NIAGARA FALLS
"HOW would you two Ethels like to go to Niagara Falls?" asked Mrs.
Morton a day or two after the famous flight, as she slipped back into
its envelope a letter which she had just read.
"Oh!" cried both girls in long drawn joy.
"This letter is from Mrs. Jackson at Fort Edward in Buffalo," explained
Mrs. Morton. "Lieutenant Jackson is your father's best friend, Ethel
Blue, and Mrs. Jackson knew your mother and she wants to seize this
opportunity of our being near Buffalo this summer to see her friend's
little daughter."
"Not--me--and Niagara?" questioned Ethel Brown.
"She has a daughter about your age and she thought it would be a
pleasant week-end for all three of you if you two could go to Buffalo on
Friday afternoon and stay over Sunday. She will take you on Saturday to
see the Falls."
"How perfectly magnificent!" exclaimed Ethel Blue.
"How shall we get to Buffalo?" asked Ethel Brown. "We've never been so
far alone."
"Roger will put you on the train at Mayville and Mrs. Jackson will meet
you at the station at Buffalo."
"All we'll have to do will be to sit still?"
"Between the parting with Roger and the meeting with Mrs. Jackson.
Exactly," returned Mrs. Morton, smiling.
"Are we equal to it?" Ethel Brown demanded of Ethel Blue in the
quizzical way that made her so much like Roger.
"We are," returned Ethel Blue promptly, and the two girls marched about
the room, their arms over each other's shoulders, with the back-step
that they delighted in--one, two, three steps forward, and the fourth
step back.
"One, two, three, back; one, two, three, back," they chanted.
"Why this hilarity?" questioned Roger from the threshold.
"We are going to the Falls, the Falls, the Falls,
We are going to the Falls in the morning,"
chanted the prospective travellers.
"You are!" ejaculated Roger. "When? How? Are we all going?"
"Not you. Only the two best-behaved members of the family are invited,"
declared Ethel Brown.
"Mother, aren't my manners the top notch of perfection?" Roger demanded.
"They're very good at times," returned his mother calmly.
"'At times' means all the time, of course," insisted Roger. "Did Mother
ever compliment you like that, kids?"
"You're going part way with us," they announced kindly.
"Good enough. How far? To Buffalo?"
Roger beamed.
"Not quite. To Mayville."
Roger groaned.
"To Mayville! Three miles. You'll be saying next that I may have the
privilege of walking there to see you off and waving my hand as the
train departs."
"That's just what we are saying, my child. Except that we'll all travel
the three miles in our trolley car or on our steamer instead of on our
feet."
"Mother, Mother! Help! Help!" cried Roger, holding his hands to his
distracted brow. "Are these young women mad or do my ears deceive me? Do
I 'lamp' Niagara Falls? Or does my part of the trip stop at Mayville?"
"If I get your meaning through your somewhat obscure language," replied
Mrs. Morton who liked to take an occasional shot at Roger's slang,
"you'll not see Niagara Falls, but you will escort your sister and
cousin to the train at Mayville."
"But you don't mean to tell me that those babes, those infants in arms
are going the rest of the way by themselves? They'll be lost in the
vastnesses of Buffalo! They'll shoot the chutes or fall the Falls or--"
"When your breath gives out we'll tell you what has happened," remarked
Ethel Brown loftily.
"'Pray do,'" quoted Roger.
"We've had an invitation--that is, Ethel Blue has--"
"I judged as much," commented Roger faintly.
"--from Mrs. Jackson at Fort Edward."
"Ah! A great light begins to break upon me!"
"She asked Ethel Blue to go to Buffalo for the week-end and to bring
me--"
"--and we're to go to Niagara Falls on Saturday," finished Ethel Blue
triumphantly.
Roger frowned.
"All I've got to say is that I'm proud to be the three-mile escort of
such travelled young ladies. I bow before you and place my humble
services at your disposal," which he did with an elaborate flourish and
his hand on his heart.
It seemed to the Ethels that there were a thousand matters to be
attended to before they went on Friday. They had to decide what dresses
they should wear and what they should take. Each one had her own
suitcase and they had been fitting their bags with small travelling
comforts for several months before the summer trip to Chautauqua. One or
two trifling affairs still remained undone and these they set themselves
to make before the eventful day of departure.
"When I see a bag opened I know at once whether its owner is a tidy
person or not," Mrs. Morton said. "Everything ought to be neatly
arranged and covered with a tuck-in square over all."
It was the tuck-in square that neither of the girls had finished before
leaving Rosemont. Now they were determined that if Mrs. Jackson
happened to be about when they opened their bags she should see that
these daughters were worthy of their neat soldier fathers. They went to
the dry goods shop and bought each a half yard of silkoline. Ethel
Brown's had yellow flowers on it and Ethel Blue's had cornflowers. These
they finished with an inch-wide hem, featherstitched at the top, Ethel
Brown's with yellow silk and Ethel Blue's with blue silk. When their
bags were all packed they laid these pieces over everything and fastened
the straps outside of them.
"The cloth prevents the straps from doing any injury to your freshly
laundered clothes, you see," explained Mrs. Morton.
"And it keeps dust out, too," said Ethel Brown.
"And it certainly looks perfectly scrumptious," decided Ethel Blue with
her head on one side admiringly.
The Ethels were up bright and early on the exciting morning.
"What's the use," demanded Roger, "of your going around like dizzy
antelopes at this time of day when you don't have to take the boat until
two o'clock?"
"You'd be doing it yourself if you were going," retorted Ethel Brown.
"Somehow it spreads out the fun."
"For you," growled Roger. "For us stay-at-homes it flaunts your good
luck in our faces--no, I didn't mean that," he added quickly as he saw a
shadow grow in Ethel Blue's sensitive eyes. "Honest, I'm mighty glad
you kids have got the chance to go. Of course I am. I was only fooling."
"I do wish you and Helen were going too," answered Ethel Blue. "It would
be lots nicer."
Roger saw that he had made a mistake by insisting on his misfortune, a
mistake that often is made when we try to be funny, and he laid himself
out to be especially nice to the girls. He took every care of them,
carrying their bags, passing them through the gate and helping them on
to the boat with as much formality as he would have shown to his mother
and grandmother.
Though not long, it was a pleasant sail from Chautauqua to Mayville. The
boat touched at Point Chautauqua on the other side of the lake where a
group of summer-boarder young people were saying "Good-bye" to a friend
with many loud exclamations of grief. The boys wrung imaginary tears
from their handkerchiefs and one of the girls pretended that she
required a tub that was standing on the pier to contain the evidences of
her woe.
The Ethels were hugely amused at this comedy and laughed heartily, while
Roger, who was still in a serious mood, frowned and called it all
"stupid."
At Mayville they had to walk the length of the pier, but at its head
they found the station. Roger presented each of the girls with a
magazine with which he had provided himself before leaving Chautauqua,
and a box of candy and a package of sandwiches gave them the wherewithal
for afternoon tea if they should become too hungry for endurance before
they reached Buffalo.
"Afternoon tea without the tea," smiled Ethel Brown.
"I do wish Mrs. Jackson had asked you," repeated Ethel Blue as Roger
helped her up the steps of the car.
"She would if she had known how nice I am," laughed Roger. "Good-bye,
good-bye," and he waved a farewell as long as he could see their car.
Once under way the girls gave themselves up to the excitement of their
first travelling by themselves. They examined the faces of all the
passengers and decided that no one was very handsome but that they all
looked very kind and that they should not hesitate to call upon them for
help if they needed it.
"The old man just behind us is something like Grandfather," said Ethel
Brown. "If we don't see Mrs. Jackson right off when we get out at
Buffalo we'll ask him what we ought to do."
"Aunt Marion said we'd better not speak to anybody except the men
wearing the railway uniform," objected Ethel Blue. "If she isn't in
sight when we get off we'll ask the conductor or a brakeman or a porter
where the waiting room is and we'll go right there and sit down till she
comes."
But they need not have been at all concerned, for Mrs. Jackson was at
the very steps of their car when they walked down them. A girl of their
own age stood just behind her. Mrs. Jackson was tall, with light hair
and her daughter was strikingly like her.
"I'm sure this is Ethel Blue!" cried Mrs. Jackson without hesitation.
"You have your mother's eyes, dear child. And this is Ethel Brown. Here
is my daughter. Her name is Katharine."
Katharine was not shy. She had lived all her life in garrisons and she
was accustomed to meeting many people. She shook hands with her guests
and took Ethel Blue's bag.
"A friend of Mother's let us have her car to come to the station in,"
she said. "It's just outside this door. It's more fun than going in the
street car."
The Ethels thought so, too, though they flew along so fast that they
hardly could see the sights of the new city.
Katharine chattered all the time.
"You came along the lake almost all the way, Mother says. It must have
been lovely. I'm so glad we're here at Fort Edward. It's right on the
water and the sunsets are beautiful."
"This is the memorial to President McKinley," Mrs. Jackson informed the
Ethels as they drove through Niagara Square. "It was in Buffalo that he
was shot, you remember."
It did not take many minutes to reach Fort Edward, which they found to
be merely barracks and officers' houses, with no fortified works.
"When Canada and the United States decided not to have any
fortifications between the two countries it looked like a dangerous
experiment," said Mrs. Jackson when the Ethels, soldiers' children,
remarked upon this peculiarity of the so-called fort. "It has worked
well, however. There have been times when it would have been a sore
temptation to make use of the forts if they had existed."
"I wonder what would have happened in Europe if there had been no forts
between Germany and France," said Ethel Blue thoughtfully.
"Armament has not brought lasting peace to them," Mrs. Jackson agreed to
the girl's thought.
It was an evening of delight to the Mortons. They always realized to the
full that they actually belonged to the Service when occasion took them
to a fort or a navy yard. They saw the flag run down at sunset and they
beamed happily at everything that Katharine pointed out to them and at
all the stories that Lieutenant Jackson told them. Ethel Blue was
particularly interested in his tales of the days at West Point when he
and her father had ranked so nearly together that it was nip and tuck
between them all the way through.
"Until the end," Mr. Jackson owned handsomely. "Then old Dick Morton
came out on top."
It was novel to Ethel Blue to hear her father called "old Dick Morton,"
but Lieutenant Jackson said it with so much affection that she liked the
sound of it.
Of course the Niagara expedition was topmost in the minds of the Ethels.
"You've never been to the Falls?" Mrs. Jackson asked. "I'm glad
Katharine is to have the pleasure of showing them to you first. I wish I
could go with you but I have an engagement this morning that I can't put
off, so Gretchen is going to take you."
"Gretchen is like your Mary," explained Katharine. "She used to be my
nurse. I don't ever remember Gretchen's not being with us."
Gretchen proved to be a large, comfortable looking German woman of forty
and the Ethels liked her at once. They went by trolley to the Falls.
"It takes a little longer," Mrs. Jackson said, "but if you're like me
you'll enjoy seeing a new bit of country and you can do it better from
the electric car than from the steam train."
It was a wonderful day for all the girls. The Mortons enjoyed all the
new sights and were not ashamed to express their delight; and Katharine,
although she had taken many guests on this same trip, took pleasure in
seeing their pleasure.
Their first stop was before they reached the city of Niagara Falls.
"What is this big place?" asked Ethel Brown.
"They make use of the power of the water to run factories and to light
towns," explained Katharine. "You see those wheels lying flat on their
sides?"
She pointed down into a deep shaft whose dripping walls sent a chill up
to the onlookers.
"Those are turbines," Katharine went on. "The water from the river is
racing along outside not doing any good in the world except to look
exciting, so they let some of it flow in through those openings way down
there and it turns these turbines and they make machinery go."
"I noticed ever so many factories near here."
"There are a great many here because power is so cheap, but they are
also able to send electric power many miles away. Buffalo is lighted by
electricity from Niagara, and there are lots of factories all around
here that take their power from the Falls."
"What becomes of the water that makes these turbines go?"
"When you see it come out of a small tunnel below the Falls and compare
it with the amount that is still tumbling over the Falls you'll be
wonderstruck that so small an amount can do so much work. We'll see the
place later."
Taking the car again they completed their journey to the town and the
girls could hardly wait to see the great cascade which they heard
roaring in the distance. Katharine led them first to the very edge of
the American Fall. The thick green water slid over the brink almost
under their feet in a firm, moving wall, and they had to lean over to
see it break into white foam on the rocks below. Like a great horseshoe
ran the upper edge, the centre hollowed back by centuries of wear from
the swift stream that pressed out of Lake Erie through the
ever-narrowing channel toward Lake Ontario.
Over the bridge they went to Goat Island where they seemed on a level
with the swirling mass that bore down directly upon them. Gretchen gave
an occasional scream of anxiety.
"Dis water it makes me frighted," she confessed.
The girls raced over the islands called the Sisters and every sight on
the American side except the Gorge ride was behind them by luncheon
time.
Refreshed by food they started out again.
"We'll go down the Gorge on the American side," explained Katharine,
"and come back on the Canadian side. I've tried both ways and I like
that best."
The Gorge ride was all that Katharine had hinted.
"It takes your breath away," gasped Ethel Blue as the car traveled
slowly beside the turbulent water, crowding and racing after its fall
from the cliff above, and hurrying on, incredibly deep, to its outlet.
"I hardly want to look at it," admitted Ethel Brown as they passed the
Whirlpool with its threatening circular motion.
Gretchen frankly closed her eyes.
"It is wonderful, but too big for me," she admitted.
"You'll not be frightened when we go back, because the track on the
Canadian side runs high up on the cliff," said Katharine. "Then when we
reach the Falls once more we'll go down to the water level on that side
and take the _Maid of the Mist_."
"What's that?"
"A tiny steamer. It goes close up to the Falls--so near you almost feel
you are under them."
"You can really go under them, can't you? I've heard people tell about
it."
"Yes, but it's no place for children, Father says, so we'll have to put
up with the 'Maid.'"
It proved, however, that they would have to put up with even less. For
when they prepared to make the change of cars that was necessary for
their return on the Canadian side, one of the men in charge stopped
Gretchen.
"You're German," he said.
"_Ja_," she answered placidly.
"Then you can't come here."
"I can't come here! Why not? I been here many times--I und my young
lady."
"No Germans allowed here," he insisted.
"She's my nurse," explained Katharine. "My father's an officer at Fort
Edward. He's an American. We are neutral," she insisted.
It was all in vain. The Canadian had his orders and he could not be
moved.
"Orders," was all that Katharine could get by way of explanation. Being
a soldier's daughter she understood that orders were meant to be obeyed
and she did not insist for long.
"It's too bad, but I don't see how we can help it," she said. "I suppose
every German is suspected now, but it's silly to think Gretchen is a
spy," and she threw her arm around the shoulder of the German woman. She
had been frightened by the man's roughness.
"Don't you mind, Gretchen dear," she said. "When the war is over we'll
come again. I'm sorry about the _Maid of the Mist_," she apologized to
the girls, "but of course we can't go without Gretchen."
It was a rather thoughtful group that returned to Buffalo, for the
little experience with Gretchen had made them all feel that the war they
were hearing so much about was nearer than they had realized.
"Somehow it has seemed as far away as the moon," said Ethel Brown. "But
now I feel as if it might jump out at us any minute."
"It won't," Lieutenant Jackson reassured her; "but Gretchen's experience
gives us something to think about from many points of view."
Sunday passed happily and on Monday Mrs. Jackson and Katharine took
their guests to the station and started them toward Mayville, where
Roger met them.
"It has been a wonderful visit," said Ethel Blue to her aunt. "Mrs.
Jackson told me a great deal about my mother. She must have been
lovely."
"She was a very dear woman," replied Mrs. Morton, kissing her niece.
"The only uncomfortable thing was about Gretchen," Ethel went on. "I
wish that man hadn't frightened her."