken no cold, and every one settled down to work again, even
+Dorothy, who rescued enough clay from Dicky's earthworks to complete the
+handle of her candlestick.
+
+"I'd like to bring a matter before this meeting," said Tom seriously
+when they were all assembled and working once more.
+
+"Bring it on," urged the president.
+
+"It isn't a matter belonging to this Club, but if there isn't any one
+else to do it it seemed to me--and to Father when I spoke to him about
+it--that we might do some good."
+
+"It sounds mysterious. Let's have it," said James.
+
+"It seemed to me as I thought over those movies the other night that
+there was a very good chance that that man Schuler--your singing
+teacher, you know, Fraulein's betrothed--wasn't dead after all."
+
+"It certainly looked like it--the way he fell back against the
+orderly--he didn't look alive."
+
+"He didn't--that's a fact. At the same time the film made one of those
+sudden changes right at that instant."
+
+"Father and I thought that was so a death scene shouldn't be shown,"
+said James.
+
+"That's possible, but it's also possible that they thought that was a
+good dramatic spot to leave that group of people and go off to another
+group."
+
+"What's your idea? I don't suppose we could find out from the film
+people."
+
+"Probably not. It would be too roundabout to try to get at their
+operator in Belgium and very likely he wouldn't remember if they did get
+in touch with him."
+
+"He must be seeing sights like that all the time."
+
+"Brother Edward suggested when he heard us talking about it that we
+should send a cable to Mademoiselle and ask her. She must have known Mr.
+Schuler here in the school at Rosemont."
+
+"Certainly she did."
+
+"Then she would have been interested enough in him to recall what
+happened when she came across him in the hospital."
+
+"How could we get a message to her? We don't know where that hospital
+was. They don't tell the names of places even in newspaper messages, you
+know. They are headed 'From a town near the front.'"
+
+"Here's where Edward had a great idea--that is, Father thought it was
+workable. See what you think of it."
+
+The Club was growing excited. The Ethels stopped working to listen,
+Helen's face flushed with interest, and the boys leaned across the table
+to hear the plan to which Rev. Herbert Watkins had given his approval.
+They knew that Tom's father, in his work among the poor foreigners in
+New York, often had to try to hunt up their relatives in Europe so that
+this would not be a matter of guesswork with him.
+
+"It's pretty much guesswork in this war time," admitted Tom when some
+one suggested it. "You can merely send a cable and trust to luck that it
+will land somewhere. Here's Edward's idea. He says that the day we went
+to see Mademoiselle sail she told him that she was related to Monsieur
+Millerand, the French Minister of War. It was through her relationship
+with him that she expected to be sent where she wanted to go--that is,
+to Belgium."
+
+"She was sent there, so her expectation seems to have had a good
+foundation."
+
+"That's what makes Edward think that perhaps we can get in touch with
+her through the same means."
+
+"Through Monsieur Millerand?"
+
+"He suggests that we send a cable addressed to Mademoiselle--"
+
+"Justine--"
+
+"--Millerand in the care of Monsieur Millerand, Minister of War. We
+could say 'Is Schuler dead?' and sign it with some name she'd know in
+Rosemont. She'd understand at once that in some way news of his being in
+Belgium had reached here."
+
+"It seems awfully uncertain."
+
+"It is uncertain. Even if she got the cable she might not be able to
+send a reply. Everything is uncertain about it. At the same time if we
+_could_ get an answer it would be a comfort to Fraulein even if the
+message said he had died."
+
+"I believe that's so. It's not knowing that's hardest to bear."
+
+"Don't you think Mademoiselle would have sent word to Fraulein if he had
+died?"
+
+"I don't believe she knew they were engaged. No one knew until after the
+war had been going on for several weeks. If ever she wrote to any one in
+Rosemont she might mention having seen him, but I don't believe it would
+occur to her to send any special word to Fraulein."
+
+"She might be put under suspicion if she addressed a letter to any one
+with a German name even if she lived in the United States."
+
+"No one but Ethel Blue has had a letter from Mademoiselle since, she
+left," said Helen. "We should have heard of it, I'm sure."
+
+"Well, what do you say to the plan? Can't we send a cable signed by the
+'Secretary of the United Service Club'?"
+
+"I think it would be a good use to put the Club money to," approved
+James, the treasurer.
+
+"If you say so I'll send it when I get back to New York this afternoon.
+How shall we word it?"
+
+"Mademoiselle Justine Millerand, Care Monsieur Millerand, Minister of
+War, Bordeaux, France," said Roger, slowly.
+
+"Cut out 'Mademoiselle' and 'Monsieur,'" suggested Margaret. "We must
+remember that our remarks cost about a quarter a word in times of peace
+and war prices may be higher."
+
+"Cut out 'of War,'" said Ethel Brown.
+
+"There's only one 'Bordeaux,'" added Margaret.
+
+"A dollar and a quarter saved already," said James thoughtfully. "Now
+let's have the message."
+
+"What's the matter with Tom's original suggestion--'Is Schuler dead'?"
+asked Ethel Blue. "I suppose we must leave out the 'Mr.' if we are going
+to be economical."
+
+"Sign it 'Morton, Secretary United Service Club, Rosemont.' I'll file
+Ethel Blue's address--at the cable office so the answer will be sent to
+her if one comes."
+
+Ethel Blue looked somewhat agitated at the prospect of receiving a cable
+almost from the battlefield, but she said nothing.
+
+"The United Service Club was the last group of people she saw in
+America, you see," Tom went on, "so Edward thinks she'll know at once
+whom the message comes from and she'll guess that the high school
+scholars want to know about their former teacher."
+
+"I have a feeling in my bones that she'll get the message and that
+she'll answer," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"If she doesn't get it we shan't have done any harm," mused Ethel Brown,
+"and if she does get it and answers then we shall have done a lot of
+good by getting the information for Fraulein."
+
+"We needn't tell anybody about it outside of our families and then there
+won't be any expectations to be disappointed."
+
+"It certainly would be best not to tell Fraulein."
+
+"That's settled, then," said Tom, "and I'll send the message the moment
+I reach town this afternoon."
+
+"It's the most thrilling thing I ever had anything to do with," Ethel
+Blue whispered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+LEATHER AND BRASS
+
+
+THE following week was filled with expectation of a reply from
+Mademoiselle, but none came though every ring at the Mortons' doorbell
+was answered with the utmost promptness by one or another of the
+children who made a point of rushing to the door before Mary could reach
+it.
+
+"I suppose we could hardly expect to have a reply," sighed Ethel Blue,
+"but it would have been _so_ splendiferous if it did come!"
+
+Thanks to Dicky's escapade the last Saturday afternoon had been so
+broken in upon that the Club decided that they must have an all-day
+session on the next Saturday. Roger had promised to teach the others how
+to do the leather and brass work in which he had become quite expert,
+and he was talking to himself about it as he was dressing after doing
+his morning work.
+
+"This business of working in leather for orphan children makes a noise
+like toil to me," he soliloquized. "But think of the joy of the kids
+when they receive a leather penwiper, though they aren't yet old enough
+to write, or a purse when they haven't any shekels to put into it!"
+
+"Ro--ger," came a voice from a long way off.
+
+"Let's go over to Dorothy's now," Roger called back as if it had been
+Ethel Brown who was late.
+
+"I should say so! The Watkinses and Hancocks said they'd be there at
+ten and it must be that now. I'll call Ethel Blue and Helen," and Ethel
+Brown's voice came from a greater distance than before.
+
+The other girls were not to be discovered, however, and when Roger and
+Ethel arrived at Dorothy's they found all the rest waiting for them.
+
+[Illustration: "Roger cut a slip ten inches long and four inches wide"]
+
+[Illustration: Corner for Blotter Pad]
+
+"Where's this professor of leather?" called Tom as he heard Roger's
+steps on the attic stairs.
+
+"_And_ brass," added Roger grandly as he appeared in the doorway.
+
+"No one disputes the brass," returned Tom, and Roger roared cheerfully
+and called out "Bull's-eye!"
+
+"Now, then," began Roger seating himself at the head of the table, "with
+apologies to the president I'll call this solemn meeting to order--that
+is, as much order as there can be with Dicky around."
+
+Dicky was even then engaged in trying to make a hole in Ethel Blue's
+shoe with a leather punch, but he was promptly suppressed and placed
+between the Ethels before his purpose was accomplished.
+
+"You've got him interned there," remarked James, using a phrase that was
+becoming customary in the newspaper accounts of the care of prisoners.
+
+"I'm going to start you people making corners for a big blotting pad,"
+said Roger, "not because the orphans will want a blotting pad, but
+because they are easy to make and you can adapt the idea to lots of
+other articles."
+
+"Fire ahead," commanded James.
+
+"You make a paper pattern to fit your corner--so fashion," and Roger
+tore a sheet of paper off a pad and cut a slip ten inches long and four
+inches wide. A point in the middle of the long side he placed on the
+corner of the big blotter that lay before him and then he folded the
+rest of the paper around the corner. The result was a smooth triangle on
+the face of the blotter and a triangle at the back just like it except
+that it was split up the middle.
+
+"Here's your pattern," said Roger slipping it off. "When you make this
+of brass or copper it's a good plan to round these back corners so there
+won't be any sharp points to stick into you or to scratch the desk."
+
+"The orphans' mahogany."
+
+"Or Grandfather Emerson's. I'm going to inflict a set on him at
+Christmas."
+
+"I should think it would be hard to work on such dinky little things,"
+remarked James who had large hands.
+
+"You don't cut them out of your big sheet of copper or your big piece of
+leather yet. You draw the size of this small pattern on to a larger
+piece of paper and you draw your ornamental design right where you want
+it on the face of the triangle--so."
+
+"More work for Ethel Blue, making original designs."
+
+"She might get up some U. S. C. designs and have them copyrighted,"
+suggested Helen.
+
+"Until she does we'll have to use these simple figures that I traced out
+of a book the other day."
+
+"Why couldn't we use our stenciling designs?"
+
+"You could, if they are the right size. That star pattern you put oh a
+doll's skirt would be just the ticket--just one star for each corner."
+
+"We might put U. S. C. in each corner."
+
+"Or U. in one corner and S. in another, and C. in a third and a star or
+something in the fourth."
+
+"Or the initials of the person you give it to."
+
+"We've got the size of the corner piece as it is when it's unfolded and
+with its design on it, all drawn on this piece of paper. Now you tack
+your sheet of brass on to a block of wood and lay a sheet of carbon
+paper over it and your design on that and trace ahead."
+
+"I see, I see," commented Margaret. "When you take it off, there you
+have the size of your corner indicated and the star or whatever you're
+going to ornament it with, all drawn in the right place."
+
+"Exactly. Now we tackle the brass itself."
+
+"It seems to me we ought to have some tools for that."
+
+"A light hammer and a wire nail--that's all. See the point of this nail?
+It has been filed flat and rather dull. I made enough for everybody to
+have one--not you, sir," and he snatched away one of them from Dicky
+just as that young man was about to nail Ethel Brown's dress on to the
+edge of her chair.
+
+"Dicky will have to be interned at home if he isn't quiet." The
+president shook her head at the honorary member.
+
+"First you go around the whole outline, tapping the nail gently, stroke
+by stroke, until the line of the design is completely hammered in."
+
+"That isn't hard," said Tom. "Watch me."
+
+"When the outline is made you take another wire nail that has been filed
+perfectly flat on the bottom and go over the whole background with it."
+
+"I see, I see," cried Ethel Blue. "That makes the design stand out
+puffily and smooth against a sort of motheaten background."
+
+"For eloquent description commend me to Ethel Blue," declared Margaret.
+
+"She's right, though. You can make the moth holes of different size by
+using nails of different sizes. There are regular tools that come, too,
+with different pounding surfaces so it's possible to make quite a
+variety of backgrounds."
+
+"This mothy one is pretty enough for me," declared Margaret.
+
+"I don't much like that name for it, but it is pretty, just the same,"
+insisted Roger. "When you've hammered down the background you take out
+the tacks and cut out your whole corner with this pair of shears that is
+made to cut metal. Then you fold over the backs just the way you folded
+over the paper to find the shape originally."
+
+"It's not so terribly easy to bend," commented Ethel Blue.
+
+"Shape them along the edge of your block of wood. Persuade them
+down--so, and fold them back--so. Tap them into place with your wooden
+mallet. There you are."
+
+The finished corner was passed from hand to hand and duly admired.
+
+"Rub it shiny with any brass polish, if you like it bright," directed
+Roger.
+
+"It's fashionable for coppers to be dull now," said Helen.
+
+"You ladies know more about fashions of all sorts than I should ever
+pretend to," said her brother meekly. "I like metals to shine, myself."
+
+"What are some of the articles we can start in to make now that we know
+how?" questioned Margaret.
+
+"All sorts of things for the desk--a paper knife and a roller blotter
+and a case to hold the inkwell and a clip to keep papers from blowing
+away. The work is just the same, no matter what you're making. It's all
+a matter of getting the outlines of different objects and then bending
+them up carefully after you've hammered the design and got them cut out
+well."
+
+"Why can't you make all sorts of boxes?" asked James whose mind had run
+to boxes ever since his week of work upon them.
+
+"You can. All sorts and sizes. Line them with silk or leather. Leather
+wears best."
+
+"How far is the leather work like the metal work?" asked Ethel Brown.
+"It seemed to be the same as far as the point where you tacked them on
+to the wooden block."
+
+[Illustration: "A beauty leather mat"]
+
+"It is the same except that you wet the leather before you tack it on to
+the block. When you put your design on to the leather you don't need to
+use carbon paper. Borrow one of Ethel Brown's knitting needles and run
+it over the design that you have drawn on the paper placed over the
+leather, and it will leave a tiny groove on the damp leather."
+
+"That's a simple instrument."
+
+[Illustration: "A three cornered purse that doesn't need any sewing"]
+
+"The steel tooler you take next is simple, too. You deepen the groove
+with its edge and then take the flat part of the tooler and go over
+every bit of the leather outside of the design, pressing it and
+polishing it with great care."
+
+"I suppose that gives the leather a different texture."
+
+[Illustration: The three cornered purse completed]
+
+"It seems to. It makes the design show more, anyway."
+
+"I saw a beauty leather mat the other day with a cotton boll design that
+puffed right up from the background.
+
+"The cotton boll caught our little Dorothy's eye, of course! You make
+your design puff out by rubbing it on the back with a round headed tool.
+Your mat probably had the puffed up part filled with wax so it wouldn't
+smash down again when something heavy was placed on it."
+
+"I think it did; it felt hard."
+
+"If you do puff out any part of your pattern you have to tool over the
+design again, because the outline will have lost its sharpness."
+
+"The mat I saw was colored."
+
+"That's easy. There are colors that come especially for using on
+leather. You float them on when the leather is wet and you can get
+beautiful effects."
+
+"You ought not to cut out your leather corners until they are dry, I
+suppose?"
+
+"They ought to be thoroughly dry. If you want a lining for a purse or a
+cardcase you can paste in either silk or a thin leather. It's pretty to
+make an openwork design and let the lining show through."
+
+"How about sewing purses? It must be hard work."
+
+"Helen does mine on the machine. She says it isn't much trouble if she
+goes slowly and takes a few stitches back at the ends so they won't come
+apart. But I'm going to show you how to make a little three cornered
+purse that doesn't need any sewing--only two glove snappers."
+
+So simple was this pattern that each of them had finished one by the
+time that Grandmother Emerson's car came to take them all over to
+luncheon at her house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE ETHELS COOK TO KEEP
+
+
+ANOTHER week rolled on and still no reply came to the cable that the
+Club had sent to Mademoiselle Millerand.
+
+"Either she hasn't received it," said Ethel Blue, who felt a personal
+interest because it had been signed by her as Secretary of the club, "or
+Mr. Schuler is dead and she doesn't want to tell us."
+
+"It's pretty sure to be one or the other," said Ethel Brown. "I suppose
+we might as well forget that we tried to do anything about it."
+
+"Have you heard Roger or Helen say anything about Fraulein lately?"
+
+"Helen said she looked awfully sad and that she was wearing black.
+Evidently she has no hope."
+
+"Poor Fraulein!"
+
+"What are we going to do this week?"
+
+"I've planned the cunningest little travelling bag for a doll. It's a
+straight strip of leather, tooled in a pretty pattern. It's doubled in
+halves and there is a three-cornered piece let in at the ends to give a
+bit more room."
+
+"How do you fasten it?"
+
+"Like a Boston bag, with a strap that goes over the top."
+
+"You could run a cord in and out parallel with the top and pull it up."
+
+"I believe I'll make two and try both ways."
+
+"You could make the same pattern only a little larger for a wrist bag
+for an older child."
+
+[Illustration: Bag for a doll, a child or a grown-up]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"And larger still for a shopping bag for a grown person."
+
+"That's as useful a pattern as Helen's and Margaret's wrapper pattern!
+Do you realize that this is the week that we ought to cook?"
+
+"Is it? We'll have to hurry fearfully! Are you perfectly sure the things
+will keep?"
+
+"I've talked it over several times with Miss Dawson, the domestic
+science teacher. She has given me some splendid receipts and some
+information about packing. She says there won't be any doubt of their
+travelling all right."
+
+"We'll have to cook every afternoon, then. We'd better go over the
+receipts and see if we have all the materials we need."
+
+"We know about the cookies and the fruit cake and the fudge. We've made
+all those such a short time ago that we know we have those materials.
+Here are ginger snaps," she went on, examining her cook book. "We
+haven't enough molasses I'm sure, and I'm doubtful about the ginger."
+
+"Let me see."
+
+Ethel Blue read over the receipt.
+
+          "1 pt. molasses--dark
+           1 cup butter
+           1 tablespoon ginger
+           1 teaspoon soda
+           1 teaspoon cinnamon
+
+          "About 2 quarts flour, or enough more to make a
+          thick dough.
+
+"Sift flour, soda, and spices together. Melt the butter, put the
+molasses in a big bowl, add the butter, then the flour gradually, using
+a knife to cut it in. When stiff enough to roll, roll out portions quite
+thin on a floured board, cut out with a cookie cutter or with the cover
+of a baking powder can. Place them on greased tins, leaving a little
+space between each cookie. Bake in a hot oven about five minutes."
+
+"Miss Dawson says we must let the cookies get perfectly cold before we
+pack them. Then we must wrap them in paraffin paper and pack them
+tightly into a box."
+
+"They ought to be so tight that they won't rattle round and break."
+
+"If we could get enough tin boxes it would be great."
+
+"Let's ask Grandmother Emerson and Aunt Louise and all Mother's friends
+to save their biscuit boxes for us."
+
+"We ought to have thought of asking them before. And we must go out
+foraging for baking powder tins to steam the little fruit puddings and
+the small loaves of Boston brown bread in."
+
+"What a jolly idea!"
+
+"Miss Dawson says that when they are cold we can slip them out of their
+tins and brush the bread and pudding and cake over with pure alcohol.
+That will kill the mould germs and it will all be evaporated by the time
+they are opened."
+
+"If there is paraffin paper around them, too, and they are slipped back
+into their little round tins it seems to me they ought to be as cosy and
+good as possible."
+
+"I'm awfully taken with the individual puddings. We can make them all
+different sizes according to the size of the tins we get hold of.
+Doesn't this sound good?"
+
+Ethel read aloud the pudding receipt with an appreciative smile.
+
+
+"Steamed Fruit Pudding
+
+          "2-1/2 cups flour
+           3 teaspoons baking powder
+           1/2 teaspoon salt
+           1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
+           1/2 teaspoon nutmeg or ginger
+           1 cup chopped suet
+           1 cup chopped raisins
+           1/2 cup cleaned currants
+           1 cup water or milk
+           1 cup molasses (dark)
+
+"Sift soda, salt, baking powder, and spice with the flour, add the suet
+and fruit, then the molasses and milk. Mix well. Fill moulds two-thirds
+full. Steam three hours."
+
+"When we do them up we can arrange them so that no bundle will contain
+both a fruit cake and a fruit pudding. We must have variety."
+
+"I asked particularly about wheat bread. The papers say that that is
+scarce, you know."
+
+"Did Miss Dawson say it would travel?"
+
+"No, she thought it would be as hard as shoe leather. But she says the
+Boston brown bread ought to be soft enough even after six weeks. If we
+can make enough small loaves--"
+
+"Baking powder tin loaves--"
+
+"Yes--to have a loaf of bread and a fruit cake or a fruit pudding or a
+box of cookies--"
+
+"That is, one cake--"
+
+"--and some candy in each package that we do up it will give variety."
+
+"It sounds good to me. We'll have to hide all our things away from
+Roger."
+
+"Listen to this receipt:
+
+
+"Boston Brown Bread
+
+          "1 cup rye meal (or flour)
+           1 cup granulated corn-meal
+           1 cup Graham flour
+           2 cups sour milk or 1-3/4 cups sweet milk or water
+           1 teaspoon salt
+           3/4 teaspoon soda
+           3/4 cup molasses (dark)
+
+"Mix and sift the dry ingredients, add molasses and milk, stir until
+well mixed, turn into a well greased mould, steam 3-1/2 hours. The cover
+should be greased before being placed on the mould, then tied down with
+a string, otherwise the bread might force off the cover. The mould
+should never be filled more than two-thirds full. For steaming, place
+the mould on a stand (or on nails laid flat) in a kettle of boiling
+water, allowing water to come half way up around mould, cover closely,
+and steam, add, as needed, more boiling water."
+
+"'Mould' is polite for baking powder tin."
+
+"I wish our family was small enough for us to have them. They're just
+too dear!"
+
+"Some time after the Christmas Ship sails let's make some for the
+family--one for each person."
+
+"That's a glorious idea. I never do have enough on Sunday morning and
+you know how Roger teases every one of us to give him part of ours."
+
+"All these 'eats' that travel so well will be splendid to send for
+Christmas gifts to people at a distance, won't they? People like
+Katharine Jackson in Buffalo."
+
+"And the Wilson children at Fort Myer," and the Ethels named other young
+people whom they had met at different garrisons and Navy Yards.
+
+"Here are three kinds of candies that Miss Dawson says ought to travel
+perfectly if they're packed so they won't shake about Here's 'Roly Poly'
+to start with. I can see Katharine's eyes shining over that."
+
+"And the orphans', too."
+
+Ethel read the receipt.
+
+
+"Roly Poly
+
+          "2 lbs. brown sugar
+           1 cup cream
+           2 tablespoons butter
+           1/2 pint (1 cup) chopped figs
+           1 cup chopped almonds
+           2 cups chopped dates
+           1 cup citron, cut in pieces
+           1/2 cup chopped pecans
+           1/2 cup chopped cherries
+           1/2 cup chopped raisins
+
+"Cook sugar, cream and butter together until a little forms a soft ball
+when dropped in a cup of cold water. Then add the nuts and fruit. Put it
+all in a wet cotton bag, mould into a roll on a smooth surface. Remove
+from the bag and cut as desired."
+
+"I like the sound of 'Sea Foam.' Della tried that, and said it was
+delicious.
+
+
+"Sea Foam
+
+          "2 cups brown sugar
+           1/2 cup water
+           1 teaspoon vanilla
+           1 cup chopped nuts
+           1 white of egg
+
+"Beat the white of egg until stiff. Boil the sugar and water together
+until a little forms a soft ball when dropped in a cup of cold water.
+Add the vanilla and nuts, beat this into the white of egg. When it
+stiffens pour it into a greased pan, or drop it by spoonsful on the
+pan."
+
+"It sounds delicious. When we fill James's pretty boxes with these
+goodies and tie them with attractive paper and cord they are going to
+look like 'some' Christmas to these poor little kiddies."
+
+"Don't you wish we could see them open them?"
+
+"If Mademoiselle would only send that Belgian baby we really could."
+
+"I'm afraid Mademoiselle has forgotten us utterly."
+
+"It isn't surprising. But I wish she hadn't."
+
+"We must get plenty of brown sugar. This 'Panocha' calls for it, as well
+as the 'Sea Foam' and the 'Roly Poly.'"
+
+"We'll have to borrow a corner of Mary's storeroom for once."
+
+"She won't mind. She's as interested as we are in the orphans. Let me
+see how the 'Panocha' goes.
+
+
+"Panocha
+
+          "2 cups brown sugar
+           2 tablespoons butter
+           1/2 cup milk
+           1/2 cup chopped nuts of any kind.
+
+"Boil sugar, butter, and milk together until a little forms a soft ball
+when dropped in a cup of cold water. Add the nuts, stir a few moments
+till slightly thick, drop by spoonsful on greased tins, or pour it into
+a greased tin. When cool cut in blocks."
+
+The time given by the Ethels to preparing for their cooking operations
+was well spent. Never once did they have to call on Mary for something
+they had forgotten to order, and each afternoon was pronounced a success
+when it was over and its results lay before them.
+
+"If we just had energy enough we might follow the plan that the candy
+store people do when they have a new clerk. They say that they let her
+eat all she wants to for the first few days and then she doesn't want
+any more. It would be fun to give the family all they wanted."
+
+"We really ought to do it before we set the Club to work packing all
+these goodies, but I don't see how we can with those three boys. We
+never could fill them up so they'd stop eating."
+
+"Nev-_er_!"
+
+"Not Roger!"
+
+"We'll just have to give them a lecture on self-control and set them to
+work."
+
+"It's a glorious lot we've got. Where's Mother? We must show them to her
+and Grandmother and Aunt Louise."
+
+So there was an exhibit of "food products" that brought the Ethels many
+compliments. Shelf upon shelf of their private kitchen was filled with
+boxes and tins, and every day added to the quantity, for Mary came in
+occasionally to bring a wee fruit cake, Aunt Louise sent over cookies,
+and Mrs. Emerson added a box of professional candy to the pile.
+
+"They tell me at the candy store that very hard candy doesn't last
+well," she said. "It grows moist."
+
+"That's why Miss Dawson gave me these receipts for softish candies like
+fudge. It's well to remember that at Christmas time when you're
+selecting candies for presents."
+
+"I don't believe the Ethels ever will buy any candies again," said Mrs.
+Morton. "They've become so expert in making them that they quite look
+down on the professionals."
+
+"Did you see the paper this morning?" asked Mrs. Emerson.
+
+When the girls said that they had not, she produced a clipping.
+
+"Grandfather thought that perhaps this might have escaped your notice,
+so he sent it over."
+
+Ethel Brown took it and Ethel Blue read it over her shoulder.
+
+          CARGO FOR CHRISTMAS SHIP GATHERING HERE FROM EVERY
+                                 STATE
+
+          Hundreds of cases containing every conceivable
+          kind of gift for a child have been received at the
+          Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, where the Christmas
+          Ship _Jason_, which will carry the gifts of
+          American children to the orphans of the European
+          War is being loaded.
+
+          It became apparent that if the _Jason_ were to get
+          off within reasonable time, a tremendous force of
+          sorters and packers would have to be employed.
+          When the situation was presented over the
+          telephone to Secretary of the Navy Daniels he
+          secured authorization for Gen. Wood to assign
+          sixty soldiers to help to get the cargo ready.
+          These men appeared for duty yesterday afternoon.
+
+          Secretary Daniels has assigned Lieut.-Commander
+          Courtney to command the Christmas Ship.
+
+"What a fine Santa Claus-y feeling Commander Courtney must have," said
+Mrs. Morton. "He's a friend of your father's, Ethel Brown."
+
+"Think of being Santa Claus to all Europe!"
+
+"Our parcels won't be very visible among several millions, will they?"
+
+"You have a wonderfully creditable collection for ten youngsters working
+so short a time."
+
+"Mr. Watkins is keeping in touch with the ship so that we can make use
+of every day that she's delayed. Tom telephoned to Roger this afternoon
+that he had been over to the Bush Terminal and they were sure they
+wouldn't start before the 10th of November.
+
+"That gives us almost a week more, you see."
+
+"Do you think we could go to New York to see the _Jason_ sail?" asked
+Ethel Blue and both girls waited eagerly for the reply.
+
+"Aunt Louise and I were saying that the Club ought to go in a body."
+
+"If only she doesn't sail during school hours."
+
+"Even then I think we might manage it for once," smiled Mrs. Morton, and
+the Ethels rushed off to tell Roger and Helen the plan and to telephone
+it to Margaret and James.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE CHRISTMAS SHIP SAILS
+
+
+THE Rosemont and Glen Point members of the U. S. C. did not wait for the
+Watkinses to join them on Saturday before beginning to do up the parcels
+for the Santa Claus Ship. All the small bundles were wrapped and tied in
+Dorothy's attic, but after Mrs. Smith had made a careful examination of
+the attic stairs she came to the conclusion that the large packing cases
+into which they must be put for transportation to the Bush Terminal in
+Brooklyn could not be taken down without damage to the walls. It was
+therefore decided that when the bundles were ready they were to be
+brought downstairs and there packed into several large cases which had
+been donated for the purpose by the local dry goods dealer and the shoe
+store man.
+
+Each of these huge boxes James declared to be probably as large as the
+mysterious house which Roger was going to propose for some sort of club
+work in the spring. They had been delivered early in the week and were
+established on the porch at the back of the Smith cottage awaiting the
+contents that were to bring pleasure to hundreds of expectant children.
+
+Doctor Hancock was so busy that he could not bring Margaret's and
+James's collection to Rosemont when it was wanted there, so Mrs. Emerson
+went to Glen Point in her car and brought it back filled high with the
+result of James's pasting. It was necessary to have all his boxes to
+pack the candies and cookies and small gifts in.
+
+Every afternoon a busy throng gathered in the attic, wrapping and tying
+and labelling the work that kept them all so busy for the previous two
+months.
+
+"We must do up every package just as carefully as if we were going to
+put it on our own Christmas tree," Helen decided. "I think half the fun
+of Christmas is untying the bundles and having the room all heaped up
+with tissue paper and bright ribbons."
+
+The Club had laid in a goodly store of tissue paper of a great variety
+of colors, buying it at wholesale and thus obtaining a discount over the
+retail price. The question of what to tie with was a subject of
+discussion.
+
+"We certainly can't afford ribbon," Ethel Brown declared. "Even the
+narrowest kind is too expensive when we have to have hundreds of yards
+of it."
+
+"We ought to have thought about it before," said Helen looking rather
+worried, as this necessity should have been foreseen by the president.
+"I'll go right over to town and get something now," she added, putting
+on her hat. "Have any of you girls any ideas on the subject?"
+
+"I have," replied Dorothy. "You know that bright colored binding that
+dressmakers use on seams? It's sometimes silk and sometimes silk and--"
+
+"Cotton? Ha!"
+
+"Silk and cotton; yes, ma'am. It comes in all colors and it's just the
+right width and it costs a good deal less than real ribbon."
+
+"I suppose we can get the rolls by wholesale in assorted colors, can't
+we?"
+
+"I should suppose so."
+
+"I have an idea, too," offered Margaret who had come over on the trolley
+after school was over. "There's a tinsel cord, silver and gilt, that
+doesn't cost much and it looks bright and pretty. It would be just the
+thing."
+
+"I've seen that. It does look pretty. For home packages you can stick a
+sprig of holly or a poinsettia in the knot and it makes it
+C-H-A-R-M-I-N-G," spelled Ethel Blue, giving herself a whirl in her
+excitement.
+
+"But we can't use stick-ups on our Christmas Ship parcels, you know."
+
+"That's so, but the tinsel string just by itself is quite pretty
+enough."
+
+"I'll bring back bushels," said Helen. "You have enough to go on with
+for a while."
+
+"One year when Mother and I were caught at the last minute on Christmas
+Eve without any ribbon," said Dorothy, "--it was after the shops had
+closed, I remember, we found several bundles that we had overlooked--we
+tied them with ordinary red and green string twisted together. It looked
+holly-fied."
+
+"That would be easy to do," said Roger. "See, put two balls of twine,
+one red and one green in a box and punch a hole in the top and let the
+two colors come out of the hole. Then use them just as if they were one
+cord. See?"
+
+"As he talked he manufactured a twine box, popping into it not only the
+red and green balls about which he had been talking, but, on the other
+side of a slip of pasteboard which he put in for a partition, a ball of
+pink and a ball of blue.
+
+"Watch Roger developing another color scheme," cried Ethel Blue. "I'm
+going to follow that out," and she proceeded to make up a collection of
+parcels wrapped in pink tissue paper tied with blue string, in blue
+paper tied with pink cord and in white tied with Roger's combination.
+
+"There's one family fitted out with a lot of presents all naturally
+belonging together," she cried.
+
+"I rather like that notion myself," announced James gravely, adjusting
+his lame leg to a more comfortable position. "Please hand me that brown
+and yellow tissue, somebody. I'm going to make a lot of bundles along
+the color lines that my auburn haired sister uses in her dress."
+
+"Observant little Jimmy," commented Margaret.
+
+"Here you perceive, ladies, that I am doing up the bundles with brown
+and yellow and burnt orange and tango, and lemon color, and I'm tying
+them with a contrast--brown with orange and buttercup yellow with brown
+and lemon yellow with white and so on. Good looking, eh?" he finished,
+pointing with pride to his group of attractive parcels.
+
+"I'm going to do a bunch with a mixture of all sorts," announced Roger.
+"Here's a green tied with red and a white tied with green and a pink
+tied with white and a brown tied with tango, and violet tied with blue,
+_und so weiter_, as our Fraulein says when she means 'and so forth' and
+can't remember her English fast enough."
+
+"Poor Fraulein! It will be a hard Christmas for her."
+
+"She brought in the last of her work and Mrs. Hindenburg's yesterday.
+Such a mound of knitting!"
+
+"Has any one been to the Old Ladies' Home to gather up what they have
+there?" asked James.
+
+"Roger went early this morning before school. Perhaps those old ladies
+haven't been busy! See that pile?"
+
+"All theirs? Good work," and James set about tying up the soft and
+comfortable knitted mufflers and wristlets and socks, first in tissue
+paper with a ribbon or a bright cord and then with a stouter wrapper of
+ordinary paper. He marked on each package what was in it.
+
+"If the people who are doing the sorting and repacking at the Bush
+Terminal can know what is in each bundle it is going to help them a
+lot," remarked methodical James.
+
+The packing of the candies and cookies took especial care, for they had
+to be wrapped in paraffin paper and tightly wedged in the fancy boxes
+awaiting them before they could be wrapped with their gay outside
+coverings.
+
+"We want them to arrive with some shape still left to them and not
+merely a boxful of crumbs," said Ethel Brown earnestly.
+
+Except for the collections of varied presents which they had made for
+the sake of the color schemes of their wrappings--an arrangement with
+which Helen was much pleased when she came back laden with ribbons and
+cord--the gifts were packed according to their kind. Every article of
+clothing was wrapped separately and the bundles were labelled, each with
+the name of the article within, and then put into one large box. It was
+only by great squeezing that the knitted articles were persuaded to go
+into the same case.
+
+In another box were the candies and cookies and cakes and breads. The
+grocer from whom they had bought the materials for their cooking had
+contributed a dozen tins of peaches.
+
+In still another case went the seemingly innumerable small parcels that
+held toys or little gifts. Here were the metal pieces and the leather
+coin purses and the stuffed animals and the dolls. Doctor Hancock had
+sent over a box of raisins and Mrs. Watkins had sent out from town a box
+of figs and a few of these goodies with two or three pieces of candy,
+went into every article that could be made to serve as a container. Of
+this sort were the innumerable fancy bags made of silk bits and of
+cretonne and of scraps of velvet which the girls had put together when
+other work flagged. Many of the pretty little baskets held a pleasant
+amount of sweeties, and the tiny leather travelling bags and the larger
+wrist bags of tooled leather were lined with a piece of paraffin paper
+enclosing something for sweet-toothed European children.
+
+James's boxes, with those made by the others, held out wonderfully.
+
+"You certainly put in a good week's work with the paste pot," declared
+Roger admiringly as he filled the last one with sugar cookies and tied
+it with green and red twine to harmonize with its covering of holly
+paper.
+
+The Watkinses had sent out their offerings, for they wanted what they
+had at home to be packed with the other Club articles, even though they
+lived nearer than the rest to the place from which the ship was going
+to steam. When this additional collection was prepared and packed it was
+found that there were three big packing cases.
+
+"Good for the U. S. C.!" cried the boys as the last nail went into the
+last cover.
+
+James, who printed well, painted the address neatly on the tops and
+sides, and they all watched with vivid interest the drayman who hauled
+them, away, generously contributing his services to the Christmas cause.
+
+After all their hurry it seemed something of a hardship when they were
+informed that the sailing of the ship was delayed for several days
+because the force of packers, large as it was, could not prepare all the
+parcels in time for the tenth of the month.
+
+"The paper says there are more than sixty car-loads of gifts," read
+Ethel Blue to her interested family, "and five or six million separate
+presents."
+
+"No wonder they're delayed!"
+
+Yet after all they were glad of the delay for the _Jason_ finally sailed
+at noon of the fourteenth, and that was Saturday. The Hancocks went in
+to New York and over to Brooklyn in the Doctor's car and Mrs. Emerson's
+big touring car held all the Mortons and Dorothy and her mother, and
+Fraulein and her mother, though it was a tight squeeze.
+
+"The old woman who lived in a shoe must have been on her way to a
+Christmas Ship," cried Grandmother when Roger tossed Dicky in "on top of
+the heap of Ethels," as he described it and took up his own station on
+the running board.
+
+The pier at the Bush Terminal in Brooklyn was already well crowded with
+people and motors when the Rosemont party arrived. The Watkinses and
+the Hancocks were already there. Freight cars stood at one side, freight
+cars empty now of their loads of good cheer. Everybody was laughing and
+happy and in a Christmas mood, and the boy band from St. John's Home in
+Brooklyn made merry music.
+
+Thanks to Mrs. Morton's acquaintance with Lieutenant-Commander Courtney,
+who was in command of the ship, she and her flock had been invited to
+hear the speeches of farewell made in the main saloon by representatives
+of the city of New York.
+
+Roger led the way to the gang plank which stretched from the pier to the
+deck of the huge navy collier.
+
+"Old _Jason_ looks grim enough in his gray war paint," he commented.
+
+"But those great latticed arms of the six cranes look as if he were
+trying to play Christmas tree," suggested Mrs. Emerson.
+
+The speeches were full of good will and Christmas cheer. Back on to the
+pier went the listeners and then amid the cheers of the throng on the
+dock and the whistles of near-by boats and the strains of "The Star
+Spangled Banner" from the boys' band and the waving of handkerchiefs and
+hats, the huge gray steamer slipped out into the stream and started on
+her way across the ocean.
+
+It was when the U. S. C. was making its way back to the automobiles that
+a piercing scream attracted their attention.
+
+"That sounds like Fraulein's voice," said Helen, looking about for the
+source of the cry.
+
+"_Meine Tochter!_" exclaimed Mrs. Hindenburg at the same moment.
+
+And then they came upon Fraulein, her arms about the neck of a bearded
+man, who stroked her hair and cheek with one hand while with the other
+he clung to one of the crutches which gave him but an insecure support.
+
+"_Lieber Heinrich!_" cried Mrs. Hindenburg as she caught sight of the
+tableau.
+
+"It's--yes, I believe it's Mr. Schuler! Look, Helen, do you think it
+is?" whispered Roger.
+
+"It must be," returned Helen. "It's hard to tell with that beard, but
+I'm almost sure it is."
+
+"His leg! Oh, Helen, his leg is gone!" lamented Ethel Blue.
+
+The Rosemont party's certainty was relieved by Mrs. Hindenburg who
+turned to them, beaming.
+
+"It iss Mr. Schuler; it iss Heinrich," she explained. "_He_ has lost his
+leg. What matter? He is here and the _Tochter_ is happy!"
+
+Happy indeed was Fraulein when she turned her tear-stained face toward
+the others.
+
+"He has come," she said simply, while the rest crowded around and shook
+hands.
+
+It seemed that he had obtained leave to return to America because he had
+lost his leg and could fight no more. Yes, he said, Mademoiselle
+Millerand had nursed him when his leg was taken off.
+
+The spectators of the moving pictures looked at each other and nodded.
+
+Mademoiselle had sent a message to the Secretary of the United Service
+Club, he went on. It was--he took a slip of paper from his pocket book.
+
+"Message received. Answered in person."
+
+The Club members laughed at this whose whole meaning it was clear that
+Mr. Schuler did not appreciate.
+
+He had arrived, it seemed, only two hours before, on an Italian boat,
+and had heard on the way up from Quarantine of the sailing of the
+Christmas Ship and so had crossed to wave a farewell before going out to
+Rosemont.
+
+"And here I have found my best fortune," he said over and over again,
+his eyes resting fondly on Fraulein's face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A WEDDING AND A SURPRISE
+
+
+IT was a simple wedding that the U. S. C. went to in a body a few days
+after the arrival of the convalescent German soldier. Mr. Wheeler, the
+principal of the high school, acted as best man, and Miss Dawson, the
+domestic science teacher, was maid of honor, but Fraulein also gathered
+about her in the cottage sitting-room where the ceremony took place a
+group of the young girls who had been kindest to her when she was in
+trouble.
+
+"I want you and the Ethels and Dorothy," she said to Helen; "and if your
+friends, Della and Margaret, would come with you it would give me
+greatest pleasure."
+
+So the girls, all dressed in white, and wearing the forget-me-not pins
+that Grandfather Emerson insisted on giving them for the occasion,
+clustered around the young teacher, and the three boys, a forget-me-not
+in each scarfpin, held the ribbons that pressed gently back the cordial
+friends who were happy in Fraulein's happiness.
+
+It was the Club that decorated the house with brown sedges and stalks of
+upstanding tawny corn and vines of bittersweet. And it was the Club that
+sang a soft German marriage song as the bride and groom drove off toward
+the setting sun in Grandmother Emerson's car.
+
+Life seemed rather flat to the members of the U. S. C. after the
+wedding. For the last two months they had been so busy that every hour
+had been filled with work and play-work, and now that there was nothing
+especial scheduled for every waking moment it seemed as if they had
+nothing at all to do.
+
+"We'll have to ask Roger about his house," laughed James who came over
+with Margaret one afternoon and confessed to the same feeling.
+
+"Not yet," answered Helen.
+
+"Helen is full of ideas up to her very eyebrows, I believe," said Ethel
+Blue. "She's just giving us a holiday."
+
+"Mother said we needed one," assented Helen. "After we've had a few
+days' rest we can start on something else. There's no need to call on
+Roger yet awhile."
+
+"Why not? My idea is a perfectly good one," insisted Roger, strolling
+in.
+
+Just at this minute Mary entered with a note for "The Secretary of the
+United Service Club."
+
+"For you, Ethel Blue," said Roger, handing it to his cousin.
+
+Ethel Blue slipped a cutter under the edge while the others waited
+expectantly, for the address indicated that the contents was of interest
+to all of them.
+
+"What does this mean?" she cried as she read. "What is it? Is it true?"
+
+She was so excited that they all crowded around her to see what had
+taken away her power of explanation.
+
+The letter was signed "Justine Millerand."
+
+"Mademoiselle," cried all who could see the signature.
+
+"She says," read Ethel Blue, finding her strength again, "'Here is the
+Belgian baby you asked for. She is two years old and her name is
+"Elisabeth," after the Queen of Belgium!'"
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+"But she says, '_Here_ is the Belgian baby.' _Where_ is the Belgian
+baby?"
+
+They turned toward Mary who had remained in the room.
+
+"There's a Red Cross nurse in the reception room," she explained. "She
+said she'd rather you read the letter first."
+
+They made a rush for the door. Roger reached it first and ushered the
+nurse into the living room. She was dressed in her grey uniform and
+sheltered under her cape the thinnest, wannest mite of humanity that
+ever the Club had seen outside of the streets of a city slum.
+
+"Mademoiselle Millerand said you had asked for a Belgian baby," she
+began, but she was interrupted by a cry from the entire throng.
+
+"We did; we did," they exclaimed so earnestly that any doubts she may
+have felt about the cordiality of their reception of her nursling were
+banished at once.
+
+"Your mother?" she asked.
+
+"I don't believe Mother really expected it to come, any more than we
+did," replied Helen frankly, "but she will love it just as we will, and
+we'll take the very best of care of her."
+
+She offered her finger to Elisabeth, who clutched it and gazed solemnly
+at her out of her sunken blue eyes.
+
+Ethel Blue in the back of the group gave a sob.
+
+"She'll pick up soon when she has good food every day," the nurse
+reassured them, and then she told them of her own experiences.
+
+She had been, it seemed, in the same hospital with Mademoiselle in
+Belgium. Out on the field one day a bit of shrapnel had wounded her foot
+so that she was forced to come home. Mademoiselle had asked her to bring
+over this mite "to the kindest young people in the world," and here she
+was.
+
+The baby's father and mother were both dead, she went on. That she knew.
+
+"Are you sure her name is Elisabeth?" asked Dorothy.
+
+"That's what she calls herself."
+
+By this time Elisabeth had made friends with every one of them and was
+sitting comfortably on one of Roger's knees while Dicky occupied the
+other and made acceptable gestures toward her.
+
+"She'll be happy here," said the nurse, and rose to explain her visit to
+Mrs. Morton.
+
+Like the girls, Mrs. Morton had not expected that Mademoiselle would
+respond to their request for a Belgian baby and she was somewhat taken
+back by its appearance.
+
+"I can see that you did not look for her," the nurse suggested, "but
+when you are on the spot and are seeing such hideous distress every day
+and a chance opens to relieve just one little child, it is more than you
+can resist. I know that is why Mademoiselle Millerand sent her."
+
+"I quite understand," responded Mrs. Morton cordially. "Elisabeth shall
+have a happy home in Rosemont."
+
+"And a baker's dozen of fathers and mothers to make up for her own,"
+said James.
+
+"And we're grateful to you for bringing her," said Ethel Blue, offering
+her hand.
+
+It was after the nurse had had a cup of tea and had returned to New York
+that Helen called the Club to order formally.
+
+"The Club has got its work cut out for it for a long time to come," she
+said. "I don't think we have any right to bring this baby over to
+America and then send it to an orphanage, though that would be the
+easiest way to do."
+
+"We'll never do that," said Margaret firmly.
+
+"If we are going to take care of it it means that we'll have to earn
+money for it and give it our personal care. Now, all in favor of
+accepting Elisabeth as our Club baby, say 'Aye.'"
+
+There was a hearty assent.
+
+"There are no contrary-minded," declared the president. "From now on she
+belongs to us."
+
+"And here's my forget-me-not pin to prove it," said Ethel Blue,
+fastening it on the baby's dress.
+
+"Just what we'll have to do about her we must think out carefully and
+talk over with our mothers," went on Helen. "But this minute we can
+accept our new club member and cry all together, 'Three cheers for
+Elisabeth of Belgium.'"
+
+And at the shout that followed, Elisabeth of Belgium gave her first
+faint smile.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Girl Aviators Adventures
+
+By MARGARET BURNHAM
+
+
+Contact! Gas! Ignition! with a roar of motors and whirling propellers
+the Aviator Girls glide down the runway. Gracefully the big ship takes
+the air, circles the airport and they are off on their glorious
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+printed in full colors and varnished.
+
+    1. GIRL AVIATORS AND THE PHANTOM AIRSHIP
+    2. GIRL AVIATORS ON GOLDEN WINGS
+    3. GIRL AVIATORS SKY CRUISE
+    4. GIRL AVIATORS MOTOR BUTTERFLY
+
+
+
+
+Motor Maids Travels
+
+By KATHERINE STOKES
+
+
+A fast motor and the thrill of the open road, with the whole world for a
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+
+    1. MOTOR MAIDS' SCHOOL DAYS
+    2. MOTOR MAIDS ACROSS THE CONTINENT
+    3. MOTOR MAIDS AT SUNRISE CAMP
+    4. MOTOR MAIDS IN FAIR JAPAN
+
+          _For sale at all Booksellers or sent
+          Postpaid on receipt of 40 cents_
+
+          M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
+          711 SOUTH DEARBORN STREET, CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+VICTORY BOY SCOUTS
+
+
+Come with the Boy Scouts on their hikes, learn with them secrets of
+woods and waters, join them at their council fires, overcome with them
+the many problems and trials that make the Boy Scouts the outstanding
+young men in their community.
+
+   1. Afloat; or, Adventures on Watery Trails
+   2. Boy Scouts in an Airship
+   3. Boy Scout Electricians
+   4. Boy Scouts on Open Plains
+   5. The Campfires of the Wolf Patrol
+   6. Endurance Test; or, How Clear Grit Won the Day
+   7. Great Hike; or, the Pride of Khaki Troop
+   8. Pathfinder; or, the Missing Tenderfoot
+   9. Storm-bound; or, a Vacation Among the Snow Drifts
+  10. Tenderfoot Squad; or, Camping at Raccoon Bluff
+  11. Under Canvas; or, The Search for the Carteret Ghost
+  12. Woodcraft; or, How a Patrol Leader Made Good
+
+          _For sale at all Booksellers or sent
+          Postpaid on receipt of 40 cents_
+
+          M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
+          711 SOUTH DEARBORN STREET, CHICAGO
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ethel Morton and the Christmas Ship, by
+Mabell S. C. Smith
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