Ethel Morton at Chautauqua
by Mabell S. C. Smith · English · Gutenberg #36010 · 342,842 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Ethel Morton at Chautauqua
Author: Mabell S. C. Smith
Release date: May 2, 2011 [eBook #36010]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36010
Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan, Emmy and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE 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
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