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+Project Gutenberg's Ethel Morton at Chautauqua, by Mabell S. C. Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ethel Morton at Chautauqua
+
+Author: Mabell S. C. Smith
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2011 [EBook #36010]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan, Emmy and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA
+
+BY MABELL S. C. SMITH
+
+          M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
+          CHICAGO      NEW YORK
+
+
+          Made in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+          CHAPTER                                     PAGE
+              I ON THE ROAD                              9
+             II GETTING SETTLED                         21
+            III OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY                 32
+             IV PERSONALLY CONDUCTED                    44
+              V LEARNING TO SWIM                        54
+             VI ETHEL BROWN A HEROINE                   69
+            VII DOROTHY COOKS                           81
+           VIII THE SPELLING MATCH                      91
+             IX GRANDFATHER ARRANGES HIS TIME          101
+              X A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY                    115
+             XI THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB IS ORGANIZED   127
+            XII OLD FIRST NIGHT                        137
+           XIII FLYING                                 150
+            XIV NIAGARA FALLS                          168
+             XV THE PAGEANT                            182
+            XVI THINK HELP!                            199
+           XVII RECOGNITION WEEK                       205
+          XVIII IN CAMP                                216
+            XIX "MY BRAVE LITTLE GIRL!"                227
+             XX FOLLOWING A CLUE                       238
+            XXI "WHO ARE WE?"                          248
+
+
+
+
+ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ON THE ROAD
+
+
+IT was a large and heavily laden family party that left the train at
+Westfield, New York. There was Grandfather Emerson carrying Grandmother
+Emerson's hat-box and valise; and there was their daughter, Lieutenant
+Roger Morton's wife, with a tall boy and girl, and a short girl and boy
+of her own, and a niece, Ethel, all burdened with the bags and bundles
+necessary for a night's comfort on the cars and a summer's stay at
+Chautauqua.
+
+"The trunks are checked through, Roger," said Mrs. Morton to her older
+son, "so you won't have to bother about them here."
+
+"Good enough," replied Roger, who was making his first trip, in entire
+charge of the party and who was eager that every arrangement should run
+smoothly. After a consultation with his grandmother who had been to
+Chautauqua before, he announced,
+
+"The trolley is waiting behind the station. We can get on board at
+once."
+
+Roger was a merry-faced boy of seventeen and his mother smiled at the
+look of responsibility that gave him an expression like his father. Mrs.
+Morton sighed a little, too, for although she was accustomed to the long
+absences required of a naval officer yet she never went upon one of
+these summer migrations without missing the assistance of the father of
+the family.
+
+Lieutenant Morton had been with the fleet at Vera Cruz for several
+months, but although there had been rumors that our ships would be
+withdrawn and sent north, which might mean a short leave for the
+Lieutenant, it had not come to pass, and it looked as if he would have
+to spend the summer under the Mexican sun. His wife drew a little
+comfort from the fact that his brother, Ethel's father, Captain Richard
+Morton, was with the land forces under General Funston, so that the two
+men could see each other occasionally.
+
+"How far do we have to go on the trolley, Mother?" asked Dicky, the
+six-year-old, who had already announced his intention of being a
+motorman when he grew up, and who always chose a front seat where he
+could watch the operations that made the car go.
+
+"I forget, dear. Ask Grandmother."
+
+"Twelve miles, son, and over a road that is full of history for Helen.
+Grandfather will tell her all about it. We are turning into it now. Do
+you see the name on the tree?"
+
+"'Portage Street,'" read Helen.
+
+The party made a brave showing in the car. Helen, who was almost as tall
+as Roger and who was in the high school, sat on the front seat with
+Dicky so that he could superintend the motorman's activities. Mrs.
+Morton and Roger sat behind them, he with his hands full of the long
+tickets which were to take them all to Chautauqua and home again. Back
+of them were the two girl cousins of nearly the same age, about
+thirteen, both named Ethel Morton and strikingly alike in appearance.
+Their schoolmates had nicknamed them from the color of their eyes,
+"Ethel Brown" and "Ethel Blue." "Ethel Brown" was Lieutenant Morton's
+daughter, and sister of Roger and Helen and Dicky. "Ethel Blue" was
+Captain Morton's daughter and she had lived almost all her life with her
+cousins, because her mother had died when she was a tiny baby.
+
+Grandfather and Grandmother Emerson, Mrs. Morton's father and mother,
+were in the last seat of the four, Grandmother eagerly looking out of
+the window to recall the sights that she had seen on her previous trip
+to Chautauqua, ten years before.
+
+"Why is it called 'Portage Street'?" asked Helen, when everybody was
+comfortably settled. Helen was fond of history and had just taken a
+prize offered to the first year class of the high school for the best
+account of the Indians in the colonial days of that part of New Jersey
+where the Mortons lived.
+
+"'Portage' comes from the French word 'carry,' as you high school people
+know," answered grandfather. "A portage is a place where you have to
+carry your boat around some obstruction. For instance, suppose you were
+an Indian traveling in a canoe from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, you
+would have to carry your canoe around the rapids of the Niagara River
+because your little craft could not live in that tremendous current, and
+around Niagara Falls because--"
+
+"Because it couldn't climb a tree," laughed Roger.
+
+"Just about that," accepted grandfather.
+
+"Are there any waterfalls around here?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"Not any waterfalls, but the very land we are on was an obstacle to the
+Indians who wanted to travel from Canada southward."
+
+"Oh, I begin to see," said Helen. "They paddled across Lake Erie--"
+
+"That was Lake Erie we were riding side of this morning," interrupted
+Ethel Blue.
+
+"Yes, that was Lake Erie and the gray cloud that we could see way over
+the water was Canada."
+
+"O-oh," cried both Ethels at once; "we've seen Canada!"
+
+"When they reached the American shore," went on grandfather, "they had
+to carry their canoes over the twelve miles of country that we are
+passing over now until they reached the head of Chautauqua Lake."
+
+"Where we are going!"
+
+"Just beyond the village of Mayville we shall see the very spot where
+they put their canoes into the water again and tumbled in themselves to
+paddle southward."
+
+"Weren't their feet tired?" asked practical Dicky.
+
+"I guess they were, old man," returned Roger, leaning forward to tweak
+his ear affectionately.
+
+"If they were," went on grandfather, "they had plenty of time to rest
+them, for they didn't have to leave their boats again unless they wanted
+to until they got to the Gulf of Mexico."
+
+"The Gulf of Mexico!" rose a chorus that included every member of the
+party except Dicky whose knowledge of geography was limited to a very
+small section of Rosemont, the New Jersey town he lived in.
+
+"It's a fact," insisted Mr. Emerson. "The outlet of Lake Chautauqua is
+the little stream called the Chadakoin River. It flows into Conewango
+Creek, and that loses itself in the Allegheny River."
+
+"I know what happens then," cried Ethel Brown; "the Allegheny and the
+Monongahela join to form the Ohio and the Ohio empties into the
+Mississippi--"
+
+"And the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico!" concluded Ethel
+Blue triumphantly.
+
+"Good children," commented Roger patronizingly as he turned around to
+give a condescending pat on the two girls' heads. Finding that their
+hats prevented this brotherly and cousinly attention he contented
+himself with tweaking each one's hair before he turned back as if he had
+accomplished a serious duty.
+
+"Can't you see the picture in your mind!" murmured Helen, looking out of
+the window. "Just imagine all those tall brown men carrying their canoes
+on their shoulders and tramping through the forest that must have
+covered all this region then."
+
+"More interesting men than Indians went over this stretch of country in
+the olden days," said Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"Who? Who?" cried the Ethels, and Dicky asked, "Was it the President?"
+Mr. Wilson, the former Governor of his own state, having been the most
+interesting personage he had ever seen.
+
+"In a minute Grandfather will tell you about the Frenchmen who came
+here, but I want you to notice the farms we are going through now before
+we climb the hill and leave them behind."
+
+"I never saw so many grape vines in all my life," said Roger.
+
+"No wonder," commented his grandmother. "This is one of the greatest
+grape-growing districts of the whole United States."
+
+"You don't say so!" cried Roger. "Why is it? Is the soil especially good
+for them?"
+
+"Do you remember how flat it was in the village of Westfield? We are
+only just now beginning to climb a little, and you see we are some
+distance from the station and the station is some distance from the
+lake."
+
+"That must mean that there's a strip of flat land lying along the lake,"
+guessed Roger.
+
+"That's it exactly," said his grandmother. "It's a strip about a hundred
+miles long and from two to four miles wide, and it is called the Grape
+Belt."
+
+"I saw a man in the train this morning reading a newspaper called that,"
+said grandfather.
+
+"I suppose it is published in one of the towns in the Belt," suggested
+Mrs. Morton. "I've been told that some of the very best grapes in the
+country were grown here."
+
+"I've read in our geology that sometimes the soil is peculiarly rich in
+places where there had been water long ages ago," said Roger. "Perhaps
+this flat strip used to be a part of Lake Erie."
+
+"I dare say," agreed grandfather. "At any rate the soil seems to be just
+what the grapes like best, and you can see for yourself as we climb up
+that these vines look less and less thrifty."
+
+"How queerly they train them," commented Ethel Blue. "I've only seen
+grapes on arbors before."
+
+"You've only seen them where they were wanted for ornament as well as
+use," said Mr. Emerson. "Along the Rhine and in the French vineyards the
+vines are trained on posts."
+
+"Letting them run along those wires that connect the posts must give a
+better chance to every part of the plant, it seems to me," said Mrs.
+Emerson.
+
+"Do you notice that the rows are wide enough apart for a wagon to drive
+between them? When they are picking, that arrangement saves the work of
+carrying the baskets to the cart. These are the days when you have to
+make your head save your heels if you want to compete successfully in
+the business world."
+
+"That's a good stunt in scientific management, isn't it?" commented
+Roger, who had almost made up his mind to enter the factory of one of
+his grandfather's friends and who read carefully everything he came
+across about labor-saving machines and time-saving devices.
+
+"I wonder if Westfield isn't the place where Secretary Bryan gets his
+grape juice," said Mrs. Morton. "I noticed a big establishment of some
+kind after we left the station."
+
+"There are two or three grape juice factories there," said her mother,
+"so I shouldn't be a bit surprised."
+
+"It's good stuff," and Roger's lips moved as if he were remembering the
+grape juice lemonade that was a pleasant part of the refreshments at the
+high school graduation reception.
+
+"I've never been here in picking time," went on Mrs. Emerson, "but I've
+been told that it is something like the hop picking in Kent in England."
+
+"I've read about that," said Helen. "People who aren't well go down
+there and live out of doors and the fresh air and the fragrance of the
+hops does them a lot of good."
+
+"It's much the same here. People come from Buffalo and Cleveland to
+'work in grapes' as they call it."
+
+"I should think it would be pretty hard work."
+
+"It must be, for the picker has to be on his feet all day, but he is
+paid according to the amount he picks, so his employer does not lose if
+he sits down to rest occasionally or stops to look over at the lake."
+
+Mrs. Emerson made a gesture that caused them all to turn their heads in
+the direction they were leaving.
+
+"What is it, Grandmother? A cloud?" asked Helen.
+
+Grandmother smiled and shook her head.
+
+"Look again," she insisted.
+
+"I see, I see," cried Ethel Brown. "The front part is water, blue water,
+and that's Canada way, way off beyond."
+
+Sure enough it was, for the car had climbed so high that they could look
+right over Westfield to the vineyards that lay between the railroad
+track and the lake, and then on across the water to the dim coast line
+of another country.
+
+"There's a steamer! Oh, see, Mother," cried Roger, pointing to a feather
+of black smoke that hung against the sky.
+
+"And I believe that's a sail boat with the sun on it quite near the
+shore on this side," returned Mrs. Morton.
+
+"We must make an excursion some day this summer to Barcelona," said Mrs.
+Emerson. "When I was here before we had a delightful picnic there."
+
+"Where is it?" asked her husband.
+
+"That sail is just off it, I should say," she replied. "It is a tiny
+fishing village, with nets hung up picturesquely to dry and cliffs on
+one side and a beach on the other."
+
+"I wonder how it got its name," questioned Roger, who always gathered
+bits of stray information as he went along and never lost anything
+because of shyness in asking questions.
+
+"They say," replied his grandmother, "that Barcelona was the very spot
+at which the Indians from Canada used to land when they came over to
+make a visit on this side of the great lake."
+
+"The place was known long ago, then."
+
+"Apparently. So it wasn't strange that when some Spanish and Portuguese
+fishermen a long time afterwards wanted to establish a fishing business
+somewhere along the shore they chose this locality."
+
+"Can we fish when we go there?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"If Grandfather and Roger will take you out. Or we can all go in a motor
+boat."
+
+"Wow, wow, wow!"
+
+This was an expression of joy from Dicky who was happy if he could go
+anywhere with Roger, happier if his grandfather went, too, and happiest
+if the excursion was in a boat. His father's love of the water had
+become his, also.
+
+"Right on the top of this hill," said grandmother, whose memory was
+serving her well after ten years, "there used to be an inn in the old
+stagecoach days. A man named Button kept it."
+
+"Button's Inn," murmured Mrs. Morton. "Why does that sound familiar to
+me?"
+
+"Probably you've read Judge Tourgee's novel of that name. The scene was
+laid hereabouts, and the drawing is all good because the author lived in
+Mayville."
+
+"Where's that?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+"We're coming to it in a few minutes."
+
+"Don't you remember Grandfather said the Indians used to put their
+canoes in Lake Chautauqua just after they passed Mayville?" said Ethel
+Brown severely.
+
+Roger roared.
+
+"He did," insisted Ethel, flushing.
+
+"As if Mayville was built then," chortled Roger, and all the rest of
+them laughed unsympathetically except Mrs. Morton who leaned back and
+nodded to her daughter.
+
+"Never mind," she said. "We can't be expected to know every date in the
+history book, can we?"
+
+The town of Mayville, perched on its ridge with distant views visible
+between the houses, and fields and low hills rolling away from its
+elevation, seemed bright and attractive to the travellers. The new
+courthouse stood resplendent in the heart of the village, and just
+beyond it the road fell to the head of Chautauqua Lake.
+
+"Here's where your Indian friends got in their fine work," called Roger
+who had been going from one side of the car to the other so that nothing
+might escape his eyes.
+
+Ethel would have liked to stick out her tongue at him, but she knew that
+her mother had a strong objection to that expression of disapproval so
+she contented herself with scowling terribly at her brother.
+
+"What is the story about the Frenchmen, Grandfather?" asked Helen. "You
+forgot to tell us."
+
+"So I did, but Grandmother says that we are so near to Chautauqua now,
+so I shall have to postpone it until we have a rainy evening."
+
+"Are we really almost there?" cried the two Ethels, rushing to the other
+side of the car. "See, how near the lake is. See, there's a high fence
+with buildings behind it--a funny old fence!"
+
+"That's _the_ famous Chautauqua fence, I suspect," said Mrs. Morton,
+smiling.
+
+"Why famous? How long is it? What's that little tent on the other side?
+Oh, what funny, tiny houses!"
+
+Everybody chattered and nobody paid much attention to grandmother
+although she answered patiently every question.
+
+"It's famous because there isn't another town in the United States that
+is surrounded by a fence. It's a mile along the road and about a half
+mile at each end from the road to the lake. That's a fence guard's tent.
+What's a fence guard? A man to show the nearest way to the gate to
+people who want to take a short cut through the fence. That's
+Piano-town. The people who are studying music practice in those little
+houses where they won't annoy their neighbors in the living cottages."
+
+"Here we are," cried grandfather. "Have you all got your bundles? Don't
+forget your hat, Dicky."
+
+"'All ashore that's going ashore,'" quoted Roger who had seen many
+steamers sail, and then he suddenly grew quiet and assisted his mother
+with his best manner, for on the platform were several young men who
+looked as if they might be good friends if they were impressed at the
+start that he was worth while and not just a kid; and there were also
+some girls of Helen's age and a little older whose appearance he liked
+extremely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GETTING SETTLED
+
+
+GETTING the Emerson-Morton party inside the grounds of Chautauqua
+Institution was no mean undertaking. Roger was still acting as courier
+and he asked his mother to wait until the other passengers from the car
+had gone through the turnstile so that the gateman might give them his
+undivided attention. They all had to have season tickets and when these
+had been made out then one after another the family pushed the stile and
+the gateman punched number one from the numerals on their tickets as
+they passed.
+
+"If only you were eighty or over you would have your ticket given you by
+the Institution, Father," said Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Thank you, I'm a long way outside of that class," retorted Mr. Emerson
+with some tartness.
+
+"What's the idea of the punching?" asked Helen, of her grandmother.
+
+"You have to show your ticket every time you go outside of the fence or
+out on the lake," explained Mrs. Emerson. "The odd numbers are punched
+when you come in--as we do now--and the even numbers when you go out. It
+circumvents several little tricks that people more smart than honest
+have tried to play on the administration at one time or another."
+
+"Why do we have to pay, anyway?" asked Roger. "I never went to a summer
+resort before where you had to pay to go in."
+
+"That's because you never went to one that gave you amusement of all
+sorts. Here you can go to lectures and concerts all day long and you
+don't have to pay a cent for them. This entrance fee covers everything
+of that sort. Where else on the planet can you go to something like
+twenty or more events in the course of the day for the sum of twelve and
+a half cents which is about what the grown-up season ticket holder pays
+for his fun."
+
+"Nowhere, I'll bet," responded Roger promptly. "Are there really as many
+as that?"
+
+"There are a great many more if you count in all the things that are
+going on at the various clubs and all the classes in the Summer
+Schools."
+
+"Don't you have to pay for those?"
+
+"There's a small fee for all instruction because classes require
+teachers, and teachers must be paid; and the clubs call for a small fee
+because they have expenses which they must meet. But all the public
+entertainments are free."
+
+"This is just the place I've been looking for ever since Father gave me
+an allowance," grinned Roger, whose struggles with his account book were
+a family joke.
+
+"Mother," drawled Dicky in a voice that seemed on the verge of tears,
+"why don't we ride? I'm so tired I can hardly walk."
+
+"Poor lamb, there aren't any trolleys here or any station carriages,"
+explained Mrs. Morton. "Roger, can't you get another porter to take
+your bags while you carry Dicky?"
+
+Thus reinforced the New Jersey army marched down the hill from the Road
+Gate to the square.
+
+Mrs. Morton had taken a cottage, and the porters said that they knew
+exactly where it was situated. Roger, bearing Dicky perched upon his
+shoulder, walked between them soaking up information all the way. He
+noticed that both young men wore letters on their sweaters, and he
+discovered after a brief examination that they were both college men who
+were athletes at their respective institutions.
+
+"There are lots of fellows here doing this," one of them said.
+
+"Working, you mean?"
+
+"I sure do. Jo and I think you really have more fun if you're working
+than if you don't. There are college boys rustling baggage at the
+trolley station where you came in, and at the steamer landing, and lots
+of the boarding houses have them doing all sorts of things. Jo and I
+wait on table for our meals at the Bismarck cottage."
+
+"Do you get your room, too?"
+
+"We get our rooms by being janitors at two of the halls where they hold
+classes. We get up early and sweep them out every day and we set the
+chairs in order after every class. Then we do this porter act at certain
+hours."
+
+"So your summer really isn't costing you anything."
+
+"I shall come out a little bit ahead, railroad ticket and all. Jo lives
+farther away and he won't quite cover his expenses unless something new
+and lucrative turns up--like tutoring."
+
+"Or running a power boat, Henry," smiled silent Jo.
+
+"Did you get that job at the Springers?" asked Henry eagerly.
+
+"I did, and it's more profitable than toting bags."
+
+"Good for you," exclaimed the genial Henry, and Roger added his
+congratulations, for the young men were so frank about their business
+undertakings that he was deeply interested.
+
+The Ethels, walking at the end of the procession, held each other's
+hands tightly so that they might look about without straying off the
+sidewalk.
+
+"It's queer for a country place, isn't it?" commented Ethel Brown. "I
+haven't seen a cow or a chicken since we came in the gate."
+
+"The houses are so close together there isn't any room for them,"
+suggested Ethel Blue. "I haven't seen a cat either."
+
+"I know why. Mother told me she read in a booklet they sent her that
+there was a Bird Club and you know bird people are always down on cats.
+They must have sent them all out of town."
+
+"Oh, here's quite a large square. See, there are stores in that big
+brick building with the columns and the place opposite says Post
+Office--"
+
+"And there's a soda fountain under that pergola."
+
+"Dicky's hollering for soda right now."
+
+"Mother won't let him have any so early in the morning but we'll
+remember where the place is."
+
+Yet the procession seemed to be slowing up at the head and, Oh, joy,
+there was Grandfather making a distribution of ice-cream cones to
+grown-ups and children alike. Even the porters ate theirs with evident
+pleasure, consuming the very last scrap of the cone itself.
+
+Then they led the way down a very steep hill and along a pleasant path
+to a cottage that faced the blue water of the lake.
+
+"Here you are," they said to Mrs. Morton.
+
+"And this must be our landlord's son waiting to open the house for us,"
+said Mrs. Morton as a boy of Roger's age came forward to meet them.
+
+Her guess was right and James Hancock instantly proved himself an
+agreeable and useful friend. The Hancocks lived in New Jersey in a town
+not far from the Mortons, but they never had happened to meet at home.
+
+"How many people are there here now?" asked Roger as James helped him
+carry the bags into the house.
+
+"Oh, I don't know just how many to-day, but there are usually about
+twelve or fifteen thousand at a time when the season gets started."
+
+"There must be awful crowds."
+
+"The people do bunch up at lectures and concerts but if you don't like
+crowds you don't have to go, you know."
+
+"What do the fellows our age do?"
+
+"Swim and row and sail. Do you like the water?"
+
+"My father is in the Navy," replied Roger as if that was a sufficient
+answer.
+
+"Then you'll go in for all the water sports. The older chaps in the
+Athletic Club let us use their club house sometimes, and they say that
+this summer there's going to be a club especially for boys of our
+age--too old for the Boys' Club and too young for the Athletic Club."
+
+"Good enough, I'll join," declared Roger, who was the most sociable lad
+on earth.
+
+"Can I help your mother any more? So long, then. I live two houses
+off--in that red one over there just beyond the boarding house--so I'll
+see you a lot," and James leaped over the rail of the porch and strolled
+off toward the Pier.
+
+"He seems like a nice boy," said Mrs. Morton; "I'm glad he lives so
+near."
+
+"I wonder if he has any sisters," queried Helen. "Did you ask him,
+Roger?"
+
+Roger had not and he admitted to himself that it was a mistake he would
+remedy the next time he saw James. Just as he was thinking about it the
+baggage wagon drove up with the trunks. On top was Jo, the porter.
+
+"Hullo," he called.
+
+"Hullo," returned Roger. "I didn't know you rustled trunks as well as
+bags."
+
+"I don't. I rode down to ask you something," and he proceeded to swing
+down a trunk to the other two young men as if to hurry up matters so
+that he could attend to his errand.
+
+"Now, what is it?" asked Roger when all the pieces of luggage had been
+placed about the house to his mother's satisfaction, and the dray had
+gone.
+
+"I don't know whether you'll care for it or not, but you were so
+interested I thought I'd give you first chance if you did want it," Jo
+tried to explain.
+
+"Want what?"
+
+"My job. You see how I've got this work for the Springers running their
+motor boat I've got to be somewhere within call of their house about all
+the time, so they've given me a room there, and I shall have to give up
+janitoring and bag-toting and waiting on table and everything. I thought
+if you'd like to try one or all of my jobs I'd speak about you and
+perhaps you could get in. As late as this you generally can't find any
+work, there are so many applications. What do you say?"
+
+Roger thought a moment.
+
+"I'd like like thunder to do something," he said, and added, flushing:
+"I suppose you'll think it queer but I've never earned anything in my
+life and I'm just crazy to."
+
+"There are awfully good fellows doing it here. You've seen me and
+Henry," Jo went on humorously, "and a son of one of the professors is a
+janitor and the nephew of another one is waiting on table at the same
+cottage I am, and--"
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't be ashamed to do anything honest," Roger said quickly.
+"I was thinking about Mother. You see with Father in Mexico I sort of
+have to be the man of the family. I shouldn't want to undertake things
+that would keep me from being useful to her."
+
+"And you've got a good house here so you don't need a room, so I guess
+I'll just run along," answered Jo.
+
+"Wait a minute," cried Roger. "Let me speak to Mother."
+
+Just at that moment Mrs. Morton came out on the porch, a little frown of
+anxiety on her face.
+
+"Here you are, Roger--and you, too,--Mr.--"
+
+"Sampson," filled in Jo.
+
+"Mr. Sampson. I came out to consult with you, Roger. It seems to me that
+the room in the top story that I counted on for you is going to be so
+warm that you can't possibly sleep there. I wish you'd run up and look
+at it."
+
+Roger's face burst into a happy smile.
+
+"Good enough, Mother, I hope it is a roaster," he cried.
+
+Mrs. Morton looked perplexed.
+
+"Jo came to tell me that he thinks he can get me his janitor's job that
+will earn me my room," Roger explained. "If you don't mind I'd like
+mighty well to do it, and it will settle this trouble here."
+
+"Would you really like it?"
+
+"You bet."
+
+"You'd have to stick to it; and it might mean that you'd have to give up
+some pleasures that you'd have otherwise."
+
+"I know. I'm willing, Mother," insisted Roger eagerly.
+
+"I don't see, then, why you shouldn't take it," said Mrs. Morton slowly,
+"and we shall be much obliged to you if you can arrange it for Roger,"
+she continued, smiling at Sampson.
+
+"How about the table-waiting and the bag-toting?" he inquired.
+
+"I think one job will be about all he'd better undertake for his first
+experience," decided Mrs. Morton. "I should be sorry not to have him
+with the family at meals, and I want him to have time for some sports."
+
+"All right, then, I'll try to fix it up," said Jo, and he swung off up
+the path, pulling off his cap to Mrs. Morton as she nodded "Good-bye" to
+him.
+
+"Hi," exclaimed Roger joyfully as Jo disappeared; "isn't he a good chap!
+Now then, Mater, if your oldest son were a little younger or your
+younger son were a little older one of them might be a caddy on the golf
+links and earn his ice-cream cones that way," and he danced a few joyous
+steps for his mother's admiration.
+
+"If you undertake a thing like this you'll have to stick to it," Mrs.
+Morton warned again, for Roger's chief fault was that he tired quickly
+of one thing after another.
+
+"A postage stamp'll be nothing to me, and you're a duck to let me do it.
+Here, kids," he cried as the two Ethels came out of the house, "gaze on
+me! I'm a horny-handed son of toil. I belong to the laboring classes. I
+earn my living--or rather my rooming--by the perspiration of my
+eyebrow," and he explained the situation to the admiring girls and to
+Helen, who joined them.
+
+"I wish there was something I could do," sighed Helen enviously. "I
+suppose I could wait on table somewhere."
+
+"I'm afraid it will have to be in this cottage right here," responded
+her mother. "Even when Mary comes to-morrow we shall be short handed so
+everybody will have to help."
+
+Mary had been Roger's nurse and had stayed on in the family until now,
+when Dicky was too old to need a nurse, she had become a working
+housekeeper. She had remained behind to put the Rosemont house in order
+after the family left, and she was expected to arrive the next day by
+the same train that had brought the family.
+
+"I will, Mother," said Helen. "It's only that doing something to earn
+your living seems to be in the air here, and I must have caught a germ
+on the way down from the trolley gate."
+
+"You'll be doing something to earn your living by helping at home, and
+all you would get by waiting on table at a boarding cottage would be
+your meals and not money."
+
+"Still, it would relieve Father's pocketbook if there were one mouth
+less to feed."
+
+"True, dear, but Father is quite willing to pay that much for his
+daughter's service to her family, if you want to look at it in that
+light."
+
+"It sounds sort of horrid and mercenary, but when I'm older then I'll
+really do some sort of work and repay Father," and Mrs. Morton nodded
+her appreciation of Helen's understanding that a Lieutenant's pay is
+pretty small to bring up four children on.
+
+"This is an age of mutual help and service," she said. "We must be a
+co-operative family and help each other in every way we can. What you
+will do for me this summer will be just as much help to me as what Roger
+will do by providing himself with a room."
+
+"Somehow doing things at home never seems to count," complained Helen.
+
+"But it does count. Service is like charity; they both begin at home."
+
+"I know just how you feel, though, Sis," confided Roger when his mother
+had gone into the house. "I don't think I ever felt so good in all my
+life as I do this minute just because I'm going to earn my own room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY
+
+
+"NOW then, people dear," said grandmother, joining the group on the
+porch, "even if we don't have the house in the exact order that we want
+it in to-day we must take time to go to the formal opening of the
+Assembly."
+
+"What happens?" asked Helen.
+
+"If there's a lecture," said Roger apprehensively, "me for the woods."
+
+"If you stand on the edge of the Amphitheatre you can slip away after
+the introduction but it is worth your while to be present when the gavel
+falls because you want to follow every important event as it happens
+right through the season."
+
+So the whole family fell into line when the bell in the tower on the
+lake shore rang to indicate that in five minutes a meeting would begin.
+
+"That tower has been built since I was here," said Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"It's called the Miller Memorial Tower," said Ethel Blue gravely.
+
+"How in the world did you find that out so quickly?"
+
+"We saw it from the porch and ran down there to look at it," she
+replied.
+
+When either of the Ethels said "we" the other Ethel was the partner in
+the plural form.
+
+"Who told you it was called the Miller Tower?"
+
+"A nice girl about our age who was sitting on the bench near it. She
+heard us wondering and she came over and said it was named in memory of
+Mr. Miller. He was one of the founders of Chautauqua Institution."
+
+"He's dead now," explained Ethel Brown, "but Bishop Vincent is alive and
+he'll be here on the grounds in a few days. He's the other founder. He's
+the one that had the Idea."
+
+"What idea?" asked Helen.
+
+"Dorothy said--"
+
+"Who is Dorothy?"
+
+"Dorothy is the girl who was talking to us. Dorothy said it was a great
+Idea that Bishop Vincent had to make people come out into the woods to
+study and to hear lectures and music."
+
+"Bishop Vincent is a remarkable man," said Grandmother, who had been
+listening with interest to the girls' explanations. "You are lucky young
+people to be able to see him and perhaps to speak to him."
+
+From the lake the family procession walked up another steep hill to the
+Amphitheatre, a huge structure with a sloping floor, covered with
+benches, and having a roof but no sides. At one end was a platform and
+behind it rose the golden pipes of a large organ. The audience was
+gathering rapidly. Only the pit was full, for on this opening day of the
+Assembly people had not yet come in great numbers, while many, like the
+Emersons and Mortons, had but just arrived and were not settled.
+
+As the bell finished ringing the Director of the Institution walked upon
+the stage and after rapping three times with his gavel declared the
+Assembly open.
+
+"Chautauqua Institution has three activities;" he said, "its Assembly,
+its Summer Schools and its all-the-year-round Home Reading Course. Its
+work never begins and never ends. Chautauqua has given a new word to the
+language; has been the pioneer in summer assemblies and summer schools,
+and has become the recognized leader of the world in home education.
+Since 1874 the Chautauqua movement has spread until there are 3,000
+summer gatherings in this country alone which have taken the name.
+
+"During these years this platform here at Chautauqua has been one of the
+greatest forums of our modern life. Here every good movement has
+received a hearty welcome. During the first year, from this place went
+out the call for the organization of the Women's Christian Temperance
+Union. Here was held the first successful summer school in America.
+
+"Here new organizations have found their first opportunity. Here great
+political and social and economic problems have been discussed by those
+who by knowledge and experience are able to speak with authority.
+Chautauqua, the place, has been beautified and equipped with every
+convenience for community life. It has been a paradise for little
+children, has offered every opportunity for wholesome recreation, has
+given the best of music, literature, poetry and art freely to those who
+enjoy them.
+
+"Every one who enjoys any of the privileges of this great Institution
+has a corresponding measure of obligation. The measure of what you take
+away from Chautauqua is wholly determined by what you bring to it. No
+system of lectures or of individual study can compare with this great
+co-operative opportunity which Chautauqua gives for living together, for
+working out one's own intellectual and religious salvation in terms of
+intercourse with others. Here are gathered people of vision, people who
+are striving for efficiency of personality, people who realize that we
+live in a time of new opportunities and new duties."
+
+A burst of applause followed these inspiring words. Then the young
+people all left quietly, except Roger, who stayed with the elders after
+all, when he found that the speaker was to be the President of Berea
+College, Kentucky. Roger had read of President Wilson's calling these
+Southern highlanders "a part of the original stuff of which America was
+made," and he wanted to hear about their sturdy life from a man who knew
+them well.
+
+The girls went exploring toward the southern end of the grounds.
+
+"I believe this must be the Girls' Club," said Ethel Brown. "Dorothy
+told us where it was. She said she was going to join it."
+
+"They learn to make baskets and to cook and to swim and to do folk
+dancing and all sorts of things," explained Ethel Blue. "Don't you think
+Aunt Marion will let us belong, Helen?"
+
+"I'm sure she will," agreed Helen, as they went up the steps of the
+hospitable looking building and peered through the windows.
+
+"When will it open?"
+
+"Next week. I'm perfectly crazy about it; I can hardly wait," and one
+Ethel seized the other Ethel's hand and skipped down the steps with her.
+
+"This next place must be the Boys' Club building if there is such a
+thing," said Helen.
+
+"There is," cried Ethel Brown. "Dorothy told us so."
+
+"Dorothy seems to know all about everything."
+
+"She does. She was here last summer, and she says she has been all over
+the United States and she never had such a good time anywhere as she had
+here."
+
+"We'll certainly have to belong, then. Are there any girls as old as I
+am?"
+
+"Yes, and I asked if Dicky was too little to belong to the Boys' Club
+and Dorothy said that he wasn't if he wasn't babyish."
+
+"Dicky isn't babyish."
+
+"I told her that he could dress himself and that Mary didn't pay much
+attention to him any more and that he tried to do all the things that he
+saw Roger do and that he went on really long walks with us."
+
+"So she thought they'd take him."
+
+"I told her Roger called him a 'good little sport' and she said she
+guessed he was all right."
+
+"Over there must be the bathing beach," said Ethel Blue as they turned
+away from the lake and started up another hilly street lined with
+houses.
+
+"I hope there's a swimming teacher for you girls," said Helen. "Father
+taught me when I was smaller than you are, but you've never had a chance
+to learn yet."
+
+"I'm going to learn this summer if I don't do another thing," exclaimed
+Ethel Brown enthusiastically.
+
+"So am I," said Ethel Blue.
+
+At the top of the hill the girls came out on an open place with a rustic
+fountain in the centre. At the left was a beautiful building shaped like
+a Greek temple. It was creamy in color and gleamed softly against a
+background of trees.
+
+"What is that do you suppose?" wondered Ethel Blue.
+
+"A-U-L-A C-H-R-I-S-T-I," spelled Ethel Brown as they stood gazing at the
+inscription over the door. "What does that mean?"
+
+"_Aula, aula_," repeated Helen slowly. "Oh, I know; it's Latin for
+_hall_. That must mean Hall of Christ. It looks quite new."
+
+"Probably it's another thing that's been built since Grandmother was
+here."
+
+"We must ask her about it. Perhaps they have church there."
+
+"It's a lot prettier than this building," and Ethel Blue nodded her head
+toward a large wooden house painted cream color. "C.L.S.C. Alumni Hall,"
+she read. "What does that mean?"
+
+"Children, Ladies, Sons and Chickens," guessed Ethel Brown.
+
+"Come Let's See Chautauqua," contributed Ethel Blue.
+
+"Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle," supplied a pleasant voice
+and the girls turned to meet the smile of a tall, slender woman who was
+on her way into the building. "That's the name of the association that
+does the Home Reading Course work."
+
+"Oh, I know," cried Helen; "Grandmother joined when she was here ten
+years ago and Mother and Grandfather belong, too."
+
+"Did your grandmother graduate?" asked the lady, who seemed much
+interested.
+
+"She had her diploma sent to her. She hasn't been here since that first
+time."
+
+"You must tell her that she must watch the _Daily_ for notices of
+meetings of her class and that there are many festivities during
+Recognition Week that she can take part in."
+
+"Grandfather and Mother are in this year's class," said Helen shyly.
+
+It proved that the lady knew their names and where they lived.
+
+"You see I am the Executive Secretary of the C.L.S.C.," she explained in
+answer to the girls' look of surprise, "so I correspond with many people
+whom I never have a chance to meet unless they come here in the summer."
+
+"Why, you must be Miss Kimball," cried Helen. "I've heard Mother speak
+of having letters from you."
+
+"Yes, I'm Miss Kimball, and I hope you're going to be a Reader when your
+school work gives you time for it."
+
+"It will be Roger's turn to join next," said Ethel Brown timidly; "he's
+older than Helen. And Ethel Blue and I'll belong later. There ought to
+be some member of the family joining every little while so that we can
+all go to special things every summer we come up here."
+
+Miss Kimball laughed.
+
+"I see you're already converted to Chautauqua though this is only your
+first day," she said. "Would you like to go into the C.L.S.C. building?
+I have an errand here and then I'll walk over to the Hall of Philosophy
+with you."
+
+The interior of the C.L.S.C. building was not more beautiful than the
+exterior, but it was full of interest as Miss Kimball explained it to
+her new companions. The C.L.S.C. classes, it seemed, occupied the rooms
+for their meetings. So many classes had graduated since the reading work
+began in 1878 that they could no longer have separate rooms. Sometimes
+three or four occupied the same room.
+
+"There are plans on foot now," said Miss Kimball, "to have each room's
+decoration designed by an artist and when that is done it will be as
+perfect to look at as it is now to feel, for the C.L.S.C. spirit is
+always harmonious if the color schemes aren't.
+
+"Here is your mother's and grandfather's classroom, down stairs near the
+door. You've seen that every room has its treasures, its mementoes that
+mean a great deal to the class members. The 1914 Class hasn't had time
+to pick up mementoes yet but they have a really valuable ornament in
+these pictures. They are from a first edition of 'Nicholas Nickleby'
+which one of the members found in her attic and sacrificed to the good
+cause."
+
+The girls examined carefully the funny drawings of men with impossible
+legs and women with extraordinary skirts. Then they glanced at the bust
+above them.
+
+"It's Dickens," said Helen.
+
+"1914 is the 'Dickens Class.' They began to read in the English
+Year--the year when all the topics were about England--so they took the
+name of an English author. Now if you've seen enough we can go over to
+the Hall of Philosophy for a minute before I must go back to my office."
+
+The three girls were almost overcome by the wonder of being at
+Chautauqua only one day and meeting and talking with this officer whose
+name had been familiar to Helen, at least, for a long time. Her
+geniality prevented them from being speechless, however, and they walked
+across the open place with happy thoughts of all they would have to tell
+the family when they got home.
+
+The rustic fountain was a gift from a C. L. S. C. class, they learned as
+they passed it, and here, ahead of them was the Hall of Philosophy.
+
+"It's almost exactly like the picture in Helen's 'History of Greece,'"
+cried Ethel Blue, "the temple at Athens, you know."
+
+"The Parthenon," murmured Helen.
+
+"It does make you think of the Parthenon," said Miss Kimball. "In a
+small way this is beautiful, too, in its setting of green trees, though
+that was larger of course and its stone pillars gleamed against the
+vivid blue sky."
+
+"You must have seen it," guessed Helen, struck by the enjoyment of Miss
+Kimball's tone.
+
+"Ah, Athens is one of the joyous memories of my life!" she exclaimed.
+
+Like the Amphitheatre the building had no sides. The dark beams of the
+roof were supported by pillars and the breeze blew softly through. Miss
+Kimball and the girls sat down to rest a while. A sort of wide pulpit
+faced them, and the chairs were arranged before it in a semi-circle.
+
+"See those mosaic squares laid in the floor," cried Ethel Brown. "They
+are all different. Look, each one has a name on it and a date and a
+flower or something."
+
+"They have been put in by the C.L.S.C. classes," explained Miss Kimball,
+and Helen added, "I remember reading in Mother's Chautauqua magazine
+that her class had their tablet put down last summer but it was not to
+be dedicated until this summer when a lot of people would be here to
+graduate. Let's see if we can find one marked Dickens."
+
+"They're all put in in order," cried Ethel Brown. "The numbers run right
+along except where there's a square skipped once in a while. Yes, yes,
+here's Mother's; here's the Dickens square," and the little group
+gathered around the Dickens tablet, feeling an ownership that they had
+not felt before. They were yet to learn that everybody has a sense of
+ownership at Chautauqua because all the public buildings are built for
+everybody and are used by everybody all the time.
+
+"Here are 'Dickens' and '1914' on Aunty's square," said Ethel Blue, "and
+a rose."
+
+"The English rose is the class flower," said Miss Kimball.
+
+"Is the course very hard?" asked Ethel Blue shyly.
+
+"We say it's 'Easy for Anybody; Worth While for Everybody,'" laughed
+Miss Kimball. "We don't mean to make it hard; just sensible and--well,
+'worth while' describes it as well as anything."
+
+"We'll be awfully proud of Helen when she belongs," said loyal Ethel
+Blue, slipping her arm around her tall cousin's waist.
+
+"Be sure to tell your grandmother that she may pass through the Golden
+Gate on Recognition Day behind the graduating class," said Miss Kimball,
+smiling and walking quickly away to her work.
+
+The girls called after her a "Good-bye" and thanks for her guidance.
+
+Leaving the Hall they turned in the direction of home, passing through a
+street lined with cottages, one of which, they noticed, was marked
+"Unitarian Headquarters," another "Baptist House," and another
+"Disciples' House," while up a side street they saw a Lutheran sign.
+
+"They seem to have houses instead of churches here," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"I noticed a 'Methodist House' back of the Amphitheatre," said Helen.
+
+"And a 'Congregational House' on one side and a 'Presbyterian House' on
+the other," cried Ethel Blue. "You can go to any kind you want to just
+the same as if you were at home. Look, the people are coming out of the
+Amphitheatre now," she added.
+
+"There's Mother--there are Grandmother and Grandfather. Hullo, hullo,"
+called Ethel Brown, and the two children tore along the matting laid
+down beside the auditorium to keep the noise of passing feet from
+disturbing the audiences.
+
+"What do you think we did? Whom do you think we saw?" they cried
+breathlessly, and recited all their adventures as fast as they could
+talk.
+
+"You're very lucky children," said Grandfather, "and we must celebrate
+the event," so they went across the square and investigated the
+refreshment booth in the pergola. Then the elders strolled slowly back
+over the road the young people had just come, for there was to be a
+reading at five o'clock in the Hall of Philosophy and they thought they
+would see the Hall of Christ and the C.L.S.C. building before it began.
+
+Helen and the Ethels went with them part of the way and then turned down
+a side street to catch a glimpse of the lake again.
+
+"Perhaps we'll come across Roger somewhere," said Helen.
+
+But it was not Roger but James Hancock whom they met as they walked
+along the lake front.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PERSONALLY CONDUCTED
+
+
+JAMES pulled off his cap as the girls bowed to him.
+
+"Did you know this was the Bishop's house you're in front of?" he
+whispered, glancing up at the veranda to make sure that he was not
+overheard.
+
+"Which is the house, the wooden part or the tent?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"When he first came here forty years ago there were only one or two
+houses and for a summer or two everybody lived in tents."
+
+"What fun!" cried Ethel Blue.
+
+"The seasons weren't very long then, only two weeks, so nobody minded if
+things weren't very comfortable. The Bishop and Mr. Miller had these
+combination arrangements built because they had lots of guests and
+needed larger places."
+
+"I wonder if there are any people here now who came that first summer?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, my father was here then. He was a little kid in skirts."
+
+"Naturally he doesn't remember anything about it."
+
+"No, but my grandmother brought him and she often tells me about it. You
+just wait till Old First Night. There are often twenty people who stand
+up when they ask how many present were here at the first session. The
+Chancellor, that's Bishop Vincent, was here, of course, and his son,
+he's the president now, and the Executive Secretary of the C.L.S.C.--"
+
+"That's Miss Kimball. We know her. We just met her," and they told their
+new friend all about it.
+
+"You're sure in luck," was his comment.
+
+"Old First Night is the anniversary of the very first meeting, I
+suppose."
+
+"Just you wait and see," hinted James promisingly. "Grandmother thinks
+it's the most interesting thing that happens all summer."
+
+"How long have we got to wait?" asked Ethel Blue who liked to have
+things happen right off.
+
+"Till the first Tuesday in August."
+
+"That won't be for a long time. Isn't anything interesting going to
+happen before then?"
+
+"Oodles of things. Next week all the clubs begin and a little later
+there'll be a pageant, and the Spelling Match is great."
+
+"Why?" questioned Ethel Blue in a doubtful tone that made the others
+smile.
+
+"You can see what Ethel Blue thinks about spelling," laughed Helen. "Why
+is it such good fun?"
+
+"Oh, it's fun to see the grown-up people trying it just as if they were
+kids. They don't let anybody under fifteen go in. Mr. Vincent, the
+president, says young people are 'such uncomfortably good spellers.'"
+
+"Ethel Blue wouldn't agree with him."
+
+"It's true, though, because when you're in school you're getting
+practice every day, and the grown-up people don't get so much practice.
+They look up words in the dictionary instead of remembering the right
+way to spell them."
+
+"It must be funny to see grown-up people fail, but I suppose they give
+them the hardest words there are."
+
+"They take the words out of the Home Reading Course books for the next
+year. Miss Kimball told you about the Home Reading Course, didn't she?"
+
+"Oh, we knew before," the girls all cried in chorus. "Our grandmother is
+a graduate."
+
+"And Aunt Marion is in this year's class."
+
+"And so is Grandfather."
+
+"My father is, too," said James. "He's a doctor, you know, and he says
+that if he didn't read that he wouldn't know anything but bones and
+fevers."
+
+"What does he mean?" asked Ethel Brown, who liked to have everything
+perfectly clear.
+
+"He means he wouldn't read anything but his medical journals and he'd
+'go stale.'"
+
+"Is your father coming on Recognition Day?"
+
+"He's coming if nobody has a smashed head or smallpox just at the wrong
+time. He says he wouldn't miss it for anything. The Recognition Day
+procession marches along this path we're on."
+
+"When will Recognition Day be?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"The middle of August."
+
+Ethel Blue groaned.
+
+"Everything is so far off!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Here's the hotel--the Hotel Athenaeum," and James nodded toward a large
+building with a tower and with a veranda on which guests were sitting
+looking out upon the lake.
+
+"The band concerts are right here all summer. The band plays up on the
+hotel piazza and the people walk around below here and sit on the grass.
+It looks pretty when the girls have on pretty dresses."
+
+"Are there lots of girls here?" asked Helen.
+
+"About five million," returned James cheerfully. "I've got a sister
+who's going over to call on you as soon as she sees you on your porch.
+That's the only way people can make calls here. Everybody's out all the
+time going to lectures and classes so you have to catch them when you
+see them."
+
+"You're neighbors so we'll see her right off," said Helen hopefully.
+"What's this building?"
+
+"This is the Arcade. There are some shops in it and doctors and things.
+The women all learn to embroider here--see, round this corner on the
+piazza is where the teacher stays. Mother goes there all the time, and
+my married sister. You know they joke at Chautauqua women for
+embroidering right through lectures and concerts. Somebody wrote some
+rhymes about it once."
+
+"Let's have them."
+
+"I never fail to oblige when I'm asked for them. Listen. It's dedicated
+'To the Wool-Gatherers.'
+
+          "I don't go out on Sundays
+            At Chautauqua, for you see
+          To just set still and listen,
+            Are the hardest things that be.
+
+          "At 'Devotional' 'tis different,
+            There my crochet-work I take,
+          The one-two-three, skip-two, do-one,
+            Just keeps me wide awake.
+
+          "I haint heard much the preacher said
+            To-day,--I dropped a stitch--
+          But 'twas splendid, and I think
+            'Twas on the duties of the rich.
+
+          "With lectures, sermons, concerts,
+            And all such things as that,
+          'Tis nice to think they culture me
+            While I set there and tat.
+
+          "All hail to old Chautauqua,
+            I'll carry off this year,
+          Some thirty yards of edging,
+            To prove that I was here."
+
+"Right here on this open space is where they used to have the lectures
+forty years ago," James went on, somewhat abashed by the applause he
+received. "It's called Miller Park now."
+
+"What became of the hall?"
+
+"There never was any hall. There was a raised platform and the people
+sat in front of it and when it rained they had to put up their
+umbrellas."
+
+"The trees have grown since, I suppose."
+
+"There were trees there then, but they thinned them out to make room.
+The first houses were built around the edge of the open place. Those
+over there are some of the original articles."
+
+The girls saw a row of small cottages rising side by side, their porches
+almost touching.
+
+"They aren't bad looking," said James patronizingly, "but the
+Institution doesn't allow houses to be built so close together now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"They say that there's no reason why a cottage shouldn't be as good
+looking on a small scale as a big house and no house can look its best
+if it's jammed up into another one's lap, so now they require people to
+leave some land around them."
+
+They had crossed Miller Park and passed between two houses to a walk
+that ran along the lakeside.
+
+"Here's our house, right here," said James, "and there's Margaret on the
+porch now."
+
+"And Dorothy," cried the Ethels together.
+
+Margaret Hancock ran down the steps at her brother's call and asked her
+new friends to stay a while.
+
+"If you don't mind making the first call," she laughed.
+
+She was a clear-eyed girl, not as pretty as Helen, but with a frank
+expression that was pleasant to see. "Nobody stands on ceremony at
+Chautauqua," she went on, "and if you want to see anybody you've got to
+seize her right where you find her."
+
+They all laughed, for she had used almost the same words as her brother.
+
+"You see how the Hancock family holds together," said James.
+
+"This is Dorothy Smith."
+
+Margaret introduced the young girl on the porch to Helen, for she was
+already speaking to the Ethels.
+
+"Helen, Helen," they cried, "this is our friend Dorothy we told you
+about."
+
+Helen looked with interest at the girl who had seemed to know all about
+Chautauqua as her new acquaintances reported her conversation. She saw a
+girl about the age of the Ethels but not so tall and lacking in their
+appearance of vigor. Otherwise she was not unlike them, for she had
+curly brown hair and her nose was just the least bit "puggy," to use
+Roger's descriptive word. Her eyes, however, were unlike either Ethels',
+for they were gray. She had easy manners with a pretty touch of shyness
+that seemed to Helen quite remarkable since she had travelled all over
+the United States.
+
+"I wouldn't miss the Girls' Club for anything," she was saying. "I
+learned how to make lots of things there last summer, and at Christmas
+time I sold enough to pay my club fee this year, and more too."
+
+Helen looked at her with renewed interest. Here was a girl two years
+younger than she and she was earning money to pay for her pleasures this
+summer. It gave her something to think about.
+
+"You and I must join the Young Women's Vacation Club," said Margaret to
+Helen. "They say they are going to have picnics and plays and great fun.
+It's a new club."
+
+"I certainly shall. What kinds of things did you learn to make?" Helen
+asked Dorothy.
+
+"I put almost all my time on baskets. Mother said she thought it was
+better to learn how to do one thing very well than to do a lot of
+things just middling well; so I learned how to make ten different kinds
+of baskets and trays."
+
+"All different shapes?"
+
+"Different materials, too; wicker and splints and rushes and some pretty
+grasses that I found across the lake one afternoon when Mother and I
+went over to Maple Springs on the steamer."
+
+"I know they were beauties," said Helen heartily.
+
+"They were," confirmed Margaret. "I saw some of them. I thought the
+prettiest of all was that small tray made of pine needles."
+
+"Pine needles!" exclaimed James. "How could you work with them? I should
+think they'd come bristling out all the time."
+
+"They were needles from the long-leaved pine that grows in the South. I
+got them in North Carolina when Mother and I were there the winter
+before."
+
+"And you sold a lot of them?" ventured Helen, who was not quite sure
+that it was polite to ask such a question but who was eager to know just
+how Dorothy had managed.
+
+"It was easy," explained Dorothy simply. "Mother and I were in a town in
+Illinois last winter. Mother was teaching embroidery in an art store, so
+she got acquainted with the ladies who were getting up a bazar at
+Christmas time and they let me sell my things there on commission."
+
+"On commission? What's that?" asked Ethel Blue to Helen's relief, for
+she did not like to acknowledge that she did not know.
+
+"On commission? Why, I made a table full of baskets and when they sold
+them they kept one-tenth of the price for their commission. It was like
+paying rent for the table you see and a salary to a clerk to sell it.
+That's the way Mother explained it to me," ended Dorothy rather shyly,
+for James was staring at her with astonishment that a girl and not a
+very old girl either should know as much as that about business.
+
+"Hullo, here comes Roger," he exclaimed. "Let's hear what he's been up
+to," and he left the porch by his usual method--over the rail--and
+joined his new friend before he reached the house. As they strolled off
+the girls heard scraps of conversation about "baseball," "first and
+second crew" and "sailing match."
+
+"Are you all going to the Amphitheatre this evening?" asked Margaret as
+the Mortons prepared to leave.
+
+"I think Mother will let us go to-night because it's our first night and
+we're crazy to see everything," replied Ethel Brown, "but she says we've
+got to go to bed early here just as we do at home or else we'll get thin
+instead of fat this summer."
+
+"Mother lets me go whenever there are pictures," said Margaret. "Often
+there are splendid travel lectures that are illustrated. I love those.
+And once in a while I go to a concert in the evening, but usually I go
+to the afternoon concerts instead."
+
+"Do you suppose we'll ever be big enough to go to bed just as late as we
+want to?" Ethel Blue asked Helen as they went up the steps of their own
+house.
+
+"Even Roger doesn't do that. I remember Father's telling me once that he
+used to growl about going to bed early when he was a boy and that when
+the time finally came when he could go to bed as late as he liked he
+didn't care anything about it and used to go early half the time."
+
+"I don't believe I shall be that way," sighed Ethel. "How queer grown
+people are!"
+
+But since they had these curious and insistent ideas about the need of
+repose she eagerly took advantage of any break in the routine such as
+was offered by the chance to go to the Amphitheatre that evening. It was
+a wonderful sight, the immense open building, the glittering organ, the
+brilliant electric lights, and, facing the thousands of people that made
+up the audience, a slender woman with a marvellously rich voice, who
+sang negro melodies and told negro stories that brought laughter and
+tears.
+
+After the recital was over the whole audience went to the lakeside, and
+there watched the lighting of the signal fires that for years have
+flashed to the country around the news that another Assembly has opened.
+Higher and higher the flames roared at different points along the shore.
+Point Chautauqua, across the water, saw the beacon and flashed on the
+news down the lake until fires far beyond the sight of the people on the
+Assembly grounds told their story to the dwellers near-by and the glare
+of the sky passed it farther afield.
+
+"Isn't it just too wonderful," whispered Ethel Blue to Ethel Brown, and
+Ethel Brown answered, "I can't believe we're really here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LEARNING TO SWIM
+
+
+BY the middle of the next week the Ethels were established in the Girls'
+Club and the Club was well under way. Dorothy went with them on the
+opening morning and introduced them to the director of the Club so that
+they felt no embarrassment in beginning their new activities. Miss
+Roberts was a fresh-faced, wholesome young woman whose cordial manner
+made the girls think of their teacher at home. They liked her at once,
+and so they were eager to follow any suggestions that she made.
+
+The very first was that which Dorothy's mother had urged upon her the
+summer before, the suggestion which had made so good a basket-maker of
+her that she had been able to sell her work during the winter.
+
+"It's a great deal better for you to work hard at one thing," said Miss
+Roberts in a little speech she made at the opening of the club, "than to
+learn a little bit about several things. Don't be a 'jack of all trades
+and good at none' girl; be a thorough work-woman at whatever craft you
+select. Pick out the thing you think is going to interest you most and
+put your whole strength on it."
+
+"Stenciling for me," whispered Dorothy, "and invalids' cooking."
+
+"Me, too," said Ethel Brown, who admired her new friend so much that she
+wanted to have the pleasure of being in the same class with her. Ethel
+Blue looked disturbed when she heard what the others were saying, for
+she had made up her mind to learn basketry, but it seemed rather forlorn
+to be in a class with girls she did not know at all. She thought she
+would ask Miss Roberts what she thought about it.
+
+"Another thing I want every girl here to do," went on Miss Roberts, "is
+to take some physical exercise every day. You'll never have a better
+chance to learn to swim, for instance, and it is one of our customs to
+have light gymnastic movements every morning. In about a week the School
+of Physical Education will have an exhibition in the Amphitheatre and we
+must send a squad of girls to represent the Club, so the harder you work
+to become exact and uniform in your exercises the better showing we
+shall make."
+
+When it came to enrolling in the classes both Ethels registered as
+wanting to swim.
+
+"I must learn," said Ethel Blue, "because I've got an uncle in the
+Navy."
+
+"And I've got to," laughed Ethel Brown, "because her uncle is my
+father."
+
+Ethel Brown and Dorothy gave their names for the class in stenciling,
+but Ethel Blue crossed to Miss Roberts's side before she enlisted.
+
+"I know I'd like stenciling," she said, "only I made up my mind that I
+wanted to make baskets and I really want to do that more than to do
+stenciling."
+
+"But you think you'll be lonesome? Is that it?" asked the Director with
+her kind eyes on Ethel's face.
+
+"You see I don't know anybody here but Ethel Brown and Dorothy."
+
+"Come here a minute, Della," called Miss Roberts to a short, rosy-faced
+girl whose crisp red hair was flying behind her as she skipped across
+the room.
+
+"Della, this is Ethel Morton," she said. "And Ethel, this is Della
+Watkins. Now you know at least one other member of the Girls' Club, and
+it happens that Della is going to take basketry, unless she has changed
+her mind about it since yesterday."
+
+"I haven't, Miss Roberts," declared Della; "I'm going to work at baskets
+until I can make a tray like one I saw at the Arts and Crafts Studios
+last summer. Mamma says it would take a grown person two summers to
+learn how to do it, but I'm going to try even if it takes me three."
+
+"Della never gives up anything she once takes hold of," smiled Miss
+Roberts. "She's like her dog. He's a bull dog, and I should hate to have
+him take a fancy to anything I didn't want him to have!"
+
+Both girls laughed and Della slipped her arm around Ethel Blue's waist
+and ran with her to the basketry teacher who was recording the names of
+her fast growing class.
+
+For an hour the girls worked at their new tasks and then they did some
+easy arm and leg exercises and ended the morning with a swift march
+around the big room.
+
+"We must hand in our names for the camping trip," directed Dorothy.
+
+"What is that?" asked both Ethels in chorus.
+
+"Across the lake is a camp that both the Boys' and Girls' Clubs use in
+turn. There's a great rush to go so we'd better be on the list early."
+
+"How long do we stay?"
+
+"Just one night and plenty of grown people go, too, so the mothers never
+object. It's the grandest thing."
+
+"I've never slept in a tent," said Ethel Blue, "and I'd _love_ to do it
+because my father has to do it so much. I think he'd like to have me."
+
+But when they told Mrs. Morton of the plan she was not quite so eager as
+the girls would have liked to have her.
+
+"How do you go there?" she asked.
+
+"In a motor boat, Dorothy says."
+
+"We shall be on the water a good deal this summer," said Mrs. Morton
+after thinking a minute, "and you girls can't learn to swim too quickly.
+I think I will say that you may go to the camp when you can both swim at
+least twenty strokes."
+
+"If my bathing dress is all ready I'll begin to-morrow, Aunt Marion."
+
+"May we go in every day, Mother?"
+
+"Every suitable day."
+
+"I'll bet on Ethel Blue," pronounced Roger solemnly. "She's a landsman's
+daughter so she'll work harder to learn than Ethel Brown will. Ethel
+Brown will think she'll take to it like a duck because her father is a
+duck, so to speak."
+
+"You just wait," cried Ethel Brown defiantly.
+
+"I believe they'll both be swimming in ten days," declared Grandfather
+Emerson.
+
+At least they tried hard. They went regularly to the bathing beach,
+listened attentively to their instructor's directions, practiced
+carefully in the water, and were caught by the family a dozen times a
+day taking turns lying on benches and working each other's legs, and
+making gestures expressive of their desire to imitate the fishes that
+they could see slipping through the water when they looked down into it
+from the dock.
+
+"They just flip a fin and off they go," sighed Ethel Blue. "I flip two
+fins and wag my feet into the bargain and I go down instead of forward."
+
+"I'm not scared any longer, anyway. Teacher says that's a big gain."
+
+"'Keep air in your lungs and you needn't be afraid,' she's told me over
+and over. 'Poke your nose out of water and you're all right.' It was
+kind of goo-ey at first, though, wasn't it, ducking your head and
+opening your eyes?"
+
+"I got used to that pretty quick because I knew the water wasn't up to
+my neck and all I had to do to be all right was to stand up. The three
+arm movements I learned quickly; make ready, put your palms right
+together in front of your chest--then--"
+
+"One,--push them straight forward as far as you can--"
+
+[Illustration: Make Ready
+
+"Put your palms right together in front of your chest."
+
+She pushed Ethel Blue's legs forward as close to her body as they would
+go.]
+
+[Illustration: Number One
+
+"Push the arms straight forward as far as you can."
+
+She pulled the legs as far apart as she could and as far back as
+possible.]
+
+[Illustration: Number Two
+
+"Turn the palms flat and swing them as far back as the shoulder."
+
+She brought the legs together again, the heels touching.]
+
+"Two,--turn the palms flat and swing them as far back as the shoulder--"
+
+"Make ready again--bring your palms together in front of your chest
+again and repeat."
+
+"What in the name of sense are you two kids chanting," ejaculated Roger,
+poking his head inside.
+
+"Go away, Roger. We can breathe and we can work our arms and that means
+we can keep afloat. If only we can get the leg motions right!"
+
+"Let me give you a pointer," said Roger, who was a fine swimmer; "while
+you're learning try hard not to make any useless movements. They tire
+you and they don't get you anywhere."
+
+"That's just what our teacher says. 'Lost motion is bad anywhere, but in
+swimming it's fatal.'"
+
+"She's all right," commended Roger. "You just keep up that bench system
+of yours and you'll come out O.K."
+
+So Ethel Blue stretched herself again face down on the bench and Ethel
+Brown put her cousin's heels together and her toes out and pulled her
+legs straight back.
+
+"Ready," she cried.
+
+Then she pushed Ethel Blue's legs forward as close to her body as they
+would go, and a muffled groan came from the pupil, head down over the
+bench.
+
+"Hold your head up. Can't you make your arms go at the same time? Now
+leg Number One goes with the arm Number One."
+
+"I can't do it yet," gurgled Ethel Blue; "I want to learn these leg
+movements by themselves first."
+
+"Here's Number One, then," said Ethel Brown, and she pulled the legs as
+far apart as she could and as far back as possible, the feet still being
+horizontal; "and here's Number Two," and she brought the legs together
+again, the heels touching.
+
+"I forgot to wag my feet when you did that last one," panted Ethel Blue.
+"If you wag them it gives you an extra push forward you know."
+
+"I know; it really does; I did it accidentally yesterday and I popped
+right ahead some distance. Now let me try," and she took her turn on the
+bench while Ethel Blue counted and pulled laboriously, "Number One,
+Number Two, Make Ready."
+
+"I floated for two minutes to-day."
+
+"You did!" There was envy in Ethel Brown's voice as she resumed her
+upright position and helped her cousin move the bench back against the
+wall.
+
+"I thought I'd try, so I turned over on my back and put my nose and
+mouth as high out of water as I could and tried to forget that my
+forehead was being swashed. Then I filled my lungs up full and there I
+was, just like a cork."
+
+"Or a barrel," substituted Roger, poking his head in again. "Grandfather
+sends you his compliments--or he would if he happened to think of
+it--and says that when he was a boy they used to ask him 'What does a
+duck go down for?' Do you know the answer?"
+
+"Grandfather told me that when I was Dicky's age--'for divers' reasons';
+and he comes up again 'for sun--dry reasons.'"
+
+"You're altogether too knowing, you kids. Where's Helen?"
+
+"Gone on a tramp with the Vacation Club. Mother and Grandfather have
+gone to the five o'clock reading hour, Grandmother is taking her
+embroidery lesson at the Arcade, and Mary is down on the lake front.
+There isn't a soul in the house except Dicky and he's taking a nap."
+
+"Then here's the best time I know to teach you young ladies how to
+resuscitate a drowned person. If one of you will oblige me by playing
+drowned--thank you, ma'am."
+
+With solemnity Roger removed his coat and proceeded to his self-imposed
+task as Ethel Blue dropped limply on the floor.
+
+"If you happen to have your wits about you still in about the usual
+amount, all I have to do is to start up your circulation by rubbing you
+like the mischief and then rolling you up in hot blankets to stave off
+a chill. But if the few senses that you possess--"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"--have left you then I have two things to do instead of one; first, I
+must start up your breathing once more, and second I must stir up your
+circulation."
+
+"Yes, sir," agreed both girls meekly.
+
+[Illustration: "You keep his nose out of the sand by putting his arm
+under his own forehead."]
+
+"When a person is unconscious his tongue is apt to fall back and stop up
+his throat. To prevent that you turn your victim over on his face."
+
+"Ow! My nose!" cried Ethel Blue as Roger suited the action to the word.
+
+"You keep his nose out of the sand by putting his own arm under his own
+forehead, thus making him useful. Fixed this way his tongue slips
+forward and the water in his mouth will run out. Sometimes this is
+enough. If it isn't, then turn the patient on his side--" he rolled
+Ethel Blue on edge--"and try to arouse breathing by putting ammonia
+under his nose or tickling his nose and throat with a feather. Somebody
+ought to be rubbing his face and chest all the time and throwing dashes
+of cold water on them."
+
+"Poor lamb!"
+
+"If he doesn't begin to breathe promptly under these kind attentions
+then you must try artificial breathing."
+
+"Artificial breathing--make-believe breathing! How do you do that?"
+
+"Don't let people crowd around and cut off the air. Turn him on his face
+again,"--and over went Ethel Blue--"putting something thick like this
+rolled up coat under his chest to keep it off the ground."
+
+"Umph--that's a relief!" grunted Ethel Blue.
+
+"Then roll him gently on to his side and then forward on to his face
+once more. Move him once in every four slow counts. Every time he goes
+on to his face give him a vigorous rub between the shoulder blades."
+
+"Ow, ow," ejaculated Ethel Blue ungratefully.
+
+"It must take a lot of people to do all these things," commented Ethel
+Brown.
+
+"Three if you can get them; one to turn him and rub his back, one to
+keep his head off the ground as he is rolled over, and the third to dry
+his feet and try to warm them."
+
+"The one who does the rolling is the most important if there don't
+happen to be many around."
+
+"Put your strongest in that position. If you don't bring your patient to
+in five minutes of this, try putting him on his back with a coat or
+something under his shoulder-blades, and keeping his tongue out of his
+throat by tying it with a tape or rubber band."
+
+[Illustration: "One person kneels back of the patient's head and takes
+hold of his arms between the elbow and the wrist and pulls them back
+along the ground until the hands touch above his head. This draws the
+air out of the lungs."]
+
+"It's Ethel Brown's turn now," remonstrated Ethel Blue, but she was
+silenced by a rubber band from Roger's pocket.
+
+[Illustration: "When you move them to the side of the body again the air
+is pressed out of the lungs."]
+
+"Then one person kneels back of his head and takes hold of his arms
+between the elbow and the wrist and pulls them back along the ground
+until the hands touch above his head. This draws the air into the
+lungs, and when you move them to the sides of the body again the air is
+pressed out of the lungs just as in natural breathing."
+
+"How long do you keep it up?" asked Ethel Brown interestedly while Ethel
+Blue made silent demonstrations of disapproval.
+
+"For hours--two at least. Many a man has been resuscitated after a
+longer time. Make the movements about fifteen times a minute--that's
+pretty nearly what Nature does--and have relays of helpers. There you
+have the idea," and Roger slipped off Ethel Blue's gag, and helped her
+up.
+
+"When he really does breathe--my, he must be glad when you do get
+through with him!"--she panted; "then you begin to work on his
+circulation, I suppose."
+
+"Correct, ma'am. Rub him from his feet upward so as to drive the blood
+toward the heart and pack him around with hot water bottles and hot
+cloths. Give him some coffee to drink and put him to bed in a room with
+plenty of fresh air."
+
+"He would be tired out, I should think, after having his arms waved
+around for hours."
+
+"He is," agreed Ethel Blue.
+
+"They generally go right to sleep from exhaustion."
+
+"I'm not surprised. Personally I think I'd rather be rescued before
+these vigorous measures had to be applied to me."
+
+"The best way to rescue a person who gets over his depth is to grab him
+from behind."
+
+"So he won't grab you."
+
+[Illustration: "Throw yourself on your back. Put your arms above your
+head with the backs of the hands together."]
+
+[Illustration: "Push your legs down and as far apart as they will go.
+Bring the arms in a steady sweep down to the sides."]
+
+"Exactly. A person who thinks he's drowning loses his head and struggles
+with his rescuer and perhaps they both drown. The best way is to grasp
+his arms from behind above the elbows and put your knees in the small of
+his back. That will throw him into a position where he will float. Then
+hold his arm with your left hand and swim on your back using your right
+arm and your legs."
+
+"But I haven't learned to swim on my back."
+
+[Illustration: "Bring the legs together and forward you'll shoot." End
+of arm stroke.]
+
+"Learn how as soon as you can get on pretty well the other way. Throw
+yourself on your back and push your legs down and as far apart as they
+will go; then bring them together and forward you'll shoot. Draw them up
+to the body again, spread out, clap your heels--there you are. It's just
+like swimming on your face--"
+
+"Except that you're upside down."
+
+"You can help on by putting your arms above your head with the backs of
+the hands together and then bringing them in a steady sweep down to the
+sides. You'd better learn this; it's the thing to do when you have the
+cramp yourself as well as when the other fellow has it."
+
+"Now let us practice on you," suggested Ethel Blue.
+
+"No, you don't," replied Roger emphatically, and seizing his coat he
+made a run for liberty, escaping through the front door and slamming it
+after him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ETHEL BROWN A HEROINE
+
+
+DICKY was no longer asleep. Roger's slamming of the front door had
+roused him and after drowsily rubbing his eyes he had rolled off his cot
+and stared out of the window to see in what direction Roger was going,
+for he recognized the footsteps of the brother he admired extravagantly.
+
+Not seeing him from the front window he turned the latch of the door
+that opened on the upper porch and looked out toward Mayville.
+
+Again there was no Roger and the youngster, still only half awake,
+wandered about the room hunting for amusement. The house was perfectly
+quiet, for the Ethels, tired after their strenuous afternoon, were lying
+in the hammocks behind the house, Ethel Blue working on a new basket and
+Ethel Brown drawing a design that she hoped to develop into a stencil.
+
+Dicky's cot was in Helen's room and she had accumulated on her bureau a
+variety of souvenirs, most of which were pinned to the muslin that
+framed her dressing glass. Dicky climbed on a chair and examined them
+attentively. Most of them seemed to him quite valueless and he wondered
+that a person as grown up as Helen should want to keep them.
+
+Wandering into his mother's room his eye was attracted by a shining
+tray on which stood an alcohol lamp. A box of matches lay beside it
+ready for instant use if hot water should be needed in the night. Dicky
+had not seen the lamp in action many times and never had he had the
+privilege of lighting it. It seemed an unparalleled opportunity.
+
+Its present situation was not convenient, however. The shelf it was on
+was far too high. Still, that was easily remedied. Dragging forward a
+chair he mounted upon it, secured his prize, and then laboriously
+clambered down, breathing heavily from his exertions. Helen's bureau was
+not so high and on it he placed his treasure, kneeling in front of it on
+the chair which was still where he had left it.
+
+Careful scrutiny resolved the apparatus into its parts. On top was a
+cup. He took it off its tripod and laid it on the tray. The tripod
+underneath held in its embrace a metal container--the thing out of which
+the pretty blue flame had shot up when Mother set a match on top. Dicky
+separated these two parts and pushed one to one side of the bureau and
+one to the other.
+
+Where had the matches gone to? There they were, on the floor, and their
+rescue necessitated a scramble down and up again. They were safety
+matches and the production of a light from their unresponsive heads was
+only accomplished by accident after many attempts which strewed the
+floor with broken bits of wood.
+
+At last, Oh, joy! a flame flashed up and Dick in ecstasy slipped off the
+cover of the lamp and dropped the match into the inside. It was a
+rapturous sight. The light leaped tall and slender, and bent as a
+breath of air from the window touched it.
+
+Dicky leaned back in his seat and watched it as from an orchestra stall.
+It was the prettiest thing he had ever personally produced and he was
+proud of his handiwork.
+
+A stronger puff made a fairy dance of flame. Another puff came in from
+the door and crossed it and together they raced through the door into
+mother's room and disappeared. But they seemed to have started a small
+tempest of breezes. One after another dashed in from door and window and
+played tag and jostled the flickering light. It bent this way and that
+way and crouched back into its holder and then leaped out just in time
+to meet a slap from a bold wind that drew heavily across the room and in
+passing, sent the flame, Zip! against Helen's muslin draperies.
+
+In a second they were ablaze, shooting upward toward the ceiling. Dicky
+watched the fire, fascinated with its speed and its faint crackle as if
+it were chuckling with amusement at its own pranks.
+
+But fun never lasts very long; Dicky had found that out before. In a
+minute pieces of muslin, all turned black now, began to float down on
+him. The mirror was not so pretty as it had been, even with Helen's
+silly souvenirs on it; indeed it had a queer look now as if it was cross
+at what was going on. In fact, it cracked on one side with a noise like
+a cat spitting with rage.
+
+Dicky found himself too warm now that one of the muslin curtains from
+the window had blown over and caught a piece of the flame on its
+corner. It was nice to watch, but it was rather hot in this room and he
+was tired of it anyway. He thought he would go down stairs and see if
+the Ethels were at home.
+
+But when he turned toward the entry door it was closed and another prank
+of the wind had shut the door into Mother's room. He could not get out
+anywhere except on to the roof of the porch and that had no stairs. The
+room roared in his ears and a bit of the hot black stuff fell on his
+hand. He rushed on to the porch and screamed a strong, piercing shriek
+that sent all the blood in her body into Ethel Brown's heart when it
+reached the back of the house and her ears.
+
+With a leap she left the hammock and her drawing behind her and dashed
+into the house.
+
+"Dicky! Dicky!" she called frantically as she plunged upstairs. "Dicky!
+Dicky!"
+
+Into Mrs. Morton's room she ran and then pushed open the door into
+Helen's. A rush of smoke and flame filled her mouth and made her eyes
+smart.
+
+"Dicky!" she screamed. "Dicky! Where are you?"
+
+Chiming with the crackle of the fire she heard sobbing.
+
+"Dicky!" she cried again. "Ethel's coming. Call me again."
+
+She dropped to the floor where the smoke seemed lighter and under it she
+saw a gleam of blue--Dicky's rompers--on the porch. Creeping on her
+hands and knees she reached through the door and seized him by the
+abundant fulness of his garments. He yelled remonstrance as she tried to
+draw him back into the smoke-filled room.
+
+"It's all right," she choked. "Shut your eyes and hold your nose. Don't
+be afraid; Sister's got you," and with talk and wheedling she pulled him
+through the porch door and across the floor to the entry door. As she
+opened it the fresh draught caused a new outburst of flame. She managed
+to shut it in. She and Dicky were safe on the outside.
+
+"Run down stairs quick," she ordered Dicky; "run to James Hancock's and
+tell him the house is on fire."
+
+As she spoke a whimpering caught her ear. It came from Ethel Blue who
+was crouching on the stairs.
+
+"The house is on fire, don't you hear it?" shrieked Ethel Brown. "What's
+the matter? Can't you help? Run and call 'Fire.' Run, I say."
+
+Ethel Blue, stirred to life, disappeared, and Ethel Brown seized one of
+the hand fire extinguishers which are in every Chautauqua cottage, and
+attempted to open the door into Helen's room again. A scorching blast
+drove her back and she gave up the attempt. Thrusting her head out of
+the window she screamed "Fire," and at the same time saw Dicky running
+safely toward the Hancocks'. Even in her terror she noticed that in
+pulling him out of the burning room she had torn his ample bloomers. A
+hanging rag streamed from them as he ran.
+
+A new thought struck Ethel and she flung herself on the banisters and
+slid to the foot. When she looked from the window she had seen the red
+gleam of a fire alarm box on a tree almost in front of the house. She
+rushed to it and beat on the glass with her fists.
+
+Almost immediately the wild shriek of a siren tore the air. Footsteps
+came running from all sides. She had been glad that it happened that no
+one was at home, but she was equally glad when she saw Mary running from
+the direction of the Pier. Margaret Hancock called to her that Dicky was
+safe. Ethel waved her understanding, and seizing the hand of Ethel Blue
+who appeared from somewhere and clung timidly to her skirt she ran back
+into the house to get the silver from the dining-room.
+
+"Take this and this and this," she whispered breathlessly, piling
+Dicky's mug and a handful of forks and another of spoons into Ethel
+Blue's upheld skirt. "Here's the butter dish. It's lucky we left the tea
+set at home. Now then, take those to the Hancocks' and I'll go upstairs
+and see if I can save any of our clothes."
+
+"Oh, Ethel, I ought to go with you," whimpered Ethel Blue.
+
+"Run, I tell you," commanded Ethel Brown who found herself growing
+cooler every minute.
+
+People were coming into the house now and rushing about with chairs in
+their hands, uncertain where to set them down. A woman from the boarding
+house next door began to carry out the china and lay it on the grass,
+and Mary tossed pans out of the kitchen window and piled the wash tubs
+full of groceries for the men to move.
+
+From the lake front rose shouting and along the road came one of the
+chemical engines hauled by the bellboys of the hotel. Another rolled
+down the steep hill from the Post Office, these men struggling as hard
+to hold it back as those from the hotel were pulling. Down the same hill
+came the water hose, and yet other chemicals from the business block,
+the Book Store, wherever they were kept ready for emergencies. For a few
+minutes every man was a fire chief and every volunteer shouted commands
+which he himself was the first to disobey.
+
+But order developed in an amazingly short time. The boarding house
+between the Mortons and the Hancocks caught fire in spite of the efforts
+of a bucket brigade which tried to wet down the roof. Consternation
+reigned when a shout drew the attention of the firemen to the flaming of
+the sun-dried shingles in one corner and almost at the same moment to
+the flash of a curtain fired by a mass of cinders whirled from the
+Mortons' cottage right through an open window.
+
+It was a shout of apprehension, for if this large building went it would
+be increasingly difficult to save the houses closely crowded beyond. At
+this critical instant the honk of an automobile horn drew the crowd's
+attention. The unusual will do that even in times of stress and
+automobiles are not allowed inside the Assembly grounds.
+
+"It's Mayville! It's the Mayville hose," cried some one, and a hoarse
+cry of satisfaction went through the onlookers. Just in the nick of time
+they came, two hose wagons usually drawn by man power but now attached
+to the automobiles of two public-spirited citizens who heard the
+telephone summons and offered their cars which happened to be standing
+at the sidewalk.
+
+The salvage crew was working hard in both houses now, and the Hancocks
+thought it best to remove some of their goods and chattels in case the
+flames spread beyond the boarding house. The helpers were increased by
+the audience from the organ recital in the Amphitheatre who left the
+program unfinished at the first note of the siren. An unceasing
+procession marched from the burning and the threatened cottages to
+Miller Park bearing china and glass and furniture. Some one threw
+Grandmother Emerson's trunk out of the window. It proved not to be
+locked and its contents spurted all over the walk before the house.
+Ethel Brown saw it and stuffed clothes and books back into it and called
+to two men to take it away. Some excited person in the boarding house
+began to toss bureau drawers down from the top of the front porch. Most
+of them broke when they struck the ground but the people below gathered
+up the collars and cravats and underwear and ran with them to the Park.
+A young girl who was found wandering about the lower floor carefully
+carrying half an apple pie which she had rescued from the pantry was led
+in the same direction.
+
+Mrs. Emerson, rushing across the green from her embroidery lesson on the
+veranda of the Arcade, met Margaret Hancock tugging Dicky along in the
+direction of the lawn. He was sobbing wildly and his grandmother took
+him in her arms and sat down on a chair amid the piles of furniture to
+comfort him. From the direction of the Hall of Philosophy where they had
+been awaiting the coming of the Reading Hour came Mrs. Morton and Mr.
+Emerson, breaking into a run as they approached near enough to see that
+the fire was in the direction of their cottage. As they rushed across
+Miller Park they almost stumbled over Ethel Blue, curled up miserably on
+top of the old stump that is said to have supported many eloquent
+orators in the olden days.
+
+"Are you hurt, dear child? Quick, tell me," demanded Mrs. Morton, while
+her father ran on to the scene of action.
+
+"I'm not hurt. It's our house. I didn't help Ethel," cried the child.
+
+"Where is Ethel? Is Dicky safe?"
+
+The questions seemed to increase the child's agony.
+
+"Can't you tell me? Oh, there's Grandmother with Dicky. Stay with her.
+And--listen to me--"
+
+Her aunt seized Ethel by the arm and looked her squarely in the eyes.
+
+"You're perfectly safe here. Try to control yourself. Do whatever
+Grandmother says."
+
+But the child was too wretched to be of any assistance until Mrs.
+Emerson gave her a specified task.
+
+"Take Dicky over to the Arcade," she directed, "and keep him there. Then
+I can go and help."
+
+Ethel Blue obeyed miserably, for her very soul was ashamed of her fear.
+Her father a soldier and she this weeping, curled-up bunch of
+cowardice! She burst into tears again as she crossed the green. Dicky,
+whom Mrs. Emerson had only partially succeeded in quieting, broke into
+renewed cries and the two soon became the center of a group of women
+whose sympathy served to increase the children's demonstrations.
+
+"Poor lambs, they're frightened to death," said a cool, sweet voice, and
+a pink-cheeked, white-haired woman made her way through the throng and
+spoke to Ethel Blue.
+
+"Come in where it is quiet," she said. "Now drink this water and bathe
+your eyes and sit down here quietly. Show the little boy these
+pictures," she directed, and Ethel, having something definite to do,
+obeyed her.
+
+"I shall be just outside here if you need me. There's nothing to be
+afraid of."
+
+Back at the fire the helpers were increased by the arrival of the
+onlookers at the baseball game. They had come on the run from the lower
+end of the grounds, the two teams, the umpire, and the scorer bringing
+up the rear. Roger and James and Helen were with this crowd, and they
+dashed frantically into action when they found out what houses were
+involved. James helped the men who were recharging the chemical engines.
+Helen joined the procession carrying household goods to the Park.
+
+"Where are the children?" Roger screamed into his grandfather's ear
+above the throb of the water from the hose wagons.
+
+"There's Ethel Brown carrying those clothes. Your mother's in Miller
+Park. I don't know where the others are. I'm going in to find your
+grandmother," and while Roger rushed after Ethel to question her the old
+gentleman dashed into the burning cottage and straight up the stairs to
+his wife's room.
+
+It was only a few minutes before he was brought out again by two of the
+firemen and stretched on the beach by the lake, with a doctor from the
+crowd working over him and a nurse who had left her rest hour at the
+hospital to run to the fire, helping him give first-aid. When he
+recovered consciousness they summoned help and carried him to Miller
+Park and laid him on a mattress while the physician went back to see if
+his services were required by any other sufferers.
+
+Fortunately for Mr. Emerson's peace of mind his wife soon discovered him
+and told him of the safety of all the other members of the family.
+
+It was almost dark when the "All out" signal sounded from the
+fire-house, and the Mortons began to think of where they should spend
+the night. Offers of shelter were plentiful both to them and to the
+boarders, but Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Emerson accepted Mrs. Hancock's
+offer. The Hancocks owned the cottage on the other side of the one the
+Mortons had been occupying. By good luck, it seemed now, it had not been
+let for the summer, and by greater good luck it had come out of the fire
+unscathed, thanks to the direction of the wind. It was furnished and
+ready for use, and Mrs. Hancock and Margaret and James busied
+themselves carrying over bedding and towels and table linen. Roger and
+several neighbors bore Mr. Emerson from the Park on his mattress and
+established him in a comfortable lower bedroom. Ethel Blue and Dicky
+were found by Mrs. Morton in the art store and brought home. Helen was
+sent to the Indiana Cottage to order supper sent in, for Mary's
+department would not be in order until the next day.
+
+Every member of the family was accounted for when the Director of the
+Institution stopped at the porch to see if he could do anything for
+their comfort.
+
+"This young woman is a heroine," he said, patting Ethel Brown's
+shoulder. "I watched her all through and she behaved like a grown
+woman."
+
+Ethel Brown, her skirt torn, her blouse smoke-begrimed and her face
+dirty, smiled at him shyly, and murmured "Thank you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DOROTHY COOKS
+
+
+DOROTHY and her mother had a room in a house near the trolley gate. When
+they had first come to Chautauqua the year before a sign in front of the
+house had attracted their attention. It read:
+
+           --------------
+          | LIGHT HOUSE  |
+          |   KEEPING    |
+          |  PERMITTED   |
+           --------------
+
+Light housekeeping was just what Mrs. Smith wanted to do, so she made
+inquiries and was able to complete arrangements so satisfactory that she
+went to the same place when she returned for this second summer.
+
+There were several reasons why she did not want to go to a boarding
+house. In the first place she wanted to have her expenses as small as
+possible, and in the next she wanted to teach Dorothy something about
+cooking, for she believed that every girl ought to know something of
+this important branch of home-making and in the wandering life they had
+led it had not always been possible for them to live otherwise than in a
+boarding house.
+
+"You can take the domestic science work at the Girls' Club," she had
+said, "and then we can have our little home here and you can apply your
+knowledge for our own benefit."
+
+So well had this plan worked and so competent had Dorothy become in
+simple cooking that this summer she was specializing in cooking for
+invalids.
+
+"It's mighty lucky I took the invalids' cooking," she exclaimed as her
+mother came in from the art store at noon the day after the fire, and
+sat down to the nice little dinner that Dorothy had prepared.
+
+"It's one of the things that may be valuable to you in many ways and at
+any time."
+
+"It's valuable now. Have I told you about my friends at the Girls' Club,
+two cousins, both named Ethel Morton?"
+
+"Morton? What are their fathers' names? Where do they live?" said Mrs.
+Smith, speaking more quickly than was usual with her.
+
+"I don't know their fathers' names--their fathers aren't here."
+
+"Oh!" Mrs. Smith leaned back in her chair as if she were especially
+weary.
+
+"They live in the cottage that was burned yesterday."
+
+"They do! I wonder, then, if it wasn't one of them that brought a little
+boy to the art store while the fire was going on."
+
+"Did she call him Dicky?"
+
+"Yes, Dicky."
+
+"Did the girl have blue eyes or brown?"
+
+"I didn't notice--or, yes, I believe I did--they were blue."
+
+"That was Ethel Blue, then. They call the other one Ethel Brown to tell
+them apart. This morning they didn't come to the club because they had
+so much to do to put their new cottage in order, but Ethel Brown ran in
+just for a minute to ask me if I could cook some special things for her
+grandfather while he was sick. He was hurt yesterday at the fire."
+
+"Oh, poor man."
+
+"It's not very serious, Ethel Brown says, only he's bruised and he
+swallowed a lot of smoke and he can't eat what the rest of them do."
+
+"Haven't they a maid?"
+
+"They only have one here, and she has been Dicky's nurse until a little
+while ago, and he got so scared yesterday that he's almost sick to-day
+and keeps calling for Mary all the time. So Mrs. Morton is cooking for
+the family and she can't manage to do special things for her father."
+
+"Do they want you to go there?"
+
+"The kitchen is too small. That's why the grandmother or the older
+sister doesn't do it. They want me to make broths and jellies and things
+at home here and take them down there."
+
+"You must do your very best, dear. It will be a splendid chance for you
+to take such a responsibility."
+
+"The doctor says Mr. Emerson is to have chicken broth and toast at three
+o'clock, so I went to their house after the club and got a tray and a
+small bowl and some plates, and then stopped at the meat market on the
+way home, so the broth is started now."
+
+She waved her hand toward the corner of the room where the low-turned
+flame of a gas plate was causing a soft simmering in a large saucepan.
+
+"You put the chicken in cold water, didn't you, to draw the goodness
+out?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. I cut up the chicken and cracked the bones so that all
+that inside goodness wouldn't be wasted. A quart and a pint of water
+covered it well and it's going to stay on until the meat all falls to
+pieces. That will be about three hours from the time I put it on."
+
+"Are you going to put rice in it?"
+
+"I'm going to take down the rice in a separate little bowl this time
+because I don't know whether Mr. Emerson likes rice."
+
+"Be sure you don't over-cook it. Every grain should be separate."
+
+"I learned the very simplest way to cook rice. Wash it and put it into
+boiling salted water, a quart of water to a cupful of rice. Putting the
+rice in will stop the boiling, so when it boils up again you give it
+just one stir to keep the kernels from sticking to the bottom of the
+saucepan. You mustn't stir it any more or you'll break the grains. It
+will be done in about twenty minutes. Then you pour it lightly into a
+colander and turn it lightly from the colander into your serving dish,
+and there you are, every grain separate."
+
+"If you save the rice water it serves as a vegetable stock for a soup."
+
+"Our teacher told us a story about the value of rice water. It was in a
+famine time in India and some of the natives went to the English and
+said that if they could have the water the camp rice was cooked in they
+wouldn't ask for anything else."
+
+"They knew how strong and good it is. Mr. Emerson won't want more than a
+cupful of chicken broth this afternoon--what are you going to do with
+the rest of it?"
+
+"One gill of it will make chicken custard with the beaten yolks of two
+eggs and a pinch of salt. You cook it in a double boiler until it is
+thick."
+
+"That ought to taste good and be nourishing, too."
+
+"I shall put on another gill of the broth, with a teaspoonful of Irish
+moss if I can find the kind that is prepared in powder form. After that
+has boiled about fifteen minutes I shall strain it through a piece of
+cheesecloth into a cup and when it has stiffened and I'm ready to serve
+it, I'll turn it out on a pretty little plate and lay a sprig of parsley
+on top."
+
+"That will just about use up the broth from one chicken."
+
+"I can give Mr. Emerson a variety by making mutton broth. A quart of
+cold water to a pound of meat is the right proportion, and then you make
+it just like chicken broth."
+
+"You mustn't forget to trim off all the fat you can before you put it
+in, and to skim off any bubbles of fat that rise to the top."
+
+"I shan't make any beef tea unless they ask for it especially, because
+the doctors say nowadays that there isn't much nourishment in it, it's
+just stimulating. I shall give my patient cereals and porridges made
+exactly according to the directions that are on the boxes."
+
+"A thoroughly baked white potato served piping hot is delicious. Break
+it open at the last minute and put into it a dab of butter and a
+teaspoon of cream and a wee bit of salt, and a dash of pepper if your
+patient can stand pepper. A baked potato goes well with a broiled breast
+of chicken."
+
+"If this 'case' of mine lasts long enough so that I have to make more
+chicken broth I shall cut off the breast before I cut up the chicken for
+the broth."
+
+"Broil it until it is quite brown, and after you have put it on a warm
+plate ready to serve, add a tiny dab of butter and a little salt. Do the
+same with a lamb chop, and be sure that every bit of meat except the
+choice mouthful or two is cut away before you cook it."
+
+"I shan't let the butcher trim it, though. Those bits that come off help
+out in a soup."
+
+"Tapioca jelly is something you must try for one of your invalid's
+desserts."
+
+"The doctor said he must have fruits mostly, but I'd like to try the
+tapioca once."
+
+"Take half a cupful of tapioca and two cupfuls of water, the juice and a
+little of the grated rind of half a lemon, and a teaspoonful of sugar.
+Soak the tapioca in the water for four hours. Stir in the sugar just as
+you put it all in the double boiler. Cook it for about three-quarters
+of an hour. You should stir it often and it ought to be perfectly clear
+when it is done. Stir in the lemon at the last minute and then pour it
+into cups or molds."
+
+"That sounds good to me. I think I'll try it for our own dessert some
+day."
+
+"When you make toast always be careful to cut your slices of bread all
+of the same thickness and to cut off the crusts. Then warm the slices
+first and afterwards brown them delicately. When you make milk toast
+butter the slices and sprinkle on a few grains of salt and then pour
+over them a cupful of boiling milk thickened with half a teaspoonful of
+flour. Do it carefully. It is care about little things that makes a dish
+palatable for an invalid, you must remember."
+
+"Della Watkins gave me some flowers to-day, so I shall have one to put
+on the waiter."
+
+"I want to tell you, dear, why I am especially glad that you are having
+this opportunity to show that you can put your knowledge into actual
+practice."
+
+"I did last winter when I made the baskets for Christmas."
+
+"You did wonderfully. You've noticed that I am always advising you to
+learn things that will be valuable to you. I mean valuable in a money
+way as well as in giving pleasure to yourself and others."
+
+Dorothy curled up in her mother's lap and made a soft hum of assent.
+
+"The reason I've done that is because I've seen our little stock of
+money growing smaller and smaller all the time. Last winter I didn't
+make quite enough at the art store to support us both, and I had to draw
+on our principal in spite of your doing so splendidly with your
+baskets."
+
+"But this summer you're all right, aren't you?"
+
+"This summer I am meeting our expenses, but I'm not laying by a penny,
+and when the season ends here I don't know where we shall go or what I
+can do. So you see that every cent you are able to make is a great
+help."
+
+"If I prepare these things all right for Ethel's grandfather I won't be
+scared if I have a chance to do it again."
+
+"Certainly you won't. Every success gives confidence."
+
+"We might start a kitchen somewhere in an especially unhealthy
+neighborhood and I could make invalids' stuff all the time at a hundred
+dollars a tray."
+
+Mrs. Smith laughed.
+
+"That's not such a bad idea," she agreed. "At any rate we must always
+have faith that work of some sort will be given to us. It hasn't failed
+as yet, even when things looked pretty bad."
+
+"There was a postcard in the picture booth in the pergola the other day
+that said, HAVE FAITH AND HUSTLE."
+
+"That's good advice. _Prudence_ without worry and _energy_ without
+scatteration of mind and _faith_ woven into it all; that's my gospel."
+
+After her mother had gone, Dorothy took out a pad and pencil and made a
+list of broths and dishes which she already knew how to make and
+another that she meant to ask her cooking teacher about. She knew that
+she had only to tell her teacher that she was putting her information
+into actual practice and she would have all the help that she needed.
+She wanted to rely on herself as much as she could, however.
+
+If there was just a shade of doubt in the back of her mind about the
+success of her cooking it was gone when she went in to Mr. Emerson's
+room to take away the tray after he had finished his first meal of her
+preparation.
+
+"Perfectly delicious, child," he whispered hoarsely, for his throat was
+still sore. "I shall want to be a king and engage you for my personal
+cook even after I get well. I think I can tackle another of those
+excellent combinations of yours in about four hours."
+
+Dorothy was delighted and for the whole of the busiest week of her life
+she worked hard not only to have her cooking delicious, but to have the
+trays attractive. She never used the same cup and saucer twice in
+succession; at the shop in the business block she found funny little
+jelly molds for a few cents apiece, and Mr. Emerson never failed to
+notice that to-day he had a miniature jelly rabbit and the next day a
+tiny jelly watermelon.
+
+Mrs. Hancock let her forage in her china closet and she found there
+bowls of many patterns, the odds and ends of the home china sent here
+for summer use.
+
+"They're exactly what I want," Dorothy cried and went off with them in
+triumph. There was always a bit of parsley or watercress or a tender
+leaf of lettuce with the first part of the meal and a posy with the
+dessert.
+
+"I want especially to thank you for one care you've taken," said Mr.
+Emerson on the day when he regretfully dismissed his cook with a roll of
+crisp bills in her capable hand. "I want to thank you for always having
+the hot things _really hot_ and the cold things _really cold_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE SPELLING MATCH
+
+
+THE evening of the Annual Spelling Match was one of those when the whole
+Emerson-Morton family down to Dicky went to the Amphitheatre. Usually
+Mary or one of the older members of the family stayed at home with the
+children. On this occasion, however, Mr. Emerson had announced that he
+intended to take part in the match so everybody was eager to be present
+to encourage him.
+
+The Amphitheatre was fuller than they had seen it yet when they reached
+it and made their way as far forward as possible so that they might hear
+all that was said.
+
+"Evidently this is popular," remarked Mr. Emerson to his daughter as he
+took his seat next to her, placing himself at the end of the bench so
+that he could get into the aisle quickly when the time came. There
+seemed to be an unusual spirit of gayety in the audience, they thought,
+for many people were being playfully urged by their friends to go up on
+to the stage, and others who had made up their minds to go were being
+coached by their companions who were giving out words from the C.L.S.C.
+books for them to practice on.
+
+A short flight of steps had been arranged at the front of the platform
+on which two rows of chairs were placed ready for the contestants. At
+the back a large table was loaded with heavy dictionaries for the use of
+the judges who were to decide any questions of doubt.
+
+A burst of applause greeted the Director of the Institution as he walked
+forward and introduced the announcer of words, a college president.
+After giving a short history of the Annual Spelling Match, which dated
+back to the early days of the Assembly, he announced that the contest of
+the evening was to be between representatives of New York, Pennsylvania,
+and Ohio on one side and the Rest of the World on the other.
+
+Amid the laughter that followed the announcement Helen whispered to
+Margaret who sat next to her--
+
+"Why New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio?"
+
+"They send more people here than any of the other states. You ought to
+see them stand up on Old First Night! There are hordes of them."
+
+The Director went on to state the rules that were to govern the
+contestants. They must be over fifteen years old. They might ask to have
+a word pronounced again but they could have only one chance to spell it.
+A spelling was to be accepted as correct if it were confirmed by any of
+the dictionaries on the stage--Worcester, Webster, the Standard, and the
+Century. The judges were professors from the faculty of the Summer
+Schools and their decision was to be final. No one who had taken a prize
+in previous years might enter. Lastly, a ten dollar gold piece was to
+add an extra inducement to enter the contest and to give an extra
+pleasure to the winner.
+
+"Now," he concluded, "will the gladiators come forward, stating as they
+step on the platform on which side they are to fight."
+
+There was a moment's pause until a courageous few advanced to the front.
+The Director announced their partisanship. They were all, as it
+happened, from New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio and they sat down on the
+chairs at the right of the audience.
+
+The next detachment added two to their number and half a dozen to the
+other side. Mr. Emerson was in the next group to go forward.
+
+"There's my mother behind your grandfather," whispered Dorothy, who was
+between the two Ethels. They saw a slender woman with a mass of
+snow-white hair piled above a fresh face.
+
+"It's the lady who took care of Dicky and me the day of the fire," cried
+Ethel Blue.
+
+Bursts of applause greeted people who were well known. The editor of a
+newspaper in a near-by town was one of these favored ones and a teacher
+of stenography was another. Between the detachments the Director cheered
+on the laggards with humorous remarks, and after each joke there was
+sure to be heard from one part of the Amphitheatre or another a loudly
+whispered "You go" followed by a shrinking, "Oh, no, you go!"
+
+At last all the Tri-state chairs were filled while there remained two
+vacant places on the side of the Rest of the World.
+
+"It looks as if the Rest of the World was afraid to stand up against New
+York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio," exclaimed the Director. "This can't be
+true!"
+
+There was another pause and then two women rose at the same time. They
+were received by a hearty round of clapping.
+
+"Do you see who it is? Roger, Roger, do you see?" cried Helen, leaning
+across Margaret to touch her brother's knee.
+
+"Good for her. Isn't she the spunky mother!" answered Roger, while at
+the same moment Margaret and James were exclaiming, "Why, there's our
+mother, too, going up with yours!"
+
+So the two brave little ladies took the last two seats for the defence
+of the Rest of the World and the announcer began to give out the words
+to the waiting fifty.
+
+It took only a minute to bring trouble, for a Tri-state woman went down
+on "typographical." Others followed in rapid succession, every failure
+being as heartily applauded as every success. By the time that a girl
+misspelled "ebullitions" only seven representatives of the Rest of the
+World were left. A Kentuckian who had overpowered some giants was beaten
+by "centripetal"; Grandfather Emerson's omission of a "p" in
+"handicapped," Mrs. Morton's desperate but unavailing struggle with the
+"l's" in "unparalleled," and Mrs. Hancock's insertion of an undesirable
+"e" in "judgment" reduced the ranks of both sides to a brave pair of
+Tri-states faced by a solitary cosmopolitan.
+
+"It's Mother, it's Mother," whispered Dorothy, clapping frantically,
+while the two Ethels told everybody near them, "It's Dorothy's mother.
+Isn't she splendid!"
+
+"Correlation" and "exhilaration" were the bombs whose explosion swept
+away the last of the Tri-state forces, and Dorothy's mother stood alone,
+the winner of the prize.
+
+"That was Dorothy's mother who took the prize," repeated Ethel Brown in
+high spirits to her grandmother as she took her arm to pilot her home.
+
+"Dorothy's mother! Why, that is the Mrs. Smith who is my embroidery
+teacher at the art store."
+
+"It is! How lovely for you to know Dorothy's mother. Ethel, Granny knows
+Dorothy's mother. She teaches her embroidery," called Ethel to her
+cousin.
+
+"Don't you know Dorothy said her mother was teaching embroidery in an
+art store in Illinois last winter? Oh, I almost want to learn from her
+myself."
+
+"Stick to your stenciling, child," said Mrs. Morton. "Does Dorothy
+embroider?"
+
+"We don't know; we'll ask her," cried the two girls in chorus, and Ethel
+Brown added; "she makes ten kinds of baskets, and this year she's doing
+stenciling in my class, and her mother says that if she does it as well
+as she did the baskets, she can study next year at the Arts and Crafts
+Shops with the grown people."
+
+"She must have inherited her mother's clever fingers," commented Mrs.
+Morton.
+
+Roger and Helen, who had been walking with James and Margaret, stopped
+at their house and sat on the porch to round out this privileged evening
+until ten o'clock. The moonlight shone brilliantly on the lake and at
+its upper end, two or three miles away, the lights of Mayville twinkled
+through the trees. Boats and canoes were drawing in toward the shore,
+for Chautauqua custom demands that every one be at home by ten o'clock,
+and that quiet reign so that the people who have studying to do or are
+obliged to rise early for their classes and so must go to bed early may
+not be disturbed.
+
+Some of the boats landed at the dock just below the Hancocks' house and
+their occupants stepped on the wet planks with happy shrieks of
+laughter; others went on to the lower dock in front of the hotel.
+
+"It always says in books that moonlight is romantic," said Roger. "I
+don't see where the romance comes in; it's just easier to see your way
+round."
+
+There were cries of protest from the two girls.
+
+"Girls always howl when you say a thing like that," went on Roger, "as
+if a fellow was a hard-hearted fool, but I'd like to have you tell me
+where there is any romance in real life--any outside of books, I mean."
+
+He stared challengingly at James as if he expected him either to
+support him or to contradict him, but James was a slow thinker and said
+nothing. Helen rushed in breathlessly.
+
+"It's just the way you put things together. If you want to look at it
+that way there are things happening all the time that would look
+romantic in a story."
+
+"What, I'd like to know," demanded Roger. "Tell just one thing."
+
+"Why--why--" Helen hesitated, trying to put her feelings into words;
+"why, take to-night when Grandmother found out that it was Dorothy's
+mother she had been taking embroidery lessons from. Somehow that seems
+to me romantic--to know one person and to know another person and then
+to find that they are relations."
+
+Helen ended rather lamely, for Roger was shouting with laughter.
+
+"That sounds mighty commonplace to me," he roared.
+
+"It would sound all right if a writer worked it up in a book." James
+suddenly came to Helen's rescue to her great gratification. "We've got a
+romance in our family," he went on.
+
+"We have!" cried Margaret. "What is it?"
+
+"Perhaps it wouldn't seem like one to Roger," went on James, "but it
+always seemed to me it was romantic because it was different from the
+way things happen every day, and there was a chance for a surprise in
+it."
+
+"I know what you mean," cried Margaret. "Great-uncle George."
+
+"Yes," acknowledged James. "He was our father's uncle and he was a young
+man at the time of the Civil War. Fathers were sterner then than they
+are now and Uncle George's father--Dad's grandfather--insisted that he
+should go into a certain kind of business that he didn't like. They had
+some fierce quarrels and Uncle George ran off to the war and they never
+heard from him again."
+
+"Didn't he ever write home?"
+
+"They never got any letter from him," said Margaret. "His mother always
+blamed herself that she didn't write to him over and over again, even if
+she didn't get any answer, so that he would know that somebody kept on
+loving him and looking for him to come back. But Great-grandfather
+forbade her to, and I guess she must have been meeker than women are
+now, just as Great-grandfather was stricter."
+
+"Father says," went on James, "that all through his boyhood he used to
+hope that his uncle would turn up, perhaps awfully rich or perhaps with
+adventures to tell about. Now I call that romantic, don't you, old man?"
+ended James defiantly.
+
+"Seems to me it would have been if he had turned up, but he didn't,"
+retorted Roger, determined not to yield.
+
+"We have a disappearance story in our family, too," said Helen. "I'd
+forgotten it. It's nearer than yours; it's our own aunt. Don't you
+remember, Roger? Mother told us about it, once."
+
+"That's so; so we have. Now that _is_ romantic," asserted Roger.
+
+"Let's hear it and see if it beats ours," said James.
+
+"It was our Aunt Louise, Father's and Uncle Richard's sister. She was
+older than they. She fell in love with a man her father didn't like."
+
+"Ho," grunted James; "that's why you think your story is
+romantic--because there's some love in it."
+
+"It does make it more romantic, of course," declared Margaret, going
+over to the other side.
+
+"He was a musician and Grandfather Morton didn't think music was a man's
+business. People used to be funny about things like that you know."
+
+"That was because musicians and painters used to go round with long hair
+looking like jays." So James summed up the causes of the previous
+generation's dislike of the masters of the arts.
+
+"I don't know whether Aunt Louise's musician was long on hair or not,
+but he was short on cash all right," Roger took up the story.
+"Grandfather said he couldn't support a wife and Aunt Louise said she'd
+take the chance, and so they ran away."
+
+"She had more sand than sense, seems to me--if you'll excuse my
+commenting on your aunt," said James.
+
+"She had plenty of sand. She must have found out pretty soon that
+Grandfather was right, but she wouldn't ask for help or come home again,
+and after a while they didn't hear from her any more and now nobody
+knows where she is."
+
+"I'm like your father, James," said Helen; "I always feel that some time
+she may turn up and tell us her adventures."
+
+"She must have been very brave and very loyal," murmured Margaret. "What
+did she look like? Was she pretty?"
+
+"I haven't any idea. Mother never saw her. She left home before Mother
+and Father were married."
+
+"Father spoke to me about her once," said Roger gravely.
+
+"Did he really?" cried Helen. "Mother told me he hadn't mentioned her
+for years, it hurt him so to lose her."
+
+"He told me she was the finest girl he ever knew except Mother, and he
+thought Grandfather made a mistake in not helping the fellow along and
+then letting Aunt Louise marry him. You see he sort of drove her into it
+by opposing her."
+
+"Wouldn't it be great if both our relatives should turn up," cried
+Helen. "I suppose your uncle is too old now, even if he's alive, but our
+aunt really may."
+
+"Then Roger'll have to admit that there's romance in real life."
+
+"There are the chimes; we must go," said Roger as "Annie Laurie" pealed
+out on the fresh evening air, and the Morton brother and sister said
+"Good-night" to the Hancock sister and brother and went down the path to
+their own cottage where Roger left Helen and then went on up the hill to
+his room in the Hall of Pedagogy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GRANDFATHER ARRANGES HIS TIME
+
+
+The Mortons breakfasted rather later than most people at Chautauqua.
+This was on Roger's account. He had to put his building into perfect
+order before the classes began to assemble at eight in the morning. He
+always did some of his sweeping the afternoon before after the students
+had left the Hall, but there was plenty of work for him in the early
+hour after he had reluctantly rolled off his cot. He had grown up with
+the Navy and Army ideals of extreme neatness, and experience was
+teaching him now that if he expected to have the rooms as tidy as his
+father would want to see them he must go to bed early and rise not long
+after the sun poked his rosy head over the edge of the lake.
+
+"Nix on sitting up to hear the chimes," he confided to the family at
+breakfast the morning after the Spelling Match. "Last night's the first
+time I've heard them in a week. That room is worth a lot to me just for
+the feeling it's giving me that I'm earning it, and I'm going to pay
+good honest work for it if it busts me."
+
+"'Bust' means, I suppose, if you have to go to bed early and work till
+almost eight in the morning to do it," translated his mother. "You're
+quite right, my dear; that's what your father would want you to do. And
+none of us here have eight o'clock classes so we can just as well as not
+have our breakfast at eight and have the pleasure of seeing you here
+opposite me."
+
+Ever since he was a little boy Roger had sat in his father's seat when
+Lieutenant Morton was on duty. He felt that it was a privilege and that
+because of it he represented the head of the family and must shoulder
+some of his father's responsibilities. It made his behavior toward his
+mother and sisters and Ethel Blue and Dicky far more grown-up than that
+of most boys of his age, and his mother depended on him as few mothers
+except those in similar positions depend on sons of Roger's age.
+
+Every time that Helen heard Roger mention his room she was stirred again
+with the desire that had filled her on the first day when Jo Sampson had
+offered it to him. She told herself over and over that she was doing as
+much as Roger, for since they only had one maid and Mary was busy all
+the time with the work necessary for so large a family, Helen waited on
+the table. She earned her meals by doing that just as much as if she
+were doing it in one of the boarding houses. Yet it did not seem to her
+just the same. She did not really want to wait on table in one of the
+boarding houses; she would have been frightened to death to do it, she
+thought, although she had been long enough at Chautauqua to see many
+nice young teachers and college girls in the boarding cottages and at
+the hotel and in the restaurant, and if they were not frightened, why
+should she be? Perhaps they were and didn't show it. Perhaps it was
+because it would take courage for her to attempt it that she wanted to
+so much. Whatever the reason, she could not seem to rid her mind of the
+idea that it would be delightful to earn money or its equivalent. This
+morning Roger's talk about his room roused her again.
+
+"Mother," she said, "Margaret Hancock is going to take sewing from the
+teacher in the Hall of Pedagogy. Do you think I might, too?"
+
+"What kind of sewing, dear? Embroidery?"
+
+"No, Mother dear; it's the purely domestic variety; plain sewing and
+buttonholes and shirtwaists and middy blouses and how to hang a skirt,
+if I get so far along. Don't you think I'd be a more useful girl if I
+knew how to do some of those things?"
+
+"You're a useful daughter now, dear; but I think it would be a splendid
+thing for you to learn just the kind of sewing that we need in the
+family."
+
+"That every family needs," corrected Helen.
+
+The mother looked closely at her daughter.
+
+"Yes," she assented.
+
+Helen had a plan in her mind and she had not meant to tell her mother
+until the sewing class had proved a success and she had learned to do
+all the things she had mentioned, but she was straightforward and she
+could not resist sharing her secret with Mrs. Morton.
+
+"I meet so many girls here who are doing something to pay for their
+holiday, just the way those porters who brought our things down the
+first morning are, that I'm just crazy to do something, too," she
+explained breathlessly. "It seemed to me that if I learned how to do the
+kind of sewing that everybody must have I could get some work to do here
+and make some money."
+
+Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Emerson looked at each other in amazement. Neither
+spoke for a moment.
+
+"Why do you need more money, dear? You have your allowance."
+
+"I have plenty of money for all I need; what I want is to feel
+independent. I don't like to feel that I am a drag on Father and not a
+help."
+
+"But Father is glad to pay for your living, dear. Just the fact that he
+has a big, loving daughter is enough return for him."
+
+"I know, Father's a darling. I know he's glad to pay for Roger's
+education, too, but when Roger earns his room you think it's perfectly
+fine and when I want to do the same thing you seem to think I'm wanting
+to do something horrid."
+
+Helen was nearly in tears and the fact that her mother made no reply did
+not calm her. Mr. Emerson shook his head slowly.
+
+"It's in the air, my dear," he said to Mrs. Morton.
+
+"You're partly right, Helen," said Mrs. Morton at last. "Since Roger is
+a boy we expect him to earn his living as soon as he is prepared to do
+so. We should not want him to do it now because his duty now is to
+secure his education and to make himself strong and well so that he'll
+be a vigorous and intelligent man. We had not thought of your earning
+your living outside your home, but if you want to prepare yourself to do
+so you may. I'm sure your father would have no objection if you selected
+a definite occupation of which he and I approved and fitted yourself to
+fill it well. But he would object to your taxing your strength by
+working now just as he would object to Roger's doing the same thing."
+
+"But you're pleased when Roger earns his room and you seem to think it
+funny when I want to," repeated Helen.
+
+"Perhaps you are right, dear. It must be because Roger is a boy and so
+we like to see him turning naturally to being useful and busy just as he
+must be all the time in a few years."
+
+"But why can't I?"
+
+"I have no objection to your learning how to sew this summer, certainly,
+if that will satisfy you; and if you'll learn how to make the Ethels'
+middy blouses and Dicky's little suits and rompers, I'll be glad to pay
+you for them just as I pay a sewing woman at home for making them."
+
+"Oh, Mother," almost sobbed Helen, "that will be good; only," she nodded
+after a pause, "it won't help Father a bit. The money ought to come out
+of somebody else's pocket, not his."
+
+"That's true," admitted Mrs. Morton, "but I should have to pay some one
+to do the work, so why not you? Unless, of course, you wanted to help
+Father by contributing your work."
+
+"That sounds as if I didn't want to help Father or I'd do it for
+nothing," exclaimed Helen. "I do really want to help Father, but I want
+to do it by relieving Father of spending money for me. I'd like to pay
+my board!"
+
+"This generation doesn't seem to understand family co-operation," said
+Grandfather Emerson.
+
+"I do want to co-operate," insisted Helen. "I just said I'd like to pay
+my board and co-operate by contributing to the family expenses in that
+way. What I don't want is to have any work I do taken for granted just
+as if we were still pioneers in the wilderness when every member of the
+family had to give the labor of his hands. I'm willing to work--I'm
+trying to induce Mother to let me work--but I want a definite value put
+on it just as there will be a definite value put on Roger's work when he
+gets started. I'd like to make the middy blouses for the Ethels and have
+Mother pay me what they were worth, and then pay Mother for my board.
+Then I should feel that I was really earning my living. That's the way
+Roger will do when he's earning a salary. Why shouldn't I do it?"
+
+Helen stopped, breathless. She was too young to realize it, but it was
+the cry of her time that she was trying to express--the cry of the woman
+to be considered as separate as the man, to be an individual.
+
+"I understand," said Mrs. Morton soothingly; "but suppose you begin in
+the way I suggest; and meanwhile we'll put our minds on what you will do
+after you leave college. There are a good many years yet before you need
+actually to go out into the world."
+
+"Then I may go this morning and arrange for my lessons?"
+
+"Certainly you may."
+
+"And--and I'm sorry I've done all the talking this morning," apologized
+Helen. "I'm afraid it hasn't been a very pleasant breakfast."
+
+"A very interesting one," said Mr. Emerson. "It shows that every
+generation has to be handled differently from the last one," he nodded
+to his daughter.
+
+"Nobody has ever been up on the hill to see my room--if Helen will
+excuse my mentioning it," said Roger.
+
+Helen flushed.
+
+"Don't make fun of me, Roger. You do what you want to and it's all right
+and I want to do the same thing and it's all wrong," burst out Helen
+once more.
+
+"There, dear, we don't want to hear it all again. Go and arrange for
+your lessons and as soon as you can make good blouses I'd like to have a
+dozen for the Ethels."
+
+"You're a duck, Mother," and Helen ran out of the room, smiling, though
+with a feeling that she did not quite understand it all. And well she
+might be puzzled, for what she was struggling with has puzzled wiser
+heads than hers, and is one of the new problems that has been brought us
+by the twentieth century.
+
+"I'll walk up with you to see your room, Roger," offered Mr. Emerson,
+"if you're sure I can go without blundering into some class."
+
+"I'll steer you O.K. Come on, sir," cried Roger and he and his
+grandfather left the cottage as Mrs. Emerson started for her nine
+o'clock class in the Hall of Christ to be followed by the ten o'clock
+Devotional Hour and the eleven o'clock lecture in the Amphitheatre.
+There she would be joined by Mrs. Morton, who went every morning at nine
+to the Woman's Club in the Hall of Philosophy, and then to a ten o'clock
+French class. Up to the time of the fire the Ethels had escorted Dicky
+to the kindergarten and had then run on to the Girls' Club.
+
+Roger and his grandfather strolled northward along the shore of the lake
+talking about Helen.
+
+"I understand exactly how she feels," said Roger, "because I should feel
+exactly the same way if you people expected me to do what you expect her
+to do."
+
+"But she's a girl," remonstrated Mr. Emerson.
+
+"I guess girls nowadays are different from girls in your day,
+Grandfather," said Roger wisely. "We were talking last night at the
+Hancocks' about fathers one or two generations ago--how savage they were
+compared with fathers to-day."
+
+"Savage!" repeated Mr. Emerson under his breath.
+
+"Wasn't your father more severe to his children than you ever were to
+yours?" persisted Roger.
+
+"Perhaps he was," admitted the old gentleman slowly.
+
+"And I'm sure Father is much easier on me than his father was on him
+although Father expects a sort of service discipline from me,"
+continued Roger.
+
+"May be so," agreed his hearer.
+
+"Just in the same way I believe girls are changing. They used to be
+content to think what the rest of the family thought on most things. If
+they ever 'bucked' at all it was when they fell in love with some man
+the stern parent didn't approve of, and then they were doing something
+frightful if they insisted on having their own way, like Aunt Louise
+Morton."
+
+"Surely you don't think she did right to run off!"
+
+"I'm sorry she did it, but I believe if she had been reasoned with
+instead of ordered, and if Grandfather Morton had tried to see the best
+in the man she was in love with instead of booting him out as if he were
+a burglar, it might have come out differently."
+
+"Perhaps it might. Personally I believe in every one's exercising his
+own judgment."
+
+"And I tell you the girls nowadays have plenty of it," asserted Roger.
+"I know lots of girls; there are twenty of them in my class at the high
+school and I don't see but they're just as sensible as we boys and most
+of them are a heap smarter in their lessons."
+
+"Helen seems to think as you do, at any rate."
+
+"I'm going to stand up for Helen," declared Roger. "I'll be out of
+college a couple of years before she is and if she wants to study
+anything special or do anything special I'll surely help her to it."
+
+"Your father's not likely to object to anything that she will want to
+do."
+
+"Probably not, only," returned Roger hesitating, "perhaps dear old Dad
+will need a little education himself after being in Mexico and suchlike
+foreign parts for so long."
+
+The path which they were following ran along the top of a bank that rose
+abruptly from the water. On the other side of the roadway were pretty
+cottages rather larger than most of those at Chautauqua.
+
+"In this house we're passing," said Roger, "there lives the grandest
+sight in Chautauqua. I see him almost every time I go by. Look, there he
+is now."
+
+_He_ was a bull dog of enormous head and fiercest visage, his nose
+pushed back, his teeth protruding, his legs bowed. Belying his war-like
+aspect he was harnessed to a child's express wagon which was loaded with
+milk cans and baskets.
+
+"Isn't that a great old outfit!" exclaimed Roger. "He goes to market
+every morning as solemn as a judge. His name is Cupid."
+
+"Ha, ha! Cupid!" laughed Mr. Emerson.
+
+The dog's master held a leash fastened to his harness and the strong
+creature tugged him along so fast that he almost had to run to keep up.
+
+"You see 'everybody works' at Chautauqua, even the dogs."
+
+"And I must say they all seem to like it, even Cupid," added Mr.
+Emerson.
+
+Turning away from the lake they walked up the hill to a grove behind
+which rose the walls of a hall and of several school buildings.
+
+"Over to the right is the Hall of Pedagogy where your affectionate
+grandson wields the broom and smears the dustrag, and the building
+beyond is the College. They aren't especially handsome either inside or
+out but they are as busy as beehives. Listen to that hum? I tell you
+they just naturally hustle for culture up at this end of the grounds!"
+
+"What's this we're coming out on?"
+
+"The Arts and Crafts Studios. Not bad, are they? Sort of California
+Mission effect with those low white pillars. This place beats the others
+in the busy bee business. They hum in the mornings but the Arts and
+Crafts people are at it all day long. Come along and look in; they keep
+the windows open on purpose."
+
+Nothing loath, Mr. Emerson went up the ascending path and on to the
+brick walk behind the pillars. First they peered into a room devoted to
+the making of lace, but neither of them felt drawn to this essentially
+feminine occupation. Then they passed drawing and painting studios where
+teachers of drawing and painting were taught how to teach better. In a
+hall in the centre they found a blackboard drawing that was as well done
+as many a painting, but Mr. Emerson's interest began really to grow when
+they came to the next departments. Here they found looms, some of them
+old-fashioned and some of them new, but all worked by hand and foot
+power. Several young women and two men were threading them or weaving
+new patterns. It looked difficult yet fascinating. Beyond there was a
+detachment learning how to put rush bottoms into chairs, twisting wet
+cat-tail leaves and wrapping them about the edges of frames.
+
+"Look, they're just like the chairs in your dining-room," whispered
+Roger. "I've half a mind to learn how to do it so that I can mend them
+for Grandmother."
+
+A near-by squad was making baskets, using a variety of materials. In
+another room the leather workers were stretching and cutting and wetting
+and dyeing and tooling bits of leather which were to be converted into
+purses and card cases and mats, and at another table the bookbinders
+were exercising the most scrupulous care in the use of their tools upon
+the delicate designs which they had transferred to their valuable
+material.
+
+Around the bend in the wall were the noisy crafts, put by themselves so
+that they might not interfere with the comfort of the quieter toilers.
+Here the metal workers pounded their sheets of brass and copper,
+building up handsome patterns upon future trays and waste baskets and
+lanterns. Here, too, the jewelry makers ran their little furnaces and
+thumped and welded until silver cups and chains grew under their fingers
+and settings of unique design held semi-precious stones of alluring
+colors.
+
+Every student in the whole place seemed alive with eagerness to do his
+work well and swiftly; they bent over it, smiling, the teachers were
+calm and helpful; gayety and happiness were in the air.
+
+"I'd really like to spend my mornings up here," murmured Mr. Emerson,
+"if I only knew what I could do."
+
+"We didn't see the wood-carving room; perhaps you'd like that."
+
+They turned into a door they had passed. A man of Grandfather's age was
+drawing his design on a board which was destined to become a book rack.
+Another man was chipping out his background, making the flowers of his
+pattern stand forth in bold relief. A young woman had a fireboard nearly
+finished.
+
+"I believe I will come up here," exclaimed Mr. Emerson.
+
+And so it happened that Grandfather's mornings were taken up as much as
+those of the rest of the family, and it was not long before he was so
+interested in his work and so eager to get on with his appointed tasks
+that he spent not only the mornings but almost all day drawing and
+carving and oiling in the midst of sweet-smelling shavings.
+
+On the way back they stopped for a minute to see Roger's cell in the
+Hall of Pedagogy, and the boy showed his grandfather with pride his neat
+array of brooms and rags. As they passed through Higgins Grove and out
+on to the green in front of the Post Office a great clattering attracted
+their attention. Men ran, boys shouted, and over and above all rose a
+fierce and persistent barking.
+
+"It's Cupid! As sure as you're born, it's Cupid!" cried Roger.
+
+Sure enough it was Cupid. He had been trotting gently down one of the
+side streets, his wagon laden with full milk cans and with sundry
+bundles. A dog passing across the square at the end of the street
+attracted his attention, and he started off at full gallop. The cans
+rolled out of the cart and spurted their milky contents on the ground. A
+bag of eggs smashed disastrously as it struck the pavement. Tins--of
+corned beef, lentils, sardines--bounced on the floor of the wagon until
+they jounced over the side into the road. On, on ran Cupid, his harness
+holding strongly and the front wheels banging his hind paws at every
+jump. The uproar that he created drew the attention of the dog which had
+caused all the commotion by his mere presence on the plaza. Casting a
+startled glance at Cupid, he clapped his tail between his legs and
+fled--fled with great bounds, his ears flapping in a breeze of his own
+creation. Unencumbered as he was he had the advantage of Cupid, who was
+unable to rid himself of the equipment that marked him as man's slave.
+Seeing his quarry disappear in the distance the bull dog came to a
+standstill just as Roger seized the strap that dangled from his harness.
+
+"Yours, I believe," he laughed as he handed the leash to the young man
+who came running up.
+
+"Mine. Thank you. My name is Watkins and I'd be glad to know you better.
+I've noticed you passing the house every day."
+
+"Thank you. My name is Morton," and the two young fellows shook hands
+over Cupid's head, while he sat down between the shafts and let slip a
+careless tongue from out his heated mouth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY
+
+
+ON the last Sunday in July the sun rose on a Chautauqua made serious by
+the portentous event of war actually declared in Europe. The Mortons
+felt a vital interest in it. With their father and uncle in the Navy and
+Army war in theory was a thing not new to them. Both Lieutenant and
+Captain Morton had served in the Spanish-American War, but Roger was a
+baby at the time and the other children had been born later. The nearest
+approach to active service that the children had actually known about
+was the present situation in Vera Cruz. They had been thrilled when
+Lieutenant Morton had been ordered there in the spring and Captain
+Morton had followed later with General Funston's army of occupation.
+
+But the United States troops were not in Mexico to make war but to
+prevent it, while the impending trouble in Europe was so filled with
+possibilities that it promised already to be the greatest struggle that
+the world ever had known.
+
+The horror of it was increased by the fact that for a week all
+Chautauqua had been giving itself over to the peaceful joys of music.
+For six days Victor Herbert's Orchestra had provided a feast of melody
+and harmony and rhythm and everybody on the grounds had participated,
+either as auditor or as performer, in some of the vocal numbers. Mrs.
+Morton and Mr. Emerson and Roger had sung in the choir and Dorothy had
+raised her sweet pipe in the Children's Choir. And at the end of the
+week had come this crashing discord of war.
+
+Yet the routine of a Chautauqua Sunday went on unbroken. The elders went
+at nine o'clock to the Bible Study class in the Amphitheatre, and at
+half past nine the younger members of the family dispersed to the
+various places where the divisions of the graded Sunday School met.
+Roger and Helen found the high school boys and girls in the Hall of
+Christ; the Ethels met the children of the seventh grade at the model of
+Palestine by the lakeside, and Dicky went to the kindergarten just as he
+had done on weekday mornings, though what he did after he entered the
+building was far different.
+
+At ten o'clock Sunday School was over and the older children and the
+grown-ups scattered to the devotional services at the various
+denominational houses which Helen and the Ethels had noticed on their
+first day's walk. At eleven all Chautauqua gathered in the Amphitheatre
+in a union service that recognized no one creed but laid stress on the
+beauty and harmony common to all beliefs.
+
+The coming week was that of the special celebration of the founding of
+Chautauqua Institution forty years before, so it was fitting that Bishop
+Vincent should preach from the platform which owed its existence to the
+God-given idea of service which he had brought into being. The ideal
+church and the ideal Christian were his themes.
+
+"Personality is always enlarged and ennobled by having to do with and
+becoming responsible for some great institution," he said and even the
+children understood that the Church suggests a pattern for good thoughts
+and for service to others which uplifts the people who try to shape
+their own lives by it.
+
+"Isn't he a beautiful old man," whispered Ethel Blue to Ethel Brown. "Do
+you suppose we'll ever have a chance to speak to him?"
+
+It seemed to Ethel Brown almost an impossibility; yet it happened that
+very afternoon.
+
+At three o'clock the Junior Congregation met in the Amphitheatre and the
+Ethels went, although they had sat through the morning service. It was a
+glad sight--several hundred girls and boys smiling happily and singing
+joyously and often grown people sat in the upper seats of the auditorium
+where they would not intrude upon the gathering below but would be able
+to see and hear the fresh young faces and voices.
+
+It happened that Bishop Vincent, passing by with Miss Kimball, stopped
+for a few minutes at the head of one of the aisles to listen to the last
+hymn, and he was still there when the young people poured out upon the
+upper walk. Miss Kimball recognized the Ethels and called them to her.
+
+"Here are two little acquaintances of mine, Bishop," she said; "I know
+they want to speak to you and shake hands with you."
+
+Ethel Brown looked frankly into the benign face above her and made a
+prompt answer to the question, "Is this your first summer at
+Chautauqua?" But Ethel Blue was overcome with the embarrassment that
+seemed to be growing upon her lately, and hardly raised her eyes. Yet as
+Miss Kimball turned to go on and Ethel Brown walked away beside her
+Ethel Blue found herself saying desperately in a small voice,
+
+"Bishop, would you tell me something? I must--I want to know something."
+
+"Come and sit down here and tell me what it is," answered the kind and
+genial tones that could make the huge Amphitheatre ring or could comfort
+a child with equal effect.
+
+Drawing her to a seat a little way down the sloping aisle the Bishop and
+the young girl sat down.
+
+"Now what is it?" he asked softly.
+
+Again shyness seized Ethel and made her speechless. She looked
+desperately after Ethel Brown, unconscious that the others were not
+following. Ethel Blue turned cold at her own audacity; but she had
+delayed the Bishop in his afternoon walk and she must tell him what was
+on her mind.
+
+"Do you think," she stammered, "do you think that a coward can ever
+become brave?"
+
+"I do," answered the Bishop promptly and simply. "A coward is afraid for
+two reasons; first, he doesn't control his imagination, and his
+imagination plays him tricks and makes him think that if such or such a
+thing happens to him he will suffer terribly; and secondly, he doesn't
+control his will. His will ought to stand up to his imagination and say,
+'You may be right and you may be wrong, but even if you're right I can
+bear whatever comes. Pain may come, but I can bear it. Trouble may
+come, but I can bear it.' Do you understand?"
+
+Ethel's face was beginning to light up.
+
+"You see," the Bishop went on, "God has given everybody the power to
+bear suffering and trouble. You may be perfectly sure that if suffering
+and trouble come to you you will be given strength to meet them. And God
+has given us something else; He has given us the power to avoid much
+pain and suffering."
+
+"Oh, how?"
+
+"One way is always to expect joy instead of pain. When you are looking
+for joy you find joy and when you are looking for pain you find pain. I
+rather think that you have been looking for pain recently."
+
+Ethel hung her head.
+
+"I was a coward at the fire at our house, and I'm so ashamed it doesn't
+seem to me I can ever see my father again. He's a soldier and I know
+he'd be mortified to death."
+
+"He might be sorry; I don't believe he'd be mortified," said the Bishop,
+and somehow the half-agreement soothed Ethel. "They say that when
+soldiers go into battle for the first time they often are so frightened
+that they are nauseated. I dare say your father has seen cases like that
+among his own men, so he would understand that a sudden shock or
+surprise may bring about behavior that comes from nervousness and not
+from real fear. I rather think that that was what was the matter in your
+case."
+
+Ethel drew a sigh of exquisite relief.
+
+"Do you remember my two reasons for cowardice? I should think it was
+quite possible that in the sudden excitement of the fire your
+imagination worked too hard. You saw yourself smothered by the smoke or
+roasted in the flames. Didn't you?"
+
+"I didn't really think it; I felt it," Ethel nodded.
+
+"And you didn't stop to say to yourself: 'I'm going to do all I can to
+help and I'm going to be careful, but if anything does happen to me I'll
+be able to bear it.'"
+
+"No, I didn't think that; I just thought how it would hurt. And Ethel
+Brown saved Dicky and wasn't afraid at all."
+
+"She didn't let her imagination run away with her."
+
+"I was so ashamed when she was doing splendid things and I couldn't
+move."
+
+"It was too bad, but you'll have another chance, I've no doubt. You know
+the same Opportunity never comes twice but another one takes its place."
+
+"I can't face Father unless it does."
+
+"One thing you mustn't do," declared the Bishop firmly; "you mustn't
+think about this all the time. That isn't making your will control your
+imagination; it's doing just the opposite; it's letting your imagination
+run away with you."
+
+Ethel looked rebuked.
+
+"Now I want to tell you one more thing. I told you one way to avoid pain
+and suffering--by not expecting it. The best way of all is to do
+everything that comes into your life just as you think God would like to
+have you do it. If you work with God in that way God's peace comes to
+you. Have I preached too hard a sermon?" he asked as they rose to go.
+"You think about it and come and ask me anything else you want to. Will
+you?"
+
+Ethel Blue nodded. She did not seem to have voice enough to trust
+herself to speak. Then she thrust her hand suddenly into the strong,
+gentle hand of the good man who had talked to her so kindly, gave it a
+big squeeze and ran away.
+
+The Bishop looked after her.
+
+"It was too hard a test for a nervous child; but she'll have her
+chance--bless her," and then he slowly walked around the edge of the
+Amphitheatre and rejoined his companion on the other side. Ethel Brown
+had just taken leave of her and was running after Ethel Blue as she
+dashed down the hill.
+
+"I hope she won't catch my little friend," observed the Bishop. "She
+needs to sit and look at the lake for half an hour."
+
+The address on the Holy Land given in Palestine Park in the afternoon
+was one of the most interesting things that Chautauqua had offered to
+them, Helen and Roger thought. Palestine Park, they had discovered early
+in their stay, was a model of Palestine on a scale of one and
+three-quarters feet to the mile. It lay along the shore of the lake,
+which played the part of the Mediterranean. Hills and valleys, mountains
+and streams, were correctly placed and little concrete cities dotted
+about in the grass brought Bible names into relation to each other in a
+way not possible on the ordinary map of the school geography.
+
+"I'd like to study my Sunday School lesson right here on the spot,"
+Helen had said when she first went over the ground and traced the Jordan
+from its rise through the Sea of Galilee into the Dead Sea, where, on
+week days, children sailed their boats and fished with pins for
+non-existent whales.
+
+Now Helen and Roger stood with the throng that gathered and understood
+as they never had before the location of tribes and the movements of
+armies. Most living to them seemed the recital of the life of Christ as
+the speaker traced His movements from the "little town of Bethlehem" to
+Calvary.
+
+The later activities of this Sunday again divided the Morton family.
+Mrs. Morton and Roger nodded to Dorothy at the Organ Interlude at four
+o'clock. Grandfather and Grandmother sat through the C.L.S.C. Vesper
+Service at five in the Hall of Philosophy, the westering sun gleaming
+softly through the branches of the oaks in St. Paul's Grove in which the
+temple stood. After supper came the Lakeside Service and Helen and Roger
+stood together in the open and sang heartily from the same book and as
+they gazed out over the water were thankful that their father was safe
+in his vessel even though he was far from them and on waters where the
+sun set more glowingly. Mrs. Morton stayed at home in the evening to
+keep watch over Dicky but all the rest went to the Song Service, joining
+in the soft hymn that rose in the darkness before the lights were turned
+on, and listening with delight to the music of the soloists and the
+choir.
+
+It was after they were all gathered again at the cottage that there came
+one of those talks that bind families together. It was quiet Ethel Blue
+who began it.
+
+"Bishop Vincent told me to-day that if you didn't think that things--bad
+things--were going to happen to you they were less likely to come," she
+said.
+
+"Bishop Vincent told you!" exclaimed Roger. "What do you mean?"
+
+"She had a long talk with him after the Junior Service," explained Ethel
+Brown. "I walked on with Miss Kimball."
+
+"What I want to say is this," continued Ethel Blue patiently after
+Roger's curiosity had been satisfied; "it seems to me that you're less
+likely to be afraid that bad things are going to happen to you if you
+keep doing things for other people all the time."
+
+"It's never wise to think about yourself all the time," agreed Mrs.
+Morton.
+
+"The Bishop said that if you let your imagination run loose it might
+give you uncomfortable thoughts and make you afraid. If you're working
+for other people and inventing pleasant things to do to make them happy
+your imagination won't be hurting yourself."
+
+"Our little Ethel Blue is becoming quite a chatterbox," commented Roger,
+giving her hair a tweak as she sat on the steps beside him.
+
+"Hush, Roger. I wish you had half as much sense," said Helen smartly.
+"Anything more, Ethel?"
+
+"Yes. I wish we had a club, just us youngsters, a club that would keep
+us doing things for other people all the time. Don't you think it would
+be fun?"
+
+"H'm, h'm," began Roger, but a gentle nudge from Helen stopped him.
+
+"I think it would be splendid, Ethel Blue," she said; "I know Mother
+thinks it's just what I need for my complaint. Mother, dear, I'm not
+selfish; I'm just _self-respecting_, and self-respecting people want to
+co-operate just as much as other people. I'd love to have this club to
+try to prove to you that I'm not a 'greedy Jo.'"
+
+"I'm far from-thinking you a 'greedy Jo,' Helen. You're getting morbid
+about it, I'm afraid, and I believe this club idea of Ethel Blue's will
+be an excellent thing for you; and for Roger, too," she went on.
+
+"What's the matter with me?" inquired Roger a trifle gruffly.
+
+"You're a very dear boy," said his mother, running her fingers through
+his hair in a way that he was just beginning to like after years of
+considering it an almost unendurable habit, "but sometimes I think
+you've forgotten your Scout law, 'Do a kindness to some one every day.'
+It's not that you mean to be unkind; you're just careless."
+
+"H'm," grunted Roger. "There seems to be a good reason for every one of
+us joining this club. What's the matter with Ethel Brown?"
+
+"I know," answered Ethel Brown before her mother had time to reply;
+"Mother's going to tell you that I like to do things for people not to
+give them pleasure, but because it gives me pleasure and so I don't do
+things the way they like them but the way I like them. And that's
+really selfish and not unselfish."
+
+"Upon my word," exclaimed Grandfather Emerson, "these children seem to
+be able to analyze themselves mighty closely! They agree on one thing,
+though--this club of Ethel Blue's is the cure that they all need for
+their different ailments."
+
+"Let's have it," cried Roger. "Ethel Blue shall be president and we'll
+let Dicky be an honorary member and the grown-ups shall be the Advisory
+Board."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't be president," said Ethel Blue shrinkingly.
+
+"It's your idea. You ought to be," insisted Helen.
+
+"No, you be president. And let's ask Margaret Hancock to belong, and
+James. You know we'll probably see a good deal of them next winter now
+that we know them. They're only forty minutes on the trolley from us."
+
+"I wish we'd always known them; they're certainly great kids,"
+pronounced Roger.
+
+"If we have a club it will be an inducement to them to come over often."
+
+"What'll we call the club?" Ethel Brown always liked to have details
+attended to promptly.
+
+"Do for Others"; "A Thing a Day"; "Every Little Helps," were titles
+suggested by one voice and another.
+
+"Why not 'The United Servers' if you are going to make it a club of
+service," asked Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"Why not 'The United Service'?" demanded Roger. "With Father in the
+Navy and Ethel Blue's father in the Army we have the two arms of the
+Service united in the family, and if we call it 'The United Service
+Club' it will be a nice little pun for ourselves and express the idea of
+the club all right for outsiders."
+
+Everybody seemed to like the suggestion.
+
+"Now, then," declared Roger, standing below the steps and facing the
+family above him; "it has been moved that Helen be president. Do I hear
+a second?"
+
+"You do," cried Ethel Blue.
+
+"All right. Everybody in favor--"
+
+"Aye."
+
+"Contrary minded--"
+
+Silence.
+
+"It is a vote, and Miss Helen Morton is unanimously elected president of
+the United Service Club. What's the next thing to do?"
+
+"Make Dicky an honorary member," suggested Ethel Blue.
+
+"Go to bed," over-ruled Mrs. Morton. "There are the chimes."
+
+So the president and members and Advisory Board of the United Service
+Club disappeared into the house and Dicky was not informed until the
+next day of the honor that had befallen him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB IS ORGANIZED
+
+
+THE Hancocks were notified on Monday morning of their election to
+membership in the new club. They were delighted to join, especially as
+it would mean after they got home a regular meeting with the pleasant
+friends they had had to come many miles from home to know.
+
+"What are we going to do first?" they asked Roger who took the
+invitation to them.
+
+"Helen has called a meeting for this afternoon at five o'clock. We'll
+decide on something then."
+
+"Where's it going to be?"
+
+"Up in the ravine just before you get to Higgins Hall. Dorothy's going
+to make some sandwiches."
+
+"Oh, Dorothy's going to belong."
+
+"Sure thing. Our household can't do without her since Grandfather was
+sick. I asked Mother if Mary couldn't make us some sandwiches, but she
+said Mary was awfully busy to-day, and Dorothy said if the club was to
+help people she'd help Mary by making the sandwiches."
+
+"Good old Dorothy! She's begun to be a United Server before the club has
+really got to working."
+
+"I don't see why I can't come in on the sandwich business," said James.
+"I'm a dandy ham slicer."
+
+"Come over, then. Dorothy's making them now on the back porch."
+
+So it happened that there was almost a meeting of the club before the
+time actually set for it, but after all there was not a quorum,
+according to James, while at five o'clock every active member was
+present, though the members of the Advisory Board were detained by other
+engagements.
+
+The ravine extended back from the lake toward the fence. Through it ran
+a brook which the dry weather had made almost non-existent, but its
+course was marked by an abundant growth of wild flowers, including the
+delicate blue of the forget-me-not.
+
+"Let's have the forget-me-not for our flower," suggested Margaret as
+soon as they were settled on the bank under the tall trees. "We mustn't
+pick any of these, of course, but they won't be hard to find at home,
+and they'll be easy to embroider if we ever need to make badges or
+anything of that sort."
+
+"Perhaps in the course of a few years we'll be advanced enough to have
+pins," said Helen, "and forget-me-not pins will be lovely. Even the boys
+can wear them for scarf pins--little ones with just one flower."
+
+Roger and James approved this suggestion and so the matter of an emblem
+was decided not only without trouble but before the meeting had been
+called to order.
+
+"We certainly are a harmonious lot," observed James when some one
+mentioned this fact.
+
+"What I want to do," said Ethel Brown, "is to give a vote of thanks to
+Dorothy and James and Ethel Blue for making the sandwiches."
+
+"Good idea; they're bully," commended Roger. "I move, Helen, that the
+people just mentioned be elected official sandwich makers to the club."
+
+"Don't call the president by her name," objected James. "Don't you have
+parliamentary law in your school?"
+
+"No; plenty without it."
+
+"We do. We have an assembly every morning--current events and things
+like that and sometimes a speaker from New York--and one of the scholars
+presides and we have to do the thing up brown. You wouldn't call Helen
+'Helen' there, I can tell you."
+
+"What ought I to say?"
+
+"'Miss President,' or 'Madam President.'"
+
+This was greeted by a howl of joy from Roger.
+
+"'Madam' is good!" he howled, wriggling with delight. "I do know how to
+put a motion, though. I'll leave it to Ethel Blue if I didn't set her
+idea on its legs last night by putting through a unanimous vote for
+Helen for president."
+
+"You did, but you don't seem to be giving the president a chance to call
+the meeting to order now."
+
+"I apologize, Madam President," and again Roger rolled over in excessive
+mirth.
+
+"The meeting will come to order, then," began Helen. "Is that right,
+James?"
+
+"O.K. Go ahead."
+
+"Madam President," said Margaret promptly, "do you think it's necessary
+for us to be so particular and follow parliamentary law? I think it will
+be dreadfully stiff and fussy."
+
+"Oh, let's do it, Margaret. I want to learn and you and James know how,
+so that's a service you can do for me. And Helen ought to know if she's
+going to be president," Roger urged.
+
+"Here's where you're wrong at the jump-off, old man. You ought not to
+speak directly to Margaret. You ought to address the chair--that is,
+Helen."
+
+"What are you doing yourself, then, talking straight to me?"
+
+"Bull's-eye. Margaret was all right, though, Madam President. She
+addressed the chair. What does the chair think about Margaret's
+question?"
+
+"I think--the chair thinks--" began Helen, warned by James's amused
+glance, "that Margaret is right. It won't do us any harm to obey a few
+parliamentary rules, but if we are too particular it'll be horrid."
+
+"It's a mighty good chance to learn," growled Roger. "I want to make old
+James useful."
+
+"If you talk that queer way I'll never open my mouth," declared Ethel
+Blue in a tone of lament.
+
+"Then I move you, Madam President, that we don't do it," said James,
+"because this club is Ethel Blue's idea and it would be a shame if she
+couldn't have a say-so in her own club."
+
+"I'm willing to compromise, Helen--Madam President," went on Ethel Blue,
+giggling; "I say let Roger be parliamentary if he wants to, and the rest
+of us will be parliamentary or unparliamentary just as we feel like it."
+
+Applause greeted this suggestion, largely from Dicky, who was glad of
+the opportunity to make some noise.
+
+"There's a motion before the house, Madam President," reminded James.
+
+"Dear me, so there is. What do I do now?"
+
+"Say, 'Is it seconded?'" whispered James.
+
+"Is it seconded?"
+
+"I second it," came from Margaret.
+
+"It is moved and seconded by the Hancocks that we do not follow
+parliamentary rules in the United Service Club."
+
+Helen had felt herself getting on swimmingly but at this point she
+seemed to have come to a wall.
+
+"Are you ready for the question?" prompted James in an undertone.
+
+"Are you ready for the question?" repeated Helen aloud.
+
+"Let her rip," advised Roger.
+
+"All in favor say 'Aye.'"
+
+Margaret and James said "Aye."
+
+"Contrary minded----"
+
+"No," roared Roger.
+
+"No," followed Ethel Blue meekly.
+
+"No," came Ethel Brown in uncertain negative.
+
+Helen didn't know just how to handle this situation.
+
+"Three to two," she counted. "They don't agree," and she turned
+helplessly toward James.
+
+"Right you are," he acknowledged. "Why don't you ask for Ethel Blue's
+motion?"
+
+"But I didn't make a motion," screamed Ethel Blue, deeply agitated.
+
+"Same thing; you said you were willing to compromise and let Roger be
+parliamentary if he wanted to and the rest of us do as we liked."
+
+"I think that's a good way."
+
+"Do you make that motion?" asked Helen, prompted by James.
+
+"Yes, I make that motion," repeated Ethel Blue.
+
+"Hurrah for the lady who said she'd never talk 'that queer way,'"
+cheered Roger.
+
+"It isn't so bad when you know how," admitted Ethel Blue.
+
+"Is that motion seconded?" Helen had not forgotten her first lesson.
+
+"I second it." It was Roger who spoke.
+
+"Question," called Margaret.
+
+"It is moved and seconded that we all do as we like except Roger and
+that he talk parliamentary fashion all the time."
+
+Thus the president stated the motion.
+
+"Oh, say," objected Roger. "I call that unfair discrimination."
+
+"Not at all," retorted the president. "You were the one who wanted to
+learn so it's only fair that you should have the chance."
+
+"I can't do it alone."
+
+"Perhaps some of us will be moved to do it, too, once in a while. You
+see the president ought to know how. These Hancock experts here said
+so."
+
+"You haven't asked for the 'Ayes' and 'Nos' yet," reminded Margaret, and
+this time Helen sent it through without a hesitation.
+
+"The next thing for us to decide," continued the president when Ethel
+Blue's motion had passed without a dissenting voice, "is what we are
+going to do. Of course we can't undertake any really big things here at
+Chautauqua where we have all our time pretty well filled and where we
+are studying things that we ought not to slight because they may help us
+out later in our plans for service. So I think what we must look out for
+is little things that we can do to be helpful. Does anybody know of
+any?"
+
+"I know of one," offered James promptly. "Tomorrow is Old First Night.
+That's the only time in all the summer when there is a collection taken
+on the grounds. All the money they get on Old First Night is used for
+the benefit of the general public. The Miller Tower, for instance, was
+an Old First Night Gift, and part of the Arts and Crafts Studios was
+paid for by another one, and the Sherwood Music Studio."
+
+"Great scheme," remarked Roger. "You take your contribution out of one
+pocket and put it into the other, so to speak. Where do we come in?"
+
+"They want boys to collect the money from the people in the
+Amphitheatre. That's something you and I can do."
+
+"Is there anything that girls do on Old First Night?"
+
+Ethel Brown turned to Margaret as authority because the Hancocks had
+been at Chautauqua many summers.
+
+"There never has been anything particular for them to do but I don't
+know why we couldn't offer to trim the stage. I believe they'd like to
+have us."
+
+"How shall we find out?"
+
+"I'll telephone to the Director to-night, and if he says 'Yes,' then we
+can go outside the gate to-morrow afternoon and pick wild flowers and
+trim the stage just before supper."
+
+"You boys will have to go too," said Helen; "we'll need you to bring
+back the flowers."
+
+"Right-o," agreed James. "Anybody any more ideas?"
+
+"We'll have to keep our eyes open as things come along," said Ethel
+Blue. "There ought to be something every day. There's Recognition Day,
+any way."
+
+"We're all too big for Flower Girls; they have to be not over ten; but
+Mother went to the 1914 Class meeting this afternoon and one of the
+members of the class proposed that they should have boys as well as
+girls--a boys' guard of honor--so there's a job for our honorary member,
+Mr. Richard Morton."
+
+"If they have a lot of kids they'll want some big fellows to keep them
+straight and make them march right," guessed James; "that's where you
+and I come in, Roger, thanks to your mother and grandfather and my
+father being in the class."
+
+"How about us girls?"
+
+"The graduating class can use all the flowers they can lay their hands
+on, so we can bring them all we can carry and I know they'll be glad to
+have them," said Margaret.
+
+"Can't we help them decorate?"
+
+"They always do all the decorating themselves, but the evening before
+Recognition Day there's going to be a sale of ice cream for the benefit
+of the fund the C.L.S.C. people are raising to build a veranda on Alumni
+Hall and we can help a lot there."
+
+"Where's that going to be?"
+
+"There'll be hundreds of lanterns strung between the two halls, the band
+will play, and they'll have tables in the Hall of Philosophy."
+
+"And we'll wait on the tables."
+
+"We'll carry ice cream and sell cake and tell people how awfully good a
+chocolate cake that hasn't been cut yet looks so they'll want a piece of
+that to take home to one of the children who couldn't come."
+
+"Foxy Margaret!"
+
+"It'll be true."
+
+"I suspect it will. My mouth waters now."
+
+"You'll excuse my turning the subject, Madam President," said James
+excitedly, "but there are some of the jolliest little squirrels up over
+our heads. I've been watching them ever since we came and I believe I've
+learned a thing or two about them."
+
+"What!"
+
+They all threw themselves on their backs and stared up into the trees.
+
+"They have regular paths that they follow in going from tree to tree.
+Did you see that fellow jump? He went out on the tip of that long twig
+and leaped from there. He just could grab the branch that sticks out
+from that oak. I believe that must be the only place where it is near
+enough for them to make the leap, for I've seen at least twenty jump
+from that same twig since I noticed them first."
+
+"Twenty! How do you know it wasn't one leaping twenty times to show off
+to us?"
+
+"It was more than one, anyway, for there was a chap with a grand, bushy
+tail and another one with hardly any tail at all."
+
+"Cats," hissed Ethel Brown tragically.
+
+"Very likely, since shooting isn't allowed here. Last summer I saw a cat
+catch a chipmunk right over there by that red cottage."
+
+"Did she kill him?"
+
+"Not much! Mr. Chip gave himself a twist and scampered back into his
+hole in the bank. I tell you the stripes on his back looked like one
+continuous strip of ribbon he went so fast!"
+
+"Poor little fellow. Any more sandwiches left?" queried Roger. "No? Too
+bad. Let's adjourn, then. Madam President, I move we adjourn."
+
+"To meet when?"
+
+"When the president calls us," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"And we'll all have our eyes and ears open so as to give her information
+so she'll have something to call us for."
+
+Picking up the honorary member and setting him on his shoulder Roger led
+the procession back to the lake front, and so ended the first meeting of
+the United Service Club which was to fill so large a part in the lives
+of all its members for several years to come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+OLD FIRST NIGHT
+
+
+FOR several days after the fire Dicky had been far from well and Mrs.
+Morton had taken him out of the kindergarten. As he recovered his
+balance, however, it became evident that he would be very lonely in the
+mornings when all the rest of the family were away at their different
+occupations if he, too, did not have some regular task. He was so much
+stronger and taller than the other children at the kindergarten that
+Roger, who was proud of his manliness, urged his mother to let him join
+the Boys' Club.
+
+"Will they take boys as young as he is?"
+
+"It depends entirely on how young they behave, and Dicky's no baby."
+
+"Then if you think they'll accept him suppose you take him to the Club
+and enroll him."
+
+So Dicky marched bravely in among the hundreds of boys who help to make
+lively the southern part of the Assembly Grounds, and was duly
+registered as a member of the Boys' Club. If his rompers seemed to give
+him a too youthful air at one end the blue sweater adorned with the
+Boys' Club monogram which he insisted on donning at once, evened up his
+status. For a day or two Roger had happened in at the Club to see
+whether the little chap was holding his own and he had been so
+satisfied with what he saw that he no longer felt it necessary to
+exercise a daily watchfulness. Dicky came and went all over the grounds
+now, and often enlightened his elders about some locality of which they
+were not certain.
+
+When the sun rises on the day that is to end with the Old First Night
+celebration there is always a suppressed excitement in Chautauqua. The
+young men of the _Daily_ are listening to the Managing Editor's
+assignment of their extra duties in reporting the evening festivities;
+the boys who are to collect the money from the audience in the
+Amphitheatre and the men to whom they are to deliver it are receiving
+from the Usher-in-Chief their instructions as to their respective
+positions and duties; messengers rush their bicycles over the ground
+delivering notes of invitation to the people who are to sit on the
+platform.
+
+In the homes the heads of the families are deciding how much they can
+afford to give to the Old First Night Fund and the other members down to
+the small children are examining their pocket books and shaking the
+pennies out of their banks so that every one may have a share, no matter
+how small, in the gift of Chautauquans to Chautauqua.
+
+The Morton-Emerson household had had its share of the morning excitement
+and Mrs. Morton and her father were climbing up the hill, she to go to
+the Women's Club and he to occupy his usual stool at the Arts and Crafts
+Studios. At almost every step they nodded pleasantly to acquaintances,
+for they had many friends, some made before the fire, and others drawn
+to them by the spirit of helpfulness that makes Chautauquans run to the
+rescue of distress wherever they find it.
+
+As they reached the hilltop and crossed the street to enter the Post
+Office for the morning mail their ears were saluted by the customary
+morning sounds. The ice cream booth and the bakery in the pergola were
+being replenished from heavy kegs and boxes which were in process of
+being unloaded from carts on to the ground before their destinations.
+Crowds of people on their way to classes and clubs were opening letters
+and calling out home news to other members of their families or slitting
+the wrappers from newspapers and shaking out the front page to come at
+the war news quickly.
+
+Shrill cries of "_Chautauquan Daily_" rose on every side as boy venders
+of the local paper pressed among the people, for they did their best
+business in the early hours. People who would not take the time to stop
+and examine the program for the day posted in the tree boxes would read
+it in the paper as they hurried on to ensure punctuality at their
+classrooms.
+
+"It really seems as if there was an extra hum in the air," laughed Mrs.
+Morton.
+
+"I think there is," returned her father drily. His eyes were fastened on
+a figure approaching them.
+
+"_Chautauquan Daily_" came from a small but earnest throat.
+"_Chautauquan Daily_; program for to-day and to-morrow."
+
+"Upon my word!" ejaculated Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Lecture by Mithter Griggth; addreth by Doctor Hurlbut," piped the
+piercing voice.
+
+"Upon my word," gasped Mrs. Morton once more; "it's Dicky!"
+
+It was. It was a radiant Dicky. His romper trousers were spread wide on
+each side and he strutted consumedly. His breast heaved proudly beneath
+the Boys' Club monogram on his sweater. The elastic under his chin did
+not hold his hat straight upon his bobbed hair and the brim was canted
+over one ear and gave him a rakish expression. He was the picture of a
+perfectly happy boy and he was doing a bigger business than any other
+newsboy in front of the Post Office. People crowded around him and every
+time he shouted "Lecture by Mithter Griggth; addreth by Doctor Hurlbut,"
+they went into peals of laughter.
+
+"What shall I do, Father?" asked Mrs. Morton breathlessly.
+
+"You wouldn't have the heart to stop him, would you?" Mr. Emerson asked
+in return.
+
+Dicky's mother gazed raptly at him for a whole minute.
+
+"No," she said at last, "I haven't the heart to stop him."
+
+"It's in the air, as I said the other evening when Helen was making her
+plea," said Mr. Emerson.
+
+"Do you suppose it's money Dicky wants?"
+
+"Money and excitement. Dicky will do a kindness to a friend and expect
+no pay for it just as you did when you were young, but I've no doubt
+that Dicky also likes the feeling of some extra coppers in his pockets.
+I suppose there are pockets in those extraordinary garments he wears?"
+
+"Yes," returned Mrs. Morton mechanically. "What is behind it all?" she
+asked again; "are we Americans getting so thoroughly commercialized that
+even the babies want to go out in the street and earn money?"
+
+"I believe it's a love of adventure as much as a love of money. At any
+rate we've seen it developed in three members of your own family and
+surely our family traditions and the traditions of the Army and Navy are
+all against commercialism. I believe it is one of the modern phenomena
+that we must bow before. Opposing it will bring unhappiness and trouble.
+The thing to do is to encourage such a spirit as your children are
+showing in this new club of theirs. Let them be commercial if they will
+but make them understand that their business interests must not make
+them less human, less friendly, less willing to serve any one who needs
+their service."
+
+"It is very perplexing," sighed Mrs. Morton, but she walked away without
+speaking to Dicky, leaving him the centre of a throng lost in admiration
+of his cry, "Lecture by Mithter Griggth; addreth by Doctor Hurlbut."
+
+Dicky's escapade was not the only one entered into by the Mortons on
+this memorable day. Right after dinner the whole club except Dicky who,
+it was decided, was not up to the long walk, went outside the grounds to
+pick wild flowers for the decoration of the platform of the
+Amphitheatre. The Director had given his consent and had expressed his
+pleasure, so the Hancocks and the Mortons and Dorothy set out in high
+spirits.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when they returned laden with their spoils.
+Early goldenrod and asters filled their arms, feathery green boughs
+waved over their heads, and long vines of clematis trailed behind them.
+
+The Ethels were not such good walkers as the others. Even Dorothy kept
+up with the big boys better than the two younger Mortons, so they found
+themselves quite alone some distance before they reached the trolley
+gate.
+
+"Um," sighed Ethel Brown; "I'm tired. I'd like to stop right here."
+
+"Peg along," urged Ethel Blue.
+
+"If only it wasn't against the rule we might crawl under the fence just
+ahead there where the hole is."
+
+Ethel Blue looked at the place with longing eyes. Dogs had burrowed
+their way under the pickets and had worn, out a hole that seemed big
+enough for thin people to get through. She turned to Ethel Brown.
+
+"It would be wrong to do it," she said, "but it would save us a long
+distance, because there's a short cut right to the Amphitheatre just
+over there inside."
+
+Ethel Blue was open to temptation to do anything that required daring,
+for she was trying hard to gain courage by following the Bishop's advice
+and by attempting little adventures about which she felt timid.
+
+"I'm almost dead," groaned Ethel Brown plaintively. "Do you think they
+could possibly catch us? You know they tell a story of a fat woman who
+found a place like this and squeezed her way in and when she was all in
+a fence guard appeared and made her squeeze herself out again."
+
+"She was trying to cheat the Institution out of her entrance money. We
+aren't doing that; we've got our gate tickets."
+
+Somehow that made the matter seem better, though in their inmost hearts
+the girls knew that they were not doing what was right. Yet with a look
+around and a gasp of excitement they pushed their flowers through ahead
+of them and then struggled through themselves.
+
+"There isn't anybody in sight," exclaimed Ethel Brown in the low voice
+of guilt, scanning the grounds as she helped Ethel Blue get on her feet.
+
+"We've done it, anyway," answered Ethel Blue, and she even felt a touch
+of pride, in the adventure, for at least she had not been frightened.
+
+They took their contribution to the Amphitheatre and helped the others,
+who had been at work for some time, to arrange the flowers around the
+edge of the platform. The result was beautiful and the group was
+delighted when a hearty voice said suddenly, "Is this the United Service
+Club? I want to thank you for doing this for us. We've never looked so
+fine as this before on Old First Night."
+
+"Thank you, thank you," they chorused in return as the Director left
+them.
+
+It was a happy though weary group that chattered its way along the lake
+front and across Miller Park. No sooner had they reached the cottage
+than the Ethels told their story to Mrs. Morton with much laughter. For
+some reason she did not take the joke just as they would have liked to
+have her.
+
+"You know it is against the rule? Everybody is expected to go out and
+enter through the gates."
+
+"Oh, we know that. But what harm did it do? We weren't cheating the
+Institution; we had our tickets."
+
+"Suppose everybody did what you did. Can you see any objection?"
+
+"It would look mighty funny," giggled Ethel Blue.
+
+"It would be rather confusing, I suppose," admitted Ethel Brown; "they
+wouldn't be able to tell who had tickets and who hadn't."
+
+"You don't really mind, do you, Aunt Marion?"
+
+"I confess I shall have to make up a new opinion about my honest little
+girls," she replied slowly. "Have you thought what you are going to do
+about the punch on your tickets?"
+
+This hint was alarming.
+
+"What about the punch?"
+
+"Everybody's ticket is punched on an odd number when you come in and on
+an even one when you go out. Your last punch was on an even number, when
+you went out this afternoon. What are you going to do when you want to
+go out again?"
+
+Ethel Brown stared at Ethel Blue in dismay, and Ethel Blue's eyes began
+to fill with tears.
+
+"It will be perfectly clear to the gateman that you came in in some
+improper way."
+
+Mrs. Morton went into the dining-room to take a last look at the table
+and the Ethels went upstairs to dress. Somehow the fun of their
+adventure had faded away. In its place was a growing discomfort that was
+increasingly painful. They did not discuss their trouble and they put on
+clean dresses without their usual pleasure in their freshness and
+prettiness. Mrs. Morton did not allude to the subject again, and that
+gave the children additional feelings of uneasiness, for they felt that
+she was leaving the decision as to their future action entirely to them.
+
+Roger, who was to pass a basket at the Amphitheatre, hurried through his
+supper and whooped to James as he passed the Hancocks' house. The other
+members of the two families went later and more slowly, enjoying as they
+walked along the lake front the familiar tunes that the chimes were
+ringing out. As they climbed the hill they were sorry that they had not
+made an earlier start, for people were gathering in flocks and the organ
+was already playing. Once more they had to say, "This is the largest
+audience yet." This time it was remarkable for its number of old people,
+for it seemed as if everybody who ever had been at Chautauqua made a
+point of returning to join in the celebration of the Fortieth
+Anniversary.
+
+The service arranged by Bishop Vincent for the opening night was used
+for the forty-first time, and tears ran down the cheeks of old men and
+women who recalled the passing of the intervening years and gave their
+memento of esteem to the Chautauquans of bygone days when they joined
+the rest of the huge audience in lifting their handkerchiefs in a
+drooping salute to the dead.
+
+The Chancellor introduced the President, and he, after a few words of
+historical reminiscence, introduced the speakers of the evening, a dozen
+of them, who spoke briefly and told some good stories. Between their
+speeches were sandwiched the events that make Old First Night different
+from any other night in the Amphitheatre. The members of the family of
+Mr. Miller, one of the founders of the Institution, were honored by a
+waving Chautauqua salute, invented long ago for a deaf speaker and
+continued because of its beauty. Mrs. Thomas Edison, a daughter of Mr.
+Miller, thanked the audience for its tribute to her father and called
+for a similar salute to the Vincent family.
+
+"There's Miss Kimball standing with two other ladies to be saluted,"
+cried Ethel Brown.
+
+"And there's the president of the Women's Club with her," said Mrs.
+Morton.
+
+Old songs were sung and "Dixie" brought a large Southern contingent to
+its feet. Mr. Vincent joked and cajoled his hearers while messengers and
+ushers gathered several thousand dollars, the Old First Night gift.
+
+Best fun of all were the roll calls. Between sixty and seventy were
+present who had been a part of the original Old First Night. Thirty-two
+persons rose as having been at Chautauqua for forty-one summers and a
+Chautauqua salute sent them happily to their seats, for a Chautauqua
+salute is an honor, not achieved every day. "I've been waiting
+twenty-five years for this," said a professor in one of the Summer
+Schools who received the distinction as a "Good-bye" before a trip to
+Europe.
+
+By way of gaining an idea of the breadth of Chautauqua's call, dwellers
+in different parts of the world and of the United States were called to
+their feet. A small group rose as from New England; a very large group
+from New York and Pennsylvania. The South stood solid in large parties
+all over the auditorium, and the West had sent many representatives. The
+showing from Canada and parts of the world outside of our own country
+was by no means small.
+
+"Who are the people on the platform beside the speakers?" Helen asked
+Mrs. Hancock who sat next her.
+
+"The officers and trustees of the Institution, almost all of the 'old
+originals' and some people of distinction who happen to be on the
+grounds."
+
+Then they left the Amphitheatre to go to the lake front for the
+fireworks and found themselves passing through a forest of brilliant
+lanterns swinging from the trees and casting their soft light on the
+paths and grass. Thousands of happy people, some wet-eyed with memories,
+some wide-eyed with wonder, walked beneath them, talking of days gone by
+and days to come.
+
+So large was the Morton-Emerson-Hancock group that Mrs. Morton did not
+notice until she was almost at her own door that the Ethels were not
+near her.
+
+"They were in the Amphitheatre," she said.
+
+"I saw them coming out," cried Margaret.
+
+"We'll wait a few minutes and then if they don't come Roger must look
+for them," said Mrs. Morton anxiously.
+
+But before she had had many minutes of anxiety the two girls came
+running up to the porch. They were laughing happily now, and in quite a
+different mood from that in which they had left the house earlier in the
+evening.
+
+"What in the world have you been doing, children?" asked Grandmother
+Emerson. "Your dresses are covered with dirt."
+
+"Mother knows."
+
+"Aunt Marion can guess."
+
+"I'm sure I don't and I can't. What have you been up to?"
+
+"It's all right about our ticket," nodded Ethel Brown gleefully.
+
+"How can that be?"
+
+"We were so worried about the punching coming out wrong that as soon as
+we left the Amphitheatre we ran up to that hole in the fence and crawled
+out again, and then we ran down the road as fast as we could to the
+trolley gate and came in properly, so now our tickets punch all right."
+
+"But there's still a hurt in my girls' consciences, isn't there?" asked
+Mrs. Morton, drawing them to her and kissing them "Good-night."
+
+"You see," she went on, "when you broke a law of the Institution you
+were not law-abiding citizens."
+
+"But we weren't wicked, because we had our tickets--we weren't
+cheating."
+
+"That's true, but laws are made to help communities to run smoothly. If
+you do not obey them you are not co-operating with the people who are
+working for the happiness of the whole body."
+
+"'Co-operation'--that's just team-work," mused Roger.
+
+"Right," confirmed Mr. Emerson. "Co-operation is what makes life easy to
+live, it's what produces results, it's what makes the world better. Be a
+co-operator."
+
+"Me a co-op," agreed Roger cheerfully, while the Ethels sat silently on
+the steps and thought about it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+FLYING
+
+
+"NEWS, news, news," shouted Roger as he turned a cartwheel before the
+porch on which his mother was sitting. It was the day after Old First
+Night.
+
+"What is it? Vera Cruz--?" asked Mrs. Morton and Ethel Blue, whose
+thoughts always were with the Navy and Army.
+
+"Nothing to do with Vera Cruz," Roger reassured them. "This event is
+much nearer home. It isn't any farther away from home than from here to
+the steamboat dock."
+
+"What is it, Roger?" demanded Helen. "You're so tantalizing!"
+
+"Oh, for the white wings, sailing, sailing," sang Roger, advancing
+gracefully with outstretched arms and retreating abruptly as Dicky made
+a rush at him, head down like a young goat.
+
+"Are you going to sail in the _Humbug_ again?"
+
+"Has she won another race?"
+
+"Come, birdie, birdie, perch on this twig," cooed Ethel Brown with a
+gesture toward the piazza rail, "and tell us all about it."
+
+Roger responded to this appeal, especially as it was re-enforced by the
+bait of a fresh cooky, held out invitingly.
+
+"Ladies," he began impressively, as he roosted on the offered rail and
+took a generous bite out of the cooky.
+
+"Just an instant, Roger, until that cooky disappears," begged his mother
+with upraised hand.
+
+"I can talk all right," mumbled Roger.
+
+"But we can't hear you all right," retorted Helen.
+
+"Oh, come, you like cookies as well as I do," remonstrated her brother,
+taking in the last crumb.
+
+"Certainly I do, and Ethel Brown's are the best ever, but I eat mine in
+sections."
+
+"So do I--two sections," grinned Roger. "There, now I'm sufficiently
+refreshed to tell you the news. I suppose you poor creatures didn't
+realize there was any news, eh?"
+
+"By a strenuous use of our wits we gathered that there was something in
+the air when we saw you approach," murmured Helen, who sometimes found
+Roger trying.
+
+"List, then, beloved members of my family----"
+
+"Hark to the troubadour," mocked Ethel Blue.
+
+"Now, child, if you interrupt your uncle Roger you won't ever learn this
+thrilling piece of information that is about to fall from my ruby lips."
+
+"Chirp on, then, ornithological specimen."
+
+"Ma'am!" exclaimed Roger, burlesquing a fall from the railing.
+"Fortunately you don't catch me in the state of ignorance that you
+supposed when you hurled that awful language at me. I haven't got a
+grandmother who is a member of the Rosemont Bird and Tree Club for
+nothing. An 'ornithological specimen' is just slang for 'bird.' Look out
+or I'll retaliate with 'chicken.'"
+
+"I'm no chicken," denied Ethel Blue instantly.
+
+"Look at that, Mother!" implored Roger. "All fussed up over a trifle
+like that! And the funny part is that if _I_ said she was 'no chicken'
+she'd be just as mad! Girls are so queer," and he heaved an exaggerated
+sigh of perplexity.
+
+"Do let's have your news if it's worth telling," asked Mrs. Morton.
+
+"She doubts me," commented Roger haughtily. "Ha! You'll see, madam, that
+you have no reason to throw asparagus on my announcement. It's real news
+that I'm bringing. Chautauqua, the spot that we're honoring by our
+presence this summer, Chautauqua--is to have a birdman!"
+
+The result of Roger's announcement was all that he had hoped and more
+than he had expected. The Ethels fairly pranced with excitement. Helen
+clapped her hands excitedly, and Mrs. Morton laid down her embroidery to
+ask, "When is he to come?"
+
+"How perfectly stunning!"
+
+"Where will he fly from?"
+
+"Where's he going to keep his machine?"
+
+"Is he going to take passengers?"
+
+The questions flew fast and Roger covered his ears as if they
+overwhelmed him. He answered his mother's question first.
+
+"He's due to-morrow, Mother. They're starting right this minute to put
+up the tent he's going to use for his hangar. It's down side of the
+steamboat dock. His machine is what they call a hydro-aeroplane--"
+
+"It will go both in the water and in the air?"
+
+"So I understand. I saw a picture of it and it looked to me as if it
+could go on land, too, for men were pulling it down to the water's edge
+on its own wheels."
+
+"Probably the engine doesn't work the wheels, though."
+
+"Probably not enough for it to travel far on them. He starts off on the
+water, anyway, and then he rises from the water and the machine goes
+along like any aeroplane. It's a biplane."
+
+"Meaning?" queried Ethel Brown.
+
+"That it has two planes--two sets of wings on each side."
+
+"You didn't tell us whether he's going to carry passengers."
+
+"I don't know. I asked, but nobody seemed ready to answer."
+
+"Let's go down to the dock and see them put up the hangar."
+
+"After dinner, children, after dinner," insisted Mrs. Morton. "How long
+will he stay, Roger?"
+
+"A week or two."
+
+"Then you can surely eat your dinner before rushing off. We're so near
+the dock you can easily see every flight if you put your minds on it."
+
+Mrs. Emerson smiled at her daughter's words, for they both recalled a
+time when the Morton children were so eager to see a new teacher who had
+just come to Rosemont that they almost lived on the sidewalk in front of
+her house, in order that no passage in or out might escape them.
+
+Seldom was a meal in the Morton dining-room disposed of with such
+slight attention as this dinner which had to be met and conquered before
+the reconnaissance could be made. Both Ethels declared that they really
+did not feel at all like having dessert to-day, and they seemed grieved
+when Mrs. Morton regretted their lack of interest in it, but failed to
+take it as a reason for allowing them to leave the table before the rest
+of the family had finished.
+
+"If we've got to stay we might as well eat it," said Ethel Brown
+sulkily.
+
+"Mary would like to see that you appreciated her thoughtfulness," said
+Mrs. Morton gently. "She has taken pains to make caramel custard to-day
+because she heard you say a little while ago that you 'adored' it."
+
+"Good for Mary. I'm a Selfish Susy," declared Ethel Brown promptly.
+"I'll eat two to make up for it," she added with a cock of her head.
+
+"O-oh," groaned Roger, "and me planning to take advantage of the dear
+children's sudden and unusual lack of appetite!"
+
+"Foiled again, villain!" declaimed Helen.
+
+"Now, then, I'll race you to the beach," cried Roger as soon as dinner
+was over, and off they went, regardless of Grandmother Emerson's
+anxieties about the shock to their digestions.
+
+After all, the hangar proved to be not much to see. There was a large
+tent to house the machine and there was a small tent for a dressing-room
+for the aviator and another to serve as a sleeping tent for his
+machinists who were also to act as watchmen against damage from a
+sudden storm or a heavy wind coming up in the night, or the too curious
+fingers of the inquisitive during the day.
+
+The tents were entirely unremarkable, but drays were hauling from the
+freight station big boxes that contained the parts of the wonderful
+machine, and a rapidly increasing crowd stood about while their tops
+were unscrewed and the contents examined. A man who was directing the
+workers was proven to be the airman when some one called his
+name--Graham.
+
+"It won't be assembled before to-morrow afternoon, I suspect," he had
+answered. "Then I'll try it out carefully. A man bird can't take any
+chances with his wings, you know."
+
+"I'd like to ask him if he's going to take passengers," whispered Ethel
+Brown, and Roger was so eager to find out that fact himself that he
+worked his way nearer and nearer to Mr. Graham when he heard some one
+put the question.
+
+"It depends," answered that young man diplomatically. "If the machine
+works well I may do it. Or I may make only exhibition flights. I shan't
+know for a day or two."
+
+"What'th it'th name?" asked Dicky, who had heard so much talk about
+birds that he thought Mr. Graham was bringing to light some bird pet.
+
+"Its name?" repeated the aviator. "It hasn't a name, kid. It ought to
+have one, though," he went on thoughtfully. "You couldn't suggest one,
+could you?"
+
+"Ith it a lady bird or a boy bird?" he asked.
+
+"H'm," murmured Mr. Graham, seriously; "I never thought to ask when I
+bought it. We'll have to give it a name that will do for either."
+
+"There aren't any," announced Dicky firmly. "There'th only boy nameth
+and lady nameth."
+
+"Then we'll have to make up a name. It wouldn't be a bad idea," said
+Graham, turning to one of his assistants. "Why not offer a prize to the
+person who suggests the most suitable name?"
+
+"It would help keep up the interest."
+
+"It doesn't look as if that would need any outside stimulus," smiled
+Graham, glancing at the crowd, held back now by ropes stretched from
+posts driven down into the beach.
+
+When darkness fell electric lights were rigged so that the machinists
+might go on with their work, and all through the night they matched and
+fitted and screwed so that by morning the great bird was on its feet. By
+noon the engine was snapping sharply at every trial, and when the waning
+light of six o'clock fell on the lake all was in such condition that Mr.
+Graham was ready to make his first venture.
+
+The Morton children were in the front rank of the crowd that thronged
+the grounds about the tents. An extra guard kept back the people who
+pressed too closely upon the preparations still under way, for a
+mechanical bird must be as carefully prepared for its flight as a horse
+for a race.
+
+When all was well Mr. Graham mounted upon his seat. He wore just such a
+blue serge coat and just such white flannel trousers as a thousand men
+on the grounds were wearing, and the Mortons did not know whether to
+feel disappointed because his get-up was not more spectacular or to
+admire the coolness with which he stepped aboard for a flight that
+seemed to them fraught with peril in the every day garb of the ordinary
+man who never leaves the ground except in imagination.
+
+"I like him this way," announced Ethel Blue. "It makes you feel as if he
+was so far from being afraid that he didn't even take the trouble to
+make any special preparations."
+
+"I hoped he'd wear goggles and a leather suit and cap," said Roger, who
+was decidedly disappointed. "Those fellers look like some sports."
+
+But if Mr. Graham's appearance was disappointing, his flight was all
+that their fancy had painted it and more. He mounted with apparent
+carelessness to his seat, and then the machine was pushed from the
+hangar to the beach. Leaving its beak in the water the helpers ran back
+and whirled its tail violently. A whir of remonstrance answered at once
+and the engine took up the complaint.
+
+"There she goes! There she goes!" cried Roger and a hum of delight and
+wonder rose from the crowd.
+
+Out into the water she swept, chugging noisily over the surface, her
+wings tipping gently from side to side as she sped. The people on the
+gallery of the Pier House cheered. Men waved their hats and women their
+hands.
+
+"She's going up! See her rise?" they cried once more as the big bird's
+beak turned upward and the body followed with a swiftness that took the
+whole machine into the air while the spectators were guessing how long
+she would drag before she felt the wind under her wings.
+
+And then, southward, straight southward, she flew, rising, ever rising
+until she was high in air and but a spot in the distance. Not until the
+spot had disappeared did the crowd breathe naturally.
+
+"That's the most marvellous sight I ever saw!"
+
+"I wonder how it feels."
+
+"Wouldn't you like to try it?"
+
+Then came a cry of "Here she comes back!" and in an incredibly short
+time, the engine's buzz once more struck their waiting ears. As he
+approached Chautauqua the airman sank lower and lower, until he looked
+like a mammoth bird darting toward one shore and then the other,
+swooping down to catch an insect, and rising again until the rays of the
+sinking sun glistened on his wings.
+
+The Mortons were not the only Chautauquans who were eager to know if Mr.
+Graham was going to take up passengers. Never did he make a flight that
+he was not beset by would-be fliers urging their company upon him. Roger
+hung about with desire in his heart, but he never spoke to the aviator
+about it because he had seen so many grown men refused that he knew
+there was no chance for a boy.
+
+One day, however, he overheard a conversation between Mr. Graham and one
+of his mechanics which put hope into his heart.
+
+"I'm perfectly sure of her now," the airman said. "She flies like a real
+bird and I've got her tuned up just the way I want her. I believe I'll
+let the passengers come on."
+
+Roger went home delighted. The next day he was at the hangar long before
+any one else, and spoke diffidently to Mr. Graham's helper.
+
+"I heard Mr. Graham say yesterday that he was going to take passengers
+to-day," he said hesitatingly. "Of course I'm only a boy, but I do want
+to go up."
+
+"Want to just as much as if you were a man, eh?" smiled the mechanician.
+"I shouldn't wonder if you did. Have you got the price?"
+
+That there should be a "price" had not occurred to Roger. He flushed as
+he said, "I don't know. How much is it?"
+
+"Twenty-five dollars."
+
+Roger drew a long whistle and turned away.
+
+"No flying for me, until flying's free," he chanted drearily. "Forget
+that I spoke," he added, nodding to the young man.
+
+"Too bad, old chap. Perhaps your ship will come in some day and then you
+for the clouds," he called cheerily after Roger's retreating form.
+
+"Uh, huh," grunted Roger skeptically, for never had he had the sum of
+twenty-five dollars to do what he chose with, and he set about banishing
+the thought of flying from his mind for many years to come.
+
+There was no lack of passengers at any sum the aviator chose to ask, it
+seemed. All the Morton children were on the beach regularly at every
+flight and they saw man after man and woman after woman ascend. The
+novices always wore a nervously doubtful smile as they left the familiar
+ties of earth and water behind them and a laugh of delight as they came
+back unafraid and joyous.
+
+"It looks as if it must be the most perfect feeling that you could
+have," sighed Ethel Blue as they watched a beaming woman approach over
+the water and then come down from her seat beside the air chauffeur.
+"I'm like Roger--I could almost die happy if I could have just one fly."
+
+"The airman has offered a prize for the best name for his machine,"
+Ethel Brown read from the _Daily_ at breakfast one morning.
+
+"Don't I wish I could get it!" ejaculated Roger.
+
+"Or I!" "Or I!" "Or I!" came from Helen and Ethel Brown and Ethel Blue.
+
+"It was Dicky's notion. He suggested it to Mr. Graham by asking him what
+the name of his bird was. He ought to give a prize to Dicky for putting
+the idea into his head," said Roger.
+
+"Or to some member of Dicky's family who would enjoy the ride more,"
+added Mr. Emerson slyly.
+
+"What would be a good name for it?" wondered Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"Hummer," said Roger. "It makes such a humming noise."
+
+"Buzz-saw," suggested Grandfather Emerson.
+
+"Bumble-bee," offered Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Humming bird," suggested Helen.
+
+"Swallow," "_Hirondelle_," cried both Ethels at once.
+
+"_Hirondelle?_ That means 'swallow,'" translated Grandfather Emerson.
+"You two had the same idea at the same moment."
+
+"It's prettier than a noisy name," defended Ethel Brown.
+
+"The swallow is prettier than the bumble bee or the humming bird,"
+defended Ethel Blue at the same moment. "I'd rather give the machine a
+name that made you think of its graceful motion rather than one that
+makes you think of its horrid noise."
+
+"I withdraw 'Buzz-saw.' You've convinced me," said Mr. Emerson.
+
+"Mr. Graham says here," Ethel Brown picked up the newspaper again, "that
+he'd like to have the suggestions sent him by mail and that he'll decide
+to-morrow, and that the prize will be a ride in his hydroplane."
+
+"Me for pen and ink," shouted Roger as he rose promptly from the table.
+
+"Let's send ours in together," said both Ethels at once.
+
+They often spoke together in this way. It seemed as if their being
+constantly together made them think the same thoughts at the same time.
+
+"We'll tell him that we called out Swallow and _Hirondelle_ at the same
+instant and so we're applying for the prize together, and we hope it
+will please him because it's the name of one of the most graceful birds
+there is and we think his airship is the most graceful one we ever saw."
+
+"Perfectly true, considering it's the only one you ever saw," giggled
+Helen.
+
+"Never mind," said Mrs. Morton soothingly. "Write him just that note and
+it will please him that you like his machine even if he doesn't care for
+the name you suggest."
+
+Mrs. Morton had thought seriously about the possibility of one of the
+children's going up with Mr. Graham ever since the airman had come to
+the grounds. At first she had dismissed the thought as of something too
+dangerous for her to think of permitting. Then, as she watched Mr.
+Graham day by day and saw his extreme care and learned from his
+mechanician that he never failed personally to test every wire and nut
+before he started out, she grew to have such confidence in him that she
+was almost as disappointed as Roger when she learned the fee for a
+fifteen minute trip in the air. Now there was at least a chance that
+some member of the family might have the opportunity, so she made no
+objection to the sending in of the suggestions.
+
+There was a great writing of letters, a mighty flurry of envelopes, a
+loud calling for postage stamps, and a march in procession of the
+younger members of the household up the hill to the Post Office.
+
+"Mr. Graham flies to Mayville every morning to carry a special bag of
+Chautauqua postcards to the mail there," said Roger. "Let's go to the
+hangar when he starts. He always brings the bag down the hill himself
+and perhaps he'll have his own mail at the same time and we can sit off
+on the dock somewhere and watch him open it."
+
+"Oh, I don't think we'd better do that," said Ethel Blue shrinkingly.
+"It would seem like intruding on him."
+
+"Perhaps it might," agreed Roger. "The truth is, I'm so perfectly crazy
+to go up I'm losing my manners."
+
+"Let's write postcards to Father and Uncle Richard, any way," suggested
+Ethel Brown. "You know they're stamped 'Aerial Delivery' or some such
+words and it will interest them awfully at Vera Cruz to know their mail
+started on its way to Mexico by airship."
+
+They went into the writing room at the Post Office and prepared the
+special postcards, and had the pleasure of nodding to Mr. Graham when he
+came for the bag. They had slipped their own letters into the regular
+letter drop and they watched him receive a handful of personal letters,
+among which were their own, with a vivid interest because they felt that
+in a few hours their fate would be decided.
+
+"I'm going to feel sorry if I don't get the prize," confessed Helen,
+"but not more than one of us can get it--unless he should take up the
+Ethels together because they're little--and I'll be glad if one of us
+has the chance to go."
+
+"Me, too," said Roger stoutly. "But I wish he had an ark and could take
+the whole family."
+
+"We needn't be so sure that a member of our family will take the prize,"
+suggested Mrs. Morton when they came home. "There are one or two other
+families on the grounds and I've no doubt the poor man will regret his
+offer when he has to open his mail."
+
+"He had some crop this morning," said Roger. "I dare say it will grow
+all day long."
+
+It was the next day but one before the exciting question was decided.
+Then Mr. Graham inserted a card in the _Daily_. Ethel Brown read it
+again at the breakfast table.
+
+"'Mr. Graham desires to announce,'" she read, "'that two young ladies
+have suggested the name he has been most pleased with--Swallow and
+_Hirondelle_. He prefers the French form but he will be glad to
+discharge his obligations to both the persons who suggested practically
+the same name.'"
+
+"It's _us_," murmured Ethel Blue, too surprised to speak aloud.
+
+"'If Miss Ethel Brown Morton and Miss Ethel Blue Morton will be at the
+hangar at six o'clock this evening Mr. Graham will redeem his offer.'"
+
+"Isn't it too wonderful!" gasped Helen.
+
+"I'm glad of it," declared Roger bravely and he tweaked each Ethel's
+hair as he left the room.
+
+"I'm almost sorry," whispered Ethel Blue; "Roger wants it so much."
+
+Mrs. Morton smiled at her.
+
+"You've won it fairly," she said. "We'll all be at the dock to see you
+go this afternoon."
+
+There could not have been a better evening for a first flight. There was
+not a breath of air to cause any anxiety either to passengers or to
+observers. The sun had sunk far enough for its rays not to be disturbing
+unless the aviator flew much higher than he was in the habit of doing.
+The crowd on the shore was the only upsetting feature to rather timid
+girls.
+
+"We mustn't mind them," whispered Ethel Blue.
+
+"There's always something disagreeable about everything nice; this time
+it's the people," agreed Ethel Brown.
+
+"They're kind and interested. Forget all about them," advised Mrs.
+Morton.
+
+Mr. Emerson escorted the two girls to the hangar.
+
+"Here are the two young women who suggested the Swallow as the most
+appropriate name for your big bird," he said, smiling.
+
+Mr. Graham shook hands with them both.
+
+"I know your faces very well," he said. "You've been here every day."
+
+"Yes," they nodded.
+
+"We're so much obliged to you," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"We've been perfectly crazy to go up," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"Which of you suggested _Hirondelle_?" asked the aviator.
+
+"Ethel Blue did"; and
+
+"I did," answered both girls in unison.
+
+"Then I'll ask Miss Ethel Blue to go up first, since it is her choice
+that I've had painted on my machine's wings."
+
+Sure enough, as the aircraft came trundling out of the tent there were
+letters to be seen indistinctly on the under side of the lower planes.
+Ethel Blue clasped her hands nervously; but Mr. Emerson was speaking
+calmly to her, and Mr. Graham was taking a last look over the machine so
+that she felt sure that everything would be secure, and Aunt Marion and
+the children were smiling just the other side of the ropes, and Ethel
+Brown was waiting for her to come back so that she could have her turn,
+and above all, the words of the good Bishop rang through her mind.
+"Don't let your imagination run away with you."
+
+Of a sudden she became perfectly cool, and when Mr. Graham helped her
+into the little seat and fastened a strap around her waist she laughed
+heartily at his joke about the number of holes difference between the
+size of her waist and that of the last passenger.
+
+Then he climbed beside her, and the machine began to move clumsily
+forward as the men ran it down to the water.
+
+"Hold tight," came a voice that was strong and kind.
+
+The water splashed in her face and she knew that the hydroplane was
+pretending it was a duck.
+
+Then came the kind voice again.
+
+"We're going to rise now. Open your eyes."
+
+She obeyed and of a sudden there thrilled through her the same
+delightful sensation she had felt in her dreams when she had been a bird
+and had soared higher and higher toward the sky. Then she had wept when
+she wakened to realize that it had not happened at all. Now it was truly
+happening. She was up, up, up in the air; the water was shining beneath
+her; the hilly land was growing flatter and flatter as she looked down
+upon it. Trees seemed like shrubs, boats like water beetles. A motor
+boat that had tried to race them was left hopelessly behind.
+
+"It's Bemus Point," she screamed into Graham's ear, and he smiled and
+nodded.
+
+"We're going to turn," he shouted back.
+
+Then they dipped and soared, the aviator always telling her what he was
+going to do so that she might not be taken by surprise. As they
+approached Chautauqua again they saw the people on the shore and the
+dock applauding but the noise of the engine was so great that the sounds
+did not reach them.
+
+"Down we go," warned Mr. Graham, and in landing they reversed the
+starting process.
+
+There were smiles and shouts of welcome for both of them as they
+beached.
+
+"_Hirondelle_ looks bully painted on the wings," called Roger.
+
+Mr. Graham helped Ethel from her seat.
+
+"You're the youngest passenger I've ever taken up," he said, "but I've
+never had a pluckier."
+
+"Never a pluckier." Ethel Blue said the words over and over while Ethel
+Brown took her turn and sailed away toward Mayville and then down the
+lake for a five mile stretch.
+
+"Never a pluckier."
+
+She knew exactly why she had not been afraid. She had not felt that she
+was a girl trying to be a swallow; while the flight lasted she really
+had been the _Hirondelle_ of her dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+NIAGARA FALLS
+
+
+"HOW would you two Ethels like to go to Niagara Falls?" asked Mrs.
+Morton a day or two after the famous flight, as she slipped back into
+its envelope a letter which she had just read.
+
+"Oh!" cried both girls in long drawn joy.
+
+"This letter is from Mrs. Jackson at Fort Edward in Buffalo," explained
+Mrs. Morton. "Lieutenant Jackson is your father's best friend, Ethel
+Blue, and Mrs. Jackson knew your mother and she wants to seize this
+opportunity of our being near Buffalo this summer to see her friend's
+little daughter."
+
+"Not--me--and Niagara?" questioned Ethel Brown.
+
+"She has a daughter about your age and she thought it would be a
+pleasant week-end for all three of you if you two could go to Buffalo on
+Friday afternoon and stay over Sunday. She will take you on Saturday to
+see the Falls."
+
+"How perfectly magnificent!" exclaimed Ethel Blue.
+
+"How shall we get to Buffalo?" asked Ethel Brown. "We've never been so
+far alone."
+
+"Roger will put you on the train at Mayville and Mrs. Jackson will meet
+you at the station at Buffalo."
+
+"All we'll have to do will be to sit still?"
+
+"Between the parting with Roger and the meeting with Mrs. Jackson.
+Exactly," returned Mrs. Morton, smiling.
+
+"Are we equal to it?" Ethel Brown demanded of Ethel Blue in the
+quizzical way that made her so much like Roger.
+
+"We are," returned Ethel Blue promptly, and the two girls marched about
+the room, their arms over each other's shoulders, with the back-step
+that they delighted in--one, two, three steps forward, and the fourth
+step back.
+
+"One, two, three, back; one, two, three, back," they chanted.
+
+"Why this hilarity?" questioned Roger from the threshold.
+
+ "We are going to the Falls, the Falls, the Falls,
+ We are going to the Falls in the morning,"
+ chanted the prospective travellers.
+
+"You are!" ejaculated Roger. "When? How? Are we all going?"
+
+"Not you. Only the two best-behaved members of the family are invited,"
+declared Ethel Brown.
+
+"Mother, aren't my manners the top notch of perfection?" Roger demanded.
+
+"They're very good at times," returned his mother calmly.
+
+"'At times' means all the time, of course," insisted Roger. "Did Mother
+ever compliment you like that, kids?"
+
+"You're going part way with us," they announced kindly.
+
+"Good enough. How far? To Buffalo?"
+
+Roger beamed.
+
+"Not quite. To Mayville."
+
+Roger groaned.
+
+"To Mayville! Three miles. You'll be saying next that I may have the
+privilege of walking there to see you off and waving my hand as the
+train departs."
+
+"That's just what we are saying, my child. Except that we'll all travel
+the three miles in our trolley car or on our steamer instead of on our
+feet."
+
+"Mother, Mother! Help! Help!" cried Roger, holding his hands to his
+distracted brow. "Are these young women mad or do my ears deceive me? Do
+I 'lamp' Niagara Falls? Or does my part of the trip stop at Mayville?"
+
+"If I get your meaning through your somewhat obscure language," replied
+Mrs. Morton who liked to take an occasional shot at Roger's slang,
+"you'll not see Niagara Falls, but you will escort your sister and
+cousin to the train at Mayville."
+
+"But you don't mean to tell me that those babes, those infants in arms
+are going the rest of the way by themselves? They'll be lost in the
+vastnesses of Buffalo! They'll shoot the chutes or fall the Falls or--"
+
+"When your breath gives out we'll tell you what has happened," remarked
+Ethel Brown loftily.
+
+"'Pray do,'" quoted Roger.
+
+"We've had an invitation--that is, Ethel Blue has--"
+
+"I judged as much," commented Roger faintly.
+
+"--from Mrs. Jackson at Fort Edward."
+
+"Ah! A great light begins to break upon me!"
+
+"She asked Ethel Blue to go to Buffalo for the week-end and to bring
+me--"
+
+"--and we're to go to Niagara Falls on Saturday," finished Ethel Blue
+triumphantly.
+
+Roger frowned.
+
+"All I've got to say is that I'm proud to be the three-mile escort of
+such travelled young ladies. I bow before you and place my humble
+services at your disposal," which he did with an elaborate flourish and
+his hand on his heart.
+
+It seemed to the Ethels that there were a thousand matters to be
+attended to before they went on Friday. They had to decide what dresses
+they should wear and what they should take. Each one had her own
+suitcase and they had been fitting their bags with small travelling
+comforts for several months before the summer trip to Chautauqua. One or
+two trifling affairs still remained undone and these they set themselves
+to make before the eventful day of departure.
+
+"When I see a bag opened I know at once whether its owner is a tidy
+person or not," Mrs. Morton said. "Everything ought to be neatly
+arranged and covered with a tuck-in square over all."
+
+It was the tuck-in square that neither of the girls had finished before
+leaving Rosemont. Now they were determined that if Mrs. Jackson
+happened to be about when they opened their bags she should see that
+these daughters were worthy of their neat soldier fathers. They went to
+the dry goods shop and bought each a half yard of silkoline. Ethel
+Brown's had yellow flowers on it and Ethel Blue's had cornflowers. These
+they finished with an inch-wide hem, featherstitched at the top, Ethel
+Brown's with yellow silk and Ethel Blue's with blue silk. When their
+bags were all packed they laid these pieces over everything and fastened
+the straps outside of them.
+
+"The cloth prevents the straps from doing any injury to your freshly
+laundered clothes, you see," explained Mrs. Morton.
+
+"And it keeps dust out, too," said Ethel Brown.
+
+"And it certainly looks perfectly scrumptious," decided Ethel Blue with
+her head on one side admiringly.
+
+The Ethels were up bright and early on the exciting morning.
+
+"What's the use," demanded Roger, "of your going around like dizzy
+antelopes at this time of day when you don't have to take the boat until
+two o'clock?"
+
+"You'd be doing it yourself if you were going," retorted Ethel Brown.
+"Somehow it spreads out the fun."
+
+"For you," growled Roger. "For us stay-at-homes it flaunts your good
+luck in our faces--no, I didn't mean that," he added quickly as he saw a
+shadow grow in Ethel Blue's sensitive eyes. "Honest, I'm mighty glad
+you kids have got the chance to go. Of course I am. I was only fooling."
+
+"I do wish you and Helen were going too," answered Ethel Blue. "It would
+be lots nicer."
+
+Roger saw that he had made a mistake by insisting on his misfortune, a
+mistake that often is made when we try to be funny, and he laid himself
+out to be especially nice to the girls. He took every care of them,
+carrying their bags, passing them through the gate and helping them on
+to the boat with as much formality as he would have shown to his mother
+and grandmother.
+
+Though not long, it was a pleasant sail from Chautauqua to Mayville. The
+boat touched at Point Chautauqua on the other side of the lake where a
+group of summer-boarder young people were saying "Good-bye" to a friend
+with many loud exclamations of grief. The boys wrung imaginary tears
+from their handkerchiefs and one of the girls pretended that she
+required a tub that was standing on the pier to contain the evidences of
+her woe.
+
+The Ethels were hugely amused at this comedy and laughed heartily, while
+Roger, who was still in a serious mood, frowned and called it all
+"stupid."
+
+At Mayville they had to walk the length of the pier, but at its head
+they found the station. Roger presented each of the girls with a
+magazine with which he had provided himself before leaving Chautauqua,
+and a box of candy and a package of sandwiches gave them the wherewithal
+for afternoon tea if they should become too hungry for endurance before
+they reached Buffalo.
+
+"Afternoon tea without the tea," smiled Ethel Brown.
+
+"I do wish Mrs. Jackson had asked you," repeated Ethel Blue as Roger
+helped her up the steps of the car.
+
+"She would if she had known how nice I am," laughed Roger. "Good-bye,
+good-bye," and he waved a farewell as long as he could see their car.
+
+Once under way the girls gave themselves up to the excitement of their
+first travelling by themselves. They examined the faces of all the
+passengers and decided that no one was very handsome but that they all
+looked very kind and that they should not hesitate to call upon them for
+help if they needed it.
+
+"The old man just behind us is something like Grandfather," said Ethel
+Brown. "If we don't see Mrs. Jackson right off when we get out at
+Buffalo we'll ask him what we ought to do."
+
+"Aunt Marion said we'd better not speak to anybody except the men
+wearing the railway uniform," objected Ethel Blue. "If she isn't in
+sight when we get off we'll ask the conductor or a brakeman or a porter
+where the waiting room is and we'll go right there and sit down till she
+comes."
+
+But they need not have been at all concerned, for Mrs. Jackson was at
+the very steps of their car when they walked down them. A girl of their
+own age stood just behind her. Mrs. Jackson was tall, with light hair
+and her daughter was strikingly like her.
+
+"I'm sure this is Ethel Blue!" cried Mrs. Jackson without hesitation.
+"You have your mother's eyes, dear child. And this is Ethel Brown. Here
+is my daughter. Her name is Katharine."
+
+Katharine was not shy. She had lived all her life in garrisons and she
+was accustomed to meeting many people. She shook hands with her guests
+and took Ethel Blue's bag.
+
+"A friend of Mother's let us have her car to come to the station in,"
+she said. "It's just outside this door. It's more fun than going in the
+street car."
+
+The Ethels thought so, too, though they flew along so fast that they
+hardly could see the sights of the new city.
+
+Katharine chattered all the time.
+
+"You came along the lake almost all the way, Mother says. It must have
+been lovely. I'm so glad we're here at Fort Edward. It's right on the
+water and the sunsets are beautiful."
+
+"This is the memorial to President McKinley," Mrs. Jackson informed the
+Ethels as they drove through Niagara Square. "It was in Buffalo that he
+was shot, you remember."
+
+It did not take many minutes to reach Fort Edward, which they found to
+be merely barracks and officers' houses, with no fortified works.
+
+"When Canada and the United States decided not to have any
+fortifications between the two countries it looked like a dangerous
+experiment," said Mrs. Jackson when the Ethels, soldiers' children,
+remarked upon this peculiarity of the so-called fort. "It has worked
+well, however. There have been times when it would have been a sore
+temptation to make use of the forts if they had existed."
+
+"I wonder what would have happened in Europe if there had been no forts
+between Germany and France," said Ethel Blue thoughtfully.
+
+"Armament has not brought lasting peace to them," Mrs. Jackson agreed to
+the girl's thought.
+
+It was an evening of delight to the Mortons. They always realized to the
+full that they actually belonged to the Service when occasion took them
+to a fort or a navy yard. They saw the flag run down at sunset and they
+beamed happily at everything that Katharine pointed out to them and at
+all the stories that Lieutenant Jackson told them. Ethel Blue was
+particularly interested in his tales of the days at West Point when he
+and her father had ranked so nearly together that it was nip and tuck
+between them all the way through.
+
+"Until the end," Mr. Jackson owned handsomely. "Then old Dick Morton
+came out on top."
+
+It was novel to Ethel Blue to hear her father called "old Dick Morton,"
+but Lieutenant Jackson said it with so much affection that she liked the
+sound of it.
+
+Of course the Niagara expedition was topmost in the minds of the Ethels.
+
+"You've never been to the Falls?" Mrs. Jackson asked. "I'm glad
+Katharine is to have the pleasure of showing them to you first. I wish I
+could go with you but I have an engagement this morning that I can't put
+off, so Gretchen is going to take you."
+
+"Gretchen is like your Mary," explained Katharine. "She used to be my
+nurse. I don't ever remember Gretchen's not being with us."
+
+Gretchen proved to be a large, comfortable looking German woman of forty
+and the Ethels liked her at once. They went by trolley to the Falls.
+
+"It takes a little longer," Mrs. Jackson said, "but if you're like me
+you'll enjoy seeing a new bit of country and you can do it better from
+the electric car than from the steam train."
+
+It was a wonderful day for all the girls. The Mortons enjoyed all the
+new sights and were not ashamed to express their delight; and Katharine,
+although she had taken many guests on this same trip, took pleasure in
+seeing their pleasure.
+
+Their first stop was before they reached the city of Niagara Falls.
+
+"What is this big place?" asked Ethel Brown.
+
+"They make use of the power of the water to run factories and to light
+towns," explained Katharine. "You see those wheels lying flat on their
+sides?"
+
+She pointed down into a deep shaft whose dripping walls sent a chill up
+to the onlookers.
+
+"Those are turbines," Katharine went on. "The water from the river is
+racing along outside not doing any good in the world except to look
+exciting, so they let some of it flow in through those openings way down
+there and it turns these turbines and they make machinery go."
+
+"I noticed ever so many factories near here."
+
+"There are a great many here because power is so cheap, but they are
+also able to send electric power many miles away. Buffalo is lighted by
+electricity from Niagara, and there are lots of factories all around
+here that take their power from the Falls."
+
+"What becomes of the water that makes these turbines go?"
+
+"When you see it come out of a small tunnel below the Falls and compare
+it with the amount that is still tumbling over the Falls you'll be
+wonderstruck that so small an amount can do so much work. We'll see the
+place later."
+
+Taking the car again they completed their journey to the town and the
+girls could hardly wait to see the great cascade which they heard
+roaring in the distance. Katharine led them first to the very edge of
+the American Fall. The thick green water slid over the brink almost
+under their feet in a firm, moving wall, and they had to lean over to
+see it break into white foam on the rocks below. Like a great horseshoe
+ran the upper edge, the centre hollowed back by centuries of wear from
+the swift stream that pressed out of Lake Erie through the
+ever-narrowing channel toward Lake Ontario.
+
+Over the bridge they went to Goat Island where they seemed on a level
+with the swirling mass that bore down directly upon them. Gretchen gave
+an occasional scream of anxiety.
+
+"Dis water it makes me frighted," she confessed.
+
+The girls raced over the islands called the Sisters and every sight on
+the American side except the Gorge ride was behind them by luncheon
+time.
+
+Refreshed by food they started out again.
+
+"We'll go down the Gorge on the American side," explained Katharine,
+"and come back on the Canadian side. I've tried both ways and I like
+that best."
+
+The Gorge ride was all that Katharine had hinted.
+
+"It takes your breath away," gasped Ethel Blue as the car traveled
+slowly beside the turbulent water, crowding and racing after its fall
+from the cliff above, and hurrying on, incredibly deep, to its outlet.
+
+"I hardly want to look at it," admitted Ethel Brown as they passed the
+Whirlpool with its threatening circular motion.
+
+Gretchen frankly closed her eyes.
+
+"It is wonderful, but too big for me," she admitted.
+
+"You'll not be frightened when we go back, because the track on the
+Canadian side runs high up on the cliff," said Katharine. "Then when we
+reach the Falls once more we'll go down to the water level on that side
+and take the _Maid of the Mist_."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A tiny steamer. It goes close up to the Falls--so near you almost feel
+you are under them."
+
+"You can really go under them, can't you? I've heard people tell about
+it."
+
+"Yes, but it's no place for children, Father says, so we'll have to put
+up with the 'Maid.'"
+
+It proved, however, that they would have to put up with even less. For
+when they prepared to make the change of cars that was necessary for
+their return on the Canadian side, one of the men in charge stopped
+Gretchen.
+
+"You're German," he said.
+
+"_Ja_," she answered placidly.
+
+"Then you can't come here."
+
+"I can't come here! Why not? I been here many times--I und my young
+lady."
+
+"No Germans allowed here," he insisted.
+
+"She's my nurse," explained Katharine. "My father's an officer at Fort
+Edward. He's an American. We are neutral," she insisted.
+
+It was all in vain. The Canadian had his orders and he could not be
+moved.
+
+"Orders," was all that Katharine could get by way of explanation. Being
+a soldier's daughter she understood that orders were meant to be obeyed
+and she did not insist for long.
+
+"It's too bad, but I don't see how we can help it," she said. "I suppose
+every German is suspected now, but it's silly to think Gretchen is a
+spy," and she threw her arm around the shoulder of the German woman. She
+had been frightened by the man's roughness.
+
+"Don't you mind, Gretchen dear," she said. "When the war is over we'll
+come again. I'm sorry about the _Maid of the Mist_," she apologized to
+the girls, "but of course we can't go without Gretchen."
+
+It was a rather thoughtful group that returned to Buffalo, for the
+little experience with Gretchen had made them all feel that the war they
+were hearing so much about was nearer than they had realized.
+
+"Somehow it has seemed as far away as the moon," said Ethel Brown. "But
+now I feel as if it might jump out at us any minute."
+
+"It won't," Lieutenant Jackson reassured her; "but Gretchen's experience
+gives us something to think about from many points of view."
+
+Sunday passed happily and on Monday Mrs. Jackson and Katharine took
+their guests to the station and started them toward Mayville, where
+Roger met them.
+
+"It has been a wonderful visit," said Ethel Blue to her aunt. "Mrs.
+Jackson told me a great deal about my mother. She must have been
+lovely."
+
+"She was a very dear woman," replied Mrs. Morton, kissing her niece.
+
+"The only uncomfortable thing was about Gretchen," Ethel went on. "I
+wish that man hadn't frightened her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE PAGEANT
+
+
+"GRANDFATHER," cried Roger as he sat down to dinner one day, "do you
+remember that when we were in the trolley coming here from Westfield you
+promised that some time you would tell us about Celoron?"
+
+"I forgot all about it, son. Shall I tell you now?"
+
+"You won't have to now. There's going to be a pageant of the history of
+Chautauqua Lake and we'll learn the whole thing from that. There'll be
+historical scenes, and Francis Wilson, the actor, will wind it up with a
+real play. He's going to bring his company with him from New York."
+
+"Who told you about it?" asked Ethel Brown. "The lady who is to direct
+the whole thing came to the Girls' Club this morning and explained it to
+us and picked out the girls she wants to take part."
+
+"I met the Director and he told me," replied Roger. "He's going to be La
+Salle himself, and the Director of the Summer Schools is to be another
+of those old chaps--Brule, I think his name was; and the Institution
+Organist is to take the part of Celoron."
+
+"What are you going to be?" asked Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"An Indian brave."
+
+"I'm going to be an Indian boy," piped up Dicky. "The lady came to the
+Boys' Club, too, this morning."
+
+"You'll have to put soot on your hair, kid," teased Roger, "and brown
+your speaking countenance."
+
+"So shall I," said Helen. "I'm to be a squaw. A lot of girls from the
+Vacation Club are to be squaws. It will be awfully good fun except the
+browning up. They say that if you put vaseline on your face first the
+stuff comes off without any trouble."
+
+"I hope it does," Ethel Brown wished. "I'm to be an Indian girl."
+
+"I especially hope it does," continued Helen, "because I have to be a
+lady of the French Court later on and I'd hate to have my Indian color
+stay with me!"
+
+"Everybody is accounted for except Ethel Blue. What are you going to
+do?" asked Mrs. Morton, smiling at her niece.
+
+"I'm a Flower Sprite and so is Dorothy."
+
+"You can wear your own complexion, then."
+
+"I don't believe sprites ever have hair like mine."
+
+"You can't prove that they don't," declared Roger, smartly. "The pageant
+is going to be the grandest thing of the sort that Chautauqua ever had.
+There are to be lots of grown people in it, and the choir and the
+orchestra are to provide the music and there's to be a minuet--"
+
+"Didn't I take my first lesson to-day!" exclaimed Helen. "My knees are
+almost out of commission from that courtesy!"
+
+"They wanted me to learn that, too; hand on your heart business for the
+men, and prance around like an ostrich in a zoo trying to look over the
+fence! I told them learning the Indian War Dance was all I was equal
+to."
+
+"It's more in your style," commented Helen drily.
+
+"It seems a good opportunity to learn both. You and Helen might get up a
+minuet when your club has some sort of party next winter," suggested
+Mrs. Morton.
+
+"That's so," agreed Helen; "and Margaret and James are both going to
+learn it, and it will be a lot easier to drill the new ones if four of
+us know it already."
+
+"All right," Roger accepted the proposal promptly. "I'll tell them after
+dinner that they can order one of those white monkey wigs for me, too."
+
+"You won't look any sillier than you will as a red Indian," urged Helen.
+
+"Roger would like to have us think that he'd rather appear as a child of
+nature than a child of art," smiled his grandmother.
+
+"So I would," insisted Roger; "but the main thing is to do what will
+help most, like a true member of the United Service Club in good and
+regular standing."
+
+Ethel Blue applauded.
+
+"That suits you, does it, kid?" and Roger grinned cheerfully at the
+club's founder. "Are all of you going to rehearse this afternoon? They
+say that when you run up into a bunch of people anywhere on the grounds
+for the next week it will be a squad of pageant performers rehearsing
+something."
+
+"It looks to me as if it would be a tight squeeze to get it ready in
+that time," observed grandfather.
+
+"The lady who is to direct the pageant comes from Chicago and she has
+only this spare time in all the summer."
+
+"Some of the parts are all prepared," said Ethel Blue.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Dorothy told me."
+
+Dorothy sang in the Children's Choir and kept up with the musical
+activities of Chautauqua more than the Mortons, who were not especially
+musical.
+
+"Dorothy says that all the music has been ready for some time, so that
+the singers and players will need just one rehearsal to fit them in
+right with the other parts of the performance."
+
+"And one of the Vacation Club girls told me," said Helen, "that the
+elaborate costumes for the ladies and gentlemen of the French Court were
+to be sent from New York and Chicago, so that only the simple things
+will have to be made here."
+
+"The Flower Sprites are to wear floating slips of white cheese cloth,"
+said Ethel Blue. "I think I can make mine myself."
+
+"I know I can make my Indian clothes," said Ethel Brown, "because they
+are going to have patterns at the Girls' Club this afternoon and some
+one to show us how and we'll all make them together."
+
+"The Vacation girls who are to be squaws are going down there this
+afternoon, too," Helen said.
+
+"I'll walk with you if you'll wait till I find my sewing bag."
+
+"How are the sewing lessons coming on?" asked Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"The best ever, Grandmother. I can make a pretty good buttonhole already
+and by next week I'll be able to fill Mother's order for middies for the
+Ethels."
+
+"Perhaps your career will prove to be the humble one of sewing," guessed
+grandmother slyly.
+
+"I don't know that it is so very humble," defended Helen stoutly. "It's
+one of the most useful occupations there is if you just look at the
+domestic side of it, and it can be developed into a fine art if you want
+to go into embroidery. And my teacher says that dressmaking is a fine
+art, too, when you are designing dresses and not merely turning them out
+as coverings for the human frame."
+
+Grandmother laughed.
+
+"The factories will turn out the coverings for us, but I can see that
+your teacher means the adapting of a dress to the style of the wearer."
+
+"She says that a dress ought to be suitable for the purpose for which it
+is intended--"
+
+"That is, that there should be a sharp distinction between a school
+dress and a dancing school dress or, for a woman, between an afternoon
+dress and a dinner dress."
+
+"Yes. The designer ought to study the use to which the dress is to be
+put and then plan it accordingly. Then she ought to make it suit the
+person who is to wear it."
+
+"That point seems to be forgotten nowadays when grandmothers and mothers
+and daughters all wear the same ready-made dresses. The only difference
+in them is the size."
+
+"They ought to be suitable for the age of the wearer and for her size
+and shape. If you put a tall woman's dress on a short, fat woman she
+looks foolish. The lines of the costume ought to bring out the good
+points of the wearer's figure and make you forget her bad points."
+
+"That means that your mother ought to wear long, flowing lines because
+she is short and I can wear a tunic if I want to because I am so tall
+and thin that I can afford to have a few inches seemingly cut off me."
+
+"Then there's coloring. I can wear almost any color because I'm rather
+indefinite; I just have to be particular about getting the right shade.
+But there are certain colors that Margaret can't wear at all on account
+of her auburn hair--"
+
+"And certain color schemes that she can work out splendidly just because
+of her auburn hair."
+
+"Doesn't she look pretty in that all brown suit of hers? And she's got a
+dress of a queer shade of yellow that is just exactly right with her
+hair and brown eyes. When she wears all those browns and yellows she
+looks like Autumn."
+
+"We'll see you coming out as Madame Helene and presiding over a big New
+York dressmaking establishment," smiled Mrs. Emerson.
+
+"I don't believe you will; but I do think there's plenty of opportunity
+for a real artist in designing dresses, and I wish more girls went into
+it instead of into teaching."
+
+"Teaching and sewing used to be the only occupations that were thought
+to be suitable for women when I was young."
+
+"That was drudgery sewing--making men's shirts and doing a lot of finger
+sewing that can be done by the machine now in the wink of an eye. But
+the sewing that is worth while cultivating now is the kind that can't be
+done by the machine but by the fingers of an artist. Embroidery and
+specialized dressmaking like that we've been talking about--those are
+the kinds of sewing that make you a craftswoman and an artist and not a
+drudge."
+
+"You've stowed away all that your teacher has told you, I see."
+
+"She did tell me most of that, but some of it I thought out and then
+asked her about. You see, since that time when I told Mother I wanted to
+pay my board--"
+
+"I'm afraid you hurt your mother's feelings then."
+
+"Oh, Granny dear, do you really think so? I didn't mean to, but I
+couldn't seem to make anybody understand until I said that," Helen
+paused an instant disconsolately. "Any way, since that time I've been
+thinking a lot about what I want to do. I want to go to college, but I
+don't want to teach or be a nurse or a doctor. Margaret says she's going
+to be a newspaper woman or be on a magazine or something of that sort.
+But I seem to be hard to suit."
+
+"It's a long time yet before you have to decide."
+
+"I know it is, but if I decide pretty soon I can make all my college
+work help me toward what I am going to do afterwards."
+
+"That would be an advantage."
+
+"The trouble is that I like all the homey occupations; I'd like to be
+the best housekeeper in the world."
+
+"That's a modest wish! However, housekeeping is a science in these days
+of organizing ideas and knowledge, and if you want to keep house on a
+large scale it would be perfectly possible for you to learn about
+sanitation and ventilation and so on at college and then find a position
+as housekeeper for some charitable institution."
+
+"Or be a sort of teaching housekeeper connected with a settlement. I
+really should like that. If you don't mind I wish you and Mother would
+visit the School of Mothercraft that is in a cottage half way up the
+hill to the Post Office. I was passing it yesterday and I went in, and,
+interesting!--well, I should say it was!"
+
+"What do they teach--domestic science?"
+
+"Not the same kind that other schools teach. They teach just what a
+mother ought to know to run her house properly and to bring up her
+children properly. They have babies there and the girls who are studying
+take care of them just as if they were responsible for them. They learn
+how to feed them to make them grow, and they learn--Oh, it's the best
+kind of domestic science you ever knew anything about!"
+
+Helen was quite breathless when she stopped.
+
+"Your mother and I will surely go in the next time we go up the hill."
+
+"The school is in New York in the winter, so we can go to see it there
+sometimes--and I think--I really think, Granny, that I've found what I
+want."
+
+"I hope you have, dear. It's an interesting something that you've found,
+at any rate. I'm afraid the Ethels didn't wait for you. They went on
+when they saw us talking so earnestly."
+
+"Never mind. I'm glad I told you. You see, I told Margaret and she
+didn't think much of it. Just housekeeping seemed too small for her. But
+I think it's natural and interesting and gives you lots of
+opportunities. If you don't have a family of your own to look after you
+can help out some other woman who has one that she doesn't know how to
+manage, or I--I really think I'd like to run an orphan asylum and be a
+mother to several hundred chicks at once."
+
+"If you don't hurry you won't learn how to make Indian dresses for
+them."
+
+"They're easy," laughed Helen. "I expect to finish mine this afternoon
+and make Roger's to-morrow afternoon and then help on any others that
+are lying about to be attended to. Margaret and I told our sewing
+teacher about the United Service Club and she said that she could give
+us a chance to help with these costumes. There won't be much
+self-sacrifice in it, for she's going to superintend it all so it will
+be almost like having another sewing lesson."
+
+"It seems to me she is qualifying to become a member herself if she is
+giving her time in the afternoons to helping out with all these
+costumes."
+
+"I come across people every day who are just like that, dear Gran.
+Chautauqua is the greatest place in the world, I believe, for
+co-operation and helpfulness."
+
+"Helpfulness and kindliness and loyalty make up the 'Chautauqua spirit.'
+You've probably discovered that that is a very real thing."
+
+"It's what makes everybody go about speaking to people they'd just stare
+at at home."
+
+"And finding out that they're interesting after all."
+
+Over her sewing for several afternoons to come Helen thought many times
+of her conversation with her grandmother and she was keenly delighted
+when Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Morton went to the School of Mothercraft and
+found themselves as pleased with its purposes and its way of carrying
+them out as Helen herself had been.
+
+"We think we are making a new occupation for women out of her oldest
+occupation," smiled the head of the school. "We are organizing women's
+natural abilities and the duties that have been hers time out of mind in
+a modern way that will fit her to be a good mother and housekeeper in
+her own household or some other woman's, or to teach homecraft to
+students just as we are doing here. We've already had more applications
+than we have been able to fill for Mothercraft teachers to go to the
+West."
+
+Meanwhile, as Roger had predicted, every part of the grounds was
+"infested," as he described it, with groups of people rehearsing for the
+pageant. In the hall of the School of Physical Education the minuet was
+being practiced whenever the gymnastic classes left the floor free for
+an hour; the reader with the Water Sprites and Flower Sprites and the
+bold representatives of the Wind and the Sun foregathered in the largest
+room of the School of Expression; Indian men and boys stamped and
+grunted in the Boys' Club, while the Girls' Club was the scene of the
+squaws' Dance of Grief. La Salle and Brule and Celoron spent an anxious
+life warily dodging the people who wanted to capture them for
+rehearsals, and only submitted to having their measurements taken on
+condition that they should not be asked to try on their costumes until
+the day of the performance. It was Helen and Margaret and their
+classmates who were making them but they were so absorbed in doing all
+these extra matters in addition to their regular club tasks and
+pleasures that they felt it would only add one more thrill if at this
+last-minute trying-on all the costumes should be proved misfits and have
+to be made over in one day!
+
+Nothing of the sort happened, however, though there were dress
+rehearsals at seven o'clock in the morning of the appointed day, when
+early risers saw braves in full war paint flocking to the lake front,
+with a tread not as stealthy as it would be at night when boots should
+be exchanged for moccasins.
+
+The scenes were staged on a large raft anchored in the lake before the
+hotel and girt with low bushes so that it looked like an island. The
+observers assembled on the lawn that sloped from the hotel to the
+water, and spread along the pebbly beach. Those in front brought camp
+chairs or sat cross-legged on the ground and those behind looked over
+their heads. Strong lights were thrown on the improvised island from
+electric lights with reflectors. Mr. and Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Morton
+were so fortunate as to secure comfortable and convenient positions.
+
+The three scenes of the First Part represented myths of the Indians who
+long ago used to live about Chautauqua Lake. The Spirit of the Lake
+appeared in a canoe drawn by invisible power. As she landed upon the
+island the Flower Sprites greeted her with singing.
+
+"Can you make out Ethel Blue?" asked Mr. Emerson, peering through his
+glasses.
+
+"It seems to me she is the next to the end in the front row," replied
+Mrs. Morton. "That certainly is Dorothy on the end."
+
+Very charming they looked with their flowing white robes and their
+garlands, and very manly were the lovers, Wind and Sun, who wooed the
+Lake Spirit to remain on the island. Their wooing was vain, however, for
+the Spirit made them understand that she was to give her love only to a
+new spirit yet to come, Mankind.
+
+The next scene illustrated one of the meanings of the word
+"Chautauqua"--"The place of easy death." An Indian princess, stooping to
+drink from the lake, was drawn down into its depths.
+
+The origin in the lake of the fish called the muscallonge whose size
+and spirit make its capture a triumph for fishermen was the subject of
+the third scene, in which Indian braves fishing near the island were the
+central figures.
+
+The presentation of actual historical facts began with the Second Part.
+
+"I rather suspect," said Mr. Emerson amusedly, "that our young people
+are going to learn more history from this performance than I should have
+been able to tell them."
+
+"Helen has been reading about the explorers in the library in the
+College. I imagine she has her eye on another history prize next
+winter."
+
+"Here is what the program says is going to happen. Let me read it to you
+before the scene begins and then we won't have to bother our heads about
+the story and we can try to pick out our children."
+
+
+          "PART II.--1610-1615. SCENES OF
+          EARLY ERIE OCCUPATION
+
+"Three Erie scouts are seen exploring the country with a view of
+settlement. After satisfying themselves that the Island is safe and
+advantageous they depart, soon returning with their whole tribe. Then
+follows an historical reproduction of an Indian village. Tents are set
+up, fires lighted, fishing and swimming indulged in. The children weave
+baskets and play games. All is peaceful, until an Iroquois scouting
+party, passing near, shoots the chief of the Eries. Instant confusion
+reigns. The braves seize their tomahawks and pursue the enemy in canoes.
+The medicine man attends the wounded chief, the squaws moan in grief,
+and upon the return of the successful Eries with their dead and
+prisoners, the young braves of the tribe indulge in a war dance. As the
+tribe work themselves up into a frenzy and bloodshed and torture seem
+imminent, the outburst is quelled and the attention of the Indians is
+diverted by the coming of Etienne Brule.
+
+"Brule was a young Frenchman who, in 1615, carried a message of peace
+from Samuel Champlain, in Canada, to the Andastes Indians in
+Pennsylvania."
+
+All the young Mortons except Ethel Blue took part in this scene. Roger
+was one of the three scouts, and so was conspicuous enough to be easily
+picked out by his relatives on shore. It was not so easy to discover
+Helen and Margaret Hancock in the group of sorrowing squaws.
+
+"They would be apt to be together; I believe they're both at the right,"
+guessed Mrs. Emerson.
+
+There were so many Indian children rolling around on the ground and
+playing with the flowers and the dogs that Dicky was indistinguishable
+until the war dance with its shuffle and stamp and muffled shout excited
+him. James and Roger were especially ferocious in appearance and in
+behavior and Dicky found himself so entranced with his brother's
+spirited acting that he himself added a touch that caused a roar of
+laughter from the spectators on the shore.
+
+"Do look at that _darling_ child!" cried one after another, and the
+mother of the darling child tried, to look unconscious while she was as
+amused as any one.
+
+"Do you see?" exclaimed a voice directly behind Mr. Emerson. "He's
+following one of the braves about. He's imitating every motion he makes.
+Did you ever see such miniature ferocity!"
+
+"He's a pocket edition."
+
+"He's the most delightful creature I've seen in many moons," said
+another, and Dicky, as unconscious as a little animal, stamped and
+shuffled and shouted and enjoyed himself to the utmost. It was evident
+that to him the coming of Etienne Brule was a sore disappointment.
+
+Brule's approach was heralded by the arrival of a single canoe paddled
+by Indians who told that a white man was on his way. Then came three
+canoes bearing Brule and his Huron companions. The young man's calm air
+soothed the Indians on the island and they invited him to land and to
+smoke the pipe of peace. He told his errand, gave them presents, ate
+with them, and went on his way.
+
+A period of 55 years was supposed to pass between this scene and the
+next.
+
+"That will be long enough for Helen and Margaret to change their
+dresses," smiled Mrs. Emerson.
+
+Again the island represented an Erie camp, and again the coming of a
+white man was reported, but unlike his predecessor La Salle arrived in
+state. He was in a large canoe which bore the banner of France and he
+was escorted by six canoes filled with ladies and gentlemen of France.
+Landing on the island the "Little Father" claimed the land "with all the
+countries, lake and streams adjacent thereto" in the name of the "Most
+High, Mighty and Redoubtable Monarch, Louis the Fifteenth, most
+Christian King of France and Navarre."
+
+After an exchange of gifts the French ladies and gentlemen entertained
+the Indians by dancing the minuet. This innovation in the wilderness was
+received with approval by the red men.
+
+The Hancocks and Helen and Roger were easily distinguishable in the
+dance, and Ethel Blue, who had found her way to her aunt's side,
+together with Dorothy, who was not able to find her mother in the crowd,
+were delighted over their elegance and grace.
+
+"Ethel and I have almost learned it watching them practice," she
+whispered, "so if we really did do it in the Club next winter we'd only
+have to train two boys."
+
+Even longer than between scenes one and two was the lapse of time
+between scenes two and three. It was 79 years after La Salle's
+expedition that Bienville de Celoron, escorted by Roger and James, who
+had changed again into Indian costume, and a large retinue of other
+Indians and of Frenchmen arrived at the island.
+
+"They were six days, history says, in making the portage from Lake Erie
+which we make on the trolley in a little over an hour," explained Mr.
+Emerson.
+
+"They had to cut the forest as they travelled, I suppose," said his
+wife.
+
+"And carry 23 canoes and food and travelling equipment for 270 people."
+
+"It's no wonder they are languid," laughed Mrs. Morton as a
+disembarking youth moved so slowly as nearly to overset his craft.
+
+"Celoron has the French banner like La Salle," cried Ethel Blue.
+
+"He, too, is taking possession of the country for the king. See, the
+priest is taking the latitude and longitude of the new land."
+
+"What are they doing now? Roger is digging a hole."
+
+"Celoron buried lead plates in various places along his route. The
+purpose of his expedition was inscribed on them. Probably Roger is
+preparing to bury one of them here."
+
+This proved to be the case. When the hole was ready the plate was placed
+in it with due ceremony and then Celoron made a formal announcement of
+the claim of the King of France, and this section of the pageant was
+ended.
+
+"Oh, I'd like to see it all again," sighed Ethel Blue, looking about for
+Ethel Brown as the party moved with the crowd up the hill to the
+Amphitheatre.
+
+Helen sat and looked and laughed and wept a tear or two as the story of
+"The Little Father of the Wilderness" came to its pathetic, triumphant
+end. Yet through it all her heart was light because the days of the
+pageant with all their hurry and labor had brought her a glimpse of the
+future, a glimpse of a work that might be hers when she was free to
+choose--a glimpse of a work that would help others as well as herself
+and that would mean a career and yet the life of home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THINK HELP!
+
+
+ETHEL BROWN'S head had been turned by the praise she received after the
+fire. So many people complimented her on her coolness and daring that
+she began to think that she had done something extraordinary. Her
+feeling was increased by Ethel Blue's attitude of humiliation over her
+own terror on that occasion. She told her cousin frankly that she
+thought she had been perfectly wonderful and Ethel Brown could see that
+Ethel Blue had never forgotten that she herself made but a poor showing
+in the emergency. She did not stop to think that Ethel Blue was a far
+more nervous girl than she, and that it was entirely natural for her to
+do without thinking what required a distinct effort on the part of Ethel
+Blue.
+
+As a result of holding this extremely good opinion of herself, Ethel
+Brown's manner had become so condescending that Mrs. Morton was obliged
+to call her attention to it. It was a painful enlightenment for Ethel
+Brown. She loved Ethel Blue as if she were a sister, and she never
+consciously would have been unkind to her; yet not only had she been
+behaving in a way that would not help the more delicate girl to better
+her failing but she was becoming not an agreeable young person to have
+about.
+
+"Oh, Mother," she sobbed, "I must be just awful! What can I do? Tell me
+what to do!"
+
+"The very first thing to do is to houseclean your mind."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"You must first rid your mind of the idea that you are a remarkable
+young woman. You did your duty well, but there is nothing so astonishing
+in doing one's duty that a person need dwell on it forever after. Do
+your duty as a matter of course and then forget that you have done it
+and go on to the next duty."
+
+"But it's exciting to think that you've done something very well."
+
+"If you keep up excitement a long time you get very tired of it. If you
+follow my suggestion you have a comfortable feeling all the time. My
+process is just like housecleaning a room; before you clean the walls
+and floor you remove the furniture. When the bare room is fresh once
+more you move in the articles that you want there for use or adornment."
+
+"Clean out bad thoughts and put in--"
+
+"Only such thoughts as you are going to find valuable. For instance,
+after you have cleaned out of your mind the idea that you are very
+superior to Ethel Blue you ought to fill your mind with thoughts of
+helpfulness for her. You must think of all the good points she has;
+think how gentle she is and truthful and how brave she is about taking
+blame when she deserves it. You never find Ethel Blue failing to admit
+her responsibility for accidents or mistakes even when it takes a good
+deal of moral courage to do it."
+
+Ethel Brown flushed. She remembered times when, according to her,
+accidents had happened without any human assistance.
+
+"You must give Ethel Blue a feeling that you believe in her physical
+courage as well as her moral courage. You must always think of her as
+brave and when you talk with her on any such subjects you must take it
+for granted that she is brave. It is natural for a person to try to live
+up to the opinion that other people hold of him."
+
+"That is true, I believe," said Ethel thoughtfully. "Is that why you
+said 'Dicky is quite old enough to do that errand for me' yesterday
+after I had said, 'Dicky, you're such a baby, you'll never remember
+that'?"
+
+"It was. If you treat Dicky as a baby he'll stay a baby long after he
+ought to. He's not a baby now just because Roger has always treated him
+as a companion and Helen has let him help her when he could. Don't you
+remember that Roger went to the Boys' Club with Dicky for three or four
+days after he entered? That was to see how Dicky behaved. He didn't say
+to Dicky, 'You're just a baby so I'm going to see whether you act like a
+baby.' If he had said that Dicky probably would have behaved like the
+baby he was told he was. But Roger told Dicky that no babies were
+allowed in the Boys' Club, and the result was that Dicky stood on his
+own feet and met the other youngsters as boy to boy and not as if they
+were real boys and he was just a baby there on sufferance."
+
+"I never thought before that we had any influence on other people like
+that."
+
+"Once I knew a girl who was rather slow in speech. It gave people an
+impression that she was not very bright, and they began to treat her as
+if she were stupid."
+
+"Wasn't she really?"
+
+"She had a good mind. But after a while people outside of her family
+took up the family's attitude of constantly under-rating everything she
+said and did. The result was that she lost all confidence in herself.
+She believed that if older people in whom she had faith thought she was
+stupid she must be stupid; and she was really becoming stupid."
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"Some one suggested that she go to a certain boarding school. There no
+one knew of this family attitude toward her and she was treated just
+like all the other girls. It gave her self-confidence and as she made
+one success after another in school she developed in every way like a
+flower in the sunshine."
+
+"I'm going to try to help Ethel Blue if I can; and I guess you're right
+about being more comfortable with a house-cleaned mind; I feel better
+already, somehow."
+
+"You'll feel better all the time. Now this coming week I want you to see
+if you can't be of special help to your grandmother. It's Recognition
+Week and your grandfather and I will be busy with the graduating class
+every day so we can't go about with Grandmother as much as we usually
+do. She will miss it if she doesn't have a companion."
+
+"I'll remember. I'll go whenever she wants me."
+
+"You may have to go with her sometimes when you'd rather go somewhere
+with the girls."
+
+"I'll do it. When we got up the Service Club we were all telling why it
+would be good for us and I said then that I liked to do things for
+people just for selfish reasons."
+
+"You'll be a Service Club member of the right sort when you do
+kindnesses that you don't like to do."
+
+"So far all the services that the Club has performed have been things
+that were fun. We haven't been tried out yet."
+
+"Here's your chance, then. There are teas for the Dickens Class on
+Friday and Saturday afternoons so you must be on call then while
+Grandfather and I are away. On Saturday evening there is a large
+reception at the hotel for all the C. L. S. C. people and Helen is to
+help serve the lemonade, so you and Ethel Blue will have to stay at home
+with Dicky."
+
+"What happens on Sunday?"
+
+"Grandmother will march with her own class, the 1908's, and sit with
+them in the Amphitheatre to listen to the Baccalaureate sermon. In the
+afternoon at the C. L. S. C. Vesper Service Bishop Vincent is to give a
+special address to the graduates. There will be room for others so
+Grandmother will be there and will not need you, but you'd better go
+home with her after the Song Service in the evening, for Grandfather and
+I will go from the Amphitheatre to the Hall of Philosophy where the
+Vigil of the Class of '14 is to be held."
+
+"The graduates are busy just about every minute, aren't they?"
+
+"Not on Monday; that day is quite an ordinary Chautauqua day; but on
+Tuesday the class holds its annual breakfast. At that hour Grandmother
+won't want you especially. In the evening she will be receiving with her
+own class in their room in Alumni Hall so you will be free to take a
+table in the Hall of Philosophy and help serve the ice cream."
+
+"Margaret is trying to arrange it so that all the Service Club girls can
+have tables near each other, and the boys are going to hang around and
+be ready to carry the heaviest trays."
+
+"Wednesday is Recognition Day and Grandmother will be occupied all day,
+so you need not be disturbed about her."
+
+"I'll look in the C. L. S. C. column in the _Daily_ every morning, just
+as Miss Kimball said that Grandmother ought to do, and then I'll ask her
+what her plans are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+RECOGNITION WEEK
+
+
+ALTHOUGH the young people had but a small part in the proceedings of
+Recognition week, they took a vivid interest in all the festivities in
+which Mr. Emerson and Mrs. Morton took part, and they never failed to
+notice the rose-bedecked men and women whose numbers increased every
+day.
+
+"Everybody who has ever read the Chautauqua Course seems to be wearing
+some sort of C. L. S. C. badge," said Ethel Blue at the table on
+Saturday evening.
+
+"Only those who have graduated," explained Mrs. Emerson, "wear garnet
+badges like mine. The 1914's are wearing their class flower, the English
+rose, and the new class just forming has an olive green bow."
+
+"Wouldn't it be fun if all the 1914 class members from all over the
+world could be here to graduate!"
+
+"What a flock there would be!"
+
+"How many _will_ be here?"
+
+"About a hundred and fifty or two hundred. That's a small fraction of
+the class but they come from so many different places that they are
+fairly representative of the whole class."
+
+"The rooms were crowded at the reception yesterday afternoon and this
+afternoon and every trolley is bringing more."
+
+In honor of the 1914 class Helen wore a rose-covered dress at the C. L.
+S. C. reception at the hotel in the evening. She carried dozens of trays
+of lemonade and was a tired girl when the chimes, belated for the
+occasion, at last rang out their warning. With the rest of the family
+she was ready in plenty of time, however, for an early start to see the
+C. L. S. C. procession march into the Amphitheatre for the Baccalaureate
+sermon. The Hancocks and Dorothy and her mother took their places in the
+auditorium to see the classes march in, but Roger and Helen and the
+Ethels drifted along beside the troop of Readers, discovering Mrs.
+Emerson in the class of 1908 and Mrs. Morton and her father and Dr.
+Hancock with the Dickensians.
+
+In the afternoon the young people followed again, this time to the Hall
+of Philosophy where they stood on the edge and heard the Chancellor
+address words of inspiration and comfort to the graduates. Once more
+they stood at a distance when night brought the hour for the Vigil of
+the Class of '14. Athenian Lights flared about the Hall and flung tree
+shadows and the bending shapes of men and women against the black earth.
+Under the classic roof of the temple gathered the classmates met here at
+Chautauqua after four years of work done separately. Here they united in
+thoughts of the good the Past had brought and the Happiness that the
+future had in store.
+
+"Why do they call it a Vigil?" asked Ethel Blue.
+
+Ethel Brown had gone home with her grandmother but her cousin could not
+resist the call of a name that sounded mysterious to her, and she had
+come with Helen and Roger.
+
+"Didn't you ever read about the young squires watching over their armor
+on the night before they received the honor of knighthood?" inquired
+Helen, who was the "family authority on history and antiquities,"
+according to Roger. "They were left alone in the chapel of the palace
+where the ceremony was to take place, and there they prayed that they
+might live worthy lives and do no wrong and always help the poor and the
+distressed and always honor women."
+
+"We think we are serious nowadays but I don't believe there are many
+fellows who think as seriously as that about their life work," observed
+Roger.
+
+The young people had no part in the joys of the 1914 Class breakfast and
+"frivol" beyond laughing uproariously at the account of it which they
+received later from the elders who were there. In the evening of
+Tuesday, however, the Club came out in force. At that time the whole
+interest of the grounds was centred around Alumni Hall. The building
+itself was ablaze with light, every class receiving in its own room
+except the Dickens Class, which had so many representatives that it made
+use of the large room at the top of the house.
+
+Outside, the grounds between Alumni Hall and the Hall of Philosophy were
+bright with colored lanterns. In the Hall the band played the jolliest
+of music in one corner and the remainder of the space was occupied by
+small tables crowded with people.
+
+It was here that the United Service Club proved its usefulness. As long
+as there was any one to wait on its members ran to and fro carrying
+trays and making change, and when there were no more guests they
+themselves fell to and consumed all that was left.
+
+"I never object to eating ice cream for a Veranda Fund or any other
+reason," confessed James solemnly and Roger nodded a grave assent.
+
+Before they went on duty at the Hall, the Club proceeded in a body to
+pay their respects to the graduating class. There were so many 1914's
+that they extended all around the large room and before them an unending
+line of people passed, shaking hands and offering congratulations.
+
+Mrs. Morton stood between her father and Dr. Hancock before a bust of
+Bishop Vincent that gazed benevolently at the procession as it wound
+past the corner. The children claimed her as a "sweet girl graduate" and
+Roger greeted his grandfather as if he were only an older student in his
+own school.
+
+"You youngsters needn't be feeling so humorous," ejaculated Dr. Hancock.
+"The C. L. S. C. will catch you at some time in your life if it has to
+wait until you are seventy, so you might as well read the Course as soon
+as you are out of school, and get it out of the way."
+
+Behind the Mortons and Hancocks came Dorothy, her thin little face
+beaming with delight at the meeting that was coming.
+
+"This is my mother, Mrs. Morton. Mother, this is Ethel Brown's mother
+and Ethel Blue's aunt."
+
+The hands of the two women met in a long clasp, and they gazed into each
+other's eyes with instant liking.
+
+"You have been kindness itself to my little girl," murmured Mrs. Smith.
+
+"We can never forget her efficiency and helpfulness when Father was
+ill," returned Mrs. Morton; "and, if you'll allow me to say so, my
+mother, Mrs. Emerson, is a great admirer of yours."
+
+"Have I met your mother?"
+
+"You've been teaching her to make wonderful embroideries."
+
+"Is _that_ Mrs. Emerson your mother? I've grown very fond of her in her
+visits to the Arcade veranda."
+
+"We must know each other better, if you will," smiled Mrs. Morton as the
+mother and daughter passed on to greet others.
+
+"Dorothy looks so much like the Ethels that it startles me sometimes,"
+remarked Mr. Emerson, looking after them before some one else claimed
+his hand.
+
+"Girls of that age all wear their hair in the same fashion so they look
+like those paper dolls that we used to make in strings out of one piece
+of paper and put over the electric lights in the nursery."
+
+"Perhaps it is the hair, but their features certainly are alike."
+
+"Poor little Dorothy has a wistful expression that our children don't
+have, I am glad to say. I'm afraid she and her mother have had a hard
+time."
+
+"I'm sure we must have shaken hands with at least a hundred thousand
+Chautauquans," groaned Dr. Hancock; "don't you think we might go over to
+the Hall of Philosophy and get the United Service Club to minister to
+our inner men?"
+
+"I believe we've done our duty now; the crowd seems to be lessening;
+let's escape," and the two gentlemen escorted Mrs. Morton under the
+lanterns to the fire-lit temple where the members of the United Service
+Club hailed them, installed them at tables, and did their best to
+refresh them.
+
+"Will you put my arm in a splint, Doctor?" asked Mr. Emerson, rubbing
+his shoulder ruefully.
+
+"If you'll do mine. We'll go about like wounded twins!"
+
+At six o'clock the next morning Dicky was stirring.
+
+"Helen, get out my white thuit, pleathe, pleathe, pleathe," he pleaded
+impatiently.
+
+"Your white suit? What for?" asked Helen drowsily. "This isn't Sunday."
+
+"It's Recognition Day. Don't you remember? Grandfather and Mother are
+going to graduate. I'm in the Boyth Guard of Honor. Pleathe hurry."
+
+The Ethels were not much later than Dicky in their preparations, for
+they were to help the young ladies who arranged the baskets and made the
+wreaths for the Flower Girls. The Mortons were too tall to join the
+ranks themselves, and they were envious of Dorothy, whose lesser height
+admitted her to the band, although this would be her last year.
+
+It was a busy scene when the girls reached the top of the hill beside
+the Post Office. Huge hampers of flowers lay beneath a table of planks
+stretched on trestles. Around it were grouped a dozen of the girls of
+the Vacation Club weaving wreaths for the heads of the little girls who
+soon began to arrive, and filling small baskets for them to carry. Some
+of the children were so small that their nurses had to come with them.
+They were put first in the long line of twos, while Dorothy and Della
+Watkins, who were the tallest of all, were the very last. Every girl had
+a white dress and they made a charming picture which drew a crowd of
+grown-ups to watch them.
+
+Near by was the Boys' Guard of Honor, Dicky among them. Their uniform
+was a white suit and black stockings, and Helen and one or two other
+daughters of members of the 1914 Class were pinning on with a rose their
+shoulder sashes of Eton blue, the class color. Each boy carried a white
+pennant lettered in blue, DICKENS. They were a fine, manly looking lot
+of youngsters and they, too, drew compliments from the onlookers. Roger
+was marshaling them.
+
+These groups were far from being the only people on the square. Banner
+boys were bringing the standards from Alumni Hall and setting them up as
+a rallying point for the C. L. S. C. classes. James Hancock carried the
+flag of a class whose representatives all happened to be women and not
+strong enough to lift the standard with its heavy pole. Tom Watkins
+carried the banner of Grandmother Morton's class, the 1908's, because
+his mother belonged to it. Mrs. Emerson did not march with the 1908's
+because she was to pass through the Golden Gate after the graduating
+class.
+
+Back and forth went the Institution band, escorting one division and
+another of the mustering throng. All the undergraduates wore oak leaves
+to distinguish them from the graduates. The hoot of an owl rose from a
+group of 1913's, who, because they were the Athene Class, had taken the
+sacred bird of the goddess of wisdom for their emblem. Other classes
+were choosing cheer leaders and practicing their yells with greater or
+less success.
+
+"The year numbers on these banners don't give you much idea of the ages
+of the people under it!" laughed Tom Watkins to Helen as she passed him.
+
+"There's a 20-year old graduate in 1914 and a 78-year old," smiled
+Helen. "Where are the 1914's?" she asked, looking about her.
+
+"They don't march with the rest; they gather at the Golden Gate at the
+lower end of St. Paul's Grove," explained Tom. "The best thing for you
+to do if you want to see all the different parts of the procession is to
+watch the start-off here and then rush down the hill to the Chancellor's
+cottage and see him fall into the line with the Marshal of the Day as
+his escort. Then go to the Grove and see the class pass through the Gate
+and up the steps of the Hall of Philosophy, and then hang around the
+outskirts until they come out and march to the Amphitheatre for the
+address."
+
+Helen followed Tom's advice, waving her hand to Dorothy and Della among
+the Flower Girls, kodaking Dicky in the Guard of Honor, and standing
+with the Hancocks while her mother and grandmother and Dr. Hancock,
+followed in a later group by Mrs. Emerson, passed through the Gate. The
+class walked between the Flower Girls strewing blossoms under their
+feet, beneath the arches symbolizing History, Literature, Science and
+Faith, between the lines of the choir singing a "Hail" of welcome, and
+up the steps at whose top waited the Chancellor.
+
+Once in the Hall the service of Recognition followed; the tale of the
+historic C. L. S. C. banner was related; five mosaic tablets laid in the
+flooring were dedicated, and then the lines re-formed and started to the
+Amphitheatre. The Boys' Guard of Honor preceded the 1914's and repeated
+their yell.
+
+          "Chautauqua! Chautauqua!
+          Chau-tau-qua!
+          Nineteen-fourteen!
+          Rah! Rah! Rah!"
+
+came the shout in the unaccustomed voices of the Dickens Class.
+
+"Show 'em how to do it!" Mrs. Morton heard Roger urging his flock in an
+undertone.
+
+          "Chautauqua! Chautauqua!
+          Chau-tau-qua!
+          Nineteen-fourteen!
+          Rah! Rah! Rah!"
+
+rang out the yell heartily from three score unabashed juvenile throats.
+
+"Great!" commended Roger in a half whisper.
+
+"Fine! Thank you!" responded the Dickensians gratefully.
+
+Along the lake front the long line twisted, banners shining,
+handkerchiefs waving. The moving picture man ground his crank
+painstakingly; kodakers snapped along the pathway; relatives called out,
+"There's Mary," or, in shriller tones, "Hullo, Marmer."
+
+The marshal of the division preceded the gleaming white Dickens banner,
+bearing the class name and year; just behind it followed the class
+officers and then the smiling ranks wound once more between greeting
+graduates and the boys and Flower Girls into the Amphitheatre.
+
+With the procession seated in the auditorium the young people's work was
+ended. The girls and boys went off to be refreshed with ice cream cones
+and the older boys rested under shady trees until such time as they
+would have to take back the banners to the class rooms in Alumni Hall.
+
+"It's a great show," commented Tom Watkins, passing his handkerchief
+over his perspiring forehead.
+
+"A feller doesn't get tired of it if he has seen it all his life,"
+agreed James, falling on to his back with his knees crossed high in air.
+
+"We'll have to read the Course ourselves so as to take part in every
+section of the performance," said Roger who had disposed of his charges
+and was not sorry to sit down after his unaccustomed duties.
+
+Again the young people fringed the Hall of Philosophy in the afternoon
+when the Chancellor gave out the diplomas and pronounced the members of
+the class of 1914 full fledged members of the Alumni Society of the Hall
+in the Grove.
+
+"What hath Mother done to make her graduate?" asked Dicky in a
+far-reaching whisper as Mrs. Morton received her diploma and was
+applauded for the Bishop's announcement that she had earned ten seals.
+
+"She has read certain books and magazines faithfully for four years,"
+explained Helen, "She didn't read a little bit and then say she was sick
+of that book, the way I do sometimes; she stuck right to them and read
+them very carefully, so the Chancellor has given her a diploma, telling
+what she has done."
+
+"When I grow up," declared Dicky, "I'm going to be a Chanthellor and
+give people diplomaths and make 'em laugh and clap."
+
+"Mother," said Ethel Brown in the afternoon when Mrs. Morton and Mr.
+Emerson and their admiring family had returned to the cottage, "would
+you object if we had a party this evening while you and Grandfather and
+Grandmother are at the C. L. S. C. banquet?"
+
+"What sort of party, dear?"
+
+"Oh, I'd like to ask the Hancocks and the Watkinses to supper to
+celebrate--to celebrate--I don't know just what!" Ethel ended tamely.
+
+"I think in your own mind you'd like a celebration of having finished an
+unselfish week. Isn't that it? You can make it a celebration for the
+Watkinses if you initiate them into the United Service Club this
+evening. Will that do?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+IN CAMP
+
+
+BY the time that the Ethels had learned how to swim well enough to
+induce Mrs. Morton to let them go across the lake to the Girls' Club
+camp the season was so far advanced that they had trouble in getting
+their names on the list at all. Dorothy and Della waited to take their
+turn at the same time, and when the Institution motor-boat at last
+carried them over it was the last trip of the season.
+
+They found the camping ground on the other side in perfect order for
+their coming.
+
+"Every squad of campers finds all that it needs to pitch camp with
+immediately, even down to the wood to make the camp fire," explained
+Miss Roberts.
+
+"See," cried Ethel Blue, "there it is, stacked up for us. Who does it?"
+
+"The last campers. There was a detachment from the Boys' Club here last
+night."
+
+"They were fine cleaners--for boys," commented Della.
+
+"Boys are good cleaners," asserted Ethel Brown.
+
+"Oh, Roger has Army and Navy ideas about neatness, but ordinary boys
+aren't so careful."
+
+"On an earlier trip you girls would leave the camp in just the order in
+which you found it, wood and all. This is the last one, however, so you
+won't have to chop wood, but everything else must be so arranged that
+the men who come over to dismantle the camp will find everything in its
+place."
+
+It was an evening of delight, to all the girls but especially to Ethel
+Blue, who had heard her father tell of his camping experiences so often
+that she felt as if she were repeating one of them through the kind
+influence of some good fairy who had touched her with her wand without
+her knowledge.
+
+Pitching the tents was not easy but the girls managed it under the
+direction of one of Miss Roberts's assistants. Their united strength was
+needed for that, but when it was done they divided the remainder of the
+tasks. Dorothy was one of the squad that made the fire. Ethel Brown went
+with the girls who took the camp pails to the nearest farmhouse to draw
+drinking water from the well. Della and three others went up the road a
+little farther to a dairy to get the evening's supply of milk. Ethel
+Blue helped unpack the food supplies that had come over in the launch.
+
+When everything was out of the boat and it was chug-chugging away from
+the shore the campers felt that now they were really cut off from home
+even if they were not on a desert island.
+
+Not one of the girls ever had eaten a supper that tasted so good as that
+prepared in the open air and eaten with appetites sharpened by the
+exercise of preparation. Dorothy and three of her companions of the
+cooking class volunteered to prepare the main dishes, while Ethel Blue,
+who had become expert in the water, assisted the swimming teacher to
+give a lesson to a few girls who had arrived only a week before. At a
+suitable time after the lesson was over every girl was directed to cut a
+forked stick from a near-by hedge. Then they gathered about the fire and
+each one cooked her own bacon on the end of the fork. Sometimes the
+flames leaped up and caught the savory bit, and then there was a scream
+at the tragedy. A huge broiler propped against a stick driven into the
+ground held a chicken whose skin turned a delicate brown in response to
+the warmth of the blaze. Potatoes in their jackets and ears of corn in
+their husks were buried in the ashes with heated stones piled over them
+so that they should be roasted through evenly. The elders made coffee by
+the primitive method of boiling it in a saucepan and clearing it with a
+dash of cold water, and they maintained that no coffee with a percolator
+experience ever tasted better. None of the girls drank coffee at night,
+but they all praised the delicious milk that they had brought from the
+dairy, and started a rivalry of enthusiasm.
+
+When everything was made tidy after supper the fire was heightened to a
+roaring blaze and the girls sat around it cross-legged and told stories.
+"Br'er Rabbit" and the "Tar Baby" seemed just in the shadows beyond the
+flames and if you listened hard you could hear the hiss of the water as
+an Indian canoe slipped down the lake in pursuit of Brule or La Salle. A
+folk dance in the firelight ended the evening's amusement.
+
+Bedtime brought an orderly arrangement of the sleeping equipment and a
+quick going to sleep, for the girls were tired enough to have fatigue
+overcome the strangeness of their surroundings.
+
+The Ethels, Dorothy, and Della were together. It was at that end of the
+night when darkness is just giving way to the dim light that comes
+before the rosiness of the dawn, that Dorothy was roused by heavy
+breathing outside the tent. A chill of fear stiffened her. In the space
+of an eyeflash her mind went back many years to a faraway land where she
+had been roused in just this way by heavy breathing outside her window.
+Then there had been a low call and her father had come into her room and
+exchanging a word or two over her bed with the man beneath the window,
+had gone out doors. Almost before she realized that he had gone there
+was the snap of a revolver and a sharp cry of agony and her mother had
+shrieked and rushed out, leaving her alone. She was wide awake then and
+she lay in her narrow bed shivering and wondering.
+
+Her mother came back weeping, and little yellow men had brought in her
+father's limp body and he had lain on the bed for two days, not opening
+his eyes, not stirring, until men came once more and carried him away,
+and she never saw him again.
+
+She had almost outgrown the nightmare that attacked her every once in a
+while after her father's death, but the memory of the whole happening
+came back to her now with the sound of the heavy breathing. The suspense
+was more than she could endure. She reached over and touched Ethel
+Blue's hand.
+
+Ethel Blue roused and was about to ask what was the matter when
+Dorothy, scarcely visible in the dim light, made a sign for silence.
+Both girls sat up in their cots and listened. Nearer and nearer came the
+sound. It seemed too heavy for a man's breathing,--yet--they had been
+talking about Indians before they went to bed--perhaps Indians breathed
+more heavily than white men. No man would come at such an hour with a
+good purpose--perhaps bad men breathed more heavily than good men. Ethel
+Blue clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. Dorothy crawled
+down into the bed and drew the cover over her head.
+
+At that instant a roar boomed through the tent. Every girl sat up in her
+bed with a sharp, "What's that?" There were stirrings in the other
+tents; but the roar came again right there beside Ethel Blue's cot, and
+so near that it seemed in her very face.
+
+"It's something awful!" she thought, chilled with fright; and then, "I
+won't let my imagination run away with me. It may not be as bad as it
+sounds. If it does hurt me I can bear it!"
+
+Slowly she pushed back her blanket and looked down whence the clamor had
+come. The roar was followed by a tearing sound and a noise of struggle.
+
+"Oh, girls," cried Ethel Blue, "it's a cow! It's nothing but a cow! Poor
+old thing, she's caught her horns under the edge of the tent and she
+can't get loose."
+
+Dorothy's head came out from its covering.
+
+"A cow!" she breathed with relief and sank back, weak but thankful.
+
+"She's going to pull the tent down!" screamed Della.
+
+"Can't you shoo her out, Ethel Blue?" asked Ethel Brown. "You're
+nearest."
+
+Ethel Blue was well aware that she was nearest. She was startlingly
+near. But the cow seemed to want to withdraw quite as much as the girls
+wanted her to, and that encouraged Ethel Blue to help her. Leaning out
+of her cot she lifted the edge of the tent as far as she could with one
+hand and with her slipper in the other slapped the cow on her forehead
+as a hint that backwards was her next best move.
+
+With a gasp of disgust the invader departed and the girls heard Miss
+Roberts, who had been aroused from her tent, driving her away. In fact,
+everybody was wide awake by this time.
+
+"Let's get up," suggested Della. "I've never seen the sun rise and this
+is a good chance."
+
+Evidently the girls in the other tents were holding a caucus to the same
+effect and there shortly appeared a shivering group of campers. Ethel
+Brown was the only one who seemed not to think the happening good fun,
+but she was ashamed to seem cross when everybody else was in good humor,
+and when Miss Roberts set her to work on the breakfast preparations she
+soon forgot that she had not made a brave showing before the marauder.
+Dorothy was pale but gave no other sign of having been especially
+disturbed. After breakfast came the packing up and setting of the camp
+in order and then two of the girls who had been studying signalling,
+wig-wagged across the lake for the launch to come for them.
+
+"Since we've made such an early start we might as well go back early,"
+decided Miss Roberts, "because to-night is the exhibition of the School
+of Physical Education, you remember, and those of you who are in it will
+be glad of the extra time for rehearsing."
+
+The girls left with the feeling that they had had almost as memorable a
+time as if the camp had been attacked by Indians. Now that it was over
+they were glad the cow had happened in. Ethel Blue had a real glow when
+she recalled that although she had been badly scared she had pulled
+herself together and really driven the cow away, and Dorothy felt that
+since her nightmare had once had so laughable an ending perhaps it would
+not come again.
+
+Because of their early rising all the girls took a nap in the afternoon.
+
+"You want to put spirit into your folk dances to-night," Mrs. Morton
+replied to the Ethels' remonstrances against this hardship. "I want my
+girls to move with life and not as if they were half asleep."
+
+"Sleep now and you won't sleep then," added Helen, who was taking the
+last stitches on a pierrot dress which Ethel Blue was to wear.
+
+The seats in the pit of the Amphitheatre were all removed so that the
+audience was crowded into the benches on the sloping sides. The parents
+of the boys and girls who were to take part were present in force and
+the members of the Boys' Club and Girls' Club who were not to take part
+sat together in solid blocks at the front.
+
+A grand procession of all the participants opened the program.
+
+"There's Roger," cried his grandmother.
+
+"Tom Watkins is with him and James is just behind," Grandfather Emerson
+informed his wife after looking through his glass.
+
+"Some one of those funny pierrots is Ethel Blue, but you can't
+distinguish her."
+
+"She is to march with Dorothy, and Ethel Brown and Della are to be
+together in the butterfly dance."
+
+"And Helen?"
+
+"She is in one of the folk dances. She must be in this division wearing
+gymnasium suits."
+
+"Or in the next one; that first detachment looked to me as if it was
+made up of teachers of gymnastics who are taking a normal course here."
+
+The program continued with a set of exercises by the smallest members of
+the Boys' Club who executed a flag drill with precision and general
+success, although Dicky wandered from the fold when Cupid Watkins
+trotted his bowlegged way on to the stage looking for some member of his
+human family. Nevertheless, Dicky won the applause of the audience by
+seizing Cupid in his arms and planting a kiss on the cross-piece of his
+muzzle before leading him off on his search.
+
+The butterfly dance was charming, the little girls waving in exact time
+to the music the filmy wings that hung from shoulder and wrist. Mrs.
+Morton never succeeded in making out Ethel Brown and Della but the
+whole effect was delicately graceful. Ethel Blue and Dorothy were
+equally indistinguishable among the pierrots who stamped and whirled and
+stretched arms and legs with funny rapid motions.
+
+Ethel Brown had a part in a dance in which rubber balls were bounced in
+time with a difficult series of steps. Helen and Margaret and Tom
+Watkins were in one of the folk dances, and Roger and James, with some
+other large boys and young men, illustrated various wrestling holds in a
+fashion both graceful and exact. On the whole, the audience seemed to
+think the program was well worth their commendation.
+
+Into this busy week was crowded yet one more event of especial interest
+to the Morton household and its friends--the annual circus of the
+Athletic Club. Roger had been playing baseball on the second team all
+summer and this team was asked to take part in a burlesque game which
+was to be one of the numbers on the program. There had been much
+practicing in private and Roger had come home one day with a black eye
+which seemed to promise that when he made his slide for base in the show
+it would be a spectacular performance.
+
+The baseball teams, absurdly dressed, and taking Dicky and Cupid with
+them for mascots, had a float to themselves in the procession that wound
+about the grounds in the early part of the afternoon. The Superintendent
+of Grounds and Buildings led the way in his buggy and behind him came a
+detachment of Chautauqua police, one man strong. The special features
+were led by another buggy, this one drawn by a mule wearing a pair of
+overalls on his front legs.
+
+A pretty pink and white float was filled with small children from the
+Elementary School; another was laden with a host of Girls' Club members
+in the pierrot costume of the Exhibition dance. Ethel Blue and Ethel
+Brown were among them, Ethel Brown wearing Della's dress because Della
+preferred to ride with Dorothy on the float with the Model Cooking
+Class.
+
+James Hancock was in the baseball team with Roger but Tom Watkins
+provided the legs for one of the herd of three ostriches which walked
+with dignity behind the floats. The line ended with a flock of bicycles
+all aflutter with ribbons and pennants.
+
+The performance was on the baseball field and it began as soon as the
+parade arrived and the trousered mule was securely tied. Small boys
+laden with popcorn and ice cream cones went through the grandstand with
+their wares, a policeman wearing a badge of giant size kept order, and a
+solemn-faced announcer presented the numbers of the program. There were
+several comic dances, some funny songs, a contortionist who twisted
+himself into such knots that the announcer expressed doubts as to
+whether he would ever straighten out enough to leave Chautauqua when the
+season was ended, a snappy banjo quartet, excellent horizontal bar work,
+and Roger's baseball team.
+
+The baseball team took the prize awarded by the Men's Club for the best
+exhibit. The _Daily_ of the next morning described their playing as
+"distinctly original," and mentioned especially the superb slide to base
+made by Roger Morton, who, as short-stop, picked balls out of the sky
+with no apparent difficulty.
+
+It was when the Mortons reached home, aching with laughter at the jokes
+which the clown pretended to get off and didn't, that they were
+surprised to find awaiting them a telegram from Captain Morton, Ethel
+Blue's father.
+
+"Leaving Vera Cruz to-day," it read. "Reach Chautauqua next Thursday.
+Love."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"MY BRAVE LITTLE GIRL!"
+
+
+THE Mortons had been talking all summer about having a family picnic,
+but there had been so many things to do every day for every one of the
+household that there never had seemed to be any opportunity. Now,
+however, all the chief events of the season were out of the way and once
+more their thoughts turned to a day out of the grounds.
+
+"Let's go to Barcelona," suggested Roger a day or two after the circus.
+
+"What's Barcelona?" questioned Ethel Brown.
+
+"Don't you remember Grandmother told us about the fishing village on
+Lake Erie when we were coming over on the trolley?"
+
+"Helen remembers that because there is some history about it," laughed
+Ethel. "I know she'll vote for Barcelona."
+
+"I would--I'm crazy to see it--only it seems as if we ought to wait for
+Uncle Richard to come so that he can go with us."
+
+Ethel Blue's eyes beamed affectionately at her cousin.
+
+"He would like it, wouldn't he?" she said, smiling back.
+
+"Let's go to Panama Rocks, instead," suggested Ethel Brown.
+
+"What are Panama Rocks?" inquired Mrs. Morton.
+
+"The strangest collection of rocks you ever saw, all jumbled together
+and cleft into miniature canyons. They're about ten miles from here."
+
+"Oh, Daddy would _love_ to see those," cried Ethel Blue so anxiously
+that no one could help laughing.
+
+"Don't be worried, my dear. We'll save all the very nicest picnics for
+your father," decided Mr. Emerson. "We'll just go across the lake.
+There's a place over there where we can make a fire without getting into
+trouble, and we can have a hot luncheon and take a swim and have a good
+time even if we aren't out of sight of the Miller Bell Tower."
+
+Ethel Blue's face brightened.
+
+"How do we get there?" she asked.
+
+"By motor boat."
+
+"Then can't we trail a rowboat so Roger can give me a lesson in rowing?
+I shall be ashamed to tell Daddy that I haven't learned all summer."
+
+"Good work," cried Roger. "I'll hitch a light one on behind and I'll
+guarantee that before you come back you'll know all you need to to pull
+it. You won't need anything afterwards except practice."
+
+"And perhaps a little cold cream," commented Helen drily.
+
+It was the following Wednesday before a time could be found that would
+interfere with no one's plans. On that morning the entire Morton-Emerson
+family, including Mary, boarded the launch, engineered by Jo Sampson,
+whose employers, the Springers, had been called home before the season
+ended. It did not take long to speed across to the other side of the
+lake and the party was soon near enough to the shore to recognize
+objects at which they had been looking all summer from a distance.
+
+"Those trees aren't near the farmhouse at all! I thought they were right
+side of it!"
+
+"The trees in the orchard are full grown. They seem like mere babies
+from the other shore!"
+
+"And the barn is a long way from the house! Well, well!"
+
+It was a glorious day with a breeze that made it no burden to carry the
+baskets up the slope to the shelter where the materials for making a
+fire were awaiting them. Jo and Roger arranged everything in places
+convenient for the cooks and then Jo went to the farmhouse to see if he
+could find fresh butter and sweet apples. Grandfather and Grandmother
+strolled off on a botanizing trip; Mary, who was to have a holiday from
+any kitchen duties, wandered into the woods with Helen and Dicky.
+
+"Here's a good opportunity for you to give the Ethels their rowing
+lesson, Roger," suggested Mrs. Morton. "Teach them the main points
+before luncheon and perhaps they can do a little practicing in the
+afternoon."
+
+"But you'll be all alone here," objected Roger.
+
+"I shall be glad to be quiet here for a while. It won't be for long;
+some one is sure to come back in a few minutes."
+
+So Roger and the girls went to the water's edge and the girls stood on
+the narrow beach while Roger untied the rowboat from the stern of the
+motor-boat and ran it up on the shore.
+
+"You must learn to get in without being helped," he insisted, "because
+you'll have to do it lots of times when there isn't any one around to
+give you a hand. The unbreakable rule is, _Step in the middle of the
+boat_. If you step on the side you're going to tip it and then you'll
+have a picnic sure enough and perhaps two drowned pic-a-_ninnies_."
+
+"Pic-a-nothing!" retorted Ethel Brown. "We don't care if we do upset. We
+can swim."
+
+"Clothes and shoes and all? I wouldn't risk it just yet if I were you.
+Now, then, right in the middle. That's it. Ethel Brown on the seat
+nearest the stern and Ethel Blue on the other."
+
+Roger pushed off with a mighty shove and crept carefully down the boat,
+steadying himself by a hand on each girl's shoulder as he passed. He
+seated himself in the stern.
+
+"Which way are you going, goose?" he inquired fraternally of Ethel
+Brown. "Sit facing me. It's a funny thing a sailor's daughter doesn't
+know that."
+
+"Now, Roger, if you're going to tease I'll get some one else to teach
+me."
+
+"I won't tease you. Don't stand up to turn around; when you make a
+mistake like that, squirm around on your seat. Always keep as nearly as
+possible in the center of the boat. What you want to remember is never
+to give the boat a chance to tip."
+
+"There are only two oars here."
+
+"One oar apiece is enough to begin with. Put yours out on the left side
+of the boat, looking forward, Ethel Brown. That's the port side. Look
+out!" for Ethel Brown thrust out her oar with a circular sweep that
+would have given Roger a smart blow on the ear if he had not ducked with
+great agility.
+
+"Put yours out on the starboard side, Ethel Blue," he went on when he
+recovered himself. "That's the right hand side as you face the direction
+you are going. Secretary Daniels has changed 'port' and 'starboard' in
+the navy to 'left' and 'right,' but you might as well learn the old
+terms."
+
+"Starboard, right; port, left; starboard, right; port, left," repeated
+the Ethels in chorus, as Ethel Blue brought her oar into place by
+raising it straight in the air, a movement which brought a "Good" from
+Roger.
+
+"Ethel Brown is stroke."
+
+"Why is she?" demanded Ethel Blue.
+
+"Because she happens to sit nearest the stern where all the other
+oarsmen--meaning you--can see her. The stroke oar sets the stroke for
+the other rowers."
+
+"When I go fast you must go fast, Ethel Blue."
+
+"You can't go too fast for me," returned Ethel Blue smartly. "Have I got
+a name?"
+
+"You're the bow oar. Now, then, ladies, pay attention to me. Do you see
+that piece of wood fitting in notches nailed across the floor of the
+boat? That is called a stretcher and you brace your feet against it."
+
+"Perhaps you can, but I can hardly reach it with my toes."
+
+"Move it up to the closest notch, then. That's the idea. Now put one
+hand on the handle of your oar and the other hand a few inches away from
+it on the thick part."
+
+"So?"
+
+"So. You're ready now to begin to row. Push your arms forward as far as
+they will go and let your body go forward, too. That gives you a longer
+reach and a purchase on the pull back, you see. Bear down a little on
+the oar, enough to raise it just above the water. When you get the hang
+of this you can learn how to turn the blade flat so as not to catch the
+wind or choppy waves. That's called 'feathering'; but we won't try that
+now."
+
+"When I push the handle of my oar forward the blade goes backward," said
+Ethel Blue.
+
+"Correct! Observant young woman! When you've pushed it as far as you
+can, let it go into the water just enough to cover it--no, don't plunge
+it way in, Ethel Blue! Don't you see you can't pull it if you have such
+a mass of water resisting you? Get your oar under water, Ethel Brown. If
+you don't catch the water at all you 'catch a crab'--just so," he
+chuckled as Ethel Brown gave her oar a vigorous pull through empty air
+and fell backward off the seat. "Hurt yourself, old girl? Here, grab
+root," and he extended a helping hand.
+
+"Get these few motions right and you have the whole groundwork of
+rowing," went on Roger. "Forward, dip, pull, lift; forward, dip, pull,
+lift; forward, dip, pull, lift. Keep that up and you have the thing
+done. One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four."
+
+The new crew pulled vigorously for some distance until Roger commanded a
+rest.
+
+"Pull your oar in way across the boat and push it down until the handle
+catches in the ribs of the opposite side," he directed, "or turn the
+blade toward the bow and run the handle under the seat before you. Then
+it won't slip out of the rowlock and sail off, leaving you to wait until
+somebody happens along to pick you up. You might have to wait some
+time."
+
+"How are we going to turn round?" Ethel Brown asked when they were
+rested.
+
+"Pull one oar and the boat will turn away from the side of that oar. You
+pull, Ethel Blue. See it turn?"
+
+"It's mighty slow work," puffed Ethel Blue.
+
+"And a huge big circle you're making," laughed Roger. "Ethel Brown can
+help you by backing water."
+
+"How do I do that?"
+
+"It's the exact opposite of regular pulling. That is, dip your oar into
+the water first and then push your arms and body forward. Do you see?
+That makes the boat go stern first instead of bow first. Here's your
+count; dip, push, lift, pull; dip, push, lift, pull."
+
+The two girls tried it together and the boat soon was going backward as
+fast as they had previously made it go forward.
+
+"Now we'll try this turning around business again," directed Roger.
+"Ethel Blue will row the regular way; that will turn the boat in a wide
+circle as we saw. Ethel Brown will back water at the same time. That
+will make the boat turn a much smaller circle, and in a minute we'll lay
+our course for the shore. Ready? One, two, three, four; one, two, three,
+four. Now stop backing water, Ethel Brown, and row ahead. One, two,
+three, four," counted Roger patiently until the bow grated on the
+pebbles.
+
+"That's enough for to-day," he decided. "You mustn't get so tired out
+that you won't want to have another go at it to-morrow. Remember, step
+in the middle of the boat and way out over the side. There you are," and
+he walked away toward the grove of trees where he had left his mother,
+whistling loudly and followed by the Ethels' cheerful "Thank you."
+
+"It makes you hungry," commented Ethel Brown. "I believe I'll go and see
+if there are any signs of luncheon."
+
+"I'll be there in a little while. I think I'll rest under that tree over
+there for a few minutes."
+
+Ethel Blue was more tired than she realized, and, when she had made
+herself comfortable, curled up under an oak that was separated from the
+landing by a narrow point of land and some tall sedges, she fell sound
+asleep.
+
+It was perhaps half an hour later that she roused sharply at some sound
+that pierced her dreams. As she came to herself another scream brought
+her to her feet.
+
+"Dicky!" she gasped. "Where?"
+
+She ran toward the landing, but there was no sign of him. The sound had
+seemed nearer to her tree she thought as she dashed back to her napping
+spot, but she had been so sleepy that she could not tell whether it came
+from the bushes behind her or from the beach.
+
+The beach? The water? Was Dicky in the water? She flew to the water's
+edge and strained out over the tiny waves that lapped gently in from a
+steamer that had gone down the lake five minutes before.
+
+There it was again--that scream. And there was Dicky's yellow head
+bobbing up for an instant and there was his hand thrown into the air.
+
+In a second Ethel had slipped off her skirt and her shoes and was
+running into the water in her bloomers. It could not be very deep where
+Dicky was, just beyond the tip of the point. The sedge grass must have
+thrown him down when he started to wade. How it happened flashed into
+Ethel's mind as clearly as if she had seen it and all the time she was
+wading out as fast as she could go. Even now it was only a trifle above
+her knees; if Dicky could only get his footing he would be all
+right--and as she thought it, her own feet slipped from under her and
+she fell down a steep under-water bank sloping sharply away from the
+point.
+
+This was the reason then. But though startled she was cool and fell at
+once into an easy swimming stroke. Her middy blouse hampered her but not
+seriously. It needed only a few strokes to reach the eddy made by
+Dicky's struggle. She could see him clearly and she seized him by the
+back of his rompers. He made no resistance, poor little man. All the
+struggle had gone out of him when she lifted him to the surface.
+
+The point was nearer than the beach and a few strokes brought her to it
+with her limp burden. The child was a slender little chap but he was a
+heavy armful for a girl of thirteen and Ethel tugged herself out of
+breath before she brought him high up on dry land.
+
+"What was the first thing Roger said?" she asked herself, and instantly
+remembered that she must turn Dicky on to his face to let the water run
+out of his throat. She bent his limp arm under his forehead and then
+left him for a second while she ran for her skirt to roll up under his
+chest. As she ran she tried to scream, but only a faint squeak came from
+her lips.
+
+As she flew back she rolled the skirt into a bundle. The child still
+showed no signs of breathing and she copied Roger's next move on that
+long ago day when she had been his subject. Thrusting the roll under
+Dicky's chest to raise his body from the ground and then kneeling beside
+him she pulled him on to his side and then let him fall forward again on
+to his face, counting "one, two, three, four," slowly for each motion.
+
+Her arms ached cruelly as she tugged and tugged again at Dicky's little
+rolling body. Wouldn't anybody ever come? Over and over she tried to
+scream, but she had only breath enough to keep on pulling. She was
+counting "One, two, three, four," silently now.
+
+At last, at last, came a flicker of Dicky's eyelid and a whimper from
+his mouth. Ethel worked on harder and harder. Dicky grew heavier and
+heavier, but she saw dimly through her own half-shut eyes that he was
+opening his and that his face was puckering for one of the yells that
+only Dicky Morton could give.
+
+"You let me alone, Ethel Blue," he whispered savagely, and then she lost
+sight of the water and the sedge grass and her weary arms fell at her
+sides.
+
+When she opened her eyes again she found a heavy coat thrown around her
+and a face that she had not seen for a very long time, smiling down into
+hers--a face that she never forgot, the face that flashed before her
+every night when she said her prayers.
+
+"My little girl!" Captain Morton was saying soothingly as he rocked her
+in his arms; "my brave little girl!"
+
+His _brave_ little girl!
+
+"Dicky?" Ethel murmured, looking up at her father.
+
+"He's all right, dear. Aunt Marion has taken him to the fire."
+
+Then Ethel leaned her face against her father's shoulder and lay without
+stirring, utterly content.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FOLLOWING A CLUE
+
+
+WHEN Jo Sampson came running with a glass of hot milk and her Aunt
+Marion's instructions that Ethel Blue was to drink it at once, he said
+that he was preparing the launch for an immediate return across the
+lake. It was after they were packed into the boat and Ethel Brown had
+squeezed the water out of Ethel Blue's bloomers, that she shrugged
+herself comfortably into her father's coat and propped herself against
+his shoulder and asked if anybody knew how it happened.
+
+Nobody did, it seemed. Dicky had gone to walk with Helen and Mary and
+when they came back and began to busy themselves about the luncheon he
+had slipped away. It was not until Captain Morton, who had reached
+Chautauqua a day earlier than he expected, and had followed them across
+in another launch, suddenly arrived and asked for Ethel Blue that they
+noticed that both Ethel Blue and Dicky were missing. The first point of
+search was the neighborhood of the rowboat where Ethel Brown had left
+her, and they must have come upon her only an instant after she had
+collapsed, for Dicky complained tearfully that "The hurted me and then
+the tumbled down."
+
+Ethel Blue was the heroine of the day and not even her father was
+prouder of her than Ethel Brown, who patted her and praised her without
+stint.
+
+So great was the disturbance created at home by Dicky's experience which
+necessitated the calling of a doctor to make sure that he and Ethel Blue
+were getting on safely, and so frequent were the runnings up and down
+stairs with hot water and hot cloths and hot drinks and dry clothes that
+it was nightfall before Mrs. Morton had a chance to ask her
+brother-in-law how it happened that he had a furlough just at that time.
+Ethel Blue had begged not to be sent to bed and she was lying in the
+hammock, wrapped in a blanket and holding her father's hand as if she
+were trying to keep him always beside her. The rest of the family had
+gone to bed or to the Amphitheatre.
+
+"Is my namesake asleep?" inquired Captain Morton. "Then sit down and let
+me tell you why I am here. I asked for leave because something had
+happened that made me think that we might perhaps be able to find Sister
+Louise again."
+
+"Oh, Richard! After all these years! Have you really a clue?"
+
+"It seems to me a very good one. I was doing some inspection work at the
+time General Funston cleaned up Vera Cruz. It necessitated my going into
+a great many of the Mexican houses. In one of them--a rather small house
+in a shabby street--I saw on the wall looking down on me a picture of my
+sister."
+
+"Of Louise! How could it have come there?"
+
+"I was amazed. I stared at the thing with my mouth open. But I could not
+be mistaken; it was a photograph of her that I was familiar with, taken
+before she was married."
+
+"Could you make the proprietor of the house understand that you knew
+her?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I've picked up enough Spanish to get on pretty well now. The
+man said that the original of the picture, Dona Louisa, had boarded with
+them several years ago. It took a lot of calculation to remember how
+long ago, but he finally concluded that it was the year before his third
+son broke his leg, and that was in 1907, as far as I could make out."
+
+"Eight years ago that she was there. How extraordinary! What became of
+her?"
+
+"The story is a tragedy. Louise's husband--Don Leonardo, the Mexican
+called him--was a musician, as you know. That was the chief reason for
+Father's disliking him. It seems that he had wandered to Vera Cruz with
+the orchestra of a theatrical company that stranded there. He was in
+sore straits pretty often. 'The little girl used to cry from hunger,' my
+man said."
+
+"Poor little thing!"
+
+"It was the first I knew of there being a child. The father finally got
+work in the orchestra of a small theatre and managed to make a few
+_pesos_ a week. That seems to have relieved the situation somewhat, but
+it also brought on Leonard the anger of some of the other musicians in
+town who had wanted the 'job' that he had secured."
+
+"He probably needed it more than they."
+
+"But he was a 'gringo' and they hated him. And"--with a glance toward
+Ethel Blue, swinging gently in the darkness, "and he died suddenly."
+
+"Oh, poor Louise!" exclaimed Mrs. Morton, and "Poor little girl!"
+exclaimed Ethel.
+
+"Somehow or other Louise managed to scrape together money enough to take
+the child back to the States, but there was business to be attended to
+and she left a permanent address with the Senor who had looked after
+some legal matters for her in Vera Cruz."
+
+"Did you find him? Did he tell you the address?"
+
+"I found him, and when he understood why I wanted to know he gave me the
+name of the Chicago lawyer whom she would always keep informed of her
+whereabouts."
+
+"So you got a furlough and you're on your way to Chicago now?"
+
+"I've been to Chicago."
+
+"And the man knew? Did he tell you?"
+
+"He knew. He told me. Where do you suppose she is?"
+
+"I haven't the remotest idea, Richard."
+
+"At Chautauqua."
+
+"At Chautauqua!" repeated Mrs. Morton in a stupefied tone.
+
+"Here!" cried Ethel Blue, amazed.
+
+"Her address is here until September first. I hustled right on here, as
+you may imagine, to catch her before she left. Now the question is, how
+do you find out where people are on these grounds?"
+
+"There is a registration office where everybody is supposed to register.
+Of course not every one does, but that is the first place to apply.
+We'll go there early in the morning."
+
+"Of course you come upon hundreds of Smiths everywhere, but in a place
+of this size they may be present in scores instead of hundreds. Have you
+met any?"
+
+"Two or three. There is a Mrs. Smith in my C. L. S. C. class, and there
+is one who has a cottage near the Hall of Philosophy, and there's
+Mother's embroidery teacher at the art store--she's a Mrs. Smith."
+
+"Do you know the first names of any of them?"
+
+"I don't. Do you know Dorothy's mother's name, Ethel?"
+
+"I don't know, Aunt Marion. I'll ask her to-morrow."
+
+"We'll hunt every Smith to his lair," said the Captain seriously; "and
+your lair is where you ought to be at this minute, young woman. Kiss me
+'Good night.'"
+
+The next morning immediately after breakfast, Mrs. Morton and her
+brother-in-law started off on their quest of the Chautauqua Smiths. Both
+Ethels were eager to go too, but the elders thought that the fewer
+people there were about when the meeting took place the less
+embarrassing it would be for their Aunt Louise.
+
+"If you really do find her here," exclaimed Helen, "Roger will have to
+acknowledge that there is some romance left in the world."
+
+Mrs. Smith had not reached the art store when Captain and Mrs. Morton
+stopped there on their way up the hill, so they went on to the
+registration office and looked through the cards in the catalogue.
+
+"Here are Smiths from every State in the Union, I should say. Warren,
+Ohio; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Galena,
+Illinois; Wichita, Kansas; Bartow, Florida--"
+
+"You can't tell anything from those home addresses, for to tell you the
+truth, I was so excited at getting this Chautauqua address from the
+Chicago man that I forgot to ask him where she had been before."
+
+"Let's try the first names, then. We want L's, whether we're looking for
+'Louise' or 'Leonard.'"
+
+"Here's 'Lucy,' 'Laura,' 'Lester,' and one, two, three with just 'L.'"
+
+"Those will be the ones for us to try first I'll copy their Chautauqua
+addresses," and Captain Morton drew out a notebook with a hand that
+trembled.
+
+In spite of the number being so reduced, the search was disappointing.
+One Mrs. L. Smith lived near the College and proved to be a young woman
+with a black-eyed baby who demanded her attention imperatively when her
+callers asked about her acquaintances among the other Smiths of the
+place.
+
+A second Mrs. L. Smith lived near the fence back of Alumni Hall and was
+as much too old as the first Mrs. Smith was too young. The third Mrs.
+L. Smith was just enough a matter of doubt to Captain Morton for him to
+begin his interview diplomatically.
+
+"Have you ever been in Mexico?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she answered promptly, though evidently surprised.
+
+"About how long ago?" ventured the Captain.
+
+"It's nearly twenty years now. I was about twenty at the time."
+
+The Mortons excused themselves and continued on their rounds.
+
+"It's a rather doubtful experiment hunting up a person of middle age
+whom you haven't seen since she was a young woman. With all respect to
+the lady we just interviewed I'm glad she proves to be not my sister.
+But I can depend on your affection, Marion, to meet Louise with love no
+matter what sort of person she proves to be."
+
+"You may, indeed. And I know she'll call out all my love. In the first
+place she's the sister of the best possible husband and the finest sort
+of brother-in-law, and in the next place she deserves love for the sake
+of the hardships she has been through."
+
+"I saw Brother Roger for an hour just before I left Vera Cruz and he
+said that I could depend on you to be just as true to _his_ as you were
+to _him_."
+
+As they passed along the streets they stopped at two or three houses
+where Mrs. Morton remembered that she had met Smiths or where she could
+make inquiries about Smiths, but every call was fruitless.
+
+"I believe we shall have to start a house to house search after dinner.
+Helen and Roger can help."
+
+"We might stop here at the art store again as we pass," suggested Mrs.
+Morton.
+
+Just at that moment Dorothy's mother came down the steps of the Arcade.
+She nodded pleasantly to Mrs. Morton, and then glanced at her companion.
+
+"Richard!" she gasped. "Oh, Richard!"
+
+"Louise! Is it Louise? Your hair! It's white!"
+
+Mrs. Morton slipped an arm around Mrs. Smith's waist and drew her across
+the lawn to the shelter of the cottage.
+
+"I'm so thankful it's _you_!" she exclaimed with a smile that relieved
+the tension of the meeting. "I like you so much better than any of the
+other Mrs. Smiths we have met this morning!"
+
+"I guessed, of course, from your boys' names, that you were my brother's
+wife," said the newly found sister, sinking into a chair; "but the
+children said there was no chance of their father or their uncle coming
+North this summer, and you never had seen me, so I took the risk of
+staying on until the first of September when my engagement at the art
+store ends."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, Louise? It would have been such a happiness to
+me--to the children--to know. We've been defrauded of nearly two months'
+joy."
+
+"I shall be going in a week or ten days more," stammered Mrs. Smith,
+looking at her brother.
+
+"You can tell me your plans later," he answered, "but don't look at me
+as if I were driving you. Why, I came up here from Vera Cruz to find you
+and for no other purpose."
+
+"You found a clue there?"
+
+The slender woman seemed to shrink into her chair, her high-piled white
+hair shining against its red back and her eyes gleaming with tears.
+
+He told her how he had come upon her picture.
+
+"Did the Mexican tell you that my husband was shot there? My little
+Dorothy wakes even now in the night and thinks she hears voices
+whispering in the _patio_ under her window, voices of the men that
+called her father out to his death."
+
+"We can all help make her happy enough to forget the hard days--and you,
+too, dear Louise."
+
+Mrs. Morton threw her arms around her sister as the Ethels and Dorothy
+came rushing into the room from their morning on the bathing beach.
+
+"Children, there's good news. Dorothy is your very own cousin."
+
+"Our cousin?"
+
+"Really our cousin?"
+
+"Grandfather Emerson always said our noses were alike."
+
+"Nothing so good ever happened to us," and the Ethels seized Dorothy and
+the three went through the steps of the butterfly dance with joyous
+smiles that reassured Dorothy's mother as to her child's welcome into
+the family.
+
+"I'm so glad it's _you_ who are the Aunt Louise we've wanted to know all
+our lives," cried Helen softly, kissing her aunt.
+
+Roger shook hands with her gravely, feeling himself the representative
+of his father on an occasion of such family importance.
+
+The Ethels rushed on to the porch when they heard Dicky coming up the
+steps.
+
+"Dicky, Dicky, we've got a new aunt! Come in and see her."
+
+Dicky went slowly into the room for purposes of inspection.
+
+"_That_ ain't a new aunt," he exclaimed; "that'th jutht my fire lady,"
+and he curled up like a kitten in his Aunt Louise's lap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"WHO ARE WE?"
+
+
+MRS. SMITH and Dorothy stayed to dinner with the Mortons and after
+dinner the younger members of the family party went to the beach in
+front of the cottage while the elders were talking in the house. Roger
+rolled up to the group cartwheel fashion as they gathered about the
+stone on which their new cousin was sitting.
+
+"It's the most wonderful event that ever happened to the Mortons," he
+ejaculated breathlessly. "I suppose Aunt Louise is telling them in the
+house everything that has happened to her since before all of us were
+born, so perhaps you'll tell us all the happy happenings that have
+happened to you."
+
+Dorothy flushed and Helen, who guessed that the happenings of her aunt's
+and cousin's lives had not been very happy, hastened to interpose.
+
+"What we want to know even more," she said tactfully, "is what Aunt
+Louise and you are going to do now. Wouldn't it be just _grand_ if you
+could live in Rosemont!"
+
+Dorothy's face kindled.
+
+"It would be for me," she agreed. "I've never been where there was any
+one belonging to me, and--well, that would be a 'happy ending'!"
+
+"Where was Aunt Louise planning to go for the winter?"
+
+"I don't know that she had any plans. She hadn't the last time we talked
+about it, but that was a long time ago--way back at the time of the
+fire."
+
+"Why can't you both go home with us? We're going in a day or two, you
+know."
+
+"Mother's engagement at the art store doesn't end until the first of
+September. She wouldn't leave them in the lurch."
+
+"No, it wouldn't be right," murmured Helen; "but I want her to rest just
+as soon as she can."
+
+"She is tired," assented Dorothy, thinking as she answered how much more
+tired her mother was than any of the Morton cousins could understand.
+The wear of constant anxiety about bread and butter and shelter is
+something beyond the understanding of those who have not experienced it.
+It had made Dorothy older than her years and had turned her mother's
+hair snow-white at forty-two.
+
+"If only you live in Rosemont," said Ethel Brown, "we can go to school
+together. Ethel Blue and I have been almost like twins. If you are with
+us all the time we'll be triplets."
+
+"Oh!" cried Dorothy, clasping her hands.
+
+"Do you suppose they'll tell us what they've decided?" asked Ethel Blue
+anxiously. "Father will suggest something perfectly fine--he always
+does--and it will be like the end of a fairy story. You're sure you'd
+like to live with us?" she questioned anxiously.
+
+Helen gave Ethel Blue a touch to attract her attention, for Dorothy was
+almost crying. Ethel Blue threw her arm around her and gave her a hug.
+At that minute Captain Morton's voice was heard calling Dorothy from
+the house. She jumped up and ran in. When she came back a few minutes
+later she was radiant.
+
+"It's all arranged," she cried excitedly. "Some money has turned up from
+somewhere--a lot of it--that belongs to Mother, so we can live wherever
+we want to, and of course we'd rather live near you people than anywhere
+else in the world."
+
+"All I've got to say," said Ethel Brown, "is that this is the finest
+sort of ending to the finest sort of summer. Just think of all the new
+things we've seen and done since we came up here, but I think the best
+of all has been starting the Club, because that's going to last."
+
+"I believe we're going to have more fun out of that than out of anything
+we ever tried," said Helen.
+
+"I know it; I feel it in my bones," cried Ethel Blue, "and now that
+Dorothy is going to help us with it all winter we'll just make things
+hum in Rosemont."
+
+Throwing their arms across each other's shoulders, the whole group of
+them marched along the beach--one, two, three, back; one, two, three,
+back--chanting in unison
+
+          "Who are we?
+          Who are we?
+          We are members of the U. S. C."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Sometimes C.S.L.C. was printed with
+spaces between the letters and sometimes not. This was retained.
+
+Page 50, "loked" changed to "looked" (Helen looked at her with)
+
+Page 110, "sichlike" changed to "suchlike" (and suchlike foreign)
+
+Page 196, "yong" changed to "young" (young man's calm air)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ethel Morton at Chautauqua, by Mabell S. C. Smith
+
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