THE LAND OF "CAT-FISH AND WAFFLES"
It was a tired party that tumbled into bed that night but the long ride
in the fresh air made them sleep like tops and they awoke the next
morning entirely refreshed, and ready to start out again on their
investigations of the City of Brotherly Love.
"To-day I am not going to open my mouth," said Helen. "I talked
altogether too much yesterday."
"You were a wonder," said Tom, admiringly. "I wish I could remember dates
the way you do."
"Hush," said Helen, with a finger on her lip. "My energetic grandfather
blocked out the whole history of Philadelphia in the revolutionary days
for me, so it was not my unaided memory that reeled off all that
information. Any way, I'm going to sit back and have the rest of you
inform me to-day about the places we shall see."
"What are we going to see?" inquired Roger. "Mother, you know this
village; can't you make out a list for us?"
Mrs. Morton said that she had some suggestions to make and Roger jotted
them down in a book.
"There are one or two churches," she said, "which have an interest
because they are old, or have connection with some important person or
because there is some strangeness about the way they are built."
"I shall like those," said Ethel Blue. "I'm going to try to draw some of
the doorways for Miss Graham. She asked me to draw any little thing about
buildings that I thought would interest her."
"You'll see some old-timey doorways in Rittenhouse Square," said Mrs.
Morton. "That is like Washington Square in New York, only here the whole
square has been preserved in its former beauty. You'll find more than one
doorway, and which will be worth putting into your sketch book."
"Would it take too much time to see the Mint?" asked James. "I shouldn't
want to suggest it if it will take too long, but it would be awfully
interesting."
"I had the Mint on my list," said Mrs. Morton, tapping her forehead.
"I'll transfer it from that spot to paper," laughed Roger.
"I hope we can get the same chauffeur we had yesterday," said Ethel
Brown; "he knew a lot about things."
"I suppose he's accustomed to driving tourists," replied her mother.
As good fortune would have it they were able to secure the same car, and
the good-natured driver beamed at them, as they stowed themselves away as
they had the day before. Mrs. Morton told him the chief "sights" which
they wanted to see, and directed him to point out anything that they
passed which would have some interest for the young people.
First they went over to the old part of the town along the Delaware, to
find one of the churches of which Mrs. Morton had spoken. On the way they
stopped at Christ Church. Its high box pews seemed to them full of
dignity, and they imagined the elaborately arranged head-dresses of the
ladies and powdered wigs of the gentlemen, rising above the old-fashioned
seats. The pulpit was high up on one side of the chancel.
"This is the church that was presided over by Bishop White, the first
Episcopal bishop of Pennsylvania," said Mrs. Morton. "He was influential
in organizing the Episcopal Church in this country."
Out in the graveyard, whose quiet seemed strangely out of place amid the
hurry of the city, they found many stones bearing well-known names, among
them that of Benjamin Franklin.
"He died in 1790," read Delia, from the stone. "Wasn't that just about
the time Washington was elected President?"
"One year after," said Helen, who could not resist giving historical
information. "The first real American Congress after the separation of
the country from England met here in Philadelphia in 1789, and elected
Washington as President."
"You can't escape a little history as long as Sister Helen is around,"
murmured Roger.
"It wasn't I who started it," retorted Helen.
"Now, children, be quiet. You may thank your stars that your sister knows
so much about history," said Mrs. Morton; "it would be an excellent
thing, Roger, if you stowed away some of it in your brain, too."
"Yes'm," answered Roger meekly.
It was while the car was on its way to the second old church of their
search that the chauffeur asked James, who was sitting beside him, if he
knew that "Hail Columbia" was written in Philadelphia.
"I certainly didn't," said James. "Helen, did you know that 'Hail
Columbia' was written in Philadelphia?"
"No, I didn't know that," said Helen. "Tell me about it."
With his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel the chauffeur told
James, who repeated the story over his shoulder to those in the back of
the car, that while John Adams was president, there was a war scare,
because French vessels were supposed to be off the coast ready to attack
American merchant vessels. A man named John Hopkinson wrote the poem,
which was sung one night at the Chestnut Street Theatre.
"You mean our 'Hail Columbia'--the regular 'Hail Columbia'?" asked Ethel
Brown.
The chauffeur nodded at Ethel Brown. Her memory for verses was always
good and she repeated the first stanza of the stirring song.
"Hail Columbia, happy land!
Hail! Ye Heroes, heaven-born band,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone,
Enjoyed the peace your valor won;
Let independence be your boast,
Ever mindful what it cost,
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies."
They all joined in the chorus.
"Firm united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty,
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find."
Almost on the river, toward the southern end of the town, was the church
which the chauffeur called "Old Swedes Church," and whose correct name,
Mrs. Morton said, was "Gloria Dei."
"How old is it?" asked Dicky who was beginning to understand that they
were on a historical pilgrimage. They all laughed at his seriousness, and
his mother answered.
"This building is only a little over two centuries old--but it's on the
site of an old wooden church that was built in 1646. It was a Swedish
church, originally, and then the whole congregation turned Episcopal."
"It doesn't look as if they lived around the church in any great
numbers," said Tom, gazing about him.
"Most of the parishioners live now a long way from here," said the
chauffeur, "but they love the church because they are the descendants of
the original founders, and they come from great distances to the morning
services and stay to Sunday School, old people and young ones, too, and
cook their dinner in the Parish House."
"That sounds like a New England village church to which all the farmers
from around about come for the day," said Margaret Hancock. "I used to
see them when I was a little girl and we went to New Hampshire for the
summer. They bring their lunch and eat it under the trees between
services."
"Since we seem to be doing churches, we ought to go to a Quaker Meeting
House," suggested Mrs. Morton, turning to the chauffeur for information.
"There is one up on 12th Street, madam," he responded. "There's a boys'
school connected with it that is very well known--the Penn Charter
School. Lots of the old Quaker families send their boys there still."
"I don't suppose there would be a meeting to-day," inquired Helen.
The chauffeur shook his head.
"You wouldn't like it, any way," he said. "I'm a Quaker myself, and I
know when I was your age it was awfully hard work to keep still so long."
"Is it worse than any other kind of church?" asked Dicky.
The driver nodded again, dexterously avoiding a big truck as he answered.
"The congregation just sits there until the Spirit moves someone to
speak. I've been there many a time when they sat for two hours and
nothing happened at all."
"Dear me," exclaimed Ethel Blue, shaking her head gravely; "I don't
believe I could keep still as long as that."
"I dare say it's just as well that there is no meeting to-day," said Mrs.
Morton. "Any way, I don't know that I should approve of your going to a
religious service out of curiosity."
Tom nodded in agreement with Mrs. Morton.
"I'm sure Father wouldn't like it," he said.
Tom's father was a clergyman in New York.
"He doesn't object to our going to other churches," he went on, "but he
has seen so much of tourists who come to New York and go around the city,
taking in three or four churches on Sunday morning merely to hear the
music or some celebrated speaker, that he has always warned us children
against being 'religious rubber-necks.'"
They all laughed and contented themselves with looking at the outside of
the severely plain meeting-house.
The tour over the Mint was filled with interest for all of them.
"This is the oldest Mint in the United States," the guide explained to
them.
"What's the date?" Helen could not resist asking, although Roger shook
his head at her and Tom visibly smothered a smile.
"1792" the man replied. "We turn out gold and silver and copper here and
we've done a great deal of minting for South America, and, of late years,
for the Philippines."
The boys were most interested in the processes by which the discs were
cut out of plain sheets of metal and were then fed into tubes of just the
right size to hold them, until they reached the stamping machine which
gave them the impress they were to wear through life.
"Those new gold pieces are certainly beauties," said Roger, looking at
the eagle flying through the air on one coin and then at the same
majestic bird standing with dignity on another.
"I don't think this Indian has a very handsome nose," said Ethel Blue,
critically, as she examined a five-cent piece.
"But think how appropriate it is,--the noble red-man on one side of the
nickel, and the buffalo of the plains on the other," returned James.
The girls were more interested in the coin collection in the Mint's
museum. Here they saw not only American coins, from the earliest to the
most recent, but coins of other countries. One of them was the tiny bit
of metal known as the "Widow's Mite."
"The Widow didn't have to be very muscular to carry that around,"
commented Roger.
"But she must have had a separate bag to put it in or it would have been
lost," returned practical Ethel Brown.
"There's nothing doing in the Academy of Fine Arts now, ma'am," the
chauffeur told Mrs. Morton, when she got into the car again. "It has a
grand exhibition every winter but it's closed for the summer. Would you
like to see the collections?"
The question was put to the party and they agreed that they would prefer
to stay out of doors in this brilliant summer weather.
"We'll make an expedition to the Metropolitan Museum some day before
long," promised Mrs. Morton.
"I wish we might do it soon," said Dorothy. "Miss Graham said she'd go
with us, and I think we should learn a lot from her because she's half an
artist."
"Let's ask her to take us as soon as we get back," said Ethel Blue. "I'm
crazy about her, and this would be a good chance for us to be with her
for almost all day."
"I'll see that you have your opportunity soon," her Aunt Marion promised
her.
"We have time to run out to Mt. Airy this morning," suggested the
chauffeur. "Then after luncheon, you could go to the Park and the Zoo in
the afternoon."
"What is Mt. Airy?" asked Della.
"One of the finest deaf and dumb asylums in America," replied the young
man proudly.
Della shook her head and the rest of them pulled such long faces Mrs.
Morton could not resist smiling.
"I rather think these young people care more for human beings who can
talk and hear," she said to the chauffeur. "At any rate," she went on,
looking at her watch, "I must meet my business appointment now, so I
suggest, Roger, that you take our party to Wanamaker's. You can see a lot
of interesting things there, and can have your luncheon, and I'll meet
you there when I am through with my business."
So it was arranged, and the chauffeur was ordered for three o'clock to
take them to Fairmount Park.
At the appointed hour his cheerful face greeted them once again. Because
of the Mortons' interest in the Navy, they first ran south to the League
Island Navy Yard. Even their familiarity with many Navy Yards did not
lessen their interest in this one, with its rows of officers' houses and
its barracks and mess-room. Just because they were so familiar with
similar places, however, they did not stay long, and the car was soon
whirling northwards to the opposite end of the city. They went through
miles and miles of streets lined with small houses.
"These are the houses which have given Philadelphia the nick-name of the
'City of Homes,'" exclaimed Mrs. Morton. "You see, in New York people are
crowded on to a small tongue of land, between two rivers. Here there are
two rivers also, but the space between them is wider. There's nothing to
prevent the city's crossing the Schuylkill and running westward, as it
began to do many long years ago."
"These houses aren't very beautiful," commented Ethel Blue.
"They are very neat," said Ethel Brown. "But don't you get tired of these
red bricks and white shutters, and the little flights of white marble
steps, all alike? I don't see how anybody knows when he has come home. I
should think people would all the time be getting into their neighbors'
houses by mistake."
"It is much more wholesome for a family to have a house to itself, than
for many families to be crowded into one building," said Mrs. Morton.
"I don't see why," objected Tom, who had been born and reared in New
York. "The large buildings are wonderfully constructed now-a-days for
ventilation and sanitation. They couldn't be better in that respect."
"That's true," said Mrs. Morton, "but a family loses something of its
privacy when it lives in a building with other people. The householder is
responsible for his own heating, his own side-walk, and so on, for all
matters whose good care makes for the happiness of his family. The
apartment dweller loses that work for the well-being of his family, when
he lets go its responsibility."
"I dare say you are right, Mrs. Morton," said Tom, "but in these days of
co-operation, it seems to me you gain something by uniting, as apartment
house people practically do, to hire some one to take the responsibility
of the heating arrangements, the side-walks, the ashes, and so on."
"It all depends on the conditions," returned Mrs. Morton. "In New York,
especially on Manhattan Island, where land is so valuable that buildings
must go up in the air, such co-operation has become desirable, but where
there is plenty of space, it seems better for every household to be
separate as far as possible."
The chauffeur called their attention, as they passed through Logan
Square, to the fact that this was the fourth city square they had seen
since they had been in his care.
"On our way south from the Penn Treaty Park, we went through Franklin
Square, and then you saw Washington Square when you were down by
Independence Hall. This morning you saw Rittenhouse Square. Logan is the
fourth. These four squares were laid out by William Penn as a part of the
original design of the city."
Not far from Logan Square they were enabled to reach the bank of the
Schuylkill, and the rest of the afternoon they spent in the lovely Park
through which flows this river and the picturesque little Wissahickon.
Their first visit was to the Zoo, which the chauffeur told them was one
of the finest in the United States. They invested in peanuts and small
cakes and made themselves popular with the animals whose cages they
passed.
Then they drove on, gliding swiftly in and out among the stately trees
which the engineers of the Park had had the good sense to leave as they
found them. Along the Wissahickon they noticed many small inns, all of
which showed signs, inviting passers-by to come in and partake of
"Cat-fish and Waffles."
"I can understand the waffle supply being limited only by the energy of
the cooks," exclaimed Roger, as he read one of the numerous summonses,
"but if they catch the cat-fish in the Wissahickon they must keep an army
of fishermen out in the boats all day long!"
"I wish we could go out on the river," murmured Helen, as they whirled
along the banks of the Schuylkill. "It looks so refreshing there."
"I think we can get a barge at one of these boat houses and go up the
river a little way," suggested Mrs. Morton, turning inquiringly to the
chauffeur.
"It's a pretty bit from about here up to a place called 'The Lilacs,'" he
answered. "It's a pretty little club house."
"Oh, do lets do it," cried Ethel Blue excitedly. "It would be lovely."
So they went to a near-by boat house and made the arrangements. The boats
were large, with seats for four rowers besides the seats in the stern and
bow.
The Ethels had learned to row at Chautauqua the summer before, so they
occupied one seat.
The three boys each took one of the other seats, each rowing a single
oar. Helen sat on the seat with Tom, Margaret with Roger, and Dorothy
with James.
Mrs. Morton and Dicky sat in the stern, and Della played look-out in the
bow.
It was a charming pull between shores beautiful by nature and gay with
boat houses from which merry parties were establishing themselves in
boats and barges and canoes. The rowers found the trip not too hard upon
the muscles, even the Ethels saying that they were not at all tired, when
The Lilacs came in sight.
The car met them at the Club House because they had to go back to the
hotel and pack their bags in order to catch the train for home. The
chauffeur had brought up with him a man from the boat house, to take the
barge back where it belonged.
They returned over different streets to the city so that they felt that
they had a good idea of the geography of the town.
"I've had a perfectly stunning time, Mrs. Morton," said Tom, as he bade
her "Good-bye" on the train and thanked her for her care. "It has been
splendid fun, and my only grief is that I am afraid Helen may have
fatigued her brain, remembering all that history!"
Helen wrinkled her nose at him, but she laughed good-naturedly and agreed
with him that the trip had been great fun.