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Juvenile Library Girls Series
ETHEL MORTON AT ROSE HOUSE
by
MABELL S. C. SMITH
The World Syndicate Publishing Co.
Cleveland New York
Press of the Commercial Bookbinding Co., Cleveland
1915
[Frontispiece: "Here's where we should land"]
CHAPTER I
ROGER'S IDEA
For the fortieth time that afternoon, it seemed to Ethel Brown Morton
and her cousin, Ethel Blue, they untangled the hopelessly mixed
garlands of the maypole and started the weavers once more to lacing and
interlacing them properly.
"Under, over; under, over," they directed, each girl escorting a small
child in and out among the gay bands of pink and white which streamed
from the top of the pole.
May Day in New Jersey is never a certain quality; it may be reminiscent
of the North Pole or the Equator. This happened to be the hottest day
of the year so far, and both Ethels had wiped their foreheads until
their handkerchiefs were small balls too soaked to be of any further
use. But they kept on, for this was the first Community Maypole that
Rosemont ever had had, and the United Service Club, to which the girls
belonged, was doing its part to make the afternoon successful. Helen,
Ethel Brown's sister, and Margaret Hancock, another member of the Club,
were teaching the younger children a folk dance on the side of the
lawn; Roger Morton, James Hancock and Tom Watkins were marshalling a
group of boys and marching them back and forth across the end of the
grass plot nearest the schoolhouse. Delia Watkins, Tom's sister, and
Dorothy Smith, a cousin of the Mortons, were going about among the
mothers and urging them to let the little ones take part in the games.
Everybody was busy until dusk sent the small children home and the
caretaker came to uproot the pole and to shake his head ruefully over
the condition of the lawn whose smoothness had been roughened by the
tread of scores of dancing feet.
It was while the Club members were sitting on the Mortons' veranda,
resting, that Helen, who was president of the Club, called them to
order.
"Saturday afternoon is our usual time of meeting," she began, "and no
one can say that we haven't put in a solid afternoon of service."
Groans as one and another shifted a cramped position to another more
restful for weary feet confirmed her statement.
"What I want to say now is that it's time for us to be thinking up some
more service work. We are all studying pretty hard so we don't want to
undertake anything that will use up our out-of-door time too much, but
we haven't anything in prospect except helping with the town Fourth of
July celebration, over two months away, so we might as well be planning
something else."
"Do I understand, Madam President," asked Roger, "that the chief
officer of this distinguished Club hasn't any ideas to suggest?"
"The chief officer is so tired that not even another glass of
lemonade--thank you, Tom--can stir her gray matter."
"Hasn't anybody else any ideas?"
Silence greeted the question.
"I seem to remember boasts that ideas never would fail this brilliant
group," jeered Roger.
"There were some such remarks," James recalled meditatively; "and I
remember that you prophesied that the day would come when we'd call on
you for information about some stupendous scheme of yours that was
literally as big as a house. Let's have it now."
"Do I understand that you're really appealing to me to learn my
scheme?" inquired Roger, swelling with amusement.
"If it's any satisfaction to you--yes," replied his sister.
Roger burst into a peal of laughter.
"Shoot off the answers, old man," urged James. "We're waiting."
"Breathlessly," added Margaret.
Roger settled himself comfortably on the top step of the piazza and
leaned his head against the post.
"It certainly does me good to see you all at my feet begging like
this," he declared.
"Bosh! You're at ours and I can prove it," asserted Tom, stretching
out a foot of goodly size.
"Peace! Withdraw that battering ram!" pleaded Roger. "I'll tell you
all about it. Tom's really responsible for this idea, anyway."
"Ideas, real fresh ones, aren't much in my line," admitted practical
Tom, "but I'm glad to have helped for once."
"I don't suppose you remember that time last autumn when I went in to
New York to see you and you took me down to the chapel where your
father preaches on Sunday afternoons?"
"I remember it; we found Father there talking with a lot of mothers and
children."
"That's the time. Well, those women and children got on my nerves like
anything. You see, out here in Rosemont we haven't any real suffering
like that. There are poor people, and Mother always does what she can
for them, and there's a Charitable Society, as you know, because you
all helped with the Donnybrook Fair they had on St. Patrick's Day. But
the people they help out here are regular Rockefellers compared with
those poor creatures that your father had in his office that day."
"Father says he could spend a million dollars a year on those people,
and not have a misspent cent," said Delia.
"What hit me hardest was the thin little children. Elisabeth hadn't
come to us yet," Roger went on, referring to a Belgian baby that had
been sent to the Club to take care of, "and I wasn't so accustomed to
thinness as I've grown to be since, and it made me--well, it just made
me sick."
"I don't wonder," agreed Delia seriously. "That's the way they make me
feel."
"I know what you thought of," exclaimed Ethel Blue, who was so
imaginative and sympathetic that she sometimes had an almost uncanny
way of reading peoples' thoughts. "You wanted to bring some of those
poor women out into the country so that the children could get well,
and you told your grandfather about it and he offered you a house
somewhere."
"That's about it, kidlet. I heard one of the women say that she'd had
a week in the country--some sort of Fresh Air business--and that the
baby got a lot better, and then she had to go back to the city and the
little creature was literally dying on her hands."
"You want to give them a whole summer," guessed Ethel Brown.
"That's the idea. Since I've seen what proper care and good food and
fresh air have done for that wretched little skeleton, Elisabeth, I'm
more than ever convinced that if we can give some of those mothers and
babies a whole month or perhaps two months of Rosemont air we'll be
saving lives, actually saving lives."
Roger looked about earnestly from one grave face to another. All were
in sympathy with him and all waited for the development of his plan,
for they knew he would not have laid so much stress upon it if he had
not thought out the details.
"I've talked it over with Grandfather and he rose to it right off.
Here's where the house comes in. He said he was going to build a new
cottage for his farm superintendent this spring--you know it's almost
done now--and that we could have the old farm house if we wanted to fix
it up for a Fresh Air scheme."
"Mr. Emerson is a brick. I pull my forelock to him," and Tom
illustrated his remark.
"Where's the money to come from?" asked James, who was both of Scottish
descent and the Club treasurer, and so was not only shrewd but
accustomed to look after details.
"Grandfather said he'd help in this way; if the Club would study the
old house and decide on the best way to make it answer the purpose he
would provide two carpenters for a fortnight to help us. That will
mean that if we want to do any whitewashing or papering or matters of
that kind we'll have to do it ourselves, but the carpenters will put
the house in repair and put up any partitions that we want and so on."
"Is it furnished?"
"There's another problem. The superintendent has had his own furniture
there and what will be left when he goes is almost nothing. There are
some old things in the garret, but we'll have to use our ingenuity and
invent furniture."
"The way I did for our attic." Dorothy reminded them of the room where
the Club had been meeting ever since its members returned from
Chautauqua where it had been formed the summer before.
"Just so. We'll have to make a raid on our mothers' attics and also on
the stores in town that have their goods come in big boxes, and I
imagine we shall be able to concoct things that will 'do,' though they
may be remarkable to look upon."
"The mothers and children will be out of doors all the time, so they
won't sit around and examine the furniture," laughed Delia.
"It will be scanty, probably, but if we can get beds enough and a chair
apiece, or a substitute for a chair, and a few tables, we can get
along."
"There's your house provided and furnished after a fashion--how are you
going to run it?" inquired Helen. "It takes shekels to buy even very
plain food in these days of the 'high cost of living," and we've got to
give these women and children nourishing food; they can't live on fresh
air alone."
"Praise be, fresh air costs nothing!"
"That's one thing we'll get free," laughed Roger. "Grandfather told me
to investigate and see what I could find out about finances and then
let him know. So I went in to see Mr. Watkins."
"And never told me," said Tom reproachfully.
"Of course not. All of you people were too sniffy. I told your father
what the plan was and what Grandfather had said. He thought it was
great. He's a corker, your father is."
Delia and Tom looked somewhat startled at this epithet describing their
parent, but Roger meant it to be complimentary, so they made no
remonstrance.
"He said right off that he could provide the women and children in any
numbers and that he'd select the ones that needed the change most and
would be most benefited by it."
"It's not hard to find those," murmured Delia.
"Then he said that he had certain funds that he could draw on for such
cases and that he'd be just as willing to pay the board for these women
and children at Rosemont as anywhere else, so that we could depend on a
small sum for each one of them from the treasurer of the chapel."
"That ought to cover the expense of their food," said Helen, "but we'll
have to have a housekeeper and a cook."
"That's what Aunt Louise said."
"Oho, you've been talking with Mother about it!" exclaimed Dorothy.
"I knew the Club would come to me sooner or later, it was only a matter
of time, so I made ready to answer some of the questions you'd be
asking me."
They laughed at Roger's preparedness, but nodded approvingly.
"Aunt Louise said she'd pay the wages of the cook, and then I toddled
off to Grandmother Emerson and told her I was planning to raid her
attic for old furniture, and asked her incidentally if she thought we
could run the thing without a housekeeper."
"I hope she said 'yes'," exclaimed Margaret, who liked to administer a
household.
"Grandmother was very polite; she said she thought the U. S. C. could
do anything it set out to do, but that there would be countless odds
and ends that would occupy us all summer long--"
"Like making a continuous stream of furniture!"
"And going marketing and doing errands."
"And mowing the grass."
"And playing games with the kids."
"O, a thousand things would crop up; we never could be idle; and so she
thought we'd better have a responsible woman as housekeeper. What's
more she said she'd pay her."
"It wouldn't be polite for me to say about a lady what you said about
Mr. Watkins," said James--
"For which I apologize," declared Roger parenthetically.
"--but I'd like to remark that she's one of the most reliable
grandmothers I ever had anything to do with!"
They all laughed again.
"Where we'll get these two women I don't know," said Roger. "My
researches stopped there. But I suppose it wouldn't be difficult."
"I've heard Mother say that the 'responsible woman' was the hardest
person on earth to find," said Helen, thoughtfully. "But we can all
hunt."
"I know some one who might do if she'd be willing--and I don't know why
she wouldn't," said Ethel Brown.
"Who? Who? Some one in Rosemont?"
"Right here in Rosemont. Mrs. Schuler."
"Mrs. Schuler?"
There was a cry of wonder, for Mrs. Schuler was the teacher of German
in the high school. She had been engaged to Mr. Schuler, who taught
singing in the Rosemont schools, before the war broke out. Mr. Schuler
was called to the colors and lost a leg in the early part of the war.
Since he could no longer be useful as a fighter he had been allowed to
return to America, and his betrothed had married him at once so that
she and her mother, Mrs. Hindenburg, might nurse him back to health.
He had been slowly regaining his strength through the winter, and was
now fairly well and as cheerful as his crippled state would permit.
"You know I've been to see Mrs. Hindenburg a good deal ever since we
got her to go to the Home to teach the old ladies how to knit," said
Ethel Brown. "I know her pretty well now. The other day she told me
she had had an application from a family who wanted to board with her
this summer, and she was so sorry to have to turn them away because she
didn't have enough rooms for them."
"I don't see how that helps us any."
"You know Mr. Schuler hasn't been able to take many pupils this winter
and I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Schuler would be glad to have something
to do this summer when school is closed. Now if they would go to our
Fresh Air house and take charge there for the summer it would leave
Mrs. Hindenburg with enough space to take in her boarders. She'd be
glad, and I should think the Schulers would be glad."
"And we'd be glad! Why, Fraulein is the grandest housekeeper," cried
Helen, using the name that Mrs. Schuler's old pupils never remembered
to change to "Frau." "German housekeepers are thrifty and neat and
careful--why, she's exactly the person we want. How _great_ of you to
think of her, Ethel Brown!"
"You know she wanted to adopt our Belgian baby, so I guess she's
interested in poor children," volunteered Ethel Blue.
"Are our plans far enough along for us to ask her?" inquired Margaret.
"We ought to ask her as soon as we can, because Mrs. Hindenburg's plans
will be affected by the Schulers' decision," Helen reminded them.
"I think we are far enough along," decided Roger. "You see, the idea
is new to you, but I've been working at it for a good many months now,
and if we all pull together to do our share I know we can depend on the
grown-ups to do theirs."
"Shall we appoint Ethel Brown to call on Mrs. Schuler and talk it over
with her? She knows her better than the rest of us because she's seen
her at home oftener."
"Madam President, I move that Ethel Brown be appointed a committee of
one to see our Teutonic friends and work up their sympathies over the
women and children we want to help so that they just can't resist
helping too. Is your eloquence equal to that strain, Ethel?"
Ethel thought it was, and promised to go the very next afternoon. The
discussion turned to the next step to take.
"Grandfather's superintendent is going to move into the new cottage
next week," was Roger's news, "so then we can go over the old house and
see how it is arranged and decide how we'd like to change it."
"And also find out just what furniture is left and draw up a list of
what furniture we shall need."
"Had we better appoint committees for making the different
investigations?" inquired Tom, who was accustomed to the methods of a
city church.
"Later, perhaps," decided Helen. "At first I think we all want to know
the whole situation and then we can make our plans to fit, and special
people can volunteer for special work if we think it can be done best
that way."
"It's a great old plan you have there, Roger," cried Tom, thumping his
friend affectionately on the shoulder. "I bow to your giant intellect.
We'll do our best to make it a success."