A NEW KIND OF GRASS SEED
"Your grand-father told me once about a field he had that was filled
with daisies," said Ethel Blue. "It looked awfully pretty, but it
spoiled the field for a pasture; the cows wouldn't touch them."
"I remember that field. We used to make daisy chains and trim Mother's
room with them," said Ethel Brown.
"Mr. Emerson tried ploughing up the field and he had men working over
it for two seasons, but on the third, up they grew again as gay as you
please. They acted as if he had just been stirring up the soil so they
would grow better than ever."
"Poor Grandfather; he had a hard time with that field."
"He said he really needed it for a pasture, so he made up his mind that
if he couldn't root out the bad plants, he'd crowd them out. So he
bought some seed of a kind of grass that has large, strong roots, and
he sowed it in the field. As soon as it began to grow he could see
that there certainly were not so many daisies there. He kept on
another year and the cows began to look over the fence as if they'd
like to get in. The third year there were so few daisies that they
didn't count."
"I remember all that," said Ethel Brown, "but what does it have to do
with Mrs. Paterno?"
"Why, if we--or Edward--could make her get a grip on herself and
control herself that would be like Mr. Emerson's digging up the
daisies. It would be hard work and an awfully slow process. But if we
also could fill her mind with thoughts about working for her children
and trying to make other people happy and with making embroidery which
she loves to do, why wouldn't it help? These new things she's thinking
about would be like the strong, new grass seed that didn't give the
weeds a chance to grow."
Dorothy stared seriously at Ethel Blue.
"She does perfectly beautiful embroidery," she said slowly, as she
tried to think out a way to put Ethel Blue's suggestion into effect.
"Do you suppose she'd be willing to teach us how to do it? That
beautiful Italian cut work, you know. If we should call ourselves a
class and ask her to teach us it might give her something quite new to
think about."
"I'd like to learn, too," agreed Ethel Blue. "I heard Mother say once
that there was a school in New York for Italian lace work. Let's get
Delia to find out about it, and when Mrs. Paterno grows stronger and
goes back to the city she might go there. They have a shop uptown
where they sell the pupils' work. The class here and the prospect of
having regular employment when she went back--"
"Work she likes."
"What are you youngsters plotting?" asked the cheerful voice of
Grandfather Emerson, who came around the big oak from the grass grown
lane so quietly that they did not hear him coming.
They told him their plan, and he listened intently.
"The poor little woman has had such a shock that it will be a long time
before she can control herself, I'm afraid," he responded
sympathetically, "but I believe you've hit on the right way."
"Then we'll get Edward Watkins to ask her whether she'll be willing to
teach a class, and we'll all join it."
"The other women might like to learn, too."
"Perhaps they could teach. Bulgarian embroidery has been fashionable
lately, you know, and the peasant women do it."
"Your grandmother and I went through a Peasant's Bazar when we were in
Petrograd and there were mounds of embroidery there that the peasant
women had made."
"The Swedes do beautiful work. Why don't we have a class for
international embroidery?" laughed Dorothy. "I think Mother would like
to learn the Russian; she's crazy about Russian music and everything
Russian."
"We'll ask Mother and Grandmother, too, and perhaps the Miss Clarks
would come and the women could charge a fee and make a little money
teaching us and be amused themselves."
"I dare say it will do the others good as well as the little Italian.
You've hit on something that will benefit all of them while you were
trying to help Mrs. Paterno," surmised Mr. Emerson. "What I came over
here this morning to see you about was this," he went on in a
business-like tone that made them look at him attentively.
"Grandmother and I think that Mrs. Paterno has been a trifle too
exciting for you young people the last few days. We think you need a
change of thought as well as that young woman herself."
They all sat and waited for what was coming, quite unable to guess what
proposition he was going to make.
"Helen and Roger are somewhat older and stand such upheavals a little
better than you girls, so my plan doesn't include them."
"Just us three?" asked Ethel Brown.
"Just you three. Here's my scheme; see if you like it. I have to go
over to Boston to-morrow on a matter of business and it occurred to me
that it would be a pleasant sail on the Sound and that you'd be
interested in seeing the city--"
"O--o!" gasped Dorothy; "Cambridge and Longfellow's house."
"Concord and Lexington!" cried Ethel Brown.
"The Art Museum!" murmured Ethel Blue.
"And Bunker Hill Monument, and, of course, the Navy Yard especially for
this daughter of a sailor," and he nodded gayly at his granddaughter.
"Grandmother will go, to take you around when I have to attend to my
business, and we can stay a day or two and come back fresh to attend to
Mrs. Paterno's affairs. How does it strike you?"
Without any preliminary conference, the three girls flung their arms
around his neck and hugged him heartily.
"Have you talked about it with Mother and Aunt Louise?" asked Ethel
Brown.
"I'm armed with their permission."
"I guess we were all worrying about Mrs. Paterno," admitted Ethel Blue.
"This will be the strong grass seed that will clear up our minds so
that we can help her better after we come back."
"I think you're the most magnificent Grandfather that ever was born!"
exclaimed Ethel Brown, standing back and gazing admiringly at her
ancestor.
"Thank you," returned Mr. Emerson, bowing low, his hand on his heart,
"I am quite overcome by such a wholesale tribute!"
"Had we better tell Mrs. Schuler about the embroidery class plan?"
asked Dorothy.
"Run up to Rose House now and explain it to her and ask her to talk to
the women about it while you are gone, and then when you get back
she'll have it all ready to start," Mr. Emerson suggested.
The next twenty-four hours were full of excitement. Each of the girls
had only a small handbag to pack, but the selection of what should go
into each bag seemed a matter of infinite importance. The Ethels
filled their bags twice before they were satisfied that they had not
left out anything that would be wanted, and Dorothy confessed that she
had first put in too much and then had gone to the other extreme, and
that it had not been until after she had had a consultation with her
mother that she had decided on just the number and kind of garments
that she would need for a two-day trip to the Hub of the Universe.
"Why is it called that?" she asked of Ethel Brown.
"I asked Mother and she said that people from New York and other cities
used to say that Bostonians thought that their town was the centre of
civilization. So they guyed it by calling it the 'Hub'."
Roger and Helen went into New York with the travellers and Delia and
Margaret were on the pier to see the steamer leave.
It was a glorious afternoon and the boat slipped around the end of the
Battery while the westering sun was still shining brilliantly on the
water, touching it with sparkles on the tip of each tiny wave. The
Statue of Liberty, with the sun behind it, towered darkly against the
gold. The huge buildings of the lower city stretched skywards, the new
Equitable, the latest addition to the mammoth group, shutting off
almost entirely the view of the Singer Tower from the harbor, just as
the Woolworth Tower hides it from observers on the north.
Between them Grandfather and Grandmother Emerson were able to point out
nearly all of the sights of the East River--several parks and
playgrounds, Bellevue Hospital, the Vanderbilt model tenements for
people threatened with tuberculosis, the Junior League Hotel for
self-supporting women, the old dwelling where Dorothy's friend, the
"box furniture lady," had established a school to teach the folk of the
neighborhood how to use tools for the advantage of their
house-furnishings.
The boat was one of those which steams around Cape Cod instead of
stopping at Fall River, Rhode Island, and sending its passengers to
Boston by train. Early morning found them all on deck watching the
waters of Massachusetts Bay and trying to place on a map that Mr.
Emerson produced from his pocket the towns whose church spires they
could see pointing skyward far off on their left. Twin lighthouses
they decided, marked Gurnet Point, the entrance to Plymouth Bay, and
they strained their eyes to see the town that was the oldest settlement
in Massachusetts, and imagined they were watching the bulky little
Mayflower making her way landward between the headlands.
Mr. Emerson convoyed his party to a hotel on Copley Square and left
them there while he went out at once to meet his business friends.
"How far away Rosemont seems, and poor Mrs. Paterno with her troubles,"
she said an hour later as they stood before Sargent's panel of the
Prophets in the Public Library.