DOMINION DAY IN CANADA
When Lilian woke the next morning, she dreamily looked toward the
light of a grey, rainy morning and noticed the lace curtains
stirring in the breeze. “How appropriate,” thought she, “a crown and
‘The Queen’s’ woven in the pattern.” She glanced at Hilary and June
sleeping in the double bed near. “Here we are, then, in Canada,”
closing her eyes. “I wonder if Philip will come up to camp as he
said he would ... isn’t he fine?... how dark his eyes are ... I
wonder ...” and Lilian dozed off into an enchanting dream of
motoring somewhere with Philip Van Buskirk, not waking till
Cathalina, who fit nicely right into the dream, was shaking her and
saying, “Wake up, Canada Lily, do you know we’ll disgrace our nation
and not get down before the dining room closes!”
Rested from their warm baths and good sleep of the night, fresh,
smiling girls gathered in the breakfast room of “The Queen’s”. Miss
West was proud of them and their quiet, dignified behaviour.
“What do you think we had for breakfast, Mother?” wrote June a
little later. “_Strawberries_ and cream—thick cream! Think of it, on
the first of July! I’m going to begin in March in Cincinnati and go
north to follow up the berries till the season ends in Canada. I
ordered ‘oatmeal porridge’ because it sounded so English, ‘bean
porridge hot’, you know,—and it was the best breakfast food I ever
ate. They had ‘English breakfast tea’ on the menu, too, but I
couldn’t order that because I wanted cocoa, m’m, so good! Some of
the cocoa you get traveling is horrid. But I’ll never forget those
big, ripe, juicy berries that the waiter brought me. I felt selfish
because mine happened to be the biggest. But you couldn’t change, of
course, anyway, in public. Our waiter looked just like the English
valet I saw the other day in a movie, so dignified and serious.
“I’ve gotten the traveler’s guide and things from the office and
have learned that Toronto was founded as a French trading post with
the Indians in 1749, and that it covers forty square miles. The name
is from an Indian word and means ‘place of meeting’. The land was
‘sold to the Crown in 1787 by the Missisauga Indians for $85.’ Think
of it. It is the capital of the Province of Ontario and has a
population of five hundred thousand. I don’t suppose I shall
remember this, but I promised Father that I’d try to learn some
little thing about each place. I may add some more to this after we
have taken our ride in the sight-seeing ’bus. Miss West has the
tickets already; you can get them right in the hotel. We are to
start about noon, for we had our breakfast so late that we shall not
want any lunch till at least two o’clock. We are all packed up now,
and leave on the boat about four o’clock, I think. We haven’t seen
Betty yet, or even called her up. When we started to, we found that
nobody, not even Cathalina, knew her aunt’s name or telephone
number, but Betty knows when we leave and I’m sure she will be here
or at the boat on time.”
“Come, girls,” said Miss West, “all ready for the trip and packed up
to start after lunch? We’ll go down to the lobby and see if the taxi
has arrived.”
And such an immense taxi it was. “I feel like a monkey,” declared
Jean, “climbing with both hands and feet up this tippy height!” The
party occupied only two of the long seats, and those in front had
been reserved for them. The man of the megaphone was hatless and
active, collecting the tickets as well as imparting information.
“There are two persons who have not surrendered their tickets,” he
announced, counting tickets and passengers.
Miss West looked up inquiringly. “I have all your tickets together,”
he assured her. As the same announcement was made several times
later, the girls concluded that it was a polite way of telling that
two fares had not been paid.
At once the girls noticed that the city was decorated with flags and
that the stores were closed. “This is Dominion Day,” announced the
megaphone, “same as your Fourth of July.” Everything was “Limited”,
“Imperial”, “Royal”, “Dominion”, or “Queen’s”, according to June. T.
Eaton’s seemed to be as important in Toronto as Marshall Field’s in
Chicago, and an unusual feature in which the girls were interested
was the display of pretty gowns or other articles for sale in the
front or bay windows of what had once been private residences, now
absorbed into the business part of the city.
“How do you feel, June,” asked Cathalina, “under the Union Jack?”
“All right. You’ve been in so many foreign countries that I suppose
it does not seem strange to you.”
“I never happened to be in Canada, and it is just as interesting as
it can be!”
Different monuments and churches, Queen’s Park, the University of
Toronto and the Parliament building engaged their attention, and as
they rode through Rosedale, a pretty residential section, the girls
wondered if Betty’s aunt lived there. At the hotel again, it was
great fun to trail after the porter who showed them the royal suite;
but time was pressing, and while Miss West settled the bills the
girls started for the dock, within easy walking distance. Still no
Betty!
“I meant to get a picture of that funny little hotel ’bus,” said
Marjorie. “Is that our boat? Isn’t it cute?”
“You’ll be the death of me yet,” laughed Jean, “A steam-boat cute!”
“What’s its name?” continued Marjorie undisturbed.
“The Toronto; see?”
“Salve, Toronto! Vale, Toronto!” remarked Hilary.
“What does that mean?” asked June.
“It means ‘hail, Toronto,’ the boat, and ‘farewell, Toronto,’ the
city.”
As they came nearer the dock, some one jumped out of a taxi and
waved. It was Betty at last.
“Why, Betty,—all alone?”
“Yes, Miss West, company came unexpectedly. I had a time to get
packed up at all. But fortunately Auntie had bought my tickets
yesterday, and my trunk came down this morning. I have been thinking
of you all and could hardly wait to see you, but Auntie said that
you would be taking in the city anyway. That was to console me.”
The girls were fortunate in getting seats out in the very front of
the deck. Their baggage had been taken to the little staterooms,
cameras and field glasses brought out, and they settled themselves
in great content for the trip by water from Toronto to Montreal. So
far there had been so much sight-seeing that the visiting had been
only incidental, though by this time the Greycliff girls felt pretty
well acquainted with the three girls—Marjorie, Jean and Rhoda—whom
they had so recently met.
Betty and Cathalina compared their adventures since they had parted
at Greycliff.
“Mother said ‘how could she spare her little Betty so soon,’ for
this little visit to Auntie first, then for nearly all summer at
camp, home for just a peep at the folks, and school at Greycliff
again!”
“Mine felt that way, too, but she said that it was a good
opportunity for me to have the experience of a girls’ camp, while so
many of us could be together and while we had darling old Patty to
take care of us.”
“O, there are lots of councillors to do that.”
“Yes, of course, but then we know Patty so well.”
“Is Isabel coming, or do you know, Cathalina?”
“Yes; I had a letter from her soon after she got home. Her father
had said that she could come. Did you know that Virginia Hope went
home with her for the summer?”
“No. I rushed off home, you know, the first minute I could. That was
lovely of Isabel, and of Mr. Hunt, too.”
“I suppose that Virginia will come to camp with Isabel, but she did
not say so, and it might be that Virginia made other plans later. We
shall know when we get there,—naturally.”
“There is Jean sitting by herself. Come on over here, Jean,” and
Betty hitched her chair along to make room for Jean’s.
“I was just dreaming and watching the water,” said Jean. “Don’t you
love it?”
“Yes, I never get tired of it,” answered Cathalina, “but Betty and I
were talking about some of the girls we know at school.”
“O, yes; what is this ‘Greycliff’ you girls talk about?”
“I’m afraid you would be sorry if we got started talking on that
subject, but it is a girls’ school, preparatory, with two years of
college work, and Patty, Miss West, you know, teaches there. That is
how some of us found out about camp, because she is a councillor
there, too. Betty and I, with Lilian and Hilary, are in a suite
together. Phil calls us the ‘suite quartet’, which is an awful pun.
Philip is my brother,—O, yes, you met him at Buffalo. Of course you
know about Helen and Evelyn, and we were just saying that perhaps
two of the younger girls at Greycliff—Isabel Hunt and Virginia
Hope—would be at camp this summer. Isabel wrote that she is coming,
but did not speak of Virginia, and Virginia is visiting there. She
wrote a scrap of a letter only and did not think of it, I suppose.
Then there is another of our especial friends whom we hope to see,
Eloise Winthrop, a lovely girl that I’m sure you will like.”
“Isn’t it funny how you always get crazy about the school you go
to?”
“O, I don’t know, Jean,” replied Betty. “You see Greycliff is
unusual!”
“Last call for the first sitting.” Thus from time to time the
different dinner calls came. Dinner on the boat started at six
o’clock, but the girls had decided that they did not want tickets.
This was contrary to their usual custom, for Miss West considered
that regular meals were a necessary part of travel. But the late and
excellent lunch at the Queen’s, together with a fine supply of
sandwiches and pickles brought by Betty, and a quantity of fruit
brought aboard by Miss West, made the girls lose all interest in
dinner.
“Besides, you know, we’d better be careful if we have to stay on the
boat all night.” This from Marjorie, as the girls were drawing their
chairs close together and Betty was passing out sandwiches and
pickles.
“Don’t give her any more pickles, then, Betty.”
“All right, you shall have the rest, Jean. I love to see you so
careful of Marjorie!”
“Let’s stay out on deck as long as possible; may we, Miss West?”
“Just as long as you like tonight,” replied Patricia, who herself
enjoyed it outside. But they had nothing to dread, for the lake was
calm; no motion of the boat was felt except the throbbing of the
engine. Gulls flew high or low or rested on the water. It was cloudy
and the sun, round and orange, slowly sank through and below the
clouds, leaving for a little while a golden glow upon the water. The
girls played a few of the guessing games when it grew dark, but
finally the time came when the little god of dreams claimed his own.
For some time June had been sitting with her head on Hilary’s
shoulders, when Miss West declared that the procession for the
staterooms would “now start”.
“Don’t ring the bell as I did,” admonished Jean, “I thought it was
the electric button. You pull down the light and press the button to
ring. After I made the mistake I locked the door and skipped out, so
I wouldn’t be there when the maid came.”
“You needn’t have worried. I was just across from you with my door
braced open to air the place, and nobody came.”
“Thanks, Betty. You take a heavy load off my conscience!”
Nothing disturbed the serenity of the night. The girls were wakened
by an early stop at Kingston and soon found themselves taking
breakfast with the second “shift” in the dining-room. They were to
transfer to the other boat at Prescott, but the Toronto was going
very slowly on account of a heavy fog, and finally anchored for
nearly an hour. When the fog lifted, however, the girls found a
bright day before them. The turning of the capstan when the anchor
was drawn up interested them not a little. The transfer was made to
the boat which was to take them through the rapids.
From now on to Montreal the scenery was beautiful. It was the broad
St. Lawrence with its Thousand Islands and rapids. The Merrymeeting
girls were down in the dining-room when the first rapids were
reached, and one or two looked anxiously at Miss West, who smiled
reassuringly, and soon the churning waters were left behind, with
nothing but one little grinding scrape to remind any one of rocks as
the boat went through. “And perhaps that was our imagination,”
admitted June, as they discussed it later.
“I’m getting enough rocks at last,” remarked Hilary.
“Why, do you like them so much?”
“Yes, Rhoda, ever since we started into the St. Lawrence I’ve been
saying ‘I love Thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills’,
even if these are not all of my own country. Look. There seems to be
a sort of red rock as the foundation of the islands. There’s a dear
little one that I’d like to own. Think of a cottage there among the
trees and a place for the water birds to build in the rocks!”
“You wouldn’t like it in winter, would you?”
“No, nor in summer without a launch. But you mustn’t be so
practical, Cathalina, can’t one have a little fancy?”
“Dear old Hilary! Purr-rr! Her shall have her little island!”
“Campbell likes the water, too. Wouldn’t Thousand Islands be a
lovely place for a honeymoon?”
“Sh-sh, Lilian, the other girls might hear and Hilary wouldn’t like
it.”
“I should think Hilary wouldn’t,” commented the young lady herself.
“Please, girls, why are you so silly?”
“Well,” said Lilian, “when a certain young man finds out that a
certain young lady is going to a camp and immediately takes steps to
get himself appointed as councillor at a camp very near and under
the same management, it looks as if there were some connection
anyhow!”
Hilary smiled, but made a little pouting face at Lilian, as she
moved over to where Marjorie and Rhoda were focusing their field
glasses on more rapids ahead.
“O, the most interesting thing, Hilary,” cried June. “I heard a
gentleman tell his wife that there is only one pilot who can take
the boat through the rapids, and he has to go up every day to do it.
He learned it from his father, and his son is watching him to learn
how.”
“And did you notice,” said Rhoda, “how he pointed out the ‘American’
or the ‘Canadian’ side? They are Canadians, too. It seems funny to
me, for they are in America as much as we are.”
“Yes,” said Hilary, “but the books do it. It seems to be general.”
“Look,” said Marjorie. “See how the steamer changes its course,
always going in the more quiet water. I can pretty nearly tell where
we’ll go. See the water tumbling over there! Big rocks, I guess.”
“Yes, and did you hear the man say what a descent there is?—I can
feel the boat going down hill!”
“We are really and truly shooting the rapids,” said June with great
satisfaction.
Mt. Royal, from which Montreal takes its name, could be seen long
before the last rapids were reached. Everybody was invited to the
front of the boat while an official talked about the rapids, the
Indian village on their right, and other points of interest. Safely
through the Lachine Rapids the boat glided and reached Montreal at
last. Some of the girls in the crowded motor ’bus, a few in a
rickety victoria, the Merrymeeting party rode to the hotel where
they were to remain two nights.